restaurants and priority seating

[kirbsam]

we will be staying onsite for our trip feb. 21-25. i have read that onsite guests get priority when it comes to getting seated in certain(all?) restaurants at universal. does this mean we do not need to call ahead, that we just need to show up and they will seat us? any help on this would be appreciated.

 

[bubba's mom]

we will be staying onsite for our trip feb. 21-25. i have read that onsite guests get priority when it comes to getting seated in certain(all?) restaurants at universal. does this mean we do not need to call ahead, that we just need to show up and they will seat us? any help on this would be appreciated.

i believe you need reservations for Emeril's, but the other restaurants will give you priority seating (next available) if you show them your room key.

 

[yaytezIOA]

Reservations are recommended, and suggested for all the better resturants. Example, Bubba Gumps you could pretty much walk up. Emerils (both the City Walk, and Choup Chop) Mama Dellas, and a lot of the hotel resturants you would be better off making reservations for. However, if you dont, yes....you get priority seating. Which hotel are you staying at?

 

[kirbsam]

4 nights at portofino bay. and the reason i asked the question is i am just not sure where we will want to eat, and when. i am not as knowledgable about universal as disney, but i am trying to change that.

 

[gschmerl]

Showing your room key gets "next available seating". If there are a lot of outher people with keys ahead of you, there still may be a wait.
That being said, we have gone to the Hard Rock Cafe when there is a line around the building. We walked up and showed our key and were seated in five minutes.
Emerils and Tchoup Chop require advanced reservations. You can make them on opentable.com
I would make reservations at the hotel restaurants also.

 

[MulanMom]

we will be staying onsite for our trip feb. 21-25. i have read that onsite guests get priority when it comes to getting seated in certain(all?) restaurants at universal. does this mean we do not need to call ahead, that we just need to show up and they will seat us? any help on this would be appreciated.

You may want to check if priority seating applies during your time period. We just returned from a trip Dec. 25 through 31 and were told everything was first come/first served due to the holiday. Your dates look like President's Day weekend, so I would check to see if they suspend the priority seating benefit during that time.

 

[robvia]

Rush hour at the Citywalk restaurants is 8pm. We went to Margaritaville at that time, showed our room key, and the wait was 30 minutes. They gave us a beeper and we walked around taking pictures. Those without a room key were told 1 hour.

The reservation might help, you can make one at the entrance of CityWalk the day you visit the parks. There's a booth under the esclator in front of the movie theater.