Universal Orlando Resort Reviews 54

Could only dedicate one day and bought a two park, one day ticket to focus on Harry Potter (a rip off I itself as two park ticket is expensive). The queue for Hagrids Magical creatures ride (supposed to be our highlight as.it had been recommended)was horribly claustrophobic, loud and long. After queuing for more than 90 minutes we were told there was a slight delay. The message was repeated a couple of times and then changed to 'an extended delay'. We left the queue and managed to get fast passes for later when we queued for more than 30 minutes when the same happened. Time ran out and we were not able to get on the ride at all. Universal offered fast passes for another visit which was unsatisfactory as we could not visit again. Not the magical experience we had hoped for and was disappointing to say the least.

Can’t really fathom the 1 star reviews. There’s very places like this on earth. It’s very good.

We bought a one park pass, the whole experience was frustrating. Everything is overpriced including food. The lines are long, outside, no seating, no fans. To get express you have to pay for a single day express pass as much as the ticket price per person. We only were able to do three rides the entire day. Even guest services has a long line. This place is not family friendly. I found a better experience at other park in Tampa. I won't put the name as to not bias review

We bought a vacation package at Universal Orlando, they told us we would have early admission to the park. It's going to rain and they haven't opened the park. The hotel has broken blankets, the room is not well maintained. It really is very sad to have trusted Universal Studio for vacation.

I had a great time at the park on July 4th, but leaving was a nightmare. After the fireworks, the parking lot quickly became congested. People were getting frustrated and angry. We sat in traffic for at least 45 minutes, going nowhere. There was a lot of honking and yelling. The tension was so thick that it felt like a fight might break out at any moment.

Some people tried to use the contact points to get help, but the staff on the other end of the line were unhelpful and hung up on them. I tried calling guest services by telephone, but they weren't open. For the high price of parking, you would expect to see at least one staff member on duty, but there was no one willing to help and exercise thier duty of care.

In my opinion, Universal Studios is partially to blame for the chaos. They knew that people would be leaving after the fireworks, and they should have planned accordingly. Not only did they fail to do so, but they were also aware of the problem and yet chose to do nothing. They even closed off communication with people who needed help.

I believe that theme parks have a duty of care to their customers. This includes ensuring that they are safe and that they have a positive experience. Universal Studios failed to meet this obligation by neglecting to open the gates of the parking lot and by refusing to help customers. This is not only bad corporate behavior, but it also shows a lack of care for their guests.

I hope that Universal Studios will take steps to improve their exit procedures in the future. They should have enough staff on duty to handle large crowds, and they should be prepared to open the gates of the parking lot promptly after the fireworks. They should also make sure that their guest services line is open and that staff members are willing to help customers.

I see a lot of bad reviews but I’ve always had a great experience at the Cabana Bay resort. Clean with a 70s vibe and even a Jack LeLane gym

My brand new 300 pound wheelchair broke in the park yesterday. I was forced to drag it out of the park from Harry Potter world. Literally, forced to slide on the ground on my butt, and pull my wheelchair, physically out of the park. Then, I used my Original ECV scooter to try to take my 7 yr. back to the park for her birthday to be told to park it in the stroller parking and the girl stood across the walking path with the wheel chair and watched my crawl to her. Just so I could take my baby on a ride. Then, I fell trying to get in the ride. Then I went to first aid for bandaids and ice from the fall, in the guest services office. I spent another spell trying to get the, NOT ADA COMPLIANT first aid door open for a very long time. With no help from guest services PEEPS.

Needless to say, my first time in the park, will be my last. Broken veteran with two very disappointed children.
1 star because people with significant physical disabilities, UNIVERSAL STUDIOS ORLANDO IS NOT SAFE!!! Beware!!!

Never have I looked forward to going somewhere for so long to be completely unsatisfied service sucks horrible experience rude staff and I hated it so much I did not go today.

I been feeling everything at this place. All the magical moments and it’s breathtaking almost gave me a happy heart attack lol

I have been trying to book a premier hotel and tickets to Universal Orlando for three weeks. I was told their website has a glitch, but now I believe it was intentional. After asking for assistance with booking, the agent tried to upsell everything. She quoted a price that was several hundred more than the website price. She added in trip protection and did not tell me until I insisted she itemize prices. She stated that she could not see what the cost of the hotel was, only the park tickets. I am going to Disney.

if you aren't from Florida they charge you double what they charge people from Florida. Its a total rip off. Not worth the money at all. you can go to four good amusement parks and get dining and fast lanes included for cheaper than going to universal studios and thats with out dining or fast lanes included. if you aren't from Florida they dont care about you or your business unless you are wealthy. if you are middle class working families they dont care about you.

Today at Universal there were so many guests smoking e-cigs and cigarettes that I thought they changed the no smoking rule (except in designated areas). The streets are narrow and the smoke was billowing everywhere…Where is the park staff monitoring the guests…surely there must be cameras in the streets! If this continues I will not renew my annual pass! I lodged a complaint with guest services and hope someone takes this unsatisfactory issue seriously!

Have been que for gringots for over and hours. The ride has now broke no real comunfrom staff not a good experience and no other of a fast pass

Attraktionen aus Hollywoodfilmen erleben ! Was da so abgeht ... Hammer ! DVD nicht vergessen !

What a total disappointment! Thank god I was here for work and didn't spend money going to Orlando on holiday. Still, I spent a LOT of money.
Let's start with the website itself, it's very user-unfriendly and antiquated. I really expected a lot more advanced, after all, I'm in the country of tech companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft. You can't even pay with PayPal or Apple Pay! Even on the app, you need to register your card by entering the card number manually. The iPhone can't even auto-fill like it can on most websites. So the booking experience itself was terrible. It's almost set up to make you do a mistake. It's not clear what's the difference between Island Adventure or Universal Studios. We booked Express Pass and it's a SCAM! Don't do it! It won't tell you in the booking process that most popular rides won't accept Express Pass- so you'll end up spending HOURS in lines even though you paid, like I did, $179 for an Express Pass. I'm 53 years old and I can hand on heart say it's one of the biggest wastes of money I've ever spent- I felt ripped off.

You'd think everyone would get a wristband to show as you entered every attraction, instead, everyone gets a little paper card, that will get wet if you go on water rides. You can't bring anything into the rides so that paper ticket will have to be in your pocket. My friend lost his ticket once, and we found another ticket on the floor that we handed in. I did buy the plastic folder to protect it, but that was like $25! Rip off again. My friend had his ticket on the phone initially, but since he had to keep his phone in a locker during the ride, he couldn't show his 'ticket' on the phone, so he had to go out, get the phone, get a paper ticket, go back and lock in the phone in order to go on the ride. He later got a paper ticket at guest services which was far away. Again, I was in shock at how terrible a multi-billion industry was run as if it was the 80s! In fact, many things in the park do look like in the 80s or 90s, some attractions do need to go.

I knew the food would be very expensive but hey one has to eat right!? We bought a burger that was THE worst ever. The milkshake was so thick I couldn't use the straw. I had to 'drink' it with a spoon- I didn't want an ice cream.
The one good thing was the margaritas that we had, we expected to be ripped off but they were actually quite strong.

The staff throughout are nice and well trained. And the new ride, with a weird name, Jurassic Park roller coaster sure is an AMAZING ride, the ultimate ride with lots of twists, turns and surprises. I loved it. But no Express Line. Universal Studios sent a survey and it asked me if I has used the Express Pass on that roller coaster- when it didn't even exist. Maybe it was just that day???
I wanted to go on the ride again but just before coming to the end of the line, I had to leave, I needed a toilet so badly I couldn't wait. I have bladder problems so a one hour wait can be painful for me, hence I bought an Express Pass.

Universal … I was so looking forward to visiting but I found it to be a very stressful experience of my holiday and couldn’t wait to leave.

First off, disability assistance really does not work / doesn’t exist, I’m not sure in what instances they give it to people but I don’t believe it is many, maybe just children they award to and not adults 🤷‍♀️. Having diabetes & stage 4 bone & lung cancer doesn’t count it seems, I can’t stand for long periods have pains and numbness in legs when on feet too long and pains in other parts due to illness and medication and I have never used a wheelchair before as what was suggested I take by universal member ( 2 occasions I tried for AAP). I am trying to still do as much as I can without resorting to a wheelchair or aid of similar, I probably would have caused a few incidents with bumping people in the crowds also.

Absolutely No crowd control whatsoever, it’s as many people to gain as much money as possible. I think a plot to get people to purchase lightning / fast passes, pretty despicable TBH.

I don’t believe they monitor the numbers of people that they allow in to park as the time I visited during the days (daughters wanted to visit here because of roller coasters / hagrids etc), I so wanted to have the Harry Potter experience there and obviously most people do but oh my lord, the amount of people in Diagon Alley was … I can’t even tell you how frightening it was ( imagine in a wheelchair) with the amount of people in this area, also under the heat, I literally was bumping shoulders with people and dodging, queue’s EVERYWHERE, couldn’t go in to shops soo busy, huge Queues for eating places, being Diabetic and I’m quite a resourceful person and despite medical issues I am good at forging on but thought that if I didn’t eat soon who knows what would happen the family were in IOA for the rides and I was on my own looking to enjoy a visit to Diagon alley… I couldn’t get out quick enough, I even got confused to where the exit was due to amount of people dodging, all in all a truly horrible experience. Fire hazard?!? Any such instance would be an uncontrollable stampede of people.

Went to IOA on another day as girls wanted to take me there to go on hagrids ride, almost 2 hours wait, got to our turn and it broke down WTH 🤦‍♀️ so this is where the AAP would have been great & come in to play, I could have sat somewhere had the access to be given to me of a return time except I wasted near 2 tiring hours waiting for … a breakdown ( I do understand these things do happen) & we almost missed our dinner reservation at Big Fire for daughters birthday.

HHN paid a lot of money for this ticket we thought it was well done but not what we had been expecting (much more scares expected) from what we read it was supposed to be very frightening… it wasn’t. I did take time out to have a quick visit to Diagon Alley as I suspected it would be quieter which it was and it was lovely at night with a more manageable amount of people. But by doing this I missed out on time to visit more horror houses, I visited 6 I think, not that scary and queue way to long for each house so much so when filing through house you saw the person in front of you jumping at something so you knew what was coming. Not well organised at all & really not scary and for expensive tickets.

So many things I have missed out in relation to my poor experience but I will stop there. I wish when exiting the park I had taken the survey with the park member instead of letting my daughters do it as I would have highlighted the extremely bad experience myself & Husband experienced that they didn’t.

Suffice to say “been there done that” and never again unless they address important issues.

Huge Suggestion to Universal to urgently address the following:

- crowd control / max capacity applied
- Disability Access / AAP ( more accessible)

Take a leaf out of the Disney WOW, disability and park booking as they do it extremely well with DAS pass and not as strict who they offer this to. They were fantastic and helped me a lot, I don’t go on roller coasters but I will go on some thrill rides and simulator rides, I’m happy to sit at times and shop and go on some rides and take in surroundings as what a lot of parents possibly do but can’t even do that without stress. Plus I have to say & I also feel bad to say this but Disney Cast are much more pleasurable, obliging and humorous making jokes many times.

Could not wait to go back to Disney parks away from Universal.

Final note ( if Universal actually read this post to end) it is in relation to 💵, My daughters preferred the rollercoasters at Universal but guess who pays for their whole holiday including tickets to parks, yep the bank of mum and dad!!

Your surveys may not have an accurate picture if you target teenagers therefore you probably won’t fix these issues.

Dates visited were actually between 4th Oct - 16th Oct 22

Decent....

After 11am, cues are horrendous, costs double to have 'fast track passes' that can only be used once per rise
Not worth the cost, good rides but way overpriced

Staff are mostly friendly

Wouldn't go again

Universal Orlando seems to have the queues sorted although they have an express pass, they merge the queues so yes it is quicker but the regular queue moves as well. Their big rides you cannot use the express pass so everybody is in the same queue, The Hagrid ride was around 2 hours so didn’t do that ride, but managed all of the other rides I wanted to do.
I felt money well spent for Universal tickets we visited three times and managed all of the rides we wanted to do on each visit. Queue time approx 35 to 60 minutes, However we did take advantage of the single rider option so some rides we practically walked onto.

Disappointing we had a 14 day pass on our 1st visit we joined the line to ride Dudley Do Right Ride it had a 45 min wait 1 and a half hours later with a 30 wait in a hot dark corridor with update we got on the ride.

Our next visit we joined the 90 min line for the new Hagrid Ride 2 hours later we walked out of the line as the ride had broken down. I contacted customer service and was given a fast pass to compensate when we returned a few days later we were told we couldn’t use the fast pass on the Hagrid Ride.

I have visited Universal Orlando a few times previously, the last time over ten years ago and I was excited to take my teen children to show them this amazing place. We were so disappointed. Some of the rides are undoubtedly amazing. The Harry Potter section, the rides and the new Jurassic Park coaster are incredible. No doubt. However, the customer service in the park is not good. There was no 'magic', no smiles going in to the park - it felt stressful from the get go. The amount of people they allow in the parks feels way too many so it feels crowded and difficult to get anywhere. The queues for everything from rides, to drinks, to food - all ridiculously long. If you were not prepared to pay an eye-watering $900 dollars per day for a family of 4 for express line passes - yes in addition to the money you have already paid to get in to the parks - you can expect 60 minutes wait minimum for any of the rides, some of the popular rides were 2.5 hours long. On some of the rides we were completely ignored and kept waiting so that express pass holders could get attention, which is fair enough given how much money they had spent, however left us feeling like very much second class citizens. We spent the entire time queueing for long periods. We felt we were in a money machine where there was little magic or happiness. We could not wait to get back to the Disney Parks for some fun, organisation and happiness. I would not visit here again and I would urge any family thinking of visiting to really consider if you want to see the rides enough to put up with a really second rate and expensive experience.