Dining Reservations?

[jrt1176]

This is our first time traveling to Universal. I went once back when it first opened for a day while we were at WDW, but that was years ago and there was a lot less planning ahead!

Do I need to make reservations for a lot of places? Even at WDW, I don't like a lot of ADR's because I feel like it boxes you in, but I know that some hard to gets are a must.

What reservations do I need to make in advance?

Thank you!

 

[soniam]

Many of the Universal restaurants don't take reservations. If you are staying onsite, you can get preferred seating at some of the restaurants. If you look on the Universal website, you can see which restaurants even take reservations. Some do this through Open Table and others through NextTable. I make reservations when they are available, but that's just because I am used to WDW. I get the impression from most people on this forum that it's not completely necessary.

 

[schumigirl]

Unless you're going during a major holiday you don't need a reservation.

At the weekends particularly when parks close Citywalk can get busy, so if there was somewhere you really wanted to eat at, you can make a reservation. Usually the same day is fine.

There is a place as you enter Citywalk to make a reservation if you didn't want to do it online.

We never make reservations, except once last year we booked The Palm as a friend told us it was going to be busy. He made the reservation for us same day.

But, it's not usually necessary and we always eat where we like.

 

[jeffbeardreams]

I agree that it's absolutely not necessary to go the Disney route and freak out 180 days ahead or anything. But honestly, if you've got your heart set on a specific restaurant and they take reservations, then I'd encourage you to go ahead and book a table ahead of time. There always seems to be something or another going on whenever I'm at Universal ... Grad Nights, spring break, big high school band convention ... they schedule a lot of stuff that can have an impact. I just hate to see somebody get all invested in dinner at the Palm or something and then miss out because they assumed they wouldn't need to book ahead. If you're good walking out at dinner time and just finding a place, then you're good and you will still have tons of options.

 

[Queen2PrincessG]

Unlike Disney, you do not need to make a lot of reservations and many of the Restaurants at CityWalk use OpenTable. So you can really make them on the fly.