Having spent several days experiencing Christmas at Universal Orlando Resort earlier this month, I thought I would give everyone an overview as well as my thoughts on each offering. Thankfully, all but two of these holiday experiences are included in regular park admission!
Christmas at Universal Orlando
Personally, when I visit a location during the holiday, I can spend hours just looking at the decor. You can certainly do this at Universal Orlando Resort. Every resort has their own themed tree! Plus, there’s a Christmas Tree Hunt across City Walk and the two parks you can do for $12! If you complete it, you earn an ornament! I didn’t do the hunt, but I did enjoy looking at all of the themed trees and garland around the parks.
Breakfast with the Grinch
One of the two add-on events you can attend during Christmas at Universal Orlando is Breakfast with the Grinch. Booking The Grinch & Friends Characters breakfast guarantees you get to meet The Grinch and Whos! Plus, it also gives you a good meal to start the day! My mom and I paid $41.99 (plus tax) each and think it’s totally worth it. You can read my full review of it in my other post.
Universal’s Holiday Tour
The other add-on event is Universal’s Holiday Tour. It’s a 5 hour, mostly after park hours, walking tour of the two parks. I wrote a whole separate blog post reviewing it last week. You can click to read my thoughts on it at the link above.
Holiday Tribute Store
Another amazing experience that happens seasonally at Universal Orlando is a highly themed shopping experience called the Tribute Store. It’s so much fun to walk around and see all of the little details. There’s also lots of Easter eggs to be found! If there’s ever a Tribute Store open whenever you visit, you must go inside to see it!
Universal Orlando Holiday Parade
This is probably the thing I saw most heavily advertised prior to our visit. Every night (around 5:30 PM), there’s an amazing Holiday Parade featuring Macy’s! It features huge balloons, like the ones seen in New York for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade! It’s awesome to see them up-close! The parade also features characters on floats as well as other fun Christmas surprises! Think walking snowmen and soldiers on stilts! It’s so much fun! We watched it twice and noticed different things each time! It’s a must-see for sure!
Christmas in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
Christmas at Universal Orlando stretches to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, in both parks! The Harry Potter lands look fantastic, regardless of the time of year. However, Christmas is extra magical. I adored the Frog Choir and Celestina Warbeck and the Banshees holiday shows! So much fun! I highly recommend picking up a Butterbeer and just walking around these areas. It is sure to put you in a festive mood! I also really enjoyed the projection show on the castle, called The Magic of Christmas at Hogwarts Castle in Islands of Adventure.
Grinchmas
Even if you missed out on getting a breakfast reservation, you can still enjoy Grinchmas during Christmas at Universal Orlando! The Whos have decorated Suess Landing for the holidays and it’s amazing to see! They even have some special holiday foods, like the Grinch cookies and Roast Beast Sandwich. The sandwich had a really long wait. It took us about an hour to get one and it tasted just ok. We didn’t care for the sauce on the main sandwich. However, now we can say we’ve had roast beast!
If you wander around Suess Landing you may even spot some Whos to meet! Plus, you have to catch a showing of the The Grinchmas Who-liday Spectacular! It’s an adorable show featuring music from Mannheim Steamroller! The story manages to combine key elements from both the cartoon short film and the 2000’s Jim Carrey movie.
Meet Earl the Squirrel
A unique offering that only happens at Christmastime is the chance to meet Earl the Squirrel! In case you don’t know, there once was a real life squirrel that kept chewing the wiring in a tree. They named him Earl and now he’s basically the mascot for the holidays at UO. I love that he’s organically become this big thing. He’s featured on lots of merch this year. I met him wearing him on a shirt. It was a neat experience.
Mannheim Steamroller Concert
Last, but certainly not least, if you travel during the first two weekends in December (like we did), you can catch a Mannheim Steamroller concert! This concert is included with park admission and took place on Saturday and Sunday nights at 7 PM during the first two weekends of December. I really enjoyed the concert and was impressed that it was included with admission! It made for a unique and fun theme park day!
Holidays at Universal Orlando Resort
As you can see, there’s a lot to see and do during Christmas at Universal Orlando Resort! We spent two days in the parks, but didn’t ride many rides. So, if you are planning to ride lots of rides while there, you probably need at least 2-3 days to do everything. Have you ever been to Universal Orlando at the holidays? If so, what was your trip like?
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