Laughing Lindsay

Travel Reviews, Giveaways, & More!

Lombard’s Seafood Grille Review

By Leave a Comment

I started writing my review of Lombard’s Seafood Grille in my Universal Orlando Mardi Gras Float Ride and Dine post. However, the original post quickly became too long (around 800 words). I thought it was best to make the review of the restaurant a separate post, so here’s my review of it.

Lombard's Seafood Grille

Lombard’s Seafood Grille

Lombard’s Seafood Grille is one of the few table service restaurants in the parks at Universal Orlando Resort. It is located in the San Francisco section of the Universal Studios Florida park. As the name implies, it features lots of seafood as well as some other dishes. It has nice theming inside. You are greeted by the water fountain pictured above when you walk in, which kind of sets the tone for the whole restaurant.

Meal Review

For this review, I ate at Lombard’s Seafood Grille in early February 2023 with my mom. As it was part of the Float Ride and Dine experience, we were both able to get a drink, appetizer, entrée, and dessert! My mom got a diet drink, which made her happy. I got a glass of water and a frozen lemonade. That was really refreshing after getting a little hot in the park.

For an appetizer, my mom and I both chose calamari. I will admit that we didn’t know what that was when we chose it! Haha! Needless to say, my mom was quite surprised to discover it was squid and immediately lost interest in the dish once she learned that fact. I ate about half of mine as I found it to have a good flavor. While the texture was a little weird, I assume that’s just because it’s squid.

I chose a lobster roll for my entrée and was very pleased with it. It had pretty big chunks of lobster and tasted fresh. I loved it! My mom got the filet mignon and she seemed to enjoy hers as well. It was a 6 oz steak, so not the biggest steak, but adequate for my mom.

For dessert, I went with the key lime pie and mom got the chocolate cake. I liked the key lime pie as it was a good combination of tartness and sweetness. I was happy I chose it. My mom’s cake seemed like it had been frozen and just removed from the freezer. The frosting was still kind of frozen. So, it wasn’t a bad dessert, but I think mine was better.

Final Thoughts

Overall, it was a pretty good meal. Our server was awesome and everyone working here was super nice! So, if you are looking for a nicer place to sit down in the park, I recommend considering Lombard’s Seafood Grille.

Mardi Gras Float Ride and Dine at Universal Orlando Review

By 4 Comments

Last year, my mom and I visited Universal Orlando Resort during Mardi Gras and had a blast. This year, we decided to visit again, but we wanted the chance to be in the parade and throw beads! So, when Universal introduced their Mardi Gras Float Ride and Dine add-on experience, we signed up almost immediately! Keep reading to see if we think it’s worth it!

Mardi Gras Float Ride and Dine

Float Ride and Dine

This Mardi Gras Ride and Dine experience is the only guaranteed way to ride in the parade. We paid $55.24 each (after AP discount) to eat at Lombard’s Seafood Grille and to ride in the parade. This experience booked up quickly as did some of the more popular restaurants for our dates. So, if you are interested in this experience, I recommend booking asap. We did this experience on Monday, February 6, 2023 as the two days prior had already booked up by the time my mom called to book it.

Lombard’s Seafood Grille

For our dinner, we were allowed to choose a non-alcoholic drink, appetizer, entrée, and dessert from the regular menu at Lombard’s. I got a frozen lemonade, which was a nice surprise as the server initially told me I couldn’t have it. However, he checked with management who said we could have any non-alcoholic beverage. With it being the third day of this offering, they were still learning everything, so it’s understandable that my initial request was denied. My mom was content with her diet drink.

I initially was going to publish my entire review of the meal in this post. However, the post grew to around 800 words! If you are interested in reading my Lombard’s Seafood Grille review, you can click that link. Otherwise, I will just tell you what we had here. We had calamari for the appetizer. I had the lobster roll and key lime pie. My mom went with the steak and chocolate cake. Overall, it was good meal, especially for a theme park restaurant. You can see our food in the Instagram post below.

Riding a Float

I will say we were disappointed with the lack of communication from Universal prior to and on the day of this experience. It was hard to plan the day not knowing what to expect. Unfortunately, we were never told how to retrieve the pictures that were taken before or during the parade. The code I was given to retrieve pictures never brought any pictures up and the UO Twitter account told me that we were supposed to purchase pictures in the park up to 24 hours afterwards! So, we missed out on getting any of our pictures! The chaos of the event reminded me a little bit of our experience doing the Universal Holiday Tour.

At dinner we were given our lanyards, which instructed us to meet at 4:55 to begin lining up. Everyone put on an apron-like thing and sat with their assigned float group after signing a waiver. Team members did a good job of getting everyone hyped up for the parade. Then, they led us backstage to our floats and went over some general guidance before the parade started.

Aside from the confusion, we absolutely loved riding the float! It was amazing to be able to look a stranger in the eyes, toss them some beads, and make them happy. My mom has already said that riding in the parade was the highlight of this trip for her! Pro tip: pack light for this event as we weren’t told we could store our stuff anywhere and had to just put it in the floor of the float.

Is it worth it?

While the Mardi Gras Float Ride and Dine is an expensive experience, it is worth it in my opinion. If they offer this experience next year, we will probably book it again. So, have you ever tossed beads in the Universal Orlando Mardi Gras parade?

Breakfast with The Grinch Universal Orlando

By Leave a Comment

Last week, I mentioned that there are two add-on experiences taking place during the holidays at Universal Orlando Resort: the Universal Holiday Tour and Breakfast with The Grinch. You can click that link to read my review of the tour as today I’m focusing on the delightful breakfast!

Breakfast with The Grinch

Breakfast with The Grinch

Everyone who comes to Universal Orlando at Christmastime wants to meet The Grinch and Whos. There is a free virtual queue you can join to meet The Grinch for free at Islands of Adventure. However, those spots go almost immediately and are really difficult to get. You may also run into some Whos wandering around Suess Landing. The only way to ensure you meet them both at the same time is by booking a breakfast with The Grinch!

The Characters

My mom and I paid $41.99 (plus tax) each to attend The Grinch & Friends Character Breakfast. We both had a great time with The Grinch and Whos. Everyone is really into character and fun to interact with. I wore a fun holiday cookie dress, which the Whos liked. The Who we took pictures with even told me that I could move to Whoville with my holiday spirit! Then, they told me that I would grow into my nose! The Grinch, however, informed me that my dress was too festive and happy! Besides, he doesn’t like sweets, such as cookies! He likes onions! Ha! Such good memories!

The Food

As for the food, we were pleasantly surprised here. It’s an all you can eat buffet, which usually means mediocre to bad food. However, that’s not the case here! I loved trying Who Hash, Green Eggs and Ham, and Green Eggs and Ham Pizza! The Grinch Punch was also tasty! I also appreciated that they had The Grinch cookie here so I didn’t have to wait in line and purchase it later in the day.

Learn From Our Mistake

The only negative thing I have to say about breakfast with The Grinch is the organization beforehand. We didn’t realize that we needed to retrieve paper tickets prior to getting in line for breakfast. So, we stood in line for several moments before having to head back to the front of the park to get physical tickets printed. Then, we headed back to the restaurant to stand in a long line outside. This line wrapped around the building and blocked the path to the Grinch show. It seems like this could be handled better. Perhaps, nix the paper tickets and have somewhere for people to sit while they wait? Once we entered the breakfast though, everything was well worth it. If I ever go back during Christmas at Universal Orlando, I will definitely book this breakfast again!

Book The Grinch Breakfast Early

It appears that breakfast with The Grinch is filled up for the year. So, I highly recommend booking it early next year if you want to experience this amazing breakfast! It’s definitely worth the money.