While Mario Kart is a fun, worthwhile experience, the rest of the Nintendo section of Universal Studios Hollywood simply didn’t feel worthwhile.

So let me preface this review by stating I grew up as a huge Nintendo fanboy. I ate my Zelda/Mario cereal, I had themed bedsheets, and even a trash can (I still have it but Jenn relegates it to the garage). The love continued through college, when I vividly remember waiting in the crowds at Circuit City to get the hot-selling Wii with one of my good friends—and then seeing the rage in people’s eyes when they missed out because the store sold out of systems.

So a whole theme park dedicated to Mario? Sure, sign me up! I was excited to come experience this, but I left feeling a bit conflicted. The park certainly has well-designed animatronics and being inside the world does take me back to my childhood, but it doesn’t come without a lot of flaws.

Arrival to the Park

We went to Universal Studios Hollywood for two days since Alex had both days off school. Each day we arrived at 8:15AM in time for the park’s opening at 9AM. We arrived to find a decent crowd already there ahead of us, but an even larger crowd formed behind us.

Perhaps the holding area after security just isn’t big enough or they wanted to build up more hype, the theme park kept very slowly opening up. By that, I mean at 8:30AM they opened the gates but only let us walk up to the first checkpoint and then everyone had to wait another 10 minutes. That felt like it happened a couple of times until the theme park actually opened at 9AM. After that, lots of people were running, with staff lightly asking guests to not run. But of course it was close to a free-for-all.

If your goal is just to get inside the Nintendo area, then you shouldn’t have a problem arriving before opening. But of course, I assume your goal is to at least go on a ride (and by that I mean there is only one ride in the entire land).

Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge

The one ride I alluded to is what most people are attempting to get on: Mario Kart. After entering Super Nintendo World, it took an hour for us to get on the ride. That’s about the shortest length of time all day, as we saw wait times creep up to three hours. Now if you want to be exact, you probably should count the time we waited outside the park for it to open. So in total it’s nearly a two hour wait (because ultimately we had to entertain the kids for that long as we waited in lines). For adults, it’s understandable given it’s a new ride. But it’s a bit much to ask kids to be so patient.

Once inside, the theming really takes shape, with vibrant colors that immediately make you think of classic scenes from the video games. They even have displays of the various trophies that can be won in Mario Kart.

Perhaps one of the most interesting room was the one where Bowser erected a shrine to Princess Peach, giving a behind-the-scenes view into why Bowser is so interested in kidnapping her in most Mario games.

Towards the end of the line, you get to see a video where they describe how to play the game and Mario hats are distributed. You snap the visor onto the Mario hat and whatever you look at will be hit by a turtle shell when you hit a button to launch a shell. It’s a bit disorienting at times and it’s easy to forget you need to look around in the kart but once you get the hang of it, it’s a fun experience.

Unfortunately for us, the ride stopped here for some time, right before we were able to go on the ride. So we had to wait an extra 15 minutes or so before the ride was fixed and we could get on the ride. Char wasn’t tall enough to ride, so we had to do the rider swap. Luckily for Alex, the swap allowed him to go on the ride twice as he just changed spots with the parents.

The Mini Games

And now we get to the frustrating part of the experience. By the time we were done with Mario Kart, there were huge lines at all mini games in Super Nintendo World. So we decided on Day 2, we would instead skip Mario Kart and immediately just go to the mini games. It was a smart decision—or so we thought—but the mini games were just as crowded immediately at park opening.

Each mini-game we attempted to do took an hour to make it through the lines. The best one seemed to be the Piranha Plant game, where your team (up to four players) hits clocks as they start ringing. Of course, Char agreed to help but didn’t do anything once the game started. But we made it and got credit for the win on our wrist bands (more on that later).

The second mini-game we attempted was one where you spin a wheel. I’m actually not sure what you’re controlling here—if it’s the goomba or the land it’s walking on—but everyone in line seemed to have no trouble with it. Well, almost everyone. Jenn helped Char but they fumbled over themselves when spinning and sure enough they failed (received the Mario death music, if you’re familiar with the games). Char was distraught by this and the only response from the staff? Better luck next time, go wait in line again.

The last mini-game we attempted was a timing-based game. You have to hit the POW block at the right time to cause a chain reaction with the other POW blocks and make a turtle shell bouncing around hit the blue POW block at the top. Unfortunately children have a tough time with this one. Many people in line failed, including Alex. This one caused many tears among the children and once again staff offered no sympathy and told the non-winners to go back in line.

There is a thwomp game (with no line, pictured below) but Char was too scared to go into the cave and we had enough with the mini-games and just didn’t want to do it. Maybe next time.

It feels like they added mini-games here partly because it’s Mario but also partly because there truly isn’t anything else to do in this land except go on the Mario Kart ride. The problem with these mini-games is how long you have to sit around just to attempt the games. We wasted three hours waiting around to play mini-games that lasted about 30 seconds apiece. At least with the Piranha Plant game, staff actually took the time to explain the rules. With the other two games, staff just said go.

If you want a good analogy for this experience, imagine you’re playing Mario Party with a friend. Now imagine you just want to play the mini-games. So you play one mini-game. Win or lose, your friend takes the controller from you and you can’t play again for another hour. Would that make for a fun experience? No, it’s incredibly frustrating. Also, imagine you’re outside in the sun the whole time with minimal shading. And imagine when you lose, everyone in the vicinity gets to see your loss. Not only is it a frustrating experience, but it’s tiring and humiliating.

And if you don’t have a $40 wrist band? Don’t even bother.

Fighting Bowser Jr

So what is your reward for beating at least three mini-games? Waiting in another line of course! Two of us managed to complete all three mini-games and we were each able to take a kid with us inside Bowser Jr’s castle. Inside are a lot of decorations you might expect him to have. At least this line wasn’t quite as long since it required suffering through the other mini-games and that weeds out most people from being eligible to enter.

We weren’t exact sure what to expect, but it’s another mini-game. But at least this one seems to be the best thought-out one. You get assigned a number, are provided instructions on what to do, and then go into a second room where you move around throwing fireballs, dodging bullet bills, and knocking bob-ombs out of the way using your shadow cast upon a screen. It’s engaging and is the best thing here aside from the Mario Kart ride. If only you didn’t have to qualify for the right to go here by first winning those frustrating games outside…

Toadstool Cafe

Ah yes, Toadstool Cafe. The only food in the Mario section of Universal Studios. Before I talk a bit about the restaurant itself, let me emphasize that a bit more. If you enter the Mushroom Kingdom, you better bring your own food. If you get hungry, you can’t rely on Toadstool Cafe because it’s based on reservations only. If you decide to leave the Mushroom Kingdom to go get food, you can’t back in unless you have a virtual entry back to the land. No exceptions.

So how do you handle this with children who get hungry at odd times and then complain to their parents who know they can’t leave yet? I heard quite a few unhappy campers complaining about this. You better bring your own food into this section of the park if you intend on making a day out of it.

Reservations here fill up quickly—so quickly that if you don’t scan a QR code within, say, the first 45 minutes of park opening, you’re not getting in at all for the rest of the day. And let’s say you get here even 15 minutes late. Your meal times are going to be at awkward times in the afternoon. Just having a reservation for Toadstool Cafe isn’t enough to get back into the Mushroom Kingdom. Again, you need a virtual entry to come back.

Here is a perfectly reasonable scenario. You arrive at park entry and mobs of people are ahead of you. You make it into Nintendo Land and go scan the QR code. You’re able to choose times from 3pm and you choose the earliest time possible. You go wait in line for Mario Kart and let’s say you get out by 11am. You try out a mini-game and it’s noon. By this time you realize you’re hungry and look for a virtual entry, but it’s all sold out or it’s not until the evening.

So you have a decision to make—give up the reservation to the exclusive Toadstool Cafe or listen to your body and leave to eat somewhere else. From what I could tell, there were an awful lot of people just sitting around waiting for something and I’m going to guess those people faced this same scenario.

Of course, with a reservation system, there must be no lines to eat here, right? I’m sure you know the answer to that. We came here twice over the two days at the park. The first time we needed to wait an hour from the time we first showed up to the time we sat down at a table. The second time was about 30 minutes. I’m not sure if wait times follow a pattern, but the first time was an awkward afternoon time and the second was at a normal lunch time.

Once inside, there are plenty of power-ups you might find at a toadstool house in a typical Mario game. The theming is again on point here. At this restaurant, you order at the counter, then go see a host who then confirms your reservation and finds you a table, then you sit and wait for your food to arrive.

As with many new openings of restaurants, service was not yet polished. On the first visit, we sat around for half an hour before someone came by to check on us and apologize because the technology wasn’t working (the table is supposed to recognize the order number we were given, according to the person who helped us). I’m not sure why that step is needed since a host knows what you ordered and where you’re sitting anyways.

Over the two days, we ordered most things on the menu. I’d say the quality here is above-average compared to most US theme park food. I hear the food is better in Japan, but that’s not a surprise. The comparison here should be against other US theme parks and they did a good job here.

Let’s start with the kids meals. There is a choice between spaghetti or cheeseburger. There were no complaints with the pasta. But note the french fries do have a light amount of truffle oil on them. I understand truffle oil on adult meals but it seems like a strange decision to do this for children meals as truffle oil is definitely an acquired taste. That said, our kids didn’t seem to complain or notice. Each kids meal comes with a sugar coated Oreo inside the question block.

Yoshi’s salad is refreshing but isn’t truly large enough to be a full meal by itself.

Bowser’s Fireball Challenge is spicy! The menu description sounded like the hot sauce is on the side and not in the dish but that’s only half correct. It’s painful eating this unless you are a fan of large levels of spice. Delicious meatball but I felt this in the morning.

The Mario burger is what you would expect. Jenn rated this as a better-than-average burger and note again the truffle fries, if that influences your decision at all.

The Luigi burger isn’t a burger at all but rather a pesto chicken sandwich. It’s a good change of pace from a typical burger but it seems odd to advertise it as a burger.

The star drink here is only bad option here. It’s soda with those popping balls in it. I’ve never enjoyed the thought of chewing my drink. The drink also is just too sweet.

For dessert, we chose the Princess Peach Cupcake and the Mt. Beanpole Cake. Both are on the sweet side and that cupcake was a bit too sweet. Even the kids thought it was too sweet for them. The Mt. Beanpole Cake is the better option if you’re looking for something a bit more refreshing unless you love lots of frosting that is.

In the end, I hope you ordered enough food at the start because if it’s not enough, it sounds like you need to go wait in line again to order based on a conversation I overheard.

The Wrist Bands

I wanted to spend some time talking about the wrist bands. They cost $40 each and sure enough we bought one for each of us. I honestly don’t think that’s necessary. I think it’s fine just getting wrist bands for the kids.

The wrist bands don’t affix to the arm in a secure manner. The bands are just like those types from school where you slap it on your wrist and it curls around, loosely hanging on. If you’re not careful, it can fall off when you’re not paying attention.

Hidden around the park are different places where you can scan your wrist band and collect prizes. At first we weren’t aware of purpose for doing this, but we discovered the companion app within the Universal Studios app. All of these collectibles are represented as stamps within the app. Just like in the games, they want you to spend time doing extra tasks if you’re a completionist. The tasks are different depending on the wrist band chosen, so there is some variation there. One of the tasks is winning a mini-game five times. Uhh, no thanks. Hard pass on that.

Final Thoughts

As a kid, I probably wouldn’t have been able to see the faults here. But as a parent and adult, I’m conflicted, at best. I think they did a good job with the theming here. After all, it’s a theme park and there is a lot of attention to detail to ensure it fits with the Mario universe. Just look at the cute Wet Floor cone below and you can see the thought placed on how things should appear here. The Mario Kart ride is also very enjoyable and engaging.

But there are a lot of issues I have with the park. There is a virtual queue system, but it’s not effectively used as it gets way too crowded inside the park. The food situation is stressful and even with smaller crowds, it doesn’t solve the problem that there is only one restaurant. The mini-games simply aren’t good enough to warrant the lines. The tasks are trivial for adults.

I’m sure the intended audience is children, but you go tell a child to be ok with losing in a public setting and then waiting another hour to try again. If the lines were 10 minutes apiece, this wouldn’t be too bad. But we don’t live in that world because the land is too crowded and there is literally nothing else to do here besides Mario Kart.

The land truly needs another ride but I can’t see another option being added here. They blocked themselves in at the back of the park. Even if they managed to create another ride, the walking areas are too tight here to support it. Already the lines from one mini-game bump into another and the line for Mario Kart and the line for the cafe.

Overall, and it pains me to say it, but don’t come here for a couple of years. It is way too crowded with nothing to support the crowds. But even with lower crowd levels, will this be a fun experience? Aside from Mario Kart and the Bowser Jr mini-game, I’d argue you’re better off just buying the latest Mario Party game and don’t let your friend rip the controller from your hand for an hour after each mini-game.

Have you been to Super Nintendo World yet? What was your experience?

Suggested reading:

• Universal Studios Hollywood: In Need of TLC
• Review: Hilton Los Angeles/Universal City
• SeaWorld San Diego: Confused on What It Became