Between the rides and the technology, Universal Studios Hollywood has a distinct yesteryear feel to it, though not always in a good way. Customer service also feels like it could use improvement.

The Rides

How many rides needs to be at a theme park to justify spending a full day? How about the amount needed to satisfy the needs of different tastes in your party? I haven’t put together too much thought into the answer, but I would have assumed the answer is greater than a dozen rides. And that’s where this theme park fails before stepping foot onto the property.

Universal Studios Hollywood is divided into two sections: the upper lot where most rides are located and the lower lot where Mario can be found and also all of the studios. The lots are connected by a series of four massive escalators (a shuttle is available for those unable to take the escalators). In the upper lot, you’ve got a total of eight rides and one show. In the lower lot, add on four more rides. That makes for a total of twelve rides (minus the one that is currently in development as of this writing). I’m not counting the two (small) playgrounds intended to make up for the lack of rides for younger children. I’m not counting the carnival games or the mini-games in the Super Nintendo World section of the park.

Of those twelve rides, half of them are rides that incorporate sitting in front of a TV screen. If you’re the type to get motion sickness, you’ll have a hard time at this theme park.

You might already know that coming into the park because like any rational customer, you did your research before showing up. But it’s still a bit of a letdown once you’re there at lunchtime, realizing there just isn’t much else at the park that’s left to do.

Perhaps I should be more specific. Universal Studios appeared to go at decent lengths to build out elaborate sets and worlds within its park. Sadly, it was all done just for a ride or two. Super Nintendo World has one ride (and a handful of mini-games). Harry Potter has two rides. The Minions section has two rides (one of which is only intended for young children). The Simpsons section has only one ride. I think the park has the right number of worlds but the wrong number of rides per world. It’s a strange feeling to enter a world, go on the ride there, and then just move on to the next world. Compare that to your average Disney theme park, and it’s a night-and-day difference.

That being said, four-year-old Char does love the Secret Life of Pets ride, an experience that feels more like a traditional theme park ride.

Seven-year-old Alex is a fan of several rides here, including the one roller coaster available in this theme park (Flight of the Hippogriff).

I know the park suffers from a lack of space that can be used for the theme park. When you get on the Studio Tour, you’ll see the property is actually huge, but they save all that space for the active movie and TV sets.

If space is an issue, they could have made the rides more dynamic. Half of the attractions involve sitting in front of a screen, so they could just add variation to the rides without building out a different track. They dabble in this with the Mario Kart ride, giving it more than one ending. The prime candidate would be the theater that shows Kung Fu Panda—just have it show other programming at different times of the day and repeatability goes up significantly. What about different endings to the Minions, Simpsons, or Transformers rides? Yes, it would take some investment from the theme park, but it would make us want to stay at the park longer.

The other thing I don’t understand with the rides is the emphasis on IP licenses from years ago. Disney has generally been quick to bulldoze its historic rides in favor of newer movies. Universal is almost the anti-Disney in this regard, leaving rides well past their prime. Hope you and your kids still love classics(?) like The Mummy, Peter Jackson’s King Kong, and WaterWorld. WaterWorld? The movie that was most famous for being an absolute box office flop? Why, yes, that is the live action show here. And the story isn’t any better than the real thing (the only saving grace is it’s a 20 minute show instead of the three hours of the real thing). Just don’t tell any of this to our son Alex, who adores the live action show (since it incorporates fire and jet skis).

And speaking of which, the new ride on the way at Universal is related to the Fast and Furious franchise. The Studio Tour already contains a section that involves Fast and Furious. I’m not sure why another ride is needed on that license, unless they’re looking to replace the content on the Studio Tour (time will tell).

An Update on Super Nintendo World

I discussed our visit to Super Nintendo World a year ago, and most of it still applies today. But I do want to give a brief update to some of the commentary in that post.

First, it seems like virtual queues are a thing of the past. The technology to join the virtual line still exists in the Universal Studios app. But I haven’t seen it in use since the tail end of summer. Perhaps it will come back in the summer months, but there doesn’t seem to be any desire to control the crowds of people entering this portion of the park.

Character greetings are a pretty big disappointment. You need to get lucky that the characters are around when you’re in the area, because we’ve seen signs that say to come back well more than an hour. Staff also seems like they close off the line once the character comes out, so you will need to get into line early just to say hi. I’m not sure why it has to be so difficult of a process, but in a year, we’ve only lucked into meeting Princess Peach once and never got to meet Mario or Luigi (some days a sign said to come back tomorrow even though it was right after the park opened). Disney does it better.

Perhaps also due to customer feedback, they added a small cart with food in this portion of the park (across from Toadstool Cafe). All you will find is chips and soda here. This would have been a bit more disappointing if the virtual queue requirement was still in place, as it could mean this is all you could get while over here (exiting the park with the virtual lines in place meant you cannot reenter the park when you desire).

Yes, the park added an extra Nintendo-themed eatery in the park to celebrate the first anniversary of the section, but it’s nowhere near Super Nintendo World, instead awkwardly placed near Kung Fu Panda.

Do you want Toadstool Cafe reservations? There’s no longer a need to rush over to the QR code when the park opens to make a reservation. You just have to know the URL for the website and access it same-day when the park opens for the early entry benefit in Super Nintendo World (generally an hour before the park normally opens). If you open the link, you’ll find you can easily get any time slot you want. You would think they would change the link to eliminate such an easy “hack” to get your preferred time from the comfort of your home. But their laziness is your gain.

Food at Universal

The only restaurant I would recommend at Universal Studios Hollywood is the Toadstool Cafe. But quite frankly, unless you’re under eight years old, you’re going to get bored of the options at that restaurant. Other theme parks add a bit of variety by mixing in sit-down restaurants with quick-service options, but this theme park seems to specialize in quick-service options. The best of these might just be Panda Express (sadly), but you’d also be fine at the Minion Cafe.

We tried other places, but they suffered from food that just did not look like the pictures on the menu. And while we’re talking about menus, I don’t know why they advertise funnel cake as an “Asian Culinary Favorite”. I can guarantee you that’s not true. It’s 2024. You can do better than this, Universal.

Technology Isn’t Great

It’s a little embarrassing, but we had a difficult time figuring out when we could visit the park with our season passes. We would look up blackout dates online, go to the park, and then get turned away at the gate because our passes were not valid that day. We are used to one set of blackout dates based on the level of pass purchased. But the problem is that there are multiple sets of blackout dates for the same level of pass. Thus, the blackout dates you’re looking at online isn’t necessarily the one that applies for your ticket.

If you talk to customer service at the park, they will tell you just to keep your paper copy of the ticket. All the blackout dates that apply for your ticket are printed on there so there isn’t any confusion. Make sure you keep that paper copy or you might have a hard time figuring out when you can go. Even the app directs you to check out the paper copy to figure this out. But if I had my paper copy on me, I wouldn’t need to look at the app in the first place.

Yes, if you dig around in the app, you’ll eventually find something that tells you what your Calendar ID is so that you can then pull up the blackout calendar that applies to you. It would have been far easier if they just automatically told you the calendar without needing to go through the hassle of researching Calendar IDs, but perhaps I am being unreasonable with that request.

Park Entry and Exit

If you buy season tickets here, expect to have your fingerprints scanned at entry. The technology is slow, so expect lines at park entry because of it. And sometimes the machine just doesn’t seem to want to work. For adults, you can bypass the fingerprint scan by producing a valid government-issued ID.

It’s not quite so straight-forward for children and no mention of it can be found on the Universal Studios website. In my experience, staff will frequently attach the kid ticket to a parent’s fingerprint. That’s fine, but what about if you need to bring the kid to the park without that parent being there? They will just attach it to whichever adult brought the kids to the park.

The purpose of the fingerprints is to prevent people from sharing their passes. But I don’t get the need to have fingerprints linked to a season pass if staff is quick to just overwrite the fingerprint any time the machine doesn’t work.

On park exit, it’s common at theme parks to have someone available to stamp hands for re-entry. This park has someone here too, but get ready for a fight if your kid wants a stamp. The park will not hand out stamps to anyone with a season pass (despite the sign posted at park exit). Sometimes kids see someone else get a stamp and then they will want one too. In my experience, that has led to disappointment, which is really their last memory of the park for that day. Seems strange to have that be what the park strives for, as though this is the thing that’s needed to improve the bottom line.

Naturally I asked why is the hand stamp policy the way it is? The staff member quite literally said if she starts handing out stamps, then more people will come back to the park, and she will get yelled at. Isn’t that the objective of the hand stamps in the first place? I assume no official reason is passed on to employees but it adds to the impression that Universal just doesn’t care about the customer experience.

Customer Experience

Quite honestly, I would be mostly fine with the bones of the theme park. The rides themselves are interesting enough to justify coming here every so often. But the biggest area of improvement has to be the customer service at the park. Most employees we’ve encountered are just going through the motions. I’ve found that most days, it’s rare to find one employee who can actually assist with our basic needs. And sadly, I feel like it’s equally likely to find employees who are comfortable being confrontational. I don’t think the park is training staff to be difficult, but my suspicion is there isn’t an effective training program in place.

The park also seems to suffer from vendor shortages. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked around food carts to find items sold out. Examples include a hot dog cart that doesn’t have any hot dogs or an ice cream store that doesn’t have most ice cream options. It wouldn’t just be sold out for the day, but rather it was sold out for months at a time.

All this together just gives the impression the park doesn’t care. Or perhaps more specifically, I have the nagging feeling that they have a theme park that’s attached to a motion picture studio but really they care more about the operation of those studios. The theme park itself is second place to the studio business. I don’t have much hard evidence on this, but it’s just my intuition. After all, the happiest employees in general appear to be on the Studio Tour.

Final Thoughts

I know most of the above was a bit critical of the park. I feel Universal Studios Hollywood has some potential to be an excellent experience. There are ways to improve the park, adding depth and variety without needing more real estate. But the people running the park seem to not have a desire to provide the care and attention it needs. I was hopeful that the park would get that attention with the opening of Super Nintendo World, and perhaps it’s still on the way, but it’s not here yet.

We haven’t yet explored all Universal Studios theme parks the way we have explored all Disney theme parks. But we have gone to the two parks in Orlando and the park in Osaka, Japan. The Hollywood version appears to be the weakest of the parks we’ve gone to. That isn’t to say that you can’t have fun here. Rather, it has some enjoyable moments, but is missing a few elements to make it stand out in a positive way that would make us come back regularly.

What are your thoughts of Universal Studios Hollywood?