A couple of USH related questions

[CarouselofColor]

Hello all! Heading to SoCal in a couple of weeks, and we're very excited to be doing a Universal Studios Hollywood Day to see Super Nintendo World!

We're visiting May 2nd, and they still haven't posted park hours- do we know how far in advance park hours usually get published? We have the early admission tickets for Nintendo, and will be Lyfting out from the Disneyland area that morning after closing out Disneyland the night before and I'm wanting to figure out just how miserable we're going to be based on if we're waking up to make it to USH by 7am, 8am, or 9am haha. Does anyone know what Universal park hours looked like last year the week after Spring Break peak ended? Really hoping for for a 10am opening/9am early admission so we can sleep a bit haha

I do know that we'll want to get a day of reservation at Toad's Cafe first thing that morning- however, if we have a reservation and leave the land, does the reservation guarantee us entry back in if the land is operating on a Virtual Queue for entry? Or do we need to stay in the land until our reservation to be safe? Our early admission ticket comes with a tram tour express pass that we have to use before 11am, which is clearly a ploy to make sure people don't camp out all day, and I'm trying to figure out if it's safe to use it!

If anyone's been recently, there's this long sleeve crewneck shirt that I've been dying to get since it got released over a year ago- it's black and says Super Nintendo World on it with cute 8bit mario related sprites on the sleeve. Does anyone know if it's been available recently, and did you notice if they still have the larger sizes? I'd need anywhere from a 1x-3x, and I'm worried they'll be gone and I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for that lol

 

[StageTek]

We're visiting May 2nd, and they still haven't posted park hours- do we know how far in advance park hours usually get published?

USH is annoyingly late in posting hours. I suspect 9 to 9. Maybe 8 to 10. Early entry to Nintendo has been 7AM.

 

[mdmost]

So we're going on 4/28 and 4/29. I saw the Friday hours are 9-8 and Saturday is 8-10. I'd imagine Monday and Tuesday would be 9-9 or 9-8. No answer on your other questions as this is our first time.

 

[Ryan120420]

A reservation for Toadstool Café Does NOT get you into the land if they are using a virtual queue. The best thing to do is get a reservation first thing in the morning, then monitor the app for when they turn on the VQ. When the VQ is active, you will be given dozens of return times to choose from. Pick the return time closest to your Toadstool reservation.

The other option is to buy Universal Express, which gives you 1 reservation-free entry into Super Nintendo World anytime during your visit.

 

[Disney102015]

Arghh we are in the same boat waiting for hours! We’ll be relying on a hotel shuttle so can’t attend the early hours if it’s 7-8 (but can if it’s 8-9) so I’ve been holding off buying tix but am worried it’ll sell out by the time hours are posted.

 

[Disney102015]

Hours are updated, in case you didn’t see yet!

 

[DLgal]

To answer your questions:

You will NOT be able to get back into the land with just a Toadstool Cafe reservation. You will need to make another VQ reservation for land entry close to your restaurant reservation time.

Toadstool Cafe is WALK IN until about 10am. They will serve the full menu. My suggestion is to make this your breakfast. If you wait until later to have a meal, it will take you like 2 hours, minimum. Once they are full, even with a reservation, you will have to wait up to an hour to order, then another 30-45 minutes for your food to arrive. It's a slog. We were warned about this and we ignored it. Lesson learned. We returned to the Cafe at noon and had lunch. Won't do that again. We didn't leave there until close to 3pm.

What we DID do was go in as a walk in around 9:30am and let out kids have dessert for breakfast. That was fun, the restaurant was empty, and the desserts and Lemon Squash drink were quite good.

If you will be up at the crack of dawn anyway, I suggest just skipping breakfast and hitting up Toads as a walk in after you've done the Kart ride and explored the land a bit. Make a land entry reservation for later, perhaps, so you can do more stuff, but eat elsewhere in the park. Take advantage of your Studio Tour express lane entry by 11. I'd come back to the land after dark. It looks really cool at night. You will have to keep checking the app for when the VQ land entry reservations come available, and you can choose any time of day you want. Pick a later one. You can do SIngle Rider for your second Kart ride of the day.

I have not seen that shirt you are describing anywhere at USH. If it was part of that specisl merch release in 2021, it's long gone. A lot of that merch did not get restocked. I got my sons several items that are no longer for sale.

 

[CarouselofColor]

To answer your questions:

You will NOT be able to get back into the land with just a Toadstool Cafe reservation. You will need to make another VQ reservation for land entry close to your restaurant reservation time.

Toadstool Cafe is WALK IN until about 10am. They will serve the full menu. My suggestion is to make this your breakfast. If you wait until later to have a meal, it will take you like 2 hours, minimum. Once they are full, even with a reservation, you will have to wait up to an hour to order, then another 30-45 minutes for your food to arrive. It's a slog. We were warned about this and we ignored it. Lesson learned. We returned to the Cafe at noon and had lunch. Won't do that again. We didn't leave there until close to 3pm.

What we DID do was go in as a walk in around 9:30am and let out kids have dessert for breakfast. That was fun, the restaurant was empty, and the desserts and Lemon Squash drink were quite good.

If you will be up at the crack of dawn anyway, I suggest just skipping breakfast and hitting up Toads as a walk in after you've done the Kart ride and explored the land a bit. Make a land entry reservation for later, perhaps, so you can do more stuff, but eat elsewhere in the park. Take advantage of your Studio Tour express lane entry by 11. I'd come back to the land after dark. It looks really cool at night. You will have to keep checking the app for when the VQ land entry reservations come available, and you can choose any time of day you want. Pick a later one. You can do SIngle Rider for your second Kart ride of the day.

I have not seen that shirt you are describing anywhere at USH. If it was part of that specisl merch release in 2021, it's long gone. A lot of that merch did not get restocked. I got my sons several items that are no longer for sale.

Thanks for taking the time to type this out, SUPER helpful!!

 

[mdmost]

So we just got back from our 2 days at UH. Definitely get there as soon as you can and get straight onto Mario Kart. If you plan on getting Power Bands to interact with the land, get them in advance at the Citywalk store the day before. If you can't do that, get it as soon as you get inside the gate at the shop on the right. If you try to get them down in the lower shops, it will be a pain. They do have the kiosks on the left side of the land that dispenses them but then you have to get them set up quickly in the app. I set them up as we were going down the multiple escalators.

If you get the bands, as soon as you're done with Mario Kart, head to the 4 key locations. Those book up really fast after the crowds come after opening. And then it is just a steady stream of people that does not stop. We waited 45 minutes to do the 4th key because it was so crowded. You only need 3 keys to do Bowser Jr's challenge. The POW, Clocks, and Tile Challenge are all pretty good. All are out of the sun so it's nice. The crank one is kinda dull and in full sunlight. That was the one we had to wait 45 minutes for. You really have to commit to waiting about an hour if you want to meet any of the characters. And that's in full sun. One thing I didn't like was the refreshments being outside of the land except for the Toadstool Cafe that you can't go into unless you have a reservation and the small Coke kiosk. We got a 10:45 reservation and just decided to go ahead and have an early lunch. We got our food around 11:30.

We had a great time walking on the Harry Potter rides in the evening. We also walked on the Mummy twice before closing. That's a great coaster. We were a little bummed that the Studio Tour for some reason didn't take us through King Kong. Not sure if it was down. We also couldn't go see the Back to the Future town square since they were doing pre-production on it. A bit disappointing on both fronts. The WB Studio Tour we did later was much better.

 

[Disney102015]

So we just got back

This was all really helpful for our upcoming trip, thanks for sharing!

 

[purple hippo]

We are heading to USH for the first time in September. Will information about HHN get posted in this forum? Orlando already has a big thread going, but I know details haven't really been announced yet for USH. Has anyone here been to HHN @ USH before? We have been to the one @ USO many times, and know this one is smaller.

 

[DLgal]

We are heading to USH for the first time in September. Will information about HHN get posted in this forum? Orlando already has a big thread going, but I know details haven't really been announced yet for USH. Has anyone here been to HHN @ USH before? We have been to the one @ USO many times, and know this one is smaller.

Not really. It's not such a popular event here, I don't think. Actually I think Knotts Scary Farm is a more popular local Halloween event than HHN.

 

[purple hippo]

Ok thanks. I also have Knotts Scary Farms on our to do list I am keeping my eyes open for info on this event too.

 

[StageTek]

We are heading to USH for the first time in September. Will information about HHN get posted in this forum? Orlando already has a big thread going, but I know details haven't really been announced yet for USH. Has anyone here been to HHN @ USH before? We have been to the one @ USO many times, and know this one is smaller.

USH HHN is smaller but very, very popular. They are painfully slow in announcing details.

Rumor's are this year HHN will be open Wed through Sun starting mid September. In the past they did 3 days a week during Sept then 5 days in October. Houses are already going up in many locations.

 

[Ryan120420]

We are heading to USH for the first time in September. Will information about HHN get posted in this forum? Orlando already has a big thread going, but I know details haven't really been announced yet for USH. Has anyone here been to HHN @ USH before? We have been to the one @ USO many times, and know this one is smaller.

USH HHN is extremely popular here in SoCal. It's easily the most attended Halloween event in CA.

The reason they haven't released event info like Orlando is because Orlando caters to more tourists that have to plan many months in advance. HHN in Hollywood is catered to locals in SoCal.

Expect more information on the event in July/August.

 

[poohj80]

A reservation for Toadstool Café Does NOT get you into the land if they are using a virtual queue. The best thing to do is get a reservation first thing in the morning, then monitor the app for when they turn on the VQ. When the VQ is active, you will be given dozens of return times to choose from. Pick the return time closest to your Toadstool reservation.

The other option is to buy Universal Express, which gives you 1 reservation-free entry into Super Nintendo World anytime during your visit.

Can Express be added on to a day ticket at arrival like at UO?

 

[mdmost]

Can Express be added on to a day ticket at arrival like at UO?

So it's not something you can do via the app or at least I couldn't find it. You can definitely go to the Express booths and upgrade there. I think there's one right before the New York Street portion starts just on the left. Maybe it says Season Pass or something. It also says Universal Express Pass.

 

[poohj80]

So it's not something you can do via the app or at least I couldn't find it. You can definitely go to the Express booths and upgrade there. I think there's one right before the New York Street portion starts just on the left. Maybe it says Season Pass or something. It also says Universal Express Pass.

Are the Express add-on prices listed somewhere online? I could only find prices for tix with Express.

 

[mdmost]

Are the Express add-on prices listed somewhere online? I could only find prices for tix with Express.

Best I could find was this:

https://www.undercovertourist.com/blog/universal-studios-hollywood-front-line-pass/

Upgrade in the Park

If you are really not sure if a Universal Studios Hollywood Express Pass is for you, or you already have your ticket or an annual pass without Express access, you can take a chance on upgrading in the park. Express tickets can sell out on crowded days. On a spring break day, we noticed that it was up to $145 to upgrade to a Universal Express ticket for one-time use for each ride. On other days, it is about can be more or less. No matter how you bought your park ticket, you can purchase an upgrade in the park. The cost to upgrade is the same for everyone.

The price may vary — even throughout the day! If you are finding higher waits in the afternoon, on some days Universal may drop the price after 3:30 p.m. So definitely check back if you want to upgrade in the afternoon. You can't count on it being available, but it's worth looking into. You can purchase and upgrade in the Upper Lot at the Box Office or at a kiosk at the bottom of the escalator in the Lower Lot.

 

[poohj80]

Best I could find was this:

https://www.undercovertourist.com/blog/universal-studios-hollywood-front-line-pass/

Upgrade in the Park

If you are really not sure if a Universal Studios Hollywood Express Pass is for you, or you already have your ticket or an annual pass without Express access, you can take a chance on upgrading in the park. Express tickets can sell out on crowded days. On a spring break day, we noticed that it was up to $145 to upgrade to a Universal Express ticket for one-time use for each ride. On other days, it is about can be more or less. No matter how you bought your park ticket, you can purchase an upgrade in the park. The cost to upgrade is the same for everyone.

The price may vary — even throughout the day! If you are finding higher waits in the afternoon, on some days Universal may drop the price after 3:30 p.m. So definitely check back if you want to upgrade in the afternoon. You can't count on it being available, but it's worth looking into. You can purchase and upgrade in the Upper Lot at the Box Office or at a kiosk at the bottom of the escalator in the Lower Lot.

Thank you!