OP

Quoted from Parkshow30:

We did 3 days at Universal. The 26th at Islands, the 29th at Studios and Islands and the 31st at Studios.
We had a great time, the 26th was below freezing so crowds were low, we did the whole park. Hagrids motorbike was our favorite ride, the nighttime castle show was very fun especially watching it from the Hippogrif ride.
The 29th was warm and so packed you couldn’t move. Not as fun.
The 31st wasn’t busy till late, did most everything at Studios, the Bourne Stuntacular was our favorite, amazing show!! Horror makeup show was very funny for the adults.
Jimmy Fallon ride was much better than expected. Diagon alley theming was off the charts but the stores were too small to really shop in, Hogsmeade was better for that.
Overall compared to Disney Universal has some rides that are better, some worse, overall too many screens, and the food sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can’t emphasize this anymore, compared to Disney the food is terrible. They are incompetent with ordering, taking orders, filling orders, running out of food, crowd management, etc. it’s a free for all compared to Disney. Absolutely insane waits for food everywhere, longer than the rides, zero management, pizza running out at 5pm, etc. The only good food experience we enjoyed was at 15 minutes to closing we ate at the 3 broomsticks. All day it was 1.5 hours just to get in, at the end of the night it was 10 minutes. Food was good, atmosphere was good.
Don’t go to universal for fireworks, we knew it wasn’t going to be on a Disney level, but we were expecting a little more since we were there on New Year’s Eve. Their New Year’s Eve night show wasn’t even half as good as a Disney normal day show. We have been to MK and Epcot on New Years even multiple times and those shows are just unbelievably good.
Employees know almost nothing compared to Disney. They have no clue where shows are , what times they are, how to get to places, where to get food. By the 3rd time we went I knew more than 90% of the employees. We got so much wrong information from them it wasn’t even funny.
For under $600 though we are happy with our annual passes. Other than the food it was a good experience and different than Disney which we have done a ton.
We went to Legoland on the 28th and holy crap, that was the worst theme park experience of my life. It really made us appreciate universal and Disney. It was so bad and there were so many problems that I don’t even know if I could type it all out and if I did I don’t know who would read it.