Excursion07909805114
Feb 2025
Enjoyed the day at Universal yesterday with the family, Feb 17th 2025. I was blown away by the extent they go through to make everything look as realistic as possible. It had been 24 years since I was last there and my memory is junk so it was all pretty much new for me!
One issue and it was a large one. Getting into the park. We were there at 8:45 and queued up to go through the entrance. Yes, it was a Holiday and more people than normal I was told. There seemed to be a log jam at the very front of the line. After 30 minutes of barely moving people were not happy although hey, it was a beautiful day and we were at the happiest place on earth.
After another 15 minutes of a slow shuffle forward, Disney employees started yelling, yes, yelling at the masses to move all the way to the end. Being in the middle of a crowd most of us had no real idea what to do. So we all shuffled right a few feet and the yelling stopped. Okay, back to waiting.
At 9:44 we reached the front of the line to see that the bottleneck was a photo verification process where each guest was requested to have their electronic picture taken. An extremely slow process which caused much angst for me at least. To make it worse, if you are a resident of Florida you must also produce photo identification to prove that the money you saved is legit. Just another step in an already flawed process.
As an option, you do have the right to opt-out of the photo id request although that can only take place when you are standing there to get your photo shoot. I may be incorrect about the opting-out step and where it can be initialized although I was not much in the mood to learn more.
I expressed to the ticket attendant my displeasure with the process, not being rude or ignorant, understanding that they are simply performing their duties. They expressed to me their apologies and that once inside I would forget all about the wait. He was 100% correct.
Until I woke up this morning.
Response from Host
Feb 2025
Hello, thank you so much for sharing your review with us. I love that you enjoyed the immersion of our parks, that it felt like you were experiencing them for the first time, and hope you were able to explore Universal Mardi Gras, trying the different flavors of our international Carnaval - particularly the Duck a l'orange Crepe from France. However, I deeply regret the time you waited to enter our parks to begin your adventure and for the behavior of our Team Member while you were waiting in line. This is in no way the experience we want for our Guests, so I'll ensure your feedback is shared with the proper teams to review further, seeing where improvements can be made moving forward. I greatly appreciate you sharing your experiences with us, and hope we can welcome you back for a better visit in the future.
-Chrisy