Priority Entrance

Universal Orlando Resort
21

Good to know! Maybe by the time we get there from the airport and get checked in, crowds will have died down a bit.

22

Are you staying at a Universal hotel?

23

Yup, Royal Pacific.

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24

I have not. I was going to do it this year, but I’m not traveling until things get back to “normal”. I did ask on these forums about it and got a lot of positive reviews.

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25

Thanks, I remember that thread, thanks for linking it for me. Since we live locally I wouldn’t have to fly but I don’t know how bad things will be in December…

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26

Then you can get into the parks even if they reach capacity.

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27

Really?? Did not know this!!

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28

Yeah. Staying on property guarantees you entry even if they are closed to everyone else. A perk to staying at a resort hotel.

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29

That’s great! I knew we had “priority” access… but didn’t know that meant guaranteed access. What a relief!

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30

Yep. We were on property and had left for a break and then I saw the parks had closed. I was worried but they said hotel guests could still enter.

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31

When you returned was there a separate entrance line for hotel guests? I haven’t found anyone who can confirm how it works when they hit capacity.

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32

There wasn’t a separate entrance. They just asked to see our room keys.

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33

That makes a great deal of sense. They can start the day assuming everyone in an on-site hotel will visit the parks, and then start counting up from there. Then if the parks hit capacity, they know that on-site guests are already included in the attendance number and can let them in.

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34

Got an email from Universal today suggesting that, as a resort guest, I take advantage of early admission, go home at lunch and then return at night. That was our general plan anyway but interesting to have them encourage guests to do so.

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35

That is interesting…

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36

Interesting you received an email about it. It is a good plan though.

37

I got an email from them today (I have an AP) suggesting if I wanted to come the next 2 weekends, I should switch to the much less crowded weekdays.

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38

When I asked about AP upgrades I asked about capacity and was told there are two phases of park capacity. The first is hotel guests and specific date ticket holders and the second which they have never reached is specific date ticket holders only…

39

I see you get to go in regardless but I do enjoy the mini-golf course there too. I was going to suggest that but even as an extra if you have the time and haven’t checked it out before.

40

We went in December 2020 and stayed at Portofino. I kept trying to get someone from Universal to commit to saying if that guaranteed us entrance into the park. They would never guarantee it but kept saying we would have priority entrance. They did say we would be able to return through a separate hotel guest entrance if we got in and left the park and wanted to come back the same day. We found that to be true. We always were at the park before 8:30 so we always got in before it was at capacity. It was at capacity some days before 9 am. I don’t know if we would have gotten in at that point if we had waited or not. There was no separate hotel entrance in the morning when it opened. Some staff told us they count hotel guests in their numbers so they can guarantee them entry but other staff told us that was not true.

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