Best and worst food items for the Holidays at Universal Orlando
The Holidays at Universal Orlando Resort runs through Dec. 31, 2023, and features many seasonal foods to enjoy. But what are our picks for the best and worst?
Like Mardi Gras and Halloween Horror Nights, the Holiday celebration at Universal Orlando features special seasonal food and beverages. However, unlike those events, the holiday food and beverage items appear mostly at permanent dining locations, so if you’re expecting to see food booths, like at SeaWorld Orlando, you won’t find many.
Despite that, we tasted several good food options for people to enjoy during the holiday celebration. Of course, we also tried items our group cannot recommend.
Best food items for the Holidays at Universal Orlando
Universal Orlando has slowly expanded its holiday dining options for the holidays. Of course, the process could be more seamless, and on the first day of the resort’s holiday celebration, several were unavailable. We also noticed holiday items could be found in locations not originally listed by Universal Orlando Resort. Still, on the positive side, we were pleased to see the return of a holiday item that was not announced beforehand by Universal Orlando Resort.
Holidays at Universal Orlando: Vegan Cookie Butter Snowflake – $4.99
We loved the Vegan Cookie Butter Snowflake at last year’s holiday event, but Universal Orlando Resort did not list this item when the holiday menus were revealed. Since we considered this to be the best holiday food item in 2022, seeing it back for 2023 definitely brought us joy.
The Vegan Cookie Butter Snowflake can be found at Croissant Moon Bakery in Islands of Adventure and at San Francisco Pastry Company at Universal Studios Florida. This item was still not listed on the official online Holidays menus at the time of writing. We also suspect our price may not be correct, but our receipt said $4.99.
This year’s version did not bring as much robust flavor as last year’s, but still deserves to be on the best list. We admit we tend to give higher ratings to vegan and gluten-free food items; however, the Vegan Cookie Butter Snowflake tasted better than almost all the sweet treats we tried at the holiday celebration.
Grinch Cookies at Hop on Pop Ice Cream Shop at Universal Islands of Adventure – $3.29
Guests receive two of these green-colored cake batter sugar featuring a candy heart three sizes too small, of course (this year’s version uses a red hot as the heart, so prepare for that).
A few of our food blogger colleagues obsess about these cookies, and for $6.29, you can turn these cookies into an ice cream sandwich.
Peppermint Mocha Petit Cake at Today Cafe – $6.49
Fans of peppermint will appreciate the Peppermint Mocha Petit Cake at Today Café at Universal Studios Florida.
This cake consists of a layer of peppermint and a layer of mocha with a candy cane design on top, and we found the combination worked very well.
Three Cheese Grilled Cheese Sandwich at Battery Park Bar – $11.99
Our experience trying all the holiday food items on opening day involved lots of sugar, so this list need a savory item. Though we found the preparation method for the sandwiches at the Batter Park location far better this year, we settled on the Three Cheese Grilled Cheese Sandwich, which consists of rustic panini bread, sharp cheddar, muenster, mozzarella cheese, and tomato bacon jam.
Though a grilled cheese sandwich may sound boring, we thought found this sandwich more elevated than one would expect at a theme park quick service location. Guests can also add a cup of savory butternut squash or creamy tomato soup for 4.99. Our group found the soups were excellent quality on opening day.
Worst food items for the holidays at Universal Orlando
For full disclosure, our day of trying every holiday season food item at Universal Orlando Resort started poorly. The Penguin Doughnut at Voodoo Doughnut at Universal CityWalk Orlando was not available and several other menu items posted online were not available or lacked the proper ingredients. In fairness, this also happens at Walt Disney World and SeaWorld Orlando on opening day of their food-centric celebrations. Still, we encountered it more often to start our day of dining around the “Universe.”
This led to having lower opinions of certain menu items. Fortunately, we tasted many of the Universal Orlando holiday food options with colleagues to provide balance. As a result, we have a few items to discourage you from trying during your visit to Universal Orlando during the Holidays celebration.
Letters To Santa Milkshake at Toothsome Chocolate Emporium and Savory Feast Kitchen – $17
Toothsome Chocolate Emporium at Universal CityWalk Orlando presents extravagant-looking desserts, and the Letters to Santa Milkshake for the holiday season definitely qualifies as looking wonderful.
This milkshake consists of coquito ice cream, dulce de leche, a chocolate Christmas card on top, candy cane sprinkles, and whipped topping. The overall appearance looks great for the holidays. We love the chocolate letter on top, the candy cane sprinkles around the rim, and the whipped cream at Toothsome, so placing this on the worst list feels wrong.
So why is it here? For the $17 price point, we expected more flavor. Coquito is a creamy, tropical Puerto Rican holiday drink made with evaporated and condensed milk, cream of coconut, spices, and rum (needless to say, the Letters to Santa Milkshake does not include rum). In this case the coquito ice cream holds this milkshake back the most. The coconut pieces and flavor dominate this milkshake. When the clergy member in the group thought it needs alcohol to complete, that says it all about this milkshake.
Coquito Igloo at San Francisco Pastry Company – $7.49
Continuing the trend of ranking the coquito items low, we found the Coquito Igloo was not not worth the money at San Francisco Pastry Company. Once again, the coquito flavor lacked something. While the design of this treat looked great and we appreciate using a holiday flavor outside the norm, the execution (at least on opening day) failed to live up to our expectations.
We ordered this dessert two times (on both occasions, with colleagues familiar with what a coquito dessert should taste like). In both cases, the Coquito Igloo had coconut flavor but little else. With so many better options at Universal Orlando for the holidays, we would skip this in the future.
Of the over twenty holiday food items we tried at Universal Orlando, these rank as the best and worst options. We think most guests will agree with our assessment; however, one of the beauties of dining is that personal preferences matter, and holiday food preparation quality may improve or decrease as the event continues.
Feel free to let us know if you try something at the Holidays celebration at Universal Orlando that you loved or did not love very much.
