11/16/2020
This post is going to cover some dining around Universal.
We had dining reservations for lunch at Finnegan’s Bar & Grill. I am not super familiar with Universal restaurants, so I spent a lot of time checking out menus and pricing, etc. This is one reservation I was very excited about! I made the reservation online. I received text alerts reminding me of the reservation. We showed up at our time and were seated immediately. There was live music that was just ending at the bar. As we were finding throughout this vacation, the menus were not printed, rather we had to scan a QR code to view it. These cards were placed at each table. My observations while we were sitting…it felt really busy, there were many large parties, and the wait staff was running all over the place. It was slightly chaotic and loud!

We placed our order and were brought some complimentary bread. It was some kind of soda bread with apple butter (I think) and regular butter. I did not enjoy this at all. I love bread! But this was not it…

Because it was so hot, I really wanted something light. I went with the Celtic Chicken Club Salad with the dressing on the side. It looked great, but it was really just okay. I was so disappointed at both this place and the food! I was bummed. But, we had a dinner coming up at Margaritaville that would hopefully make up for it.

For dinner on this same day, we had reservations at Margaritaville, which we also made online. Since the parks were closing on the early side, dinner reservations at City Walk made sense so we could hit it on the way out. It’s a very short walk between them. It was daylight while we were walking over. (This is also the area where you can find boat transportation to select resorts.)

There was a long line of people waiting to check in. However, I had read that if you have reservations, you should just go to the front of the line, which is what we did, and we were seated immediately. Yes we got dirty looks, but if you have a reservation, you don’t have to stand in the line!
Besides the digital menus, we were also finding that the menus were very limited in choices, which was fine with us because we aren’t that picky, but they were slimmed down very noticeably. We weren’t super starving, so we went with a few appetizers. Alex ordered the Volcano Nachos. This portion size was humungous! These were very good! I opted for the Key West Chicken Quesadilla and this was also good.


By the time we were finished with dinner, it was dark, and everything was lit up.

I could not visit City Walk and NOT try a Voo Doo Doughnut! I had heard so much about them, and I love donuts soooo…




I couldn’t pick just one, so I went with one of the specials and the Dirt doughnut. The special snowman one did not have any filling. THESE WERE SO GOOD! I spent the next two days eating them for breakfast/snacks!

There are so many options at Universal and in the City Walk area!