Festival of Fun

By Peyton Schultze

Universal Orlando’s Mardi Gras is a very enjoyable experience for people of all ages.

Although the festival took a major hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic last year, Universal Orlando’s Mardi Gras festival has returned for the spring of 2021 to guests.

Taking place from February 6th to March 28th, Mardi Gras features plenty of live entertainment, food offerings, and tasty beverages around the park for guests to enjoy at their leisure. There are many rules that guests must follow in order to participate in the festivities, such as taking a daily temperature before officially entering the parks and keeping a face covering on at all times while roaming through the parks, but the resort has included as many protocols as possible to make sure that guests are having fun while also staying safe in a welcoming environment.

Although the Mardi Gras festivities take place all inside of Universal Studios Florida, the nearby Islands of Adventure theme park (featuring thrilling rides such as Jurassic Park River Adventure and Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure) is also open during this time. Guests can also hop aboard any of the resort’s rides during this time (although they will have hand sanitizer applied before the enter any of the rides) and will be forced to keep a minimum of a six feet difference between your party and the party in front of you. In general, the festival is plenty of fun with so much space around the park, and Universal has clearly done a nice job of enforcing their health and safety procedures to make sure that guests not only stay safe and protect themselves from others, but also feel comfortable enough to enjoy their day inside of the parks.

Several Mardi Gras-themed floats are placed throughout the park, with beads being thrown to guests by cast members.

One of the first things that pops out regarding the festival is the spectacularly colorful surroundings all around Universal Orlando. Right when you pass through the infamous archway and enter through the park gates, music of iconic Jazz legends like Louis Armstrong and Chuck Carbo fill the Universal streets and encourage guests to get in on the festival’s action. As you move along through the park and engage with your surroundings, there are massive floats that are set up for guests to take pictures in front of and engage with cast members who are dressed up for the festivities.

While walking through the park, each float is set up in a precise location with some kind of rhyme and reason. For example, a float displaying a massive pirate ship with pirates aboard is located right across from the SpongeBob StorePants, whereas a gigantic Southern riverboat float is located right next to the New Orleans food booths in the park closest to Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit. Each of these floats often has some unique characters throwing out colorful beads to guests on these floats, whether it be skeletons or gypsies, and the floats tend to be rather accessible as long as guests are wearing a face covering and following health and safety protocols relating to the COVID-19 pandemic that has forced so much change through the parks.

The Cuban Sandwich with a side of plantain chips was a major hit among the festival, as located at the Cuba Booth across from Fast and Furious: Supercharged.

Regarding the food around the festival, there are thirteen different booths: Bahamas, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Cuba, France, Germany, Italy, New Orleans, Puerto Rico, Spain, and Trinidad/Tobago. Each booth has unique food found in these precise locations, from Jambalaya in New Orleans to Pork Schnitzel Sliders in Germany, as well as a wide array of wines and beers on tap for parkgoers abound. The selections are not all that different from something we have previously seen at the unique festivals seen over at Walt Disney World’s EPCOT, although the menus at Universal seem to have a little more traditional zest and spice with the Mardi Gras flair on display.

For our trip, we tried the Cuban Sandwich (pictured above) from the Cuba booth across the way from Fast and Furious: Supercharged and King’s Cross Station near Diagon Alley in the San Francisco area of the park. The sandwich was very solid with roasted pork and Serrano ham, to go along with Swiss cheese, mustard, and pickles. The meal also came with a side of delicious plantain chips to end up totaling to a price of $7.99, which seemed reasonable given the delicious taste.

The serving was not gigantic by any means, which came with a cool Cuban flag on top of the sandwich, but each bite was worthwhile and very tasty. The simplicity of the plantain chips also helped balance out the thickness of the Cuban Sandwich itself, and it was certainly a solid purchase that we would suggest on your next trip to the parks.

For a full menu of the park’s offerings, click here.

The festival’s tribute store located in the New York section of the park was full of unique rooms with nods to the history of jazz and New Orleans.

When it came to the rides inside of the park, nothing really changed all that much since our last visit. Although many other festivals inside of theme parks around the world tend to have some type of seasonal overlays at times throughout the year, the Mardi Gras festival did not bring about much change on this trip in terms of attractions. The rides were not very crowded on a normal weekday, and although some attractions were a bit of a wait, every attraction had plenty of available space inside and there was never really any type of worry regarding comfort and safety.

Most of the time in the day was occupied with festival activities inside of Universal Studios Florida, but Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts and E.T. Adventure were two attractions that we boarded on the trip. These rides were as spectacular as ever during the COVID-19 era, and we even found ourselves on completely empty ride vehicles without any other parties on-board on both occasions. This added even more to the safety experience at hand, which has to be a major confidence boost moving forward in the theme park industry as many places begin to smoothly transition toward re-opening across the country in this strange time.

Another unique room inside of the tribute store was fully dedicated to the swashbuckling roots of southern Louisiana.

One of the other unique areas of the festivities takes place in the back portion of the park inside of the New York City area. Located on the left side of the Revenge of the Mummy attraction, the Mardi Gras Tribute Store is a very cool store dedicated to selling merchandise and treats relating to the festival. There are about six different rooms in the entire store (the area is clearly used on other occasions for mazes for the Halloween Horror Nights experience) and each one sells respective merchandise centered around what is inside of the room. For example, in the picture above, the pirate setting of the room sold a wide array of swashbuckling merchandise for parents and kids alike, while another room inside was centered around a spooky graveyard theme with gifts and antiques revolving around the ghostly setting of New Orleans at night.

As you work your way through the store, which actually takes a decent amount of time, make sure to stop and take some pictures for some great photo opportunities. There are plenty of Universal Easter Eggs found throughout each of the rooms, so it would certainly be a nice idea to take your time while walking through to enjoy the themes on display. As you reach the end of the store, you end up in a bakery setting with all sorts of unique treats on display, such as chocolate skulls and bananas foster cake pops. There are all sorts of delicious treats that are for sale here, and every visit to the gigantic store would be worthwhile if it concluded with stopping to indulge in one of these treats.

The Mardi Gras Vanilla Cake with Cinnamon Swirl was a spectacular treat with a unique taste that is well worth a try on your next visit to the park.

Our last tasting test inside of the park was with the Mardi Gras Vanilla Cake with Cinnamon Swirl inside of the Mardi Gras Tribute Store. This was a spectacular dessert to have to close out the day, as the cake was a perfect blend of sweet and easy-to-eat flavors. The Cinnamon Swirl flavor of the cake made for one of the most unique dessert treats that we have ever had at a theme park, which made for a great dish. In addition, the yellow macaron on top was a nice little plus to the dessert that truly topped everything off, and the styling of the cake in general was just as impressive as the taste itself. In general, this was almost a perfect treat and we would highly suggest it on your next trip to the parks during the Mardi Gras festivities.

In general, the Mardi Gras festivities inside of Universal Studios Florida were a blast, and we would certainly recommend the event on your next trip to the Orlando area if you are comfortable with obliging to safety protocols. Keep in mind that all guests will have to wear a mask at all times and maintain a minimum of six feet from other parties or groups of people, although guests are allowed to temporarily take off their masks while actively eating and drinking in areas of the park. Enjoy the festivities from now until March 28th, so make sure to go out there and have a great time as soon as you can to truly immerse yourself in the full Mardi Gras experience!

Universal’s Mardi Gras Festival experience is a great time to visit the parks, especially with limited capacity inside of the parks.