The Fan Fest Nights Dining Pass is back again for the 2026 season and epicurious fans looking to taste their way through Universal Fan Fest Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood, will find special themed menus all around the park. Having a Dining Pass offers the promise of saving some bucks while you nosh and sip your way through various fandoms including Scooby-Doo Meets the Universal Monsters, ONE PIECE, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, Super Nintendo World, and Jurassic Park.

Is it worth it? Let’s have a look. In full disclosure, Universal hosted us for a visit and to try out the Fan Fest Nights Dining Pass for ourselves. Here’s everything you need to know about 2026 Fan Fest Nights Dining Pass during Universal Fan Fest Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood.

What to Expect

In essence, the Fan Fest Nights Dining Pass is a prepaid option that gives you a physical card that you can use to redeem for select food and drink items from select locations around the park. The pass is on a lanyard and features a barcode that can be scanned to redeem eligible menu items.

There are dozens of exclusive food and drink options to enjoy and the good news is almost all of it (excluding select items and alcoholic beverages) is eligible to redeem with the Fan Fest Nights Dining Pass. Additionally, many menu items that are on the regular menus around the park are also available to redeem at most locations. Here’s a quick rundown on how it all works.

What Do You Get?

Each Dining Pass includes a total of six item redemptions:

• 2 eligible Entrée Items which typically includes a meal-sized portion of food
• 4 eligible Select Items which typically include sides, snacks, desserts or beverage items

How Much Is It?

• Cost: $59 plus tax per Dining Pass
• You can also pre-purchase the dining pass online

Where To Buy?

• Dining Pass is available for purchase at kiosks located within the theme park as well as at participating theme park restaurants.

Know Before You Go

• All eligible menu items will be designated by a Fan Fest Nights Dining Pass logo on the restaurant menu boards.
  • There are two different icons to differentiate Entree Items vs. Select Items.
  • It’s important to note that menu boards that do not feature prices also do not indicate dining pass eligibility. Sometimes you will have to look at menus closer to the registers to verify which items are Dining Pass eligible.
• Excluded menu items include those priced at $25 or higher, alcoholic beverages, Starbucks, Coca-Cola Freestyle, retail stores, merchandise, souvenir items, collectibles, special events/ promotions, candies, and at Universal CityWalk Hollywood.
• The Fan Fest Nights Dining Pass can only be used during the Fan Fest Nights event and must be fully used on the night purchased.
  • Any remaining entitlements on a Fan Fest Nights Dining Pass are forfeited at the end of the event on the day of purchase. That means you cannot save redemptions for another visit.

Is it Worth It?

At about $65 a pop (after taxes), this is not a cheap upgrade to your evening so the value of it is dependent on your priorities for your evening. Fan Fest Nights is about 6 hours of play time so if you’re willing to devote time to enjoy everything the pass has to offer this could be a decent option. We had two passes and after learning from our experience during Fan Fest Nights last year, we made sure to actively seek out food so that we could use every single one of our redemptions.

To make sure you get the most value out of your six redemptions, you want to try to redeem them on anything that’s going to be more than $10.79. Generally speaking, you’re looking at an Entree Item price range of $12.99 to $22.99 which makes choices of what to eat pretty easy. However, you’re also looking at a Select Item price range of $7.99 to $13 which makes it just a little tougher to clear. But as long as the average of your six items still comes out to $10.79, then you’re definitely saving some money.

Below is a look at how we fared. Note, for ease of reference, we are not factoring taxes into any calculations here.

So you can see our total average on both Dining Passes were above the $10.79 target average which means vs paying a la carte prices, we did get some value out of the Dining Pass — especially on Dining Pass 1 where we had over $25 in savings. It’s a great value, even compared to just buying these items a la carte with an annual pass discount.

Even better news is that prices are structured this year to create more value. Even if you were to get the two absolute cheapest event-specific Entree Items available ($12.99 and $14.99) and one each of the four cheapest Select Items (2 at $7.99 and 2 at $8.99) your total haul would come out to $61.94 (before tax) which is still coming out ahead (by just under $3). Not exactly a huge savings in that scenario but you shouldn’t come out of the night at a loss with any combination you make — unless you don’t use all of your redemptions!

We were able to make the pricing of the Dining Pass work to our advantage but to say this is an easy value would not be accurate as you definitely have to pre-game and plan to make it make sense for your visit. You will also want to be prepared with backup solutions too just in case as some items can be popular and may sell out or sometimes the lines might just be longer than you’re willing to wait.

If there was any unexpected cost in the experience, it would be with the cost of your time as the longer you spend waiting in line for food, the less time you will have for seeing all of the evening’s attractions and entertainment. The easiest way we can recommend to make this worth your while is to check out if the most expensive items are appealing to you. If that works, you’ll also want to check if any of the specialty (non-alcoholic) drinks are also of interest as those carry the highest price tags and will help ensure you get your value. Ultimately, you have to look at your interest level in the menu items available and weigh your… appetite!

At the end of the day, the Dining Pass works best if you share one pass between two people. The two entrees and four snacks split amongst two (or even three or four friends) is a great way to stretch your dollar while still getting to sample a wider assortment of the event-specific offerings that you might not have tried otherwise.

Food and Drink Options

There’s a myriad of choices available to dine on and drink during the event and the Fan Fest Nights Dining Pass is available for almost all of of the food and non-alcoholic specialty options.

To find out if the Dining Pass will be worth it for you, see our resources below to so that you know all of the options available for redemption.

See it for Yourself

Universal Fan Fest Nights takes place at Universal Studios Hollywood on select dates from April 23 through May 16, 2026.

Event dates include April 23-25; May 1-3, 7-9, and 15-16. The event will begin each event night at 7pm and tickets are now available for purchase.

Check out our in-depth guides and coverage with everything you need to know!

MORE INFO: Check out all MouseInfo coverage for Universal Fan Fest Nights