So I went to Universal last night specific for the holiday offerings. I haven't been to Disney Christmas since pre-covid so I won't compare it, but was just at Sea World a week and half ago.
Grinch show was awesome, for sure the best part of their offerings and really glad we saw this. It was a huge hit even for my husband and he is the hardest to please and my youngest (who is 6) also loved it. So it crosses all ages.
Macy Day Parade was good, but slightly too long. I think they could go one or two balloon/float less. We weren't the only antsy ones around us and some left early and others jumped to leave as soon as they saw last balloon. But in general around seeing the nutcracker balloon from afar people were moving around more as they had lost interest it seemed.
Castle Show was Meh. We saw the ending (as we got into line for wand interaction) and beginning (after done getting wands) and when watching the beginning my kids opted to just leave as they lost interest quickly in it.
Sea World by far with decorations and shows wins. The decor around the park was just OK at Uni, but nothing stood out as this is awesome. More muted and classic I would say. With so few offerings of shows/parade compared to Sea World it was a one and done for the season where Sea World my kids like to go back. Not having a huge finale show also means we don't really need to stay to the end spending more money. We could leave after seeing first castle show if we ever even want to see that show again.
Now 100% my kids were absolutely impressed with Universal over Sea World as a whole. While Christmas wasn't a huge draw for us, the park in general my kids loved. My oldest kept commenting about the details in the park and how much better it was. So don't get me wrong, overall Universal crushes Sea World, but when it came to Christmas offerings Sea World won. I mean from the ticket gate my oldest talked about how the feel was just so different at Universal, she of course also commented how it seemed more expensive looking at prices (we were in line to get our physical passes). I said yes, that is why this was a Christmas gift and not just something we did. My middle said she was wondering since Sea World was never a gift. I said yes, this cost us a ton more and so that is why it is your Christmas gift. They absolutely loved picking out a wand (also part of their Christmas gift) and my middle child got picked in the experience making it even better.