November EPIC and WDW trip

[Bennie1976]

Hallo Everyone

This was a trip to experience all new things in Orlando theme parks since our last full trip in 2018. We did a father-and-son trip to Universal in 2023.

This was a last-minute addition to a work trip I had to take to America in New York. The main reason for the addition was to visit Epic Universe and then we decided to add some days at Disney to experience everything we haven’t seen yet.

This trip was just my wife and I, so here we go:




Day 1:

I was coming in from New York (LGA) and my wife flew in from Miami (MIA). Worrying about cancelled flights and delays due to the Government shutdown, we were both super early at our respective airports and luckily all went well. We arrived 20 minutes apart and with baggage belts next to each other, we were out in a flash.


We decided to do Universal first as these are stress-free and easy parks and as we are staying at Royal Pacific, the unlimited Express Pass makes touring these parks such a breeze.

Royal Pacific used to be our favorite resort due to the theming, service and proximity to the parks, but I fear that this is no longer the case. It is still hugely convenient from an access point of view, but the resort has aged badly since our last visit in 2018. Maybe it was just our room, but everything feels a little bit dated. On top of that, the service was fine, but nothing amazing like we had experienced before.

We took an Uber to Royal Pacific, checked in with no fuss, got all our park tickets, extra Epic tickets and Epic Express Pass tickets (more on this later) and were very happy that our room was ready by 11am. We dropped all our stuff and took a quick Uber round trip to Walmart where we stocked up on water, ice coffee, overnight oats and snacks. We also stocked up on a few things we don’t find at home. So back at Royal Pacific by 12:20pm and then took a boat to City Walk. We wanted to walk but since the boat was right there when we came out, we jumped on.

My wife has never experienced Hagrid’s or VelociCoaster, so we headed to IOA first. The Unlimited Express Pass was amazing, and we rode both attractions multiple times. The Hagrid’s standby time was over 90 minutes and the longest we ever waited in the Express queue was 15 minutes. Hagrid’s is just magic and our favorite ride in all of Orlando. In our view, nothing in Epic or Disney beats Hagrid’s and VelociCoaster from a ride enjoyment point of view.







We did some other favorites like Hippogriff, River Adventure, Doom, Spider Man and Hulk (Forbidden Journey was closed for refurb the whole time), had some Butter Beer, did a bit of shopping and then made our way out of the park to dinner around 7pm at Cowfish. Dinner was good and the beers even better! We then took the easy stroll back to Royal Pacific and called it a night.

By the way, we had the best weather ever. Never more than 82 (28 Celsius) and never below 60 (16 Celsius). We didn’t have one drop of rain during our 7-night stay in Orlando.



Day 2:

This was our only full day in the Universal legacy parks. We had coffee and breakfast (overnight oats) in the room and were on the beautiful walking path by 7:30am. A quick 5 minutes later and we were near the front of the rope drop crowd at IOA. Another real plus from Universal is that all Universal resort guests get a full hour early entry benefit. When you have Unlimited Express, you really don’t have to rope drop any of the 2 original Universal parks, we just did it to maximize our only full day here. They opened the gates well before 8am and the crowd all headed for Hogsmeade. With the Express Pass, we again did Hagrid’s and VelociCoaster multiple times until the Hogwarts Express opened. We took the first train to US.



We rode everything in US with no or very low waits. Minion Blast was the only ride my wife has not experienced but this was a one-and-done for us. The only ride we skipped was Kang & Kodo’s. We did Mummy, Gringotts and ET multiple times and rode the Trolls coaster for the first time. Very cute! We explored the new Dream Works Land, had a slice of pizza at Louie’s and then caught the train back to Hogsmeade from King’s Cross Station at 2:40pm.

The next 5 hours were spent riding everything in IOA (except Dudley’s and Seuss Landing) taking pics of all the Holiday decorations and having some snacks. I believe pretzel bites are now our favorite snack. Doom and Hulk at sunset was just so amazing to experience.



We had dinner at the Orchid Court Lounge (delicious sushi) and then had some beers at Jakes. We had Epic Universe up next, so we tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour.




Up next, EPIC Universe

 

[Bennie1976]

Day 3

Epic Universe Day!

We were really looking forward to finally experiencing this new park. We bought the normal 2+1 park deal but added a second Epic 1-day ticket plus an Express Pass for our first Epic day.

So let me give you my summarized view of Epic before going into the detials.

The park is beautiful and really well themed. The portals or lands are amazing, and the queues are brilliant. The food was the best theme-park food we have ever had. The rides, however, do not live up to the high standard that the theming sets. As an example, the Battle at the Ministry queue (if you can call it a queue and not an experience on its own….) is the best ever, truly amazing, but the ride is just good, in our view not better than the “ride” part of Gringotts or Forbidden Journey. The same with Monsters and Mario, amazing queues with brilliant backstories but the rides are just good, not great. Again, this is just our opinion.

Should you visit this park? Absolutely yes! Would we go back again? Absolutely yes!


We took the first bus from Royal Pacific at 8:15am, it was supposed to run from 8am but arrived 15 minutes late and only had standing room left since the first stop is across the road at Sapphire Falls. My advice would be to just walk across the road and wait for the first bus at Sapphire Falls. On day 2, there was a stretched (double) bus at 7:55am but it was also full and only had standing room available. The ride to Epic takes between 12-15 minutes and we were in the rope drop crowd after security by 8:45am.

The bus drop-off is close to the entrance and the music playing up to the entrance was great. As Universal resorts guests, you once again get an extra hour early-entry at 9am. We were halfway between the security and main portal in a massive crowd on the left side where the Nintendo and Dark Universe crowds waited. The HP crowd waits on the right side, but this portal is not officially part of early entry. The gates opened early, and then Team members walk you up to the respective portals. They make this fun whilst managing an eager crowd.



We decided to do as many rides without Express as possible before using the one-time-per-ride Express Pass (this is currently the only type of Express Pass available at Epic) As such, we followed the biggest crowd to Nintendo as both Mario and Mine Cart have the longest wait times on average for the rest of the day.

As mentioned, the portal entrances are amazing, so well themed and so many detials to check out. Our first ride at Nintendo was Mario and this queue is brilliant. The ride is fun and unique and takes a little bit to get used to. We were on this ride in about 20 minutes. Next was Mine Cart which was our favorite ride in this portal. Great fun with excellent theming on the ride and tracks. The 3rd ride in Nintendo is Yoshi’s but this was closed for both days we were there. The loud music, color explosion and constant movement of all the elements in this portal is overwhelming but great fun.



Next up was Dark Universe. Another amazingly themed portal with an excellent soundtrack. There are 2 rides here, Curse of the Werewolf and Monsters Unchained. Werewolf is a very fun coaster ride, and Monsters has the second best queue of all in Epic. I would highly recommend both and we did both rides multiple times as the wait times were always short and we had an Express Pass as well.

Then on to Berk, or rather: How To Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk. This was our favorite portal and hosts our favorite ride in Epic: Hiccup’s Wing Gliders. The theming here is once again next level, the characters are out and in full character all the time and it also has the best character meet in all of Orlando which is called “Meet Toothless and Friends”. The show here is called “The Untrainable Dragon” and is the best show in Epic. The other rides here are Dragon Racer’s Rally and Fyre Drill, both are amazing. There is also a kids’ playground called Viking Training Camp. We waited around 40min in total for all the rides then used Express to do them again (Rally does not offer an Express lane). At the end of the night, we went back to Berk and did Hiccup’s multiple times as a walk-on.



Our next portal was The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Ministery of Magic. Yet another jaw dropping themed portal with loads of amazing detials. By the time we got here, the Battle at the Ministry ride was over 120-minutes standby so we used our Express and was done with the ride in 15 minutes from start to finish. As per my comments above, this must be the best queue for any attraction or ride in the world. Pictures and words cannot describe it. In my view, the “ride” part of this attraction is good but not mind-blowing. The show in this portal is called “Le Cirque Arcanus” and is also cool. A magical visit well worth the time to experience this part of the park.




Finally, we went to the center of the park to explore Celestial Park. We loved Stardust Racers as it is a proper high-speed coaster with loads of airtime and twists & turns. The excellent ride makes up for a lack of theming in the queue. The other ride in this section is Constellation Carousel which we did at night as a final ride. Again, this was themed to perfection.

We had lunch after visiting Berk and before going to the Ministry around 1:30pm. Lunch was at the Blue Dragon, and it was excellent. Great food and great service. We had the chicken wings and calamari.

So, after completing all the portals, we went back to the ones where we still hadn’t used our Express or wanted to ride something again. In Nintendo we rode Mario and Mine Cart again, in Dark Universe we rode Werewolf multiple times and Monsters again and in Berk we rode Hiccup’s multiple times when the wait dropped to under 15 minutes as mentioned before.

By this time, the sun was setting, and the park became even more beautiful, really a must do if you can spend a full day there. Battle at the Ministry dropped to 40 minutes, so we decided to do that again and the actual wait time was only 20 minutes. Next we used Express at Stardust since we wanted to do this at night, and it was spectacular! They don’t light up the track but only the ride vehicles so that it looks like a comet flying through space.



We watched the fountain show after that, then visited each portal again to photograph it at night. Some amazing sights which were enhanced by the holiday decorations. Our last ride was the carousel. After that we watched the closing ceremony at the front of the park’s main entrance where all the portals sync to main entry portal.









We were out of the park at 10:10pm meaning we spent a full day from rope drop to close in this park. In my opinion, if you have Express, you don’t need 2 full days to experience it all. Note that we visited during the 2 middle weeks of November, which supposedly is a slower time in this very busy holiday stretch.

More EPIC pic in the next post....

 

[Bennie1976]

Some additional Day 3 EPIC pics:

 

[Bennie1976]

Day 4

This was our second Epic Universe day. When we booked this trip, we weren’t sure how much time we needed in Epic and didn’t want to miss out on anything, so we booked the additional day.

We rope dropped the park yet again and due to the bus arriving 20 min earlier than day 1, we were at the gate by 8:10am. Same walk-in procedure from the Team members and we were outside our first portal by 8:50am



Today we started with Mine Cart and we were one of the first 20 people on the ride. Next, we went to Dark Universe to ride Werewolf as a walk-on. I think we rode it a couple of times.

We then went to Berk to meet Toothless. We waited nearly 40 minutes for this unique and memorable experience. Other dragons and characters also interacted with guests in the queue from time to time but Toothless was the star! There is no Express for this, so could be something to rope drop if this is important to you. We rode our favorite Hiccup’s Wing Gliders a couple of times and then did Stardust Racers for the last time.







We had lunch at Pizza Moon. The food and service were top notch once again.



After lunch we decided to exit the park via the Helios hotel as there was nothing else we wanted to do again or were prepared to wait for more than 30 minutes to ride. We explored this magnificent hotel lobby with a beautiful Christmas tree and then caught an Uber back to Royal Pacific where we had checked out before going to Epic and had stored our luggage. We then took an Uber from there to the Beach Club where the Disney part of this trip would start.



Final thoughts on Universal Studios:

We love the Universal Studios parks and when our son became a teen, these became our favorite parks as we have more fun here than anywhere else. We also love the ease of use at Universal where you can walk to the parks from your resort, don’t have to pre-book any rides, don’t have to spend your day on your phone, get a full hour of early entry and generally spend less money for more fun. We call these the “stress-free-and-fun parks”. We really enjoyed Epic and still enjoy the 2 legacy parks. We think Volcano Bay is the best water park in Orlando by far. We will return to all 4 again!

Our Top 3 rides:

• Hagrid’s
• VelociCoaster
• Hiccup’s Wing Gliders

Next up: WDW