ONE Day at Epic: Help with Early Entry!

[tigertides]

It is our first and likely last time with our family to epic universe with teenagers. Staying at Royal Pacific. I did purchase the express passes.

We want to take advantage of early admission for the first two hours

Mouse hacking says to just suck it up, and do Nintendo world

Disney tourist blog says they’ve tried this, and highly recommend monsters land. I do like this strategy, as it will be less stressful, and higher chance of low friction.

I also heard one of the shortcuts of going directly to Nintendo world has been closed

The reason to go during early entry is to save up our express passes for later in the evening. Any advice would be super helpful

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Both have their merits.

If you want to explore Nintendo world, it's nicest in the morning before the crowds and heat hit. That is true for Darkmoor also, plus the vibe is much better when it's shadowy in the mornings/evenings. If you want to do Curse of the Werewolf a few times, there's no wait in the early entry hour (no wait for Monsters Unchained either, but that rarely gets a significant wait except during storms).

For Ministry or Mine-Cart you'll want to be fairly near the front of early entry. For Darkmoor, you can stroll up much closer to the actual beginning of early entry (or even a few minutes after EE starts, when a bunch of the gate mass has already gotten in).

Have a plan B and C in your back pockets if you plan to do Mine-Cart or Ministry first, neither is particularly reliable in the morning. If neither Mine-Cart nor Mario Kart is open, pivot right out of Nintendo World (this happened both of my days which were months apart, so it's probably fairly common). Save Yoshi for later with your EP, once a day on Yoshi is generally enough.

Don't save your EP for too late, after 6:30pm or so you probably don't need it (except the carousel which has its longest waits at night).

FYI early entry is only 1 hour.

 

[tigertides]

This is most helpful

 

[bettertheangel]

I would highly recommend doing Super Nintendo World later in the day. We went to Epic twice in one week and found the waits were much more manageable later in the day. Everyone seems to head to SNW or Ministry of Magic early in the morning, so you'd be better off going to Darkmoor.

 

[Orlando_Dad]

With Express already in your pocket, I'd flip the usual advice and use early entry on the one thing Express helps least, and that's Nintendo World. Mario Kart and the Donkey Kong mine-cart coaster build the longest, slowest-moving lines in the park and they only get worse as the day heats up, so knock those out in the first hour while everyone else is still figuring out the land. Save Dark Universe for your Express later - those lines move totally fine with it, and the land honestly looks even better at dusk. One local tip: be at the turnstile tapping in the second early entry starts, don't linger in the entrance plaza.

 

[IzzyBella]

We had one day with early entry and express passes Easter weekend. We met Toothless first, and then went to Super Nintendo World and did the power-up band stuff for a while with little crowds. We planned to only ride each ride once, so we weren't prioritizing rides during early entry. We rode every ride through the day except Dragon Racer's Rally (no express pass). We saw the Wizarding World Show and had time for the Dragon show, but it was down for most of the day so we didn't see that one.

We sat down for lunch and spent time doing spells in the Wizarding World and had dinner at the Blue Dragon. It was an amazing one day!

 

[ofcabbagesandkings]

We stayed at Helios and even with that advantage, there is nothing that could induce me to join the sea of humanity headed to Nintendo World first thing in the morning. It looked absolutely miserable. Instead, enjoy an uncrowded Darkmoor, where you might manage several rides on the best ride in the park, Monsters Unchained, or head to Stardust and ride both sides, or, go to Berk and ride the dragon roller coaster which was my personal favorite coaster in the park. Or meet Toothless. Literally anything other than Nintendo World or the Harry Potter ride.

Save Nintendo land for sunset. There will be almost no lines for the games, and no hot sun beating down on you. You'll have no wait with the express passes at those times, versus morning or midday where you might still wait a while depending on how backed up the standby queue is. We even had dinner at Toadstool cafe and had no wait to be seated versus the lunch lines, and got our food quickly.