FRIDAY MAY 2ND
As always we slept amzingly well, and we knew we could sleep late as our day at Epic wouldn`t be an early one, so we planned to just sleep as long as we could. Down side of being early birds, well me more than Tom is that I was still awake before it got light. So, I went through to the sitting room and read my book for a time and poured myself a pineapple juice I was glad we had bought some for the fridge, very refreshing.
Eventually I heard sleeping beauty rumbling around so, I got showered and dressed while Tom "thought about getting up". He does like to take it easy in the mornings and today especially we were in no rush to get anywhere. We didn`t plan to get to Epic till after 11am, we fancied waiting till most folks had already gone in, so after breakfast we had planned to catch up with a couple of folks who were back at work today before we headed over there.
Nicolette who is the Concierge manager came up to see us this morning, so after chatting for a time we said we were going to Epic, she was suddenly horrified thinking she had held us up, but she was relieved after we told her our plan to go late. She is a lovely girl who is doing an amazing job as manager here and so easy to talk to, we appreciated her taking the time to come chat to us.
Eventually we went back to get our stuff from our room before heading down to get the bus, which causes some hilarity from our friends who think it`s hilarious I was finally travelling by bus....I sent my very, very good friend Felicity a quick email with a picture of us on the bus and she replied to me with this!!!!
And she asked where my sparkly tiara was, well, long story with that one 
I honestly think I get an unwarranted bad rap for not wanting to travel on buses!!!!
(ok, It might be a touch warranted)
The buses are very regular and run constantly, RP shares a bus with Sapphire and they are picked up first, we waited the grand total of 35 seconds for this bus to arrive and there was one almost directly behind it too, one of the managers said they were always as regular which is good to know, I don`t think I`ve ever heard anyone complain about the bus service to the parks and beyond.
You walk all the way past the pool and convention area, I usually say head down past where Tchoup Chop used to be, but so many folks don`t know that place was ever there now, amazing restaurant that is sadly missed.
You also get the bus here for Volcano Bay and to the two original parks, they are well signed as to where they are going so no worries of getting on the right bus.
I`m not quite sure why this picture quality is so poor, maybe the light on the bus, but it is very grainy, however it is the only proof I have we did actually take the bus!!
We would however Uber home tonight.
The buses were very decent, efficient, clean with plenty of seating and seemingly almost every kid had a Mario item adorned on them, we were already in the minority it seems.
The bus takes only about 10-15 minutes max to get to Epic, so it`s not a long journey at all and for some of the road they have their own dedicated bus lane, but it`s an easy and short journey.
We did however have the "Disney" family sitting behind us, as we got closer you can see the back walls of one of the areas, I think it was Mario area, the mother complained that Disney would never let you see the backstage area, Disney would have that disguised in some way, Disney does things like that better....
Eventually I switched off and when we got off the bus another woman nudged Tom and said, I bet you wanted to tell Minnie Mouse to go back to Disney then, because she wanted to lol....how true!!
It had been a long wait for this park to open for all of us, but they do say some things are worth waiting for and we were sure this would be just fabulous.
We had watched it progress through the internet and we had gone up on the Orlando Eye several times to see the changes along the way, some pictures below of the changes throughout the last few years.
September 2019
May 2022
MAY 2023
Only one of the value hotels had gone up by this point and Helios construction hadn`t even started yet. It was hard to imagine they`d be ready for May 2025 which hadn`t been publicly announced at that point from memory, but Universal do tend to be swift when it comes to projects so we knew it would be ready.
But, back to today and the drop off area is incredibly close to the entrance, it`s ridiculously close being honest, unlike the parking lot in which you could end up walking forever before you even got near the entrance!
You don`t need directions here, just follow the crowd although it certainly wasn`t crowded 
We got on the bus around 11 and it was just after 11.15 as we got to the main entrance, they only had one side open, we knew numbers were limited during technical rehearsal, but even so we expected it to be a little busier but they only had one side of turnstiles open and we were already excited to see this new and beautiful looking park.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day, hot, sunny and although we had heard of a complete lack of shade inside the park we were still incredibly excited to get in and start enjoying the parts of the park we were interested in, which was precisely about half.
The Chronos is supposed to be a huge machine that powers the park and through it you enter into Celestial Park which is a world of it`s own between all the other impressive worlds within Epic, WWoHP Ministry of Magic, Super Nintendo World, Isle of Berk, How to Train your Dragon and what I expected would be our favourite, Dark Universe.
Everything is completely beautiful and it helped it was such a gorgeous day, it all looked stunning, the light and colours blended so well together and it was just, well, incredible!!!!
Once inside you are greeted by the statue of Luna who is the Goddess of the Moon and rises above a fountain pool and solarium in the background. She is directly opposite Apollo who is the God of the Sun and sits in front of Helios Grand Hotel so they compliment everything that is depicted in the park with the mix of sun and moon, you can`t have one without the other. Apollo rules the park during the day, handing the mantle over to Luna after dark
This is fully depicted in the night show where at sunset Apollo propels a fiery arrow that contains the power of light all the way over to Luna who now controls the park and watches over it during dark hours.
This will signal the start of a spectacular water night time show with lights and music in the pool throughout the central Celestial Park area. I have heard it will be spectacular to see.
We took to our right as we walk in and you are in shopping delight, not that we wanted to spend a lot of time in these stores, we aren`t huge on merchandise, but we had a quick glance around and yes, the stores have been done very well, but they`re just stores all the same and not why we were there today.
Sensory Emporium encompasses Lens Flare where you can get your Photo Pass pictures and North Star Wintry Wonders are nicely themed and there is a whole back story as to characters around Celestial Park including Vincent Various who was an extraordinary explorer who converted his workshop into these unique stores. It has the same detail that Port of Entry has in IOA and filled with detailed and entertaining history.
This was a really nice little area and as you`d expect from UOR the detail had been exquisitely constructed and I think we`ll need many visits to even begin to take it all in and we didn`t even try today, this visit was all about enjoying the park and all it offered not capturing everything, we really spent a lot of time not taking pictures which is quite unusual for us as most of you know, but we had waited a long time to experience this park.
We didn`t explore Celestial Park as much as we should have, but there`s always next time, however the Atlantic Restaurant looked lovely and we have since had friends and my nephew and his wife tell us how lovely it was, only one was disappointed and I don`t blame her as it sounded like they had an off night when they went. My nephew said they much preferred the Blue Dragon Pan Asian restaurant to this, they only came back to the UK a week or so ago and they loved it.
What we think of Isle Of Berk coming right up!!!
back klacey
glad to hear you`re having a nice trip to PB, always nice to celebrate a birthday and what a lovely place to be. Yes, the pools are nice there but like you, I do still prefer RP, maybe next trip you`ll be back there.
so they`re too blurry to post. 
