Universal's Epic Universe - News and Discussion

[Bibbidi_Boo]

This is one thing that I will give Universal HUGE kudos for. I didn't hear of any glitches, IT capacity issues, etc. yesterday. I went in later in the day and was able to navigate quickly and easily through the website.

By contrast, I've done a number of limited capacity events with the Mouse and it is usually challenging at best (and I'm being very generous with my description here). I can't imagine the nightmare that it would if Disney were opening a 5th gate.

I personally don't think the demand was that high.

 

[Lewisc]

You're right, except for Shades of Green, which is $188 a night

SoG, Dolphin, Swan and Swan Reserve are deluxe resorts. They get deluxe perks including evening magic and right to purchase LLPP.

The fact that you can book those resorts for about the price of a Disney moderate is irrelevant

 

[Minnie1222]

Tomorrow will be another test for Universal's IT. There will be many APs logging in. Competition will be fierce, especially for the opening week.

 

[fatmanatee]

A few things happening, from what I observed:

- 7 am drop took a lot of people by surprise, including me. I hadn't checked in online until at least an hour after this, which is when I discovered that tickets and hotel reservations were available. The benefit of a surprise drop is that there's no overload of the servers, which is often an issue for Disney (believe me, I've seen it over and over for runDisney registrations). Add to this that the drop happened before most of the country was awake, and it makes sense that there would be less of a chance of tech issues.
- Saw that Jenny Nicholson (who posted an extensive video about her experience on Galactic Starcruiser) was iffy on the whole situation with tickets. Basically she has the same complaint that I have, really wants to do more than one day, would like to do a package of two in the old parks and two in the new, maybe even three in the new, but that's not a possibility right now. She reserved a hotel stay but NO tickets, in the hopes that things open up a bit more. In any case, she's not alone in feeling annoyed about the restrictiveness of their ticketing plan right now. If you buy now, you're spending one day at EU and you're probably at least a little anxious about lines, maybe anxious about rides not working properly.
- With all that said, I did take a look at opening weekend, I'm tempted, but not ready to pull the trigger. Still seems more likely that I wait until Fall but who knows.

FWIW Helios is sold out for that weekend, other hotels still showing as available for me. AP sales tomorrow will be very interesting.

 

[Minnie1222]

This is one thing that I will give Universal HUGE kudos for. I didn't hear of any glitches, IT capacity issues, etc. yesterday. I went in later in the day and was able to navigate quickly and easily through the website.

Agreed! I was very impressed with their technology. Besides the ticket packages, I also "competed" for a Helios room during the Memorial weekend and not once did the system glitch on me.

Also wanted at add that the 10-minute card processing time mentioned earlier was at ~7:30 in the morning. When I returned later for another purchase, everything went through instantaneously.

 

[wdwrule]

Agreed! I was very impressed with their technology. Besides the ticket packages, I also "competed" for a Helios room during the Memorial weekend and not once did the system glitch on me.

Also wanted at add that the 10-minute card processing time mentioned earlier was at ~7:30 in the morning. When I returned later for another purchase, everything went through instantaneously.

Just curious if it’s better to purchase tickets through the app or on their website?

 

[Minnie1222]

For some reason, the App did not work for me yesterday morning. It wasn't frozen but the button to "explore tickets" for Epic was missing. I quickly switched to the website and was able to make a purchase.

With the AP tickets, I got an instructional email from Universal to make sure the passes are scanned/linked into the Wallet of the app for a quicker purchase.

Edited: I just checked the app and still don't see the option for Epic Universe. I don't know if this is just the problem of my device. I will use the website tomorrow.

 

[Minnie1222]

Is this what you all are seeing in the app?

 

[wdwrule]

View attachment 906305
Is this what you all are seeing in the app?

That’s what I’m seeing.

 

[Minnie1222]

That’s what I’m seeing.

Use the website tomorrow if the Epic button doesn't show!

 

[Minnie1222]

Good luck tomorrow! I'm going to bed and will check at midnight, 4:30, and of course 7 AM.

 

[Keladry84]

Tickets are on sale! I saw it as of about 4:08 am central, it may have been there earlier as I don’t think I was looking in the correct place. I got three tickets within the first week of opening for 156 each (very reasonable!) and was able to purchase all three in the same transaction (three different days, 1 person). There was a fifteen minute wait to access the website. Tickets and confirmation email showed up in my account about 15 minutes after purchase.

 

[tony67]

Tickets are on sale! I saw it as of about 4:08 am central, it may have been there earlier as I don’t think I was looking in the correct place. I got three tickets within the first week of opening for 156 each (very reasonable!) and was able to purchase all three in the same transaction (three different days, 1 person). There was a fifteen minute wait to access the website. Tickets and confirmation email showed up in my account about 15 minutes after purchase.

Wish they has said it will be this early - I'm in the queue now - glad I got up early - but I could have been up on time had they said something.

Update - in the queue and the message just updated

"1-Day Universal Epic Universe Ticket add-on for Passholders on Grand Opening Day (May 22, 2025) are currently unavailable."

So it looks like it started at 4AM this morning (the time of the initial message) and they updated it at 5:41 that they had no tickets for May 22nd.

 

[Keladry84]

Wish they has said it will be this early - I'm in the queue now - glad I got up early

I kept waking up randomly in the middle of the night, probably anticipation, so got lucky. My alarm for work goes off in one hour, so will be very tired tomorrow (or I guess it’s today already)

I hope you get the dates you want!

 

[Keladry84]

Update - in the queue and the message just updated

"1-Day Universal Epic Universe Ticket add-on for Passholders on Grand Opening Day (May 22, 2025) are currently unavailable."

Oh no! :/

 

[tony67]

I kept waking up randomly in the middle of the night, probably anticipation, so got lucky. My alarm for work goes off in one hour, so will be very tired tomorrow (or I guess it’s today already)

I hope you get the dates you want!

Thanks - Unfortunately it looks like that wont happen - was only going if I could get opening day.

Somewhat annoyed that I got no email and they started so much earlier than anticipated.

 

[tony67]

So - waited in the queue for 15 or so minutes and then got redirected to nowhere and the site is not working - I click buy now and I just get bounced back to the landing page.
This worked fine on Tuesday for the packages.
So they may be having issues - IDK

Trying again in an incognito window

 

[Charade67]

So - waited in the queue for 15 or so minutes and then got redirected to nowhere and the site is not working - I click buy now and I just get bounced back to the landing page.
This worked fine on Tuesday for the packages.
So they may be having issues - IDK

Trying again in an incognito window

The same thing is happening to me.

 

[tony67]

View attachment 906305
Is this what you all are seeing in the app?

This is what we see after waiting in the queue for tickets this AM - they we are bounced back to the launch page with the buy now button. Some people have gotten tickets. Seems like they may have broken it when they updated the message.

 

[Minnie1222]

Yikes! I didn't wake up at 4:30 like I had planned. In VQ now in the app.