Universal's Epic Universe - News and Discussion

[Charade67]

It’s not showing blocked for me.

 

[Makmak]

It’s not showing blocked for me

Edited: I checked again and it’s open now. Weird.

 

[PrincessV]

Another day so far of decent - though not particularly insane for a new park IMO - wait times and I think this is maybe the normal pattern now. I’ve heard that BatM is still running at significantly reduced capacity when it’s running, which is ballooning its wait times. Every day it seems like most wait times drop a lot towards evening.

I’ll be visiting next week and have recalibrated both my expectations and my approach: I’m planning to give a custom Touring Plans plan a solid test, pounce on wait times I can handle, check out shops when wait times are too much for me, spend a bunch of QT spell casting in Wizarding Paris, try a new to me restaurant or two, and try to see Untrainable Dragon. If I’m feeling energetic, I may try to arrive early enough to eat lunch in Epic before making my rounds, but my plan is to stay until closing, so priority will be placed on reducing heat stress and fatigue and that may mean arriving later in the day. I’m still very excited, even if things haven’t been quite so glorious as they were the first couple days after opening!

 

[CAPSLOCK]

I think the location is a big part of why crowds drop so significantly in the evenings. It's much less conducive to an afternoon break than the other parks. This is exacerbated by shorter hours. People try to power through then Peter out.

 

[kassonvike]

Doing Epic twice next week during a 7 night stay on site. My plan for first Epic day is to do early entry and ignore BatM whether its open or not and do whatever else is open. Will get in line for BatM at end of evening an hour or so before close. Maybe earlier if it drops to 2 hours and the rest of the day has gone well as far as hitting other attractions. It does look like they have been setting BatM status to 'capacity' before park closing which I assume means at that point they don't let anyone else get in line. I think that has been happening 60 - 90 minutes before closing the last couple days.

 

[PrincessV]

I think the location is a big part of why crowds drop so significantly in the evenings. It's much less conducive to an afternoon break than the other parks. This is exacerbated by shorter hours. People try to power through then Peter out.

I agree. Arriving later in the day would be a no-brainer for me except that I’d really like to do both lunch and dinner in the park. I may toss a magazine into my day bag and linger a while if there are plenty of free tables!

 

[Lewisc]

Will get in line for BatM at end of evening an hour or so before close.

BatM has been closing for capacity an hour or so before park closing.

 

[GhostHost24]

Looks like they've added Dark Universe to early entry

https://www.universalorlando.com/web/en/gb/early-park-admission

 

[BorderTenny]

Yes!!
I need to get into better shape before going back.

That's too much work. Just have someone in your party who the TM's won't question their request to use the elevators. (Not that I think they're allowed to question). My DH has started using an ECV just to get around the parks, but is still mobile enough to handle queues on foot. He's fine going down stairs, but for going up we've started to look for the elevators and ask to use them. Unfortunately, that doesn't help me on the rides he doesn't do anymore.

 

[Keyser]

We are looking at visiting in early August, and kind of expect this to be our one-and-only trip to Universal (so we want to do what we can). With just 1 day at Epic Universe, I'm wondering how critical you would say each of these is going to be to making the most of our trip:
A) Early entry (i.e. do we need to limit ourselves to Universal hotels)?
B) Express Passes (i.e. is it worth something like $245 each extra for this? We could buy another day's ticket for less, if we had the time...)
C) Is there anything we should just plain skip (we do want to do the Ministry of Magic, though...)

We used to take a mid-afternoon break on Disney trips; that won't be an option here, but we should be OK to go all day as long as we plan ahead.

As an aside, what is up with the park hours getting reduced in the near future?!?!? Cutting 2 hours out of the park day (while I bet crowds stay just as heavy) seems kind of crazy. Or, is Universal one of those places that tends to expand operating hours as we get closer to the dates?

 

[fatmanatee]

Looks like they've added Dark Universe to early entry

https://www.universalorlando.com/web/en/gb/early-park-admission

Now we're cookin. Should help to spread out the crowds further.

 

[PrincessV]

So, Thrill Data has greatly increased its estimated total park capacity starting today - from what I’ve gathered elsewhere, it seems Epic released a bunch more multi-day tickets. At first glance, this is… alarming. If the park’s been struggling with a cap of 15K, how on earth can it manage 45K+?!

BUT so far, at least, those additional tickets don’t appear to be selling out, unlike the previous days so far. Yes, the cap today might be 47K+, but only 29% of those tickets - just under 14K - have actually been sold. And then there’s the question of how many multi-day ticket holders will use their Epic ticket on any given day? Nobody knows, not even Universal. So we’ve got a park that on any given day may or may not have enough staff and operational efficiency to handle the number of people who show up. It feels like a strange way to run a theme park, but what do I know?! It does make more sense to me that they’re being quite liberal with offering compensation when some days are particularly bad, though.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

So we’ve got a park that on any given day may or may not have enough staff and operational efficiency to handle the number of people who show up.

I think you're overthinking this a lot here. Only since the pandemic did we really have this concept of thinking about knowing exactly when this person was going to be there because then staffing levels would be adequate. Many industries ran off of not knowing just when a customer would show up prior to the pandemic when reservation systems became used en masse. Universal stayed away from that and seemingly still is alive and kicking

 

[Lewisc]

We are looking at visiting in early August, and kind of expect this to be our one-and-only trip to Universal (so we want to do what we can). With just 1 day at Epic Universe, I'm wondering how critical you would say each of these is going to be to making the most of our trip:
A) Early entry (i.e. do we need to limit ourselves to Universal hotels)?
B) Express Passes (i.e. is it worth something like $245 each extra for this? We could buy another day's ticket for less, if we had the time...)
C) Is there anything we should just plain skip (we do want to do the Ministry of Magic, though...)

We used to take a mid-afternoon break on Disney trips; that won't be an option here, but we should be OK to go all day as long as we plan ahead.

As an aside, what is up with the park hours getting reduced in the near future?!?!? Cutting 2 hours out of the park day (while I bet crowds stay just as heavy) seems kind of crazy. Or, is Universal one of those places that tends to expand operating hours as we get closer to the dates?

We don't know how weather will impact your day. We don't know about down time at the Ministry of Magic.

A second day is the best answer..Skipping Magic would also work.

You want to do almost everything in one day? Express pass definitely. Early Entry probably.

You already knew this. Exception. You hate roller coasters and plan on skipping half the rides.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

C) Is there anything we should just plain skip

Dragon Racers Rally

 

[Minnie1222]

We are looking at visiting in early August, and kind of expect this to be our one-and-only trip to Universal (so we want to do what we can). With just 1 day at Epic Universe, I'm wondering how critical you would say each of these is going to be to making the most of our trip:
A) Early entry (i.e. do we need to limit ourselves to Universal hotels)?
B) Express Passes (i.e. is it worth something like $245 each extra for this? We could buy another day's ticket for less, if we had the time...)
C) Is there anything we should just plain skip (we do want to do the Ministry of Magic, though...)

For one day, I would stay at Helios Grand for the proximity, use early entry, and buy Express Passes.

You don't have to skip anything if you have all 3 options above. More likely you'll get to ride each attraction multiple times.

If you don't like to get drenched, then skip the boat ride in Isle of Berk, or ride when there are no passengers in other boats.

 

[Minnie1222]

Dragon Racers Rally

Whaattt?
That is one of my favorite rides.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Whaattt?
That is one of my favorite rides.

Are you sure you’re not confusing it with Hiccup’s Wing Gliders?

 

[zavandor]

If you don't like to get drenched, then skip the boat ride in Isle of Berk, or ride when there are no passengers in other boats.

Why ride it without other guests? The fun should be in the "battle". Isn't everything visible from outside anyway? For the different point of view?

 

[CAPSLOCK]

That is one of my favorite rides.

Really? The one that lifts up and rotate? It's not bad per se, provided you can hit it with a 5min wait. But there is nothing unique or engaging about it. You go up, you rotate, you go back down.