I'd like to offer a few comments about
Epic after my visit today.
I went to the Dockside bus stop pretty early and boarded the bus around 7:30am for today's early entry official start time of 9:00am. This bus was one of those articulated buses, of which I have not seen many at Universal Orlando.
I made it to the security queues shortly before 8:00am--failed to note the exact time, maybe 7:50 or thereabouts. There were a total of 16 walk-through metal detectors, starting from 1 at the far right. I went all the way over to the far left and there were about 14 people in front of me. A few minutes later, a security TM told us to split our queue in half, between stations 15 and 16, so that sped things up when security opened up around 8:15 am. I forget the wait at the ticket scanners, perhaps another 10-15 minutes. All guests were allowed into the front plaza of Celestial Park when the scanners got going, whether or not they had early entry. The Super Nintendo people went to a rope barrier on the left, and the people interested in BatM and/or Stardust Racers went to a rope barrier on the right. (Early entry is not really worthwhile for MU or Yoshi or the carousel, in my opinion, although Yoshi might be a close call.) I believe some people gambled and lost by queueing up for Mine Cart, which had operational problems and did not open until later in the morning, and when it did open it was 125 minutes or something....d'oh. Note that Mine Cart is not an early entry ride, but people seem to queue there anyway, same as BatM. Speaking of...
After waiting at the right-hand rope barrier until a little before 9:00am, TMs walked us up to MoM. Some guests split away to Stardust Racers. My plan to do BatM first thing went perfecto. We went straight through the MoM portal and into Battle at the Ministry and essentially walked all the way through to the boarding area. So far as I could tell, everything was working fine, and I was off the ride by about 9:40 am. Ultimately I ended up doing BatM twice and MU three times. The other stuff wasn't that important to me, but I did go on Yoshi, the carousel, and Mario Kart. This approach to early entry could easily have been a crash-and-burn if BatM had been delayed at beginning of day, but it all came together nicely.
A few quick tips--
(1) The invisible man razzes people in Darkmoor, so make sure to talk to him and take a picture. Also saw the roaming violinist in the evening; I think she also does pictures.
(2) The shortcut that used to be available just inside the Super Nintendo portal, to the right before the escalators, now has TMs stationed there pretty much all the time. I think they are limiting that alternate route to exit-only unless you obviously cannot use escalators.
(3) Saw meet-and-greets in Super Nintendo for both Princess Peach and Luigi/Mario. Not sure what the schedule was, probably some way to look it up or you can ask a TM when you get there.
(4) At the Cosme Acajor wand shop in the Wizarding World, I did see the proprietor herself appear and talk to people about her wand offerings. Again, not sure if she appears on any set schedule, but anyone (esp. kids) in the market for a wand might want to look into it.