Universal's Epic Universe - News and Discussion

[Minnie1222]

Who thinks they park is ready for the holidays crowds? I am afraid it could be quite chaos.

No, they won't be ready! We've already taken three trips since May and progress is non-existent. Even with Express, it was normal to wait 45 to 60 minutes. Three months after the preview, we still got escorted out of the same attractions.

We're going back this December. I will report any changes.

 

[HopperFan]

No, they won't be ready! We've already taken three trips since May and progress is non-existent. Even with Express, it was normal to wait 45 to 60 minutes. Three months after the preview, we still got escorted out of the same attractions.

We're going back this December. I will report any changes.

After our trip with "only 12,000" allowed in we decided they have way too much to do to bring value to the ticket ........... and we were going to give them a year before we go back.

 

[CAPSLOCK]

Who thinks they park is ready for the holidays crowds? I am afraid it could be quite chaos.

They've been sold out (of single tickets, at least) for quite some time, hopefully they indeed capped it at some reasonable level.

There's no way they could handle adding it to APs yet, I think they'll need to go at least through spring break with multi-day Epic tickets and see how they handle that before APs would be feasible.

 

[Minnie1222]

After our trip with "only 12,000" allowed in we decided they have way too much to do to bring value to the ticket ........... and we were going to give them a year before we go back.

Believe it or not, the best trip we had was during the previews. We didn't get to see the two shows or ride Ministry, but at least the wait times for other rides were tolerable.

 

[PrincessV]

FWIW, Epic’s wait times right now range from 25-90 minutes, excepting BatM. This is totally in line with wait times at both IOA and US now, too. I fully understand not wanting to do long waits: I have a pretty low threshold for wait times, myself. But I check wait times fairly often, and I don’t see anything crazy on a regular basis. Yes to outlier bad days and weather issues, but overall, I don’t see anything at Epic I don’t see elsewhere.

 

[HopperFan]

Believe it or not, the best trip we had was during the previews. We didn't get to see the two shows or ride Ministry, but at least the wait times for other rides were tolerable.

We went in May.
Donkey Kong & Werewolf were closed.
HP Show closed halfway to use queue for Ministry
Went to Dragon Show for Dragon to get stuck in air so show stopped.
Ministry down for hours.
Monster Unchained was absolutely the best ride and we rode more than once.
Disappointed with several of the attractions.
We felt was more miss than hit. Sad because we were so excited for it.
Maybe next year ... but certainly hope they are ready to expand already.

 

[PetePanMan]

We are planning on doing a day (maybe 2) at Epic this December (first Week) but will also be back in late April.

We are conflicted right now as to whether it is better to wait until Spring to hopefully have more things ironed out and running more smoothly. Our concern however is that Spring may actually be even worse for wait times given reports of park to park tickets being available in 2026 (and AP?) and fact that there will be no resolution of key issues plaguing the park (I.e. low capacity rides, rain / weather delays on many rides, and too many people in park for number / type of attractions).

We will likely stay the course on going in December as we got some great rates at Helios Grand way back when reservations first opened (and the cost per night now are just crazy). Biggest concern with this plan is buying date based ticket now and then having bad weather. Any thoughts on risk of waiting to buy tickets until much closer to date (I.e. risk of selling out)?

 

[HopperFan]

We are planning on doing a day (maybe 2) at Epic this December (first Week) but will also be back in late April.

We are conflicted right now as to whether it is better to wait until Spring to hopefully have more things ironed out and running more smoothly. Our concern however is that Spring may actually be even worse for wait times given reports of park to park tickets being available in 2026 (and AP?) and fact that there will be no resolution of key issues plaguing the park (I.e. low capacity rides, rain / weather delays on many rides, and too many people in park for number / type of attractions).

We will likely stay the course on going in December as we got some great rates at Helios Grand way back when reservations first opened (and the cost per night now are just crazy). Biggest concern with this plan is buying date based ticket now and then having bad weather. Any thoughts on risk of waiting to buy tickets until much closer to date (I.e. risk of selling out)?

That is my fear at this point on our plan for waiting a year aka spring 2026. We have a full family trip in April. Disney is only plan at moment but just half the week. We could add UO. As far as Epic I mean some processes and mechanics can be working better by then but nothing new will be built yet ....... but crowds will def be bigger with the more flexible tickets. So will it be even worse. The only plus is we now know we will be skipping plenty of rides and put focus elsewhere.

 

[glamdring269]

Just wanted to leave a quick wrap up of our Epic day as I know some had asked how our plan worked out. Here goes.

Got on the bus from Portofino Bay to Epic just before 8. Wanted to be there earlyish for early entry but didn’t care quite as much since we did have Express Pass. The times listed next to rides reflect when we got off the ride.

- Mine cart 9:06 - used EP
- Bowser 9:31 - used EP
- Stardust 9:58 - saved EP for later
- Ministry - not open
- Werewolf 10:18 - saved EP for later (ended up not even using)
- Monsters 10:41 - used EP
- Ministry still down…
- Decided to do 11:35 Potter show now hoping Ministry would be up when we got out… magic does happen!
- Ministry 12:41
- Lunch
- Wing gliders 1:42

Back to hotel to recharge and dinner. Plan to head back to park, do some ride clean up and hopefully some repeats, and also just walk around to check everything out at night.

We got back to the park around 6:40 and booked it to Berk.

- Untrainable dragon show 7:00
- Dragon Racer’s Rally 7:50
- Stardust round 2 - ride went down for awhile when we were almost on. Decided to bail because we had already ridden but hoped to try again later so we could ride the other side.
- Monsters 8:51 - already used EP
- Yoshi 9:09 - used EP
- Bowser 9:32 - already used EP
- Stardust 9:58 - used EP

I’ve got some thoughts about the park itself but super tired and will share those tomorrow. Put simply for now, this park was amazing (today) but that theming… wow.