Universal Epic Universe (South Expansion Complex) - Opens May 22 2025

[AidenRodriguez731]

Berk's most egregious sightlines in order:

1. Untrainable Dragon Theater (the most preventable)
2. Stardust Racers
3. Helios Grand Hotel
4. Parking lot seen from theater entrance plaza (should have been fixed with dirt mound and trees)
5. Backside of Celestial Park Mexican/Italian restaurant (painting it go away green and having trees in front isn't enough)

Just watched a POV of the coaster where you can full on see a white wall with fake moss installed on one side and just not the other. It’s so weird looking. You have to think what was going through their mind to get so close to an idea and then just stop half way

 

[Tom Morrow]

The sightlines in the back of Dark Universe also need to be fixed. To the left of Werewolf's queue, you can very, very clearly see backstage and the backside of a large building. I'm not sure which one it is. Between Burning Blade and Monsters, you can see through to backstage, and there's parts of the Monsters queue (especially one bafflingly gaping open view through an emergency exit) where you can see all the way to the Kirkman Road extension.

They have a month and a half to assess these things and plant as many trees as they can, and I hope they do it. I know some things won't be great until everything fully grows in, but additions will help. Seeing stuff like the Helios hotel from within lands is debatable. Seeing backstage buildings from within the park is bad but not always avoidable. Seeing outside of the park completely however, from ground level, is inexcusable.

 

[celluloid]

Just slap the ingen logo on it and call it a day.

Right? Ingen and some numbers.

But alas, theme parks are many personality tribes not always willing to play nicely.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

The sightlines in the back of Dark Universe also need to be fixed. To the left of Werewolf's queue, you can very, very clearly see backstage and the backside of a large building. I'm not sure which one it is. Between Burning Blade and Monsters, you can see through to backstage, and there's parts of the Monsters queue (especially one bafflingly gaping open view through an emergency exit) where you can see all the way to the Kirkman Road extension.

They have a month and a half to assess these things and plant as many trees as they can, and I hope they do it. I know some things won't be great until everything fully grows in, but additions will help. Seeing stuff like the Helios hotel from within lands is debatable. Seeing backstage buildings from within the park is bad but not always avoidable. Seeing outside of the park completely however, from ground level, is inexcusable.

They kind of did the same thing with the Monsters building, they painted the side visible from the queue to look like stone, simple but it works, the side visible from Helios is just a big painted wall, I think the same stone faux painting, or a faux painting that blends with the Helios look would be infinitely better.

Edited to add this is pure nitpicking… overall I think the park looks great, it’s just odd they went to such extremes in some areas to make them look absolutely incredible and then did next to nothing in other areas, I guess you spend what you have where it’ll make the biggest impact, just feels like penny pinching in some areas though.

 

[Jrb1979]

Watching different videos most people will probably not notice or care.

 

[lazyboy97o]

View attachment 852012

Why, once you're in the queue, and the placemaking puts one in the wizarding world, is their a sign advertising the name of the attraction? Midway Mania does the same thing by using "Toy Story" on the fake game boxes.

Also, funny that if there's an emergency and you're looking to run out of the building, there are exit signs pointing away from the very clearly visible outside. (Yes, it's probably a land-locked overflow queue there, but, in a real emergency, who isn't going to run out that side portal rather than head for the further-away entrance?)

Operational requirements. While they’ve generally been less conspicuous, all of the Wizarding World attractions do have a marquee with the full attraction name. The placement is also a bit of a game, allowing the overflow area to be immediately adjacent to the “real” entrance instead of further away. Once upon a time, there were also plans for other experiences that utilized the floo network. Being further back leaves some hope of returning to that concept.

Exit signs are also a combination of operational preference and realities. The preference is that guests be able to easily navigate back to the park. Even an exterior queue is going to have defined lanes that are code-wise treated as being equivalent to a wall and may put people further away from an actual open area. In practice, the reason in places like theaters and airplanes they tell you to look for the nearest exit is because people default to returning the way they entered. This is even reflected in code requirements. In this case, you wouldn’t want people heading to the exterior queue and then backtracking because they are trying to get to the nearby main entrance.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Watching different videos most people will probably not notice or care.

A lot of people are noticing and do care. Let's not be dismissive and instead push for Universal to try to make their brand new theme park as good as it can be.

 

[Jrb1979]

A lot of people are noticing and do care. Let's not be dismissive and instead push for Universal to try to make their brand new theme park as good as it can be.

I'm not being dismissive. I also never expected Epic to be Disney level. What we got is an amazing upgrade to Orlando's best park in IOA.

We got 2 of the best dark rides in the US, an amazing world-class coaster and 4 immersive lands.

Too many of you are looking for perfection

 

[Tom Morrow]

I'm not being dismissive. I also never expected Epic to be Disney level. What we got is an amazing upgrade to Orlando's best park in IOA.

We got 2 of the best dark rides in the US, an amazing world-class coaster and 4 immersive lands.

Too many of you are looking for perfection

I get it, but also being able to see outside of the park completely, all the way to public property, is an easy bar that should have been met for a park that was promising total immersion.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

The sightlines in the back of Dark Universe also need to be fixed. To the left of Werewolf's queue, you can very, very clearly see backstage and the backside of a large building. I'm not sure which one it is. Between Burning Blade and Monsters, you can see through to backstage, and there's parts of the Monsters queue (especially one bafflingly gaping open view through an emergency exit) where you can see all the way to the Kirkman Road extension.

They have a month and a half to assess these things and plant as many trees as they can, and I hope they do it. I know some things won't be great until everything fully grows in, but additions will help. Seeing stuff like the Helios hotel from within lands is debatable. Seeing backstage buildings from within the park is bad but not always avoidable. Seeing outside of the park completely however, from ground level, is inexcusable.

I don't think Berk's sightlines will look much better at night, but maybe Monsters' won't be so bad.

Not an excuse for what was built, but another reason to visit after the sun goes down.

 

[Tom Morrow]

I don't think Berk's sightlines will look much better at night, but maybe Monsters' won't be so bad.

Not an excuse for what was built, but another reason to visit after the sun goes down.

Monsters could be mostly fixed by just beefing up the existing treeline. The backside of the building (Oak and Star?) that you can see from between the village and Werewolf should also have had theming applied, but a thicker wall of trees would hide it better.

Berk, on the other hand, needed a berm hill surrounding it with trees on top of the berm. It's too late to do that, unfortunately.

 

[lazyboy97o]

They kind of did the same thing with the Monsters building, they painted the side visible from the queue to look like stone, simple but it works, the side visible from Helios is just a big painted wall, I think the same stone faux painting, or a faux painting that blends with the Helios look would be infinitely better.

Edited to add this is pure nitpicking… overall I think the park looks great, it’s just odd they went to such extremes in some areas to make them look absolutely incredible and then did next to nothing in other areas, I guess you spend what you have where it’ll make the biggest impact, just feels like penny pinching in some areas though.

Dark Universe probably went through the most chaotic development of all of the lands and never really settled down. Since the original building permits were issued it went from a dark ride, a massive show and a small outdoor walk through to a dark ride, a smaller show and a very small coaster and then to what actually opened. Frankenstein Manor is way too close to the entrance to the land. It should be a wienie further back with the show building even further back, beckoning guests deeper into the land with payoff being the big grand ride experience. Its location was an operational consideration, placing the big show in the back and the ride locked in place to control costs. The unfortunate result is a land that is poorly laid out and doesn’t really know where it wants you to go, with its E ticket too far forward, coaster nets in too many places and a weenie (Burning Blade Tabern) that pulls you towards not much of anything. Then you turn around and see the bare side Helios looming over it all.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Monsters could be mostly fixed by just beefing up the existing treeline. The backside of the building (Oak and Star?) that you can see from between the village and Werewolf should also have had theming applied, but a thicker wall of trees would hide it better.

Berk, on the other hand, needed a berm hill surrounding it with trees on top of the berm. It's too late to do that, unfortunately.

A few years of growth will definitely help, I’ve seen early pictures of DL where it looks horrible, now those areas are lush with landscaping and all the bad sight lines are just a distant memory.

I also wonder if future expansion plans play a role, if you plan on adding a ride in a decade it probably doesn’t make a ton of sense to spend a lot of money on a berm, landscaping, or theming just to tear it out in a few years.

 

[Tom Morrow]

A few years of growth will definitely help, I’ve seen early pictures of DL where it looks horrible, now those areas are lush with landscaping and all the bad sight lines are just a distant memory.

I also wonder if future expansion plans play a role, if you plan on adding a ride in a decade it probably doesn’t make a ton of sense to spend a lot of money on a berm, landscaping, or theming just to tear it out in a few years.

I'd have to disagree on the second part. "It'll look good in 10-20 years" is a bad excuse for it looking bad now, especially when considering how relatively cheap landscaping or even some themed divider walls would be.

Both Disneyland and Magic Kingdom definitely had this issue (and some of early Epcot based on photos - though I wasn't alive to see any of these), but the craft of immersion in a theme park has been expanded over decades as well as the expectations from guests.

 

[drkarcher22]

Yeah, it’s totally going into Epic instead of IoA.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Yeah, it’s totally going into Epic instead of IoA.

Correlation is not causation.

 

[DKampy]

I don’t have a full opinion on monsters unchained…. As I prefer to save any critiques until after I experience it…. But after seeing the video I have downgraded my expectation. .. as from that POV …it does not appear to be greater then Rise of the Resistance as some have hyped it to be

 

[celluloid]

They kind of did the same thing with the Monsters building, they painted the side visible from the queue to look like stone, simple but it works, the side visible from Helios is just a big painted wall, I think the same stone faux painting, or a faux painting that blends with the Helios look would be infinitely better.

Edited to add this is pure nitpicking… overall I think the park looks great, it’s just odd they went to such extremes in some areas to make them look absolutely incredible and then did next to nothing in other areas, I guess you spend what you have where it’ll make the biggest impact, just feels like penny pinching in some areas though.

Something to keep in mind :Some are oversights, some are safety and also, some are due to expansion pad and plot plans. No need to spend bhdgets on Trees and landscaping an area when in three years or less that site will be under prep work for construction of new attraction and require changing.

 

[UNCgolf]

Something to keep in mind :Some are oversights, some are safety and also, some are due to expansion pad and plot plans. No need to spend bhdgets on Trees and landscaping an area when in three years or less that site will be under prep work for construction of new attraction and require changing.

The problem is that there's no guarantee something is under construction in 3 years or less, especially if the current economic climate doesn't change. Neither Disney nor Universal often follow through with supposed Phase Bs.

I think it's very unlikely they start any major construction projects at EU anytime soon.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Something to keep in mind :Some are oversights, some are safety and also, some are due to expansion pad and plot plans. No need to spend bhdgets on Trees and landscaping an area when in three years or less that site will be under prep work for construction of new attraction and require changing.

Stop treating Universal with kid gloves. Stop acting like landscaping is expensive for a company this big and powerful. Again, “it will look better in 10-20 years when we add stuff” is a very poor excuse to not just add some more trees and basic thematic touches.