Universal Epic Universe (South Expansion Complex) - Now Open!

[lazyboy97o]

There’s no way it’s that low, a 20,000 person capacity would put max annual attendance at 7.3 million, there’s no way they built a brand new park with half the capacity of their other parks.

My guess would be capacity goals of 30,000-35,000 a day, or about 12 million a year.

I’m not guessing. The world’s most expensive theme park has lousy capacity.

Visitation can exceed capacity. A theme park isn’t like a theater where there is a strict limit. People visit for partial days. Nor do theme parks have a legally defined capacity. It is based on attraction throughput, but the operator is free to exceed their program criteria.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

It’s gonna a long time until this park sniffs 12 mill anyways.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I’m not guessing. The world’s most expensive theme park has lousy capacity.

Visitation can exceed capacity. A theme park isn’t like a theater where there is a strict limit. People visit for partial days. Nor do theme parks have a legally defined capacity. It is based on attraction throughput, but the operator is free to exceed their program criteria.

If a company who runs theme parks that regularly see 10-11 million guests a year really designed a park for 7 million people they would have to be the worst ran company on the face of the planet. I don’t believe anyone could be that stupid.

Unless you’re strictly talking ride capacity which would be a totally different metric.

 

[celluloid]

There’s no way it’s that low, a 20,000 person capacity would put max annual attendance at 7.3 million, there’s no way they built a brand new park with half the capacity of their other parks.

My guess would be capacity goals of 30,000-35,000 a day, or about 12 million a year

To put it in perspective how low 20,000 attendance capacity is, Uni Hollywood is 25,500 capacity. A silly claim to think Epic is that low.

 

[celluloid]

I’m not guessing. The world’s most expensive theme park has lousy capacity.

Visitation can exceed capacity. A theme park isn’t like a theater where there is a strict limit. People visit for partial days. Nor do theme parks have a legally defined capacity. It is based on attraction throughput, but the operator is free to exceed their program criteria.

Yeah, we are talking about daily.park attendance bodies in park numbers which is what was being discussed when you quoted me. The discussion was about more guest paying to attend may be possible than Disney's non MK parks.

It's over 20,000 attendance capacity...by a lot.

 

[Coaster Lover]

The way Dolores Umbridge moves reminds me so much of Kylo Ren.

The transitions between screens and practical sets is flawless. I think this ride perfected it. I had to double take to see if it was actually an animatronic or screen.

I love the Death Eater animatronic that physically moves between the two scenes at the start of the ride... I don't know why, but it really help sell it...

 

[Agent H]

Once again I ask that anyone who wants to discuss spoilers for battle at the ministry hide them with a spoiler warning until the park opens. Please.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Some views from Grand Helios.
View attachment 853963View attachment 853964

This is really... not good. Oops, I mean, "smart budgeting".

 

[Stripes]

I hope the architects planned for some really good A/C behind those LED video walls.

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

This is really... not good. Oops, I mean, "smart budgeting".

Hey atleast the sight lines match the parks!
it’s giving you a preview of what you can see inside Berk, blank walls, trucks, and fences! Just like a REAL Viking village

 

[Bayou]

Hey atleast the sight lines match the parks!
it’s giving you a preview of what you can see inside Berk, blank walls, trucks, and fences! Just like a REAL Viking village

Its boaderline offensive that universal built from scratch and didn't get sightlines right

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

Its boaderline offensive that universal built from scratch and didn't get sightlines right

I think the worst part, for me, is that you can literally just see right through a stupid fence in the first 10 seconds of the ride straight into backstage where cars/trucks are commonly seen driving... when you're at the ground level in the coaster... like we ran out of the budget for some wooden fence at least? It's ridiculous what was "spare no expense" vs "ehhhh good enough probably?"

Like we build giant buildings here to replicate the streets of Paris even tho they are mostly empty... and here... eh screw it let's just put in some chainlink

 

[donsullivan]

This is really... not good. Oops, I mean, "smart budgeting".

It’s also shot from the hotel parking garage. Give it some time- they can just plant some trees that will fill that in over time.

 

[Tom Morrow]

It’s also shot from the hotel parking garage. Give it some time- they can just plant some trees that will fill that in over time.

I at first missed the first picture, which appears to be from a hotel room window or maybe a hallway window. For those tiny trees to do any significant blocking, it's going to take like two decades!

I promise I'm not trying to crap all over everything about Epic. A lot of it is great! But, there are some sights and views that are not just "less than ideal", but much more on the side of bafflingly poor decisions or perhaps very significant oversights and it does bring the overall product down a little bit.

I'm sure I'm going to once again get the excuse that "the average guest doesn't care about unsightly views", but I do think - yes, for the price of staying at Helios, I think they will care.

 

[lewisc]

It’s also shot from the hotel parking garage.

I'm sure I'm going to once again get the excuse that "the average guest doesn't care about unsightly views"

How many guests care about views from a parking garage? The average guests? Probably an extremely small group.

 

[Centauri Space Station]

How many guests care about views from a parking garage? The average guests? Probably an extremely small group.

The top image was taken from someones hotel room

 

[JT3000]

Hey atleast the sight lines match the parks!
it’s giving you a preview of what you can see inside Berk, blank walls, trucks, and fences! Just like a REAL Viking village

Remember what I said a few pages ago about some people being negative just for the sake of being negative? Well this is that. Yes, all you can see in Berk is blank walls, trucks and fences.

 

[lewisc]

The top image was taken from someones hotel room

How many guests do you think care about views from.a parking garage? You decided to share it.

Some hotel rooms have better views then others. Some camera angles can make a view look significantly better or worse then it looks in person.

I'm sure some rooms at Helios have less desirable views

 

[Sir_Cliff]

How many guests care about views from a parking garage? The average guests? Probably an extremely small group.

Must be honest and say that some backstage views from the parking garage aren't personally something that bothers me hugely, even if things like a berm are nice/tried and tested ways to minimise these issues.

In terms of room views, particularly with a tower like this I get that it is difficult to block all 'awkward' views. The main thing that sticks out to me is a point made earlier in this thread about the standards established long in the past that both Disney and Universal struggle to meet today. I am particularly thinking of the first essentially "in park" hotel at Disneyland Paris in 1992, where I'm sure there are carpark views and things of that nature, however they seem to have taken great care to consider the views of and from the park itself in its design. I am not sure either company would really take such care today and would probably just wave away these kinds of views as inevitable.

 

[lentesta]

Illuminating the bat signal for @lentesta . On his latest podcast he was talking about the capacity of the parks. I don't remember everything he said, but I think he was saying the 2 stage shows really need almost constant shows for the park to have decent capacity.

Offenders of low capacity attractions included Dragon Racer's Rally, Fyre Drill, and Minecart Madness.

@Andrew25 is also doing good work here.

Below is my spreadsheet with upper limits on per-hour ride capacity. Comments welcome. The items in beige are things I'm not sure about. The items in gray are calculated from the other columns:

I'm using a couple of different ways to determine park capacity.

The first one, shown above, first calculates hourly capacity. Then it uses ratios of "guests on rides and in line" to "everyone in the park" from one of Disney's internal documents for DLR, MK, MGM, and Epcot. That's the 46 to 60% range shown above, giving a max capacity of somewhere between 30K and 40K. (If we used the MK's ratio it'd be almost exactly in the middle - 35K guests at any time.)

The second way I'm doing it looks like this:

• Determine the avergage wait in line across the park that Universal's willing to accept (e.g., 30, 45, 60, 75 minutes)
• Figure out how many guests would need to be in lines for that to happen
• Use the same 46-60% ratios from above.

For example, with an average wait across the park of 66 minutes, and assuming the relative popularity shown below, the right hand side shows park numbers:

I used DAK's peak ride numbers from last Christmas as a guide. (For example, what was the upper limit on wait times at Adventurers Outpost - a character greeting? Kali River Rapids - a water ride? Kilimanjaro Safaris vs Flight of Passage, etc.)

In this method, the park's peak capacity is somewhere between 33K and 44K, with a middle around 38K.

I would be surprised if Universal's going to accept an average actual wait in line of more than 70 minutes. Ministry and Monsters don't seem reliable enough yet for that scenario.

So both calculations put park capacity in the 35K to 38K range at any given time of day.

The other big dependency here is the ride cycle time. I haven't been back to measure unload/load time, and some of those numbers were pretty bad. Hopefully that's something they can work down.