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

[Agent H]

You know for all the complaining I’ve done I still really like epic universe. Super Nintendo world is amazing (even if the donkey Kong coaster has terrible capacity) dark universe is a cool and different theme park land with an appropriately spooky atmosphere. The wizarding world of Harry Potter: ministry of magic is well detailed as the other Harry Potter lands and has the best capacity out of all of them. It’s cool that they wrote an original backstory based on original characters for the park. It gives major S.E.A vibes which I love. I guess what I’m trying to say is why can’t I like something and still criticize it? Why can’t I have nuanced opinions? Why is everything about talking a side? Why do we have to insult people and call them “pixie dusters” and “shills” for liking things we don’t? Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

 

[Jrb1979]

You know for all the complaining I’ve done I still really like epic universe. Super Nintendo world is amazing (even if the donkey Kong coaster has terrible capacity) dark universe is a cool and different theme park land with an appropriately spooky atmosphere. The wizarding world of Harry Potter: ministry of magic is well detailed as the other Harry Potter lands and has the best capacity out of all of them. It’s cool that they wrote an original backstory based on original characters for the park. It gives major S.E.A vibes which I love. I guess what I’m trying to say is why can’t I like something and still criticize it? Why can’t I have nuanced opinions? Why is everything about talking a side? Why do we have to insult people and call them “pixie dusters” and “shills” for liking things we don’t? Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

I have no issue with anyone praising and critizing the park. Epic does have some flaws with sightlines but it also has some amazing attractions.

My post is mainly about those who never have anything good to say about Epic Universe. There is a few that go out of their way find any negative issues with the park.

I personally want Epic to be a success. Not only for Universal to become a 4-5 day vacation but to push Disney to get back to what they were best at.

 

[Agent H]

I have no issue with anyone praising and critizing the park. Epic does have some flaws with sightlines but it also has some amazing attractions.

My post is mainly about those who never have anything good to say about Epic Universe. There is a few that go out of their way find any negative issues with the park.

I personally want Epic to be a success. Not only for Universal to become a 4-5 day vacation but to push Disney to get back to what they were best at.

I hope it’s a success. Honestly more for universal’s future than Disneys. This park is their magnum opus and I hope they don’t go back to cheap simulator rides after this. (Universal if you’re reading this please don’t retheme the Simpsons simulator to Pokémon. I would much rather you tear it out entirely)

 

[Agent H]

On an unrelated note does anyone have any guesses for what they will do (if anything) with the epic universe preview center? I expect it to last though the end of the year but after that who knows?

 

[sedati]

I don't think anyone quite said that, but it is a little embarrassing to print out a sign with such a basic grammatical error and bolt it to the entrance to one of your attractions before anyone notices, right?

It's not the end of the world, but this is exactly the stuff we all (rightly) pick at Disney for when it happens. If you're a Universal fan, I don't know why you would be happy for Disney to be kept on its toes about these kind of things but "eh, close enough" being good enough for Universal.

Universal aint about edutainment.

 

[Figments Friend]

How about that Epic Universe, huh…?

From my perspective, it looks pretty darn exciting to me….and I do not consider myself a ‘Universal Fan’ by any means.
But what I have been seeing thus far, and hearing from observers ( and NOT ‘vloggers’….cough…) is pretty great.

No Theme Park on the planet is perfect.
Every single one you can think of has its ‘issues’ or not-so-strong elements.
But as a entire package, and with several real strengths and outright knockouts…Epic is looking pretty EPIC to me.

Savor the great moments.
There is always room for improvements down the road.


-

 

[celluloid]

Pregnancy is a condition.
It is included physical condition, not disease.

People are really reaching and lacking understanding of vocabulary on that one.

Typos and stray marks will mostly get fixed in time. Sign making in major theme parks are, like many things, an over bureaucratic process.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

I've expressed several times in this thread that I hope EU is successful and that Berk will be the sleeper hit.

Any negativity from me is because I see negatives. I also see positives. It's not 100% one way or the other.

I can't remember if it was you or another poster who mentioned this earlier, but this is predominantly a WDW forum and it is logical that most people here will be evaluating this park using the same lens they have developed to evaluate Disney's parks. That, hopefully, doesn't result in blind tribalism, but it makes it hard to people to just suspend their attention to all the details of theme park design and operation that occupy all the other threads on this forum that, I would note, also involve more critique than praise of Disney. I feel I need to underline this last aspect as the point is not that Disney does everything perfectly or better than Universal.

The other issue is that I think the Epic boosters probably overshot the mark in hyping up this park prior to opening. It is notable that even the boosters have toned down the hyperbole around this being a game changer and how spectacular individual elements such as the Chronos or Celestial Park are going to be now that the park is essentially open. This is where I think it kind of crosses over with the first issue: there has been a lot of build-up online about this being a park that would equal and likely beat Disney at its own game. When people apply the same standards, though, and find aspects wanting, the response has been "no-one cares about that" or "Universal has a different approach to theme park design." So, it's hard not to feel like it has missed some kind of mark that I am not clear Universal ever set for themselves.

I think, in general, there would be less of a sense that people are being negative about the park if the pre-opening discussion was more clearly grounded in was announced and shown in the concept art.

 

[JT3000]

I can't remember if it was you or another poster who mentioned this earlier, but this is predominantly a WDW forum and it is logical that most people here will be evaluating this park using the same lens they have developed to evaluate Disney's parks. That, hopefully, doesn't result in blind tribalism, but it makes it hard to people to just suspend their attention to all the details of theme park design and operation that occupy all the other threads on this forum that, I would note, also involve more critique than praise of Disney. I feel I need to underline this last aspect as the point is not that Disney does everything perfectly or better than Universal.

The other issue is that I think the Epic boosters probably overshot the mark in hyping up this park prior to opening. It is notable that even the boosters have toned down the hyperbole around this being a game changer and how spectacular individual elements such as the Chronos or Celestial Park are going to be now that the park is essentially open. This is where I think it kind of crosses over with the first issue: there has been a lot of build-up online about this being a park that would equal and likely beat Disney at its own game. When people apply the same standards, though, and find aspects wanting, the response has been "no-one cares about that" or "Universal has a different approach to theme park design." So, it's hard not to feel like it has missed some kind of mark that I am not clear Universal ever set for themselves.

I think, in general, there would be less of a sense that people are being negative about the park if the pre-opening discussion was more clearly grounded in was announced and shown in the concept art.

Whether or not everyone here is viewing Universal through the same lense as Disney is highly debatable. While the discourse around WDW has taken a decidedly negative turn as of late, you've been around long enough to know that this forum (amongst many others like it) was traditionally all about praising Disney to the high heavens while simultaneously sneering at Universal's product, often without the person ever having visited it, simply because they were the competition. Perhaps this behavior is less prevalent than in the past, but it's not impossible for such biases to endure amongst a section of the forum's population, what with this still literally being a Disney fansite and all, hence the suspicion some of us carry when reading the constant nitpicking.

I've already addressed this previously in this thread, but I still don't understand this notion that people need to overcorrect for the park's pre-opening hype by being overtly negative now that we know what the finished product actually looks like. Universal didn't even set those expectations, random people online did, many of whom are just influencers and various other Disney gloom-and-doomers who don't even genuinely like Universal. No, Epic Universe isn't a "Disney killer," but it was also never supposed to be.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

Whether or not everyone here is viewing Universal through the same lense as Disney is highly debatable. While the discourse around WDW has taken a decidedly negative turn as of late, you've been around long enough to know that this forum (amongst many others like it) was traditionally all about praising Disney to the high heavens while simultaenously sneering at Universal's product, often without the person ever having visited it, simply because they were the competition. Perhaps this behavior is less prevalent than in the past, but it's not impossible for such biases to endure amongst a section of the forum's population, what with this still literally being a Disney fansite and all, hence the suspicion some of us carry when reading the constant nitpicking.

I've already addressed this previously in this thread, but I still don't understand this notion that people need to overcorrect for the park's pre-opening hype by being overtly negative now that we know what the finished product actually looks like. Universal didn't even set those expectations, random people online did, many of whom are just influencers and various other Disney gloom-and-doomers who don't even genuinely like Universal. No, Epic Universe isn't a "Disney killer," but it was also never supposed to be.

To be honest, I can't quite remember how this forum fit into the overall online Disney ecosystem back when I first joined (gulp) 23 years ago. I do go back to the alt.disney.disneyland and rec.arts.disney.parks era in the 1990s, and my memory of that time is significantly coloured by things such as Al Lutz's Promote Paul Pressler campaign, the talk of "declining by degrees", the Light Magic debacle, and the distinct negativity around DCA's announcement, construction, and opening. All of that fed into the Save Disney campaign which eventually forced the company's CEO to step down. I will say that the negativity around WDW (as far as I remember) began later once Pressler took control of the the parks division as a whole and into Iger's tenure, so it is possible this forum was a lot more positive.

All that is to say that I think Disney's online fan community has always had a very critical streak. I think you are right, though, that it has only really gathered steam among WDW fans more recently for various reasons. You are probably also right that there has been sneering at Universal by some Disney fans over that time. Maybe that naturally breeds some defensiveness.

That said, I don't think all of these critiques come from a need to overcorrect for the pre-opening hype. My point was not that Universal was making these statements, but that they were being made in this very thread in which we are participating. I can only speak for myself, but I honestly wondered if I was the only one not seeing what everyone else was apparently seeing when commenting on the concept art when I commented pre-opening rather than feeling the need to overcorrect for other people's praise of it. I also think it is kind of natural that people also now bring up the same sort of issues around theming they would if they were discussing a Disney park, both given how Epic has been discussed on here and the fact we are on a Disney theme park forum.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Why not quote and call out these people who refuse to go to Universal?

 

[MisterPenguin]

Pregnancy is a condition.

No one. Absolutely no one. Myself included, is saying that pregnancy is not a condition.

You lose comprehension and context points. You also get demerits for a blatant Straw Man.

The sign in question doesn't even use the word "pregnancy."

It called "Pregnant Mothers" a condition. Which is grammatically awful.

Yes, "Pregnant Mothers" are "pregnant." And "pregnancy" is a condition. I've said as much many times over when the likes of you try to leap to Uni's defense and make it sound like I'm not calling pregnancy a 'condition.'

So, take your bad faith rhetoric elsewhere.





Would this be a bad time to point out that the phrase "Pregnant Mothers" is a redundancy? If you're pregnant, you're a mother. Unless fathers are now carrying fetuses.

 

[JT3000]

No one. Absolutely no one. Myself included, is saying that pregnancy is not a condition.

You lose comprehension and context points. You also get demerits for a blatant Straw Man.

The sign in question doesn't even use the word "pregnancy."

It called "Pregnant Mothers" a condition. Which is grammatically awful.

Yes, "Pregnant Mothers" are "pregnant." And "pregnancy" is a condition. I've said as much many times over when the likes of you try to leap to Uni's defense and make it sound like I'm not calling pregnancy a 'condition.'

So, take your bad faith rhetoric elsewhere.





Would this be a bad time to point out that the phrase "Pregnant Mothers" is a redundancy? If you're pregnant, you're a mother. Unless fathers are now carrying fetuses.

Frankly this has to be one of the more ridiculous complaints I've seen yet. And no, "pregnant mothers" is not redundant, because you needn't be currently pregnant to be a mother. This should really go without saying.

Furthermore, pregnant mothers fall into that class of high risk people who should have enough common sense to not get on a ride regardless of whether or not a warning sign even mentions them, much less requiring a big linguistical debate.

 

[Rich Brownn]

Yes but in my mind it doesn’t obviously compare to anything Disney has built or will build.

Except it has more animatronics than Disney puts in theirs nowadays (plus I feel Victoria's movements were way more realistic than Tiana's flailing about - lol)

 

[Tom Morrow]

No one. Absolutely no one. Myself included, is saying that pregnancy is not a condition.

You lose comprehension and context points. You also get demerits for a blatant Straw Man.

The sign in question doesn't even use the word "pregnancy."

It called "Pregnant Mothers" a condition. Which is grammatically awful.

Yes, "Pregnant Mothers" are "pregnant." And "pregnancy" is a condition. I've said as much many times over when the likes of you try to leap to Uni's defense and make it sound like I'm not calling pregnancy a 'condition.'

So, take your bad faith rhetoric elsewhere.





Would this be a bad time to point out that the phrase "Pregnant Mothers" is a redundancy? If you're pregnant, you're a mother. Unless fathers are now carrying fetuses.

I think this is the first time I’ve seen you choose a hill to die on over something so inconsequential. The verbiage on the signs is passed through several layers of legal and PR scrutiny. It’s the same basic language all parks use on their signs. The typos will get fixed.

When we nitpick things like this, it helps to bury legitimate criticisms - which Epic has several legitimate issues - and tells the companies that they don’t have to “course-correct” because “people complain about literally everything”.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Except it has more animatronics than Disney puts in theirs nowadays (plus I feel Victoria's movements were way more realistic than Tiana's flailing about - lol)

It’s the same type of movements, but it makes sense for Victoria to be animated and dramatic with her movements in that moment, whereas it doesn’t for Tiana, so Tiana just feels like they’re over-indulging to demonstrate their tech.

 

[celluloid]

No one. Absolutely no one. Myself included, is saying that pregnancy is not a condition.

You lose comprehension and context points. You also get demerits for a blatant Straw Man.

The sign in question doesn't even use the word "pregnancy."

It called "Pregnant Mothers" a condition. Which is grammatically awful.

Yes, "Pregnant Mothers" are "pregnant." And "pregnancy" is a condition. I've said as much many times over when the likes of you try to leap to Uni's defense and make it sound like I'm not calling pregnancy a 'condition.'

So, take your bad faith rhetoric elsewhere.





Would this be a bad time to point out that the phrase "Pregnant Mothers" is a redundancy? If you're pregnant, you're a mother. Unless fathers are now carrying fetuses.

Being an expantanct mother or pregnant is a physicalogical condition of which someone is recommended not to ride.
You gotta take a step back dude.


And redundancy is a lot of what legal and safety is. Particularly when addressing as many languages while limited on publishing space. Moderation in all things. Go touch grass between turning pages of tje dictionary.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Frankly this has to be one of the more ridiculous complaints I've seen yet. And no, "pregnant mothers" is not redundant, because you needn't be currently pregnant to be a mother. This should really go without saying.

Furthermore, pregnant mothers fall into that class of high risk people who should have enough common sense to not get on a ride regardless of whether or not a warning sign even mentions them, much less requiring a big linguistical debate.

Being an expantanct mother or pregnant is a physicalogical condition of which someone is recommended not to ride.
You gotta take a step back dude.


And redundancy is a lot of what legal and safety is. Particularly when addressing as many languages while limited on publishing space. Moderation in all things. Go touch grass between turning pages of tje dictionary.

Please provide the quote from my post in which I claimed that pregnant women should get on the ride.

If you love that Straw Man so much, you should marry him.

 

[celluloid]

Please provide the quote from my post in which I claimed that pregnant women should get on the ride.

If you love that Straw Man so much, you should marry him.

It was to explain why it is fine written the way it is. Expectant or Pregnant Mothers was well explained to you by now that it was fine under the section it is in.
If you are claiming Straw Man so often on multiple posters posts, that many have told you how trivial it is, maybe, just maybe you don't even know what your point that does not matter is.

Dying on a hill of beans.

 

[Agent H]

I think this is the first time I’ve seen you choose a hill to die on over something so
Inconsequential. The verbiage on the signs is passed through several layers of legal and PR scrutiny. It’s the same basic language all parks use on their signs. The typos will get fixed.

When we nitpick things like this, it helps to bury legitimate criticisms - which Epic has several legitimate issues - and tells the companies that they don’t have to “course-correct” because “people complain about literally everything”.

I mean I would sincerely put bad grammar as my fourth biggest criticism.