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

[Sir_Cliff]

MK now that EU is open...

View attachment 861505

Ah well, it was good while it lasted.

 

[Mike S]

Just wanted to add, I don’t think they hit their hiring goals for Epic.

Central Florida may have finally reached the tipping point where there simply aren’t enough people willing to work in the parks. Or, conversely, the people who are willing may be running into rehire restrictions from past employment that are keeping them out.

I’ll work Super Nintendo World for free. Just give me food and let me live there lol.

 

[Jrb1979]

IMO the biggest issue Universal faces is how to change the mindset of them being the add-on park. Most people stay at Disney and add 1-2 days for Universal. What Epic is supposed to do is flip that. Get people staying at Universal for 4-5 days and add on a couple of days at Disney.

Judging by the complaints of the way tickets were available, it feels like most want to only visit Epic and not the other parks.

If I'm Universal, after the newness wears off of Epic Universe, I'm putting out deals and promotions that are better and cheaper than what Disney offers. Try to convert guests who usually stay at Disney.

 

[Mike S]

IMO the biggest issue Universal faces is how to change the mindset of them being the add-on park. Most people stay at Disney and add 1-2 days for Universal. What Epic is supposed to do is flip that. Get people staying at Universal for 4-5 days and add on a couple of days at Disney.

Judging by the complaints of the way tickets were available, it feels like most want to only visit Epic and not the other parks.

If I'm Universal, after the newness wears off of Epic Universe, I'm putting out deals and promotions that are better and cheaper than what Disney offers. Try to convert guests who usually stay at Disney.

Also give USF a makeover. The rumors of Pokémon and Rockit replacement are a start.

 

[Agent H]

I’ll work Super Nintendo World for free. Just give me food and let me live there lol.

Me too. When I was there the team members were so enthusiastic and were clearly having a lot of fun.

 

[MrPromey]

That's what we're expecting. I think it's that people don't want to get wet.

That was my experience with my son.

The line was only about 15 minutes the day I tried to get him to do it. We waited in all of it up until loading when he actually started paying attention to what was going on with it and then noped out.

Completely anecdotal, of course but still a firsthand experience backing up your suspicion.

Kids these days! I'd have seen that at his age and it would have been a selling point on a hot day.

What confuses me is this is basically a better version of the ride at Legoland he was excited to do when he was six years younger.

 

[Andrew C]

Hagrid's now offers Express. Have we talked about this yet? lol

 

[Disney Analyst]

I didn't.

I'm a believer in a rising tide raises all ships. This will help WDW.

I agree, but only if Epic is growing the market.

If all Epic is doing is shifting existing attendance around… we get to guess at which parks will feel that shift. I still bet USF is the park, followed by AK.

 

[mkt]

I agree, but only if Epic is growing the market.

If all Epic is doing is shifting existing attendance around… we get to guess at which parks will feel that shift. I still bet USF is the park, followed by AK.

I don't disagree, it's been lingering in the back of my mind too.

With the overall price creep across Orlando and this year’s dip in international tourism, the risk of Epic just reshuffling attendance instead of expanding the pie feels very real.

 

[Andrew25]

Operationally, once the rides are running they work fine... but they are still learning in some aspects.

In terms of hiring, I still don't think UOR is where they want to be at. Was at Finnegan's a few weeks ago and they were running the place quite thin. Could have been the day I went, but I've had experience with UOR not running their parks efficiently.

This may be a little bit of a diversion, but looking at some of these operational issues that Epic has been having leads me to wonder what the opening months of Disney's Animal Kingdom were like.

That park opened with far fewer attractions and before the days of all these ticketing schemes aimed at limiting capacity, so watching some of the challenges Universal has faced makes we wonder how Animal Kingdom didn't absolutely collapse when people showed up to experience a new park with so few attractions. Is it just that memories have faded of those challenges? Was the technology more straightforward and thus reliability better? Or is there some kind of other mix of factors?

DAK benefited from having all the walkthrough exhibits to draw crowds without queues. Traditional parks are at the mercy of attraction reliability.

 

[Jrb1979]

IMO the Orlando market is tapped. There is a reason we have yet to get back to 2019 attendance levels. It's many factors that are the cause of it like price and some people have chosen other places and things to do. Example cruises.

 

[MrPromey]

This may be a little bit of a diversion, but looking at some of these operational issues that Epic has been having leads me to wonder what the opening months of Disney's Animal Kingdom were like.

That park opened with far fewer attractions and before the days of all these ticketing schemes aimed at limiting capacity, so watching some of the challenges Universal has faced makes we wonder how Animal Kingdom didn't absolutely collapse when people showed up to experience a new park with so few attractions. Is it just that memories have faded of those challenges? Was the technology more straightforward and thus reliability better? Or is there some kind of other mix of factors?

There certainly were a lot of people who felt there wasn't enough to do.

Much of that came from Disney, I guess, expecting the live animals to hold people's attention for longer than they did. In my personal experience, a disappointment was that the majority of the animal stuff was all gate-kept within a single attraction that had long lines - keep in mind that the Asia stuff like the tiger trek and bat experience weren't open at that point.

The train ride and conservation station were pretty big disappointments to a lot of people. Many expected both more to the ride experience itself and more to do when you got to the end of the ride.

The boat ride around the center of the park was a flop because people waited in long lines for what they thought was an entertainment ride in the vein of Jungle Cruise (but maybe with live animals) and it really wasn't much of anything. They'd planned to have someone on board with a small animal to talk about and show to add more to it but that never fully panned out. This was a poorly thought out experience in a park that didn't have a lot of official "attractions".

They tried to change the name from what it was to "water taxis" (and did some weird Radio Disney tie in) to better set guest expectations but that didn't work either since they only took you from one side of Oasis to the other in about six times what it would take to just walk it and if for some reason, after experiencing almost nothing on it going one way, you wanted to experience the other half for a return trip, you'd have to get off and get into another hour+ line. The two things to "experience" on it were some floating armor and sound effects meant to represent the anticipated beastly kingdom (there was a cave reported to have fire shooting out that I never experienced working) for one half and a single animatronic Dinosaur if you were on the opposite route.

The boat thing was a mess because they desperately needed the capacity but guest satisfaction for the experience was through the floor after how long people had to wait to do it so they ultimately closed it.

None of the guest-facing tech in the park was particularly ground-breaking, though. They had some problems with the safari (the major attraction) due to some issues with animals and the "track" but as far as I know, that didn't consistently affect capacity/up time.

The only attraction I recall having real technical issues was Countdown to Extinction (Dinosaur) which wasn't even new tech by the standards of the day since it was a clone of the years old Indy ride system and had little in the way of animatronics/sets.

They had huge problems with heat. I remember them giving out free cups of water at stations in various parts of the park in an effort to prevent guests from overheating.

Having said all that, this was the late 90's. Sites like this didn't even exist yet, Youtube was still almost a decade away and most people didn't have even dial-up internet access much less access to online reviews so there isn't much of a record of what that experience was like to look back on unless you were there for it.

For what it's worth, I still remember the opening of USO well before that, too which in many aspects was a disaster in its own way with attractions failing all over and them having inadequate covered queue space. A lot of people were really unhappy with MGM studios in the beginning too considering it to not be a full park compared to MK and Epcot and with basically only two major attractions that were both incredibly long but also had incredibly long waits.

In contrast, Epic is the first major park to open here in the era of social media and it has so much newness and ambition to it with tech and ops for what Universal is accustomed to. Thank goodness this is the third iteration of the Nintendo area or I feel like probably every interactive question mark block in that land would be down.

I really LOVED Monsters Unchained but I'm glad I got to experience it in preview because with so many advanced animatronics and so many effects and knowing how ambitious projects loose pieces over time (current state of Rise for instance), I kind of worry where this one will settle.

This attraction is remarkable to me because having ridden it a number of times, I realize how precise everything has to be for it to feel exactly like every scene is focused just on your vehicle and happening just for you despite having to reset and create that same experience for the vehicle right in front and behind you - just look at the troubles Disney's had with TBA and how spaced out everything is on that one to try doing the same thing and with this ride at Epic, it's basically packed from beginning to end with that sort of thing and literally no dead spaces (pun intended). I think this one is going to be a challenge to keep in A-mode the majority of the time as it gets more wear.

 

[TalkToEthan]

, Disney will always remain king.

Let’s not lose our heads over this……….

King Charles found out the hard way in 1649 that kings can be dethroned and their reigns can end at the hands of an “upstart” and a populace looking for something more promising

 

[Sir_Cliff]

Having said all that, this was the late 90's. Sites like this didn't even exist yet, Youtube was still almost a decade away and most people didn't have even dial-up internet access much less anyone looking for online reviews so there isn't much of a record of what that experience was like to look back on unless you were there for it.

For what it's worth, I still remember the opening of USO well before that, too which in many aspects was a disaster in its own way with attractions failing all over and them having inadequate covered queue space. A lot of people were really unhappy with MGM studios in the beginning too considering it to not be a full park compared to MK and Epcot and with basically only two major attractions that were both incredibly long but also had incredibly long waits.

In contrast, Epic is the first major park to open here in the era of social media and it has so much newness and ambition to it with tech and ops for what Universal is accustomed to. Thank goodness this is the third iteration of the Nintendo area or I feel like probably every interactive question mark block in that land would be down.

Thanks for this insight! I suspected that if we went back and looked at the opening of Animal Kingdom (and other parks), it would make the issues Universal are facing with Epic look less exceptional for a new park. My first visit to DAK was in January 1999 when crowds and heat weren't an issue, but without even the Asia section open it kind of felt like the theming was its main selling point as there wasn't that much to do as such. In that sense, it was kind of the Morocco Pavilion of parks!

As well it all not being as well-documented and shared among visitors, I guess something that may have spared Disney from the long lines of people seeking a refund was that many/most(?) were visiting it on a park-hopper or as part of a multi-day ticket. If you tired of your experience at DAK, you could just head over to one of the other three parks or, if you had a multi-day ticket, it was a tougher argument to get that one day of your ticket compensated. You also didn't have people buying expensive passes that only have value if you can actually get on the rides. So, I guess these aggressive ticketing strategies and up-charges that have become part and parcel of how the parks run these days make it harder for them to chalk up extensive downtimes to the usual operational challenges.

In a general sense, it seems both companies lack institutional memory that should prevent some issues like accounting for the heat only becoming apparent once new additions open. Another thing that one would hope comes out of this is that both Universal and Disney start taking attraction capacity more seriously.

 

[Tom Morrow]

This attraction is remarkable to me because having ridden it a number of times, I realize how precise everything has to be for it to feel exactly like every scene is focused just on your vehicle and happening just for you despite having to reset and create that same experience for the vehicle right in front and behind you - just look at the troubles Disney's had with TBA and how spaced out everything is on that one to try doing the same thing and with this ride at Epic, it's basically packed from beginning to end with that sort of thing and literally no dead spaces (pun intended). I think this one is going to be a challenge to keep in A-mode the majority of the time as it gets more wear.

Yeah, and when you consider that these show scenes are repeating every 7 seconds, its really worrisome that Monsters could start losing its wow factor piece by piece at a steady rate.

I hope they understand that the park is not strong enough without Monsters, Ministry, and Stardust Racers propping it up, and that all three of those experiences need to be as good as they can be.

 

[BrianLo]

Just a nice reminder that I started setting the bar more appropriately a full year ago. That UOR was never going to increase attendance 150% year one, two or even five.

I was using higher metrics a year ago though of 130-135% (2022 peak attendance). That was way too high, obviously.

I dialed back to 125% (of 2022), which is still in my mind quite good and maybe still overzealous. Epic just doesn’t have the capacity yet and the resort is softer year on year than expected. I still think 115% of 2022 figures might register as a tad disappointing. If that occurs the fault is definitely not Epic, rather the rest of the resort.

 

[rd805]

This may be a little bit of a diversion, but looking at some of these operational issues that Epic has been having leads me to wonder what the opening months of Disney's Animal Kingdom were like.

That park opened with far fewer attractions and before the days of all these ticketing schemes aimed at limiting capacity, so watching some of the challenges Universal has faced makes we wonder how Animal Kingdom didn't absolutely collapse when people showed up to experience a new park with so few attractions. Is it just that memories have faded of those challenges? Was the technology more straightforward and thus reliability better? Or is there some kind of other mix of factors?

It was a pretty empty park with few rides, so nobody really complained bc there wasn't much to do nor the crowds you were fighting with to do it!

 

[MrPromey]

Yeah, and when you consider that these show scenes are repeating every 7 seconds, its really worrisome that Monsters could start losing its wow factor piece by piece at a steady rate.

I hope they understand that the park is not strong enough without Monsters, Ministry, and Stardust Racers propping it up, and that all three of those experiences need to be as good as they can be.

It took me three rides to realize all the audio is coming through surround sound speakers built into the seats.

I was looking behind to catch how things like the Phantom did his leering lunge for one vehicle before immediately turning to appear to be ignoring the next one with no clue given to those people what would happen once they passed him and I noticed the Victoria animatronic right after giving her spiel to the vehicle directly behind us before she sends the power through Frank and I realized I couldn't hear her or the electric or him yelling in pain - all of which would have been experience-breaking due to the close proximity of vehicles to each other if they'd actually been ambient.

I could only see any of this because I'd chosen the end seat and was sticking my head out and ignoring what was happening in front of me to look back at all of that.

Things like the werewolf with two (or was it three?) different animatronics and the screen space really creates the feeling that character is following you even though the first one is already doing his thing for next car as soon as he's out of your view.

A whole lot of really clever work went into the pacing of all of this to make it mesh on an attraction that has omnimover-like operation and the fact that it is non-stop sensory action like that from start to finish (unlike say, Ministry that has a surprisingly large number of dead spaces where you're just passing tile walls to move from one show scene to the next)

Weirdly, I was hopeful for a breakdown or wheelchair access during one of my rides to see how they deal with a stop because unless they have some special programing for the action, that would ruin the immersion of the whole ride but it never happened in any of the 10 times we were on it.

 

[freediverdude]

Let’s not lose our heads over this……….

King Charles found out the hard way in 1649 that kings can be dethroned and their reigns can end at the hands of an “upstart” and a populace looking for something more promising

People with kids under 6 are probably always going to pick Magic Kingdom, Disney has that crowd locked in. But once the kids start getting older, I think we will see people switch over to Universal more and more.

Disney also has squandered the past decades of being a beloved US company with all the recent cuts and greed, and so they will have to compete as just another entertainment conglomerate.

 

[MrPromey]

People with kids under 6 are probably always going to pick Magic Kingdom, Disney has that crowd locked in. But once the kids start getting older, I think we will see people switch over to Universal more and more.

Disney also has squandered the past decades of being a beloved US company with all the recent cuts and greed, and so they will have to compete as just another entertainment conglomerate.

There's a reason that despite being mostly janky dated animatronics, Pirates is still a fan-favorite. Same with the simplicity of It's a Small World and Peter Pan's Flight.

I think Disney's put themselves in a position where in the future, they'll have to compete a lot harder to find and keep guests who aren't as tied to the nostalgia of their own early memories as people from generations before the current youngest one, possibly two.

Universal has had to reinvent large parts of their original Florida park a few times since they didn't have the luxury of that lock-in and are at a point where it's about time to do it again. I don't see Disney falling off a cliff but I think they're going to start to discover (if they haven't already) how costly some of their short term decisions over the last couple decades are going to be for them in the future when audiences with a more critical eye become a larger part of their guest base and they have to work harder to get them to keep coming, especially when many will hold no more real nostalgia for their offerings than they do for the competition's.

For this reason, I think the Epcot spine and TSI are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the conflict long-going fans with nostalgia that they spent human lifetimes cultivating will have with the changes they'll be making in coming years across all four parks to keep attracting new guests who basically hold almost nothing about the existing parks dear to them.