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

[WDWFREAK53]

Not a fair comparison considering the very different budgets those two parks had. Would make more sense to compare to Shanghai Disneyland.

Key word, "domestic"

 

[MrPromey]

In the Monsters Unchained second pre-show, when Victoria says "... that wasn't us." Is she referring to the equipment shutting off - as in Dracula shut it off? Or is she saying that her 2.0 monster getting angry and smashing the equipment and her yelling at him isn't how they normally are?

It's definitely the former. If you watch the contained bat in the queue leading up to this area it laughs at one point and while she's talking, if you pay attention to the monitors that show Dracula, he's up to something.

 

[jrhwdw]

How EU gets away with closing at 9 is beyond me!!!!!!

 

[DavidDL]

We dedicated two days to this park on our most recent Orlando trip. I'm glad we did because there's no way we would have seen, done or tasted everything in just one.

That said, this park is not ready for the big time yet. Epic Universe looks like Disney but right now, it operates like Six Flags/Cedar Fair. Everything (including shows!) broke down on us at some point while we were in line, watching or riding them. This was in addition to uncontrollable things like inclement weather and fully controllable things, like rude and uninformed team members (which there was no shortage of).

It's weird because our one day at Disney was supposed to be the "sad" day (seeing so many things for the last time) but the Cast Members and day to day operations over at Disney World ended up making that one better than both days at Epic.

Monsters Unchained was the best thing about the park, though even after riding it 4 times, only one of our ride-throughs could be considered "passable" by show standards. Harry Potter's queue was excruciatingly boring after the Floo tunnel and initial atrium and honestly, we didn't think the ride was anything all that incredible. It definitely is not worth anything longer than an hour wait. We avoided spoilers for Potter (-and the other attractions) but walked away disappointed by the ride experience after hearing so many times from others how it was easily a "top 3 attraction in the world". Tower of Terror's ride vehicle on top of the Spider-Man tech from 1999 without 3D glasses is the best way to describe it. Though I easily prefer Spider-Man.

The biggest praise I can give this park is in it's food/dining areas. We ate just about everything over the course of our two days and everything except a single item or two was amazing. Also love the "walk in, grab a table, order right there on the phone, and they bring it to you" deal they had going on with so many quick-service locations. Never waited for a table or long for any of our food. More of this, please. Though even this didn't come without some challenges. At least two items we wanted were not able to be ordered on the app and when I went to place an order for them in person (as one Team Member said I should), we were told to then go and place an order for it on the app.. which we could not do because it was nowhere online or at the self-order kiosks available. Eventually, the Team Member (reluctantly) took our order for the item.

I was also surprised to see that reservations for 9:30pm were available online for Atlantic for our second day when I saw that the posted park closing time was 9pm. So I called Universal dining to confirm what was up with that and they told me not to worry because "Celestial Park and everything in it stays open 1 hour after park closing". That seemed to check out because on our first night, we noticed that the Carousel and Stardust Racers were in fact running and accepting Guests with a posted wait time until 10pm instead of 9. But come our second day, I get an e-mail saying my reservation had been changed last minute to 8:30pm? I went to Atlantic to ask what was up and they just said "Yeah the park closes at 9 so......." -and when I brought up my previous conversation with their dining line they just sort of shrugged it off like "Oh well".

So then I figured, maybe something special was happening in Celestial Park the night before? I asked a Team Member outside the Carousel what time they'd be closing tonight and they said "With the park, at 9pm". Come 9:30pm and guess what is still open? The Carousel and Stardust Racers. All this miscommunication and generally rude or aloof Team Members (like the ones who seemed to have no idea how to load Guests into the Harry Potter attraction - no wonder it's a 2 and half hour wait!) needs some adjustment because it made it hard to enjoy the day when you didn't even know what information was true or not.

Despite the park's best efforts to work against us, we did manage to do everything at least once over the course of our two days there. Except Mario Kart, which we have here in Hollywood and Yoshi's Adventure, which we were not interested in. Worst overall breakdown of all was Mine-Cart Madness when we were next to get on (we spent 2 hours waiting for it to come back up while audio about getting the "Golden Banana" looped endlessly in our ear) before the issue was finally fixed.. only for a thunderstorm to then roll into the area and keep us waiting even longer. Most embarrassing breakdown was probably the dragon puppet from the Untrainable Dragon show. First ride on Monsters Unchained was particularly rough, too, with next to no figures moving. Stardust Racers would've been a high point if it weren't for the TSA-style queue Universal seems to love so much these days (the kind where I get suspicious and questionable looks from Team Members "wanding" me because I had the audacity to want to keep my pants up for other Guests and wear a belt that day).

Anyways.. yeah. That's my rant. We were in town for Muppet*Vision 3D, DINOSAUR, etc. so of course we had to check Epic Universe out. But if anyone out there wants some unsolicited advice from me, it would be to wait before they work the kinks out of this park before visiting. Maybe even wait until Potter becomes and Express Pass option, someday, because I don't think it's worth your time, currently.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Unfortunately, Universal had to hire a lot of brand new team members to fill the need at Epic, and it shows. They’re not good and information and implementation of procedures is a mess.

That said, guest service is still an area where Disney absolutely beats Universal. The average Disney CM is pleasant. The average Universal TM is apathetic and rude. There are of course bad Disney CMs and great Universal TMs, but on average, you are more likely to have positive interactions with Disney CMs.

 

[gerarar]

 

[MisterPenguin]

How's their floor lighting doing?

 

[MisterPenguin]

How's their floor lighting doing?

Yes, it is humorous to ask about it.

But, in all seriousness, pre-opening birds-eye views of the park at night showed programming errors and banks of lights not working. Were these fixed? Are the concrete issues affecting in-pavement lights?

 

[DavidDL]

Unfortunately, Universal had to hire a lot of brand new team members to fill the need at Epic, and it shows. They’re not good and information and implementation of procedures is a mess.

That said, guest service is still an area where Disney absolutely beats Universal. The average Disney CM is pleasant. The average Universal TM is apathetic and rude. There are of course bad Disney CMs and great Universal TMs, but on average, you are more likely to have positive interactions with Disney CMs.

Definitely felt the inexperience with many of TMs at Epic. Did our best to keep our cool and those thoughts to ourselves and on here, though. Nothing we could've said would have improved our situation anyways given that we were leaving in a day. Didn't feel like tossing any kind of bad karma out there.

With as many issues as I have with some of the creative decisions being made over at Disney these days, there's no denying that their operations and CMs are (most of the time), the best. Sometimes it's easy to take for granted little things like the grouper position they have, which many other parks do not.

No joke, we had at least 5 memorable interactions with CMs across 3 totally separate locations within a span of 24 hours when it came to Disney. First was our conversation with Yeeha Bob (who in fairness is always a delight). But the next came at Animal Kingdom when my wife and I (totally doing something we knew we weren't supposed to), hopped under some DINOSAUR ropes to snap some photos of the statues in the extended queue that wasn't being utilized. A CM was waiting for us as we left and told us we needed to come with her. While we initially thought we were gonna have to break out the ol' "Thank goodness you're here, we got lost", it instead turned out that she was taking us to the front of the line because she could tell my wife and I were big fans of the attraction and could tell just by lookin' at us that we were here to experience it for the last time. We even got one of those fun little Carnotaurus trading cards they normally give to the kiddos out of it, too.

Next was a Disney College Program CM who noticed us taking all kinds of photos in Restaurant-osaurus. She shared her story with us, about how she was majoring in theme parks/tourism and how big of a Joe Rhode fan she was before escorting us around the restaurant and pointing out all sorts of little hidden details and secrets for us to make sure we had photos of, along with sharing some stories about them. To some she was just a janitor but for us, she transcended her role into something wonderful and memorable.

Finally, we had the Photopass gal who snapped our photos outside of Muppet*Vision 3D who you could just tell loved her job and taking photos of Guests in the area, as well as our server at the Sci-Fi Dine In who was absolutely hilarious and turned a simple meal into even better experience for us and everyone else in our "car".

Needless to say, every single one of them was sure to get a Guest compliment from us. Meanwhile over at Epic, we only ever even had one TM over the course of our two days there bother to ask how we were doing and it was the fellow checking our restraints just before getting onto Monsters Unchained. Shout out to them wherever they're at because something that small is something I actually remember given how rough our time was there. As a former CM myself, I understand that much of what goes wrong is out of their control. Still, at least one "I'm sorry" or "I understand how you feel" would have made a world of difference to us. Still, that never happened even once.

 

[Piebald]

I went 5/4 and I'm glad I did everything (except DK which seemed to only operate like for 10% of the day) but would agree it just seems like they're not ready. The rides are great, never saw a show, food wasn't bad (way way better than what the other UO parks offer) but honestly nothing mind blowing. Maybe Disney had Intel and never panicked and that's why they decided cool kid summer could combat epic lol

 

[DavidDL]

I went 5/4 and I'm glad I did everything (except DK which seemed to only operate like for 10% of the day) but would agree it just seems like they're not ready. The rides are great, never saw a show, food wasn't bad (way way better than what the other UO parks offer) but honestly nothing mind blowing. Maybe Disney had Intel and never panicked and that's why they decided cool kid summer could combat epic lol

I imagine Epic is phenomenal when firing on all cylinders. But I think you hit the nail on the head with your last statement for sure: Disney doesn't have anything to worry about with Epic's opening in it's current state. I'd bet by the time they get things running the way they should be and have a proper Guest experience going, WDW will already have it's slew of new attractions either well under construction or open already.

 

[DavidDL]

Sorry for the double post, but I just recalled one of the most "messed up" moments we witnessed at Epic Universe.

Some context: when the Dragon show broke down, we were handed a one time Express pass upon exiting for anything that wasn't DK or Potter. We decided to save it for a night time ride on Stardust Racers to close out our trip (we had ridden it once during the day already).

So we get there and there's hardly a line. Still, we decide we may as well skip what's there and use our one time Express pass. When we got to the merge point, the TM working there was like "Are you sure you want to use these? They're good until September and there's no line". We told him that we were aware but that we were flying back home tomorrow. I said, "Maybe you take those and hold on to 'em for us and make some magic for another party of two before they expire?" He nodded, agreeing and saying that was definitely a good idea and that he would.

Just then, another TM who was next to him and listening in (his superior, I imagine), stepped in and took the tickets from him and coldly stated, "No, I'll take those" before disposing of them.

I feel awful for that first TM. For a brief moment, he had a glimmer of happiness in his eyes when he realized he might be able to do something special for someone with his role at the park. Only for that to immediately be snatched away in front of all three of us. I was absolutely flabbergasted.

 

[disneylandtour]

It's been interesting to watch--and go to--Epic this year. Two months ago, the park was poised to be one of the premiere parks in the US. But it seems like the excitement has come and gone. Not everything working. Team member issues. Very hot. Some long lines and low capacity rides. The Potter area is still amazing--probably the best art directed land anywhere in the world. And Le Cirque Arcanus is top shelf. But there were months of technical rehearsals. It seems like things should be operating better by now, but not all team members seem fully trained and some of the rides still have issues, which is forgivable. It takes teams a while to get complex rides fully functional. I did enjoy my time there. But I really don't think about my visits to the park very much. When I compare this to the months of public excitement for Galaxy's Edge after it opened--even with out the full entertainment package at GE--I sorta wonder how did Epic not fully capture this moment? That's mostly what I'm wondering--where were the missteps, as this should've fully been Epic's summer, but a few weeks after opening, it doesn't feel that way.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Moving this to a more appropriate thread...

I think classifying the Monsters area as IP is a bit of a stretch as nobody has seen those movies in theaters unless they were born literally 100 years ago.

Universal Classic Monsters is definitely an IP. They've been trying to revive a Universal Monsters cinematic universe for the past few decades. Their other park uses this franchise quite openly. The Mummy Ride is supposed to be part of this franchise.

Recently..

• The Invisible Man February 28, 2020
• Renfield April 14, 2023
• The Last Voyage of the Demeter August 11, 2023
• Wolf Man January 17, 2025

It is by all definitions of an IP, an IP.

Universal Monsters - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Sir_Cliff]

It's been interesting to watch--and go to--Epic this year. Two months ago, the park was poised to be one of the premiere parks in the US. But it seems like the excitement has come and gone. Not everything working. Team member issues. Very hot. Some long lines and low capacity rides. The Potter area is still amazing--probably the best art directed land anywhere in the world. And Le Cirque Arcanus is top shelf. But there were months of technical rehearsals. It seems like things should be operating better by now, but not all team members seem fully trained and some of the rides still have issues, which is forgivable. It takes teams a while to get complex rides fully functional. I did enjoy my time there. But I really don't think about my visits to the park very much. When I compare this to the months of public excitement for Galaxy's Edge after it opened--even with out the full entertainment package at GE--I sorta wonder how did Epic not fully capture this moment? That's mostly what I'm wondering--where were the missteps, as this should've fully been Epic's summer, but a few weeks after opening, it doesn't feel that way.

Yeah, I have been cautious about posting this lest it comes as a criticism or raining on people's parade, but I also have the same impression that the pre-opening hype that suggested this was going to be a game changer has more or less dissipated by now. All the talk on the other forums that Disney was heading for disaster for not rushing a bunch of new additions to open against Epic also seems to have mostly gone quiet. That's not to say the park has been received poorly, more that it has been received more in line with what you would expect of a new theme park from Universal or Disney in the US rather than as a new revelation. Also notable that certain things like this being the Uni park that would finally permit decent nighttime fireworks or dragons flying overhead has all sort of been pushed off to "they're working on it..."

Again, I think the park has been well-received. I'm just not sure anyone is still suggesting it raises the bar for what a theme park can be. In that sense, it kind of reminds me of Volcano Bay which was supposed to be such an elevated version of a water park that it was basically a theme park. Then it opened and people mostly liked it, but it was a water park with plusses and minuses like they all have.

 

[Disney Analyst]

Yeah, I have been cautious about posting this lest it comes as a criticism or raining on people's parade, but I also have the same impression that the pre-opening hype that suggested this was going to be a game changer has more or less dissipated by now. All the talk on the other forums that Disney was heading for disaster for not rushing a bunch of new additions to open against Epic also seems to have mostly gone quiet. That's not to say the park has been received poorly, more that it has been received more in line with what you would expect of a new theme park from Universal or Disney in the US rather than as a new revelation. Also notable that certain things like this being the Uni park that would finally permit decent nighttime fireworks or dragons flying overhead has all sort of been pushed off to "they're working on it..."

Again, I think the park has been well-received. I'm just not sure anyone is still suggesting it raises the bar for what a theme park can be. In that sense, it kind of reminds me of Volcano Bay which was supposed to be such an elevated version of a water park that it was basically a theme park. Then it opened and people mostly liked it, but it was a water park with plusses and minuses like they all have.

I’ve been thinking this lately also, but didn’t want to bring it up.

The other forum dedicated to Universal, their Epic section was so active, and since opening it’s dead. None of my social feeds have anyone talking about it anymore …

Is this a symptom of our current society? Where people move on to the next thing super quickly?

Where did the hype go?

 

[Tom Morrow]

I think there's a lot of factors to consider.

One of them being that there were 2.5 months of previews, and a very significant number of people that were hyped about the park actually got to see it during that time. For the final few weeks, the park was essentially already open, with anyone being able to buy a ticket.

Two, there wasn't really like a big IP to draw people in in the sense that it was something that hadn't been done before. This was the third Super Nintendo World to open, and while a new area, it was still the third Potter area in Orlando. Dark Universe and HTTYD aren't exactly IPs that will draw hoards of people in just for them. While I firmly maintain that a great theme park land or attraction does not have to be based on a popular or even good IP as long as it itself is good (for example, the Avatar films are kind of whatever but the land and FoP are great), DU and HTTYD might have fared better in an established park than as anchors for a new park.

Three - the high price plus inability to bundle plus no AP, combined with the fact that many people are holding off assuming the park is a madhouse = a park that is relatively quiet.

 

[JusticeDisney]

I agree with what is being said. There was so much hype for this park, and it would have been nearly impossible to live up to all that. It’s definitely a great park, but it is nothing even close to the “game changer” that so many were predicting. Add to that the constant operational problems that Universal just can’t seem to get straightened out and you get what you have. Bottom line, Disney is likely laughing to themselves and quietly saying “told ya so.”

 

[lewisc]

Disney has Pandora and SWGE. EPIC is an entire park with that level of immersion.
Rise of the Resistance had delays which was as bad, maybe worse, then what EPICs experiencing. Disney solved it with B modes.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

I’ve been thinking this lately also, but didn’t want to bring it up.

Glad it's not just me who has felt this way.

I think there's a lot of factors to consider.

One of them being that there were 2.5 months of previews, and a very significant number of people that were hyped about the park actually got to see it during that time. For the final few weeks, the park was essentially already open, with anyone being able to buy a ticket.

Two, there wasn't really like a big IP to draw people in in the sense that it was something that hadn't been done before. This was the third Super Nintendo World to open, and while a new area, it was still the third Potter area in Orlando. Dark Universe and HTTYD aren't exactly IPs that will draw hoards of people in just for them. While I firmly maintain that a great theme park land or attraction does not have to be based on a popular or even good IP as long as it itself is good (for example, the Avatar films are kind of whatever but the land and FoP are great), DU and HTTYD might have fared better in an established park than as anchors for a new park.

Three - the high price plus inability to bundle plus no AP, combined with the fact that many people are holding off assuming the park is a madhouse = a park that is relatively quiet.

All of this makes sense.

I do think it may also have something to do with expectations and how it plays into the Disney and Universal tribalism online. My feeling with Disney is that the starting point for discussing most projects online seems to be for a significant group to assume the worst and pick apart every statement from the company, rightly or wrongly. That probably ultimately works in Disney's favour as it sets expectations at such a level that people are pleasantly surprised every time something isn't a complete disaster.

At least what I have observed from the pre-opening hype about Epic is a tendency to go to the other extreme, assume the best, and accept PR from the company with zero cynicism. To be honest, it always looked to me that the discussion online was out of sync with what the company was actually releasing in terms of concept art and details in suggesting this was going to blow everyone away when compared to the other Orlando parks. For example, I never really understood what everyone saw as so groundbreaking in Celestial Park. Another example is the Chronos which pre-opening discussion seemed to suggest would be almost awe inspiring once in motion, whereas it's kind of just fine as an entrance. Even the discussion about attendance expectations ended up going beyond what the park is seemingly able to handle.

So, I do wonder whether the hype quieting down is the result of expectations coming back down to earth more than anything.

It is also now worth reflecting on the weird initial preview period of this park, which apparently started with them firing people left, right, and centre for posting online about their visit to the park despite having several weeks of previews with thousands of guests planned. Once they gave up that futile effort, did they ever re-hire those people?