build_it
Well-Known Member
The average reviews of 205 reviews. Any other theme park on that same site has more than 10k if not over 25k reviews.
So… it’s the first year of a new park.
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Universal Epic Universe (South Expansion Complex) - Now Open!
- Thread starter Bob Harlem
- Start date
So… it’s the first year of a new park.
Disneyhead'71
Well-Known Member
We will see how this shakes out in the end. They have been at max capacity since previews. MKs numbers have collapsed this Summer.
Not really Disney's fault. International travel is a huge market for the Summer travel season from Canada, South America, and the UK..
International travel has absolutely nosedived, effecting both Disney and Universal.
And yet MK is a ghost town. As horrible, and a visual abomination that is so bad it apparently will make your eyes bleed from the sightlines, and with terrible rides, Epic is still reaching max capacity every day.
And yea, a max capacity day at any park is a miserable experience at any Orlando park. So point all you want at terrible wait times at Epic while Haunted Mansion is at 35 mins.
Not really Disney's fault. International travel is a huge market for the Summer travel season from Canada, South America, and the UK..
International travel has absolutely nosedived, effecting both Disney and Universal.
And yet MK is a ghost town. As horrible, and a visual abomination that is so bad it apparently will make your eyes bleed from the sightlines, and with terrible rides, Epic is still reaching max capacity every day.
And yea, a max capacity day at any park is a miserable experience at any Orlando park. So point all you want at terrible wait times at Epic while Haunted Mansion is at 35 mins.
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Agent H
Well-Known Member
That seems like a long wait for a ride with that kind of capacity.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
Suess Trolley was supposed to open with the park in 1999 under a different name, and as a different kind of ride, but technical issues prevented it and the Trolley was the compromise they finally decided on.
Skipper Island Tours was an opening day ride that was scrapped early on too.
Disneyhead'71
Well-Known Member
I mean, it is Summer and kids are out of school, and yet today HM had a 35 min. wait time.
But I think the actual conversation this summer is about why HM has 35 wait times. NOT why Epic is at capacity with long wait times. The latter is obvious. It's a brand new state of the art park with some of the best rides on the planet.
But why is MK a ghost town.
AidenRodriguez731
Well-Known Member
Max capacity? What are you on? Are you saying it's been sold out every day?? Since when? Someone should tell Universal as I'm sure it's news to them! If the parks are a miserable experience, why not limit the tickets more, unless they are just a money hungry greedy corporation?
MK is certainly not a ghost town, I was there the other day and it had a very fair amount of people but I suppose we can see the data at the end of the year. Why are you comparing those specific rides especially right now when Sunday has been a light day for Disney for a while now?
And if it's just Disney fans spamming reviews who have never been there? Why is there such long lines at guest services asking for refunds or accommodations due to the horrible experience. Not to mention, you admitting it's a miserable experience.
AidenRodriguez731
Well-Known Member
Haunted Mansion gets through around 3,000 guests per hour, Yoshi's gets through 1/3 of that and has a 10 minute wait at an AT CAPACITY park??? That should be laughably embarassing
earlthesquirrellover23
Well-Known Member
It pretty much has been sold out everyday and it isn't news to them. It's only news if you havent been paying attention. You can check out the website right now and single day tickets are already sold out for the entirety of this next week. Yes they have been limiting capacity to a certain extent but I personally believe its a much higher number than people think and the park is still extremely popular.
DarkMetroid567
Well-Known Member
I was under the impression that the park is still not yet operating at its max capacity. Though with those lines, it may as well be.
AidenRodriguez731
Well-Known Member
Maybe I’m just looking at the wrong data because what I’m seeing shows every day for the next few weeks still readily available with 50% or more of the tickets still available. Single day tickets are sold out for those days but multipass allowing you to go in are very available. Which might of course have something to do with them only selling around 6,000 single day tickets per day (aka about 1/4 of Animal Kingdoms average daily visitor count) heck that’s less than half of the average daily visitor count for Animal Kingdom during COVID. Is it possible that universal is limiting full day tickets as a way of limiting having to do full refunds?
AidenRodriguez731
Well-Known Member
If the numbers I’m seeing are right, this park has some MAJOR capacity concerns.
A theoretical capacity of 48,000 with over 30,000 tickets left today giving for about a 18,000 capacity or less than AK in 2022 with these wait times…
The Underminer
Active Member
I’m sorry, but this is not a remotely accurate metric for actual guest satisfaction.
If you read the reviews, most complain about ride ops.
It’s literally a new park, and many people experienced it in previews, only to write articles critiquing “downtime.”
Today, the only ride that experienced significant downtime was Stardust Racers.
Anyway, regarding the claim “online reviews are bad,” the internet is NOT indicative of real life.
Let me repeat: it is not real life.
Epic isn’t universally loved by guests but the 2.whatever out of 5 rating is way lower than actuality. Mario Kart is the only headliner that has mixed reviews, and even that is more of an expectation issue than anything. The queue alone is one of the best literally ever.
Wait times today were extremely reasonable for the busy summer season in a new theme park.
Rope dropping staying to close (an hour past the posted time!). I did every single ride, even with a 1 hour weather delay, and eating at Atlantic and Le Goblet Noir.
I also explored pretty much anything I could. Good god is the theming unreal just everywhere you go.
Park ops are still going to be inconsistent for a bit, as there are issues with so many new rides that come up and will sort itself out over the rest of the year.
Hats off to the Team Members in general though. They were fantastic.
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Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
Epic is a gorgeous park, but to say there is nothing in Orlando close to the theming is the absurd statement. Let’s be real.
You may not enjoy the park, or the ride line up, but DAK still remains one of Florida’s (and Disney’s) best themed parks, and something that would fit in right next to Disney Sea.
Epic may be up there with them, but let’s not make absurd statements because we’re feeling spicy tonight.
You may not enjoy the park, or the ride line up, but DAK still remains one of Florida’s (and Disney’s) best themed parks, and something that would fit in right next to Disney Sea.
Epic may be up there with them, but let’s not make absurd statements because we’re feeling spicy tonight.
The Underminer
Active Member
I did not say there was nothing close to the theming, I said there’s nothing close to the scale. Animal Kingdom has an equal level of theming quality (and is so underrated), but the SCALE does not remotely reach Tokyo DisneySea.
I mean not even stratospherically close. It’s mostly dead space with trees and the walkable area is significantly smaller. Africa/Asia/Pandora are way less impressive than American Waterfront, Mediterranean Harbor, Mysterious Island, Arabian Coast, and Fantasy Springs.
The same can be said of Epic. Animal Kingdom is just not on that level. With Tropical Americas it’ll be closer.
Really the only WDW park that could compete on scale is EPCOT, but lands like Ministry of Magic are so much more impressive than many world showcase pavilions put together.
And wow, the lighting package. Just terrific.
@Centauri Space Station, are you actually trying to argue AK is on DisneySea’s level? DisneySea’s budget was like 7x it on opening day and they’ve added billions more to it than AK has.
There’s just no comparison, and that’s okay. I love Asia in AK especially, but it’s disingenuous and insincere to imply that the parks as a whole with theming scale, that they’re on the same level.
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MrPromey
Well-Known Member
I think the bigger point is that 205 people is less than a quarter of the number of people who ride Yoshi in a single hour. Statically, there are no relevant conclusions to draw from that Trip Advisor average other than to realize people are more likely to leave a review for something when they're unhappy (which we already knew) and even with that knowledge if there are tons of people walking out of that park unhappy every day, they're clearly not bothering to post reviews about it on Trip Advisor.
I mean, the park has issues. There may be tons of people unhappy about it but that someone keeps referring to that link like it's some sort of barometer... if everyone engaged in conversation in this thread who are either posting or reacting to posts were to go leave a review right now of all 5 stars or if everyone here were to leave a review of all zero stars, we could probably shift that 2.5 to a 3 or a 2.
That's how insignificant it is.
Yelp is even more silly to discuss with only 90 reviews.
Interestingly, on Google reviews where the volume starts to become large enough to be interesting, it's rated 4 out of 5:
... but even that's not really giving a clear picture when compared to something like the MK that has almost a quarter of a million reviews to go by.
As for MK being a ghost town, I recall when HM had common posted waits of 20 minutes or less throughout the day for much of the year and somehow, the parks were pulling in plenty of money back then. I think a lot of people (and probably TDO) have come to see overcrowding as "normal" somehow.
A lot of what people see as an empty park strikes me more as the level of crowds that park can comfortably manage without the need for a line skip option which from a guest perspective, would be the ideal considering how much a Disney vacation now costs.
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The Underminer
Active Member
The park crowds are less because it’s more expensive to visit.I think the bigger point is that 205 people is less than a quarter of the number of people who ride Yoshi in a single hour. Statically, there are no relevant conclusions to draw from that Trip Advisor average other than to realize people are more likely to leave a review for something when they're unhappy (which we already knew) and even with that knowledge if there are tons of people walking out of that park unhappy every day, they're clearly not bothering to post reviews about it on Trip Advisor.
I mean, the park has issues. There may be tons of people unhappy about it but that someone keeps referring to that link like it's some sort of barometer... if everyone engaged in conversation in this thread who are either posting or reacting to posts were to go leave a review right now of all 5 stars or if everyone here were to leave a review of all zero stars, we could probably shift that 2.5 to a 3 or a 2.
That's how insignificant it is.
As for MK being a ghost town, I recall when HM had common posted waits of 20 minutes or less throughout the day for much of the year and somehow, the parks were pulling in plenty of money back then. I think a lot of people (and probably TDO) have come to see overcrowding as "normal" somehow.
A lot of what people see as an empty park strikes me more as the level of crowds that park can comfortably manage without the need for a line skip option which from a guest perspective, would be the ideal considering how much a Disney vacation now costs.
That’s how you “bring crowds to reasonable levels,” which is not praised enough on these boards.
The days of 185-minute waits for Soarin’ (even with 3 theaters) are completely over. Fastpass+ wa salsa totally broken and the new paid system is FAR superior for park operations.
The only two parks on Earth now that seemingly have infinite waits—correct me if I’m wrong—are Tokyo DisneySea and Universal Studios Japan. With DisneySea being the world’s best park, and Universal Studios Japan being Universal’s best “Studios” park… though in USJ’s case, it also has horrible park ops running many rides like six flags capacity and not Universal/Disney standards. I’m not joking.
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The Underminer
Active Member
No.
I was pointing out that a “theoretical bad take is a bad take.” If I say I love Yoshi, someone thinks Epic is bad, Rip Ride Rockit is “good”, or that AK and DisneySea are equals, those are all other examples I could have used instead of Yoshi.
You know exactly what I meant.
“Opinions can be bad. If someone seriously considered Yoshi’s Adventure good, there’s a right to ridicule… just like any other bad take including ones in this thread.”
Is that better?
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Agent H
Well-Known Member
I’ll see myself out then.
The Underminer
Active Member
At least you enjoy it
Sir_Cliff
Well-Known Member
I also don't think TripAdvisor views tell you much and, overall, it seems Epic has had a positive response since opening, operational difficulties notwithstanding.
However, let's not be disingenuous. Whatever Disney attendance is doing this summer, I don't think anyone would seriously suggest Epic's attendance is even particularly close to that of Magic Kingdom. It may even be below that of Disney's other three parks.
That, of course, is in part intentional and I am sure Universal could sell more tickets if they felt the park could handle it at this stage. However, everyone knows enough about the issues with capacity and operational issues to know that long wait times at Epic versus moderate wait times for a massive people eater like HM at MK does not mean Epic is wildly popular while MK is a ghost town.