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Universal Epic Universe (South Expansion Complex) - Now Open!
- Thread starter Bob Harlem
- Start date
JusticeDisney
Well-Known Member
I wouldn’t count on that, but ok. In any event, I was making a larger point, which is that some people keep insisting that Universal is going to dethrone Disney. It’s simply never going to happen. Universal does great theme parks, there is no question about that. And plenty of people prefer Universal over Disney. But on the whole, Disney will always remain king.
Purduevian
Well-Known Member
I don't think many people thought this park was going to bankrupt Disney, but even a small dent in their profits and attendance (which can be contributed to EPIC) might cause them to invest more into the parks.
Regarding USO and IOA loosing attendance. I'm sure they will, but my guess is the gains from EPIC will outpace the losses from USO and IOA (essentially UOR gets more guests even if spread through 3 parks instead of 2).
Sir_Cliff
Well-Known Member
You would certainly hope that UOR gains attendance overall after Epic's opening. It would be something of a disaster after all this investment if it just stayed flat overall.
It's all still up in the air where the attendance will come from in terms of people shifting from other parks versus the market growing. I do think there was perhaps a little too much fantasising from those who want to see Disney take a hit about how this would cause Magic Kingdom to drop down on the list of global attendance or how it would finally provide management with their comeuppance for under-investment, price rises, etc. As time has gone on, the capacity limits if nothing else have suggested that Epic's impact on Orlando's other parks can only be so great for the time being.
My suspicion is more of those in the park on a given day will be people who would otherwise have been at one of Universal's other two parks than at any one of Disney's four, thus the hit to Disney will be less obvious. Again, that is to be expected and I don't know why anyone who wants it to be seen as a success has been pushing the notion that it will be mostly sucking attendance from Disney. If it does that, great for them. It is a big ask, though.
Andrew C
You know what's funny?
As you said, it will take some time for everything to pan out. We should come back to this post in about a year or so. Maybe even two
Sir_Cliff
Well-Known Member
Certainly. I suspect, though, people will only want to come back to it if there are indeed tumbleweeds blowing down Main Street USA!As you said, it will take some time for everything to pan out. We should come back to this post in about a year or so. Maybe even two
MK now that EU is open...
Sir_Cliff
Well-Known Member
Ah well, it was good while it lasted.
Jrb1979
Well-Known Member
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.
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
Well-Known Member
Also give USF a makeover. The rumors of Pokémon and Rockit replacement are a start.
Agent H
Well-Known Member
Me too. When I was there the team members were so enthusiastic and were clearly having a lot of fun.
MrPromey
Well-Known Member
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.
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
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
Well-Known Member
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.
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.
DAK benefited from having all the walkthrough exhibits to draw crowds without queues. Traditional parks are at the mercy of attraction reliability.
MrPromey
Well-Known Member
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.
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