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Universal Epic Universe (South Expansion Complex) - Now Open!
- Thread starter Bob Harlem
- Start date
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Length of stay will be the other indicator. By far the number one reason they progressed with Epic. Right now they are pretty much capped between a 0-1 day increase in length of stay and the closer it is to zero the worse their opening strategy.
Technically there is a situation it could run negative. If people shirk multi day tickets entirely for a one off Epic ticket.
Disneyhead'71
Well-Known Member
The last domestic park to open from the big 2 was DCA with the opening act being the Sunshine Hubcap.
Just sayin'
I'm still sticking with the last domestic park to be this ambitious at opening was EPCOT Center in '82.
Just sayin'
I'm still sticking with the last domestic park to be this ambitious at opening was EPCOT Center in '82.
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build_it
Well-Known Member
In the discussions in our household, Epic will drive our reason to visit Orlando. We will likely add a day to our planned Universal days, and decrease a day from our WDW days. Part of that is our personal preference for the California parks, and the general feeling that WDW has really become the inferior product. It’s nice there are four parks, but they haven’t added enough to the non-magic kingdom parks to justify more time in each park. We’ll probably spend 7-10 days in central Florida, but fewer will be at WDW than in the past. Nostalgia is big for us for WDW, but that’s not enough.
Two days in a row (maybe more?) that I’ve watched Epic wait times on the app and attractions are still showing wait times after 10pm. Both days were listed as 9pm closing. And it’s not just things with long waits burning through their lines. Monsters has gone up from 15min to 25min tonight between 9pm and 10pm. Carousel consistently at 25 min. Anybody know what’s up with that??
CoastalElite64
Well-Known Member
Not a fair comparison considering the very different budgets those two parks had. Would make more sense to compare to Shanghai Disneyland.
Tom Morrow
Well-Known Member
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?
WDWFREAK53
Well-Known Member
Key word, "domestic"
MrPromey
Well-Known Member
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.
DavidDL
Well-Known Member
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.
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.
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Tom Morrow
Well-Known Member
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.
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.
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
Well-Known Member
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
Well-Known Member
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
Well-Known Member
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
Well-Known Member
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.
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.