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

[Animaniac93-98]

How did Universal not plan for Florida summers with as long as uni has been here…. Even Disney knew they had to do things differently vs Cali way back in 1971 with things like a cover for the Tea Cups and having the entire It’s a Small World boat ride indoors

WDW's Mad Tea Party opened without a roof. It was added a couple years later

The canopy over HM's queue was also added a year after opening, as was HoP's extended covered queue.

 

[Poseidon Quest]

WDW's Mad Tea Party opened without a roof. It was added a couple years later

The canopy over HM's queue was also added a year after opening, as was HoP's extended covered queue.

HoP has an extended queue? Is that where the market is currently?

 

[Animaniac93-98]

HoP has an extended queue? Is that where the market is currently?

Yes. It was built to be the queue when the line used to go out the door (really!)

I think the posts still have the hooks on them where you would link the chains to form the line

Here's what the area looked like before it was built. There was a patch of grass where the Market's seating area is

 

[Poseidon Quest]

Yes. It was built to be the queue when the line used to go out the door (really!)

I think the posts still have the hooks on them where you would link the chains to form the line

Here's what the area looked like before it was built

It never occurred to me that queue space was the intended purpose, but that's interesting to learn.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Anyone consider that indoor attractions are just flat out more expensive than outdoor attractions?

I have no idea how budgets are divided when building a new park... but would you rather have.
A)what we have now
B) No CotWW, Hiccups, or DK, but add in a creature from the black lagoon indoor boat ride?

The two big attractions that were cut made it all the way to permitting. Budgets had long been allocated for them. It’s unusual for something to get that far and still be cut. Broom was also reworked for a good while for Universal Studios Florida before finally dying.

There was also an interim period where Curse of the Werewolf was smaller and the Dark Universe theater was smaller and indoors.

 

[Purduevian]

The two big attractions that were cut made it all the way to permitting. Budgets had long been allocated for them. It’s unusual for something to get that far and still be cut. Broom was also reworked for a good while for Universal Studios Florida before finally dying.

There was also an interim period where Curse of the Werewolf was smaller and the Dark Universe theater was smaller and indoors.

Why did they get cut if not for budget?

 

[Animaniac93-98]

It never occurred to me that queue space was the intended purpose, but that's interesting to learn.

So much of The Magic Kingdom has been the way it is for so long now that the original purpose of buildings and spaces is long forgotten and taken for granted as just being there.

 

[Disney Analyst]

I’m just not sure they wanted the park to be poorly built for Florida summers is a useful line of discussion. It is coming off as an excuse and that’s just going to make people more critical. It’s a flaw and hopefully they correct it.

And frankly it was my chief complaint about IOA back when I was an AP in 2013, during my summer ICP.

I loved IOA, but man that park SUCKED when lightning was in the area, or a storm rolled through. So many times I would get stuck in the Hulk queue just as you were about to board. And this is before adding two very high demand outdoor coasters, which can shut down throughout the summer...

And now you have a new park that loses almost its entire ride roster during a summer storm or lightning event.

It's certainly a bizarre choice.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Why did they get cut if not for budget?

Broom was moved to Universal Studios Florida because they weren’t sure how long the park would be paused. They eventually decided it wasn’t worked as they wanted, and similar experiences opened elsewhere, and resumed the park. This ended up being more of a true cut to costs.

Curse of the Werewolf originally replaced the small outdoor walkthrough space. It was a way to get another ride in relatively cheaply. The show had its own creative issues and when it died the coaster was enlarged. This was less a complete cut because money moved from one concept to another.

 

[TalkToEthan]

It's easy to ask for more indoor attractions, but they can't just build something that's indoors for the sake of it.

Yes, yes Universal could have——-if it chose to do it.

More money of course but each ‘portaled’ land could have been independently domed, EASILY……if Universal prioritized it.

70,000 person indoor stadiums have been around for 6 decades! Of course protection from the elements could have been done if Universal wanted to do it.

 

[MrPromey]

Google reviews rating’s down to 3.9
TripAdvisor rating is 2.1

But they did get a positive writeup in the NYT for what it’s worth.

Surely they’ll fast track something for next summer, although not sure what they can quickly add to help with the afternoon issues.

Just a reminder there aren't enough people who've yet left reviews for them to be statically of any value.

The Google reviews have 3.9 out of 5 with a total of 1,989 reviews. That's not a quarter of a single day's attendance.

The far worse Trip Advisor at 2.1 is based on ONLY 304 FRIGGIN' REVIEWS. There are like three to four times as many people in line for the Potter ride at any given moment than have left a review there at Trip Advisor.

If people don't like the park, the OVERWHELMING majority are not bothering to leave a review saying so which could very well be true but these kinds of posts do nothing but create the illusion of being useful.

 

[Rich Brownn]

How did Universal not plan for Florida summers with as long as uni has been here…. Even Disney knew they had to do things differently vs Cali way back in 1971 with things like a cover for the Tea Cups and having the entire It’s a Small World boat ride indoors

The tea cups were not covered in 1971. It, along with poor drainage and uncovered queues outdoors (Mansion, HoP, Country Bears) were quickly modified as best as they could be.

 

[JT3000]

I maybe sneak edited my final thoughts as you both posted, but yes totally that was one of the problems that occurred here.






Fair enough, but that wasn’t the creative goal to under-design the opening day park for the weather. It’s where it landed. If it actually was the goal, that’s the role of executives to bring the creatives down to reality.

I’m just not sure they wanted the park to be poorly built for Florida summers is a useful line of discussion. It is coming off as an excuse and that’s just going to make people more critical. It’s a flaw and hopefully they correct it.

I'm not saying they wanted the park to be poorly built. There's also no indication that they consider the park poorly built. This is a subjective take, after all. Do you think they considered IOA poorly built? Because it took them over a decade to add another indoor attraction, which would seem to indicate they didn't see a problem. It's still the only entirely indoors attraction built there in the past 26 years.

Yes, yes Universal could have——-if it chose to do it.

More money of course but each ‘portaled’ land could have been independently domed, EASILY……if Universal prioritized it.

70,000 person indoor stadiums have been around for 6 decades! Of course protection from the elements could have been done if Universal wanted to do it.

Yes, they could have made Epic an indoor or 'domed' park if they wanted to, but in addition to such a plan eating heavily into the park's budget, I'm also confident that most people wouldn't actually want that. I'm not seeing the Hollywood street with a ceiling in Japan or Singapore and thinking, "Yeah, let's build that here." Thanks, but no thanks.

 

[MrPromey]

And frankly it was my chief complaint about IOA back when I was an AP in 2013, during my summer ICP.

I loved IOA, but man that park SUCKED when lightning was in the area, or a storm rolled through. So many times I would get stuck in the Hulk queue just as you were about to board. And this is before adding two very high demand outdoor coasters, which can shut down throughout the summer...

And now you have a new park that loses almost its entire ride roster during a summer storm or lightning event.

It's certainly a bizarre choice.

<Busch Gardens Tampa has entered the thread>

 

[DarkMetroid567]

Just a reminder there aren't enough people who've yet left reviews for them to be statically of any value.

The Google reviews have 3.9 out of 5 with a total of 1,989 reviews. That's not a quarter of a single day's attendance.

The far worse Trip Advisor at 2.1 is based on ONLY 304 FRIGGIN' REVIEWS. There are like three to four times as many people in line for the Potter ride at any given moment than have left a review there at Trip Advisor.

If people don't like the park, the OVERWHELMING majority are not bothering to leave a review saying so which could very well be true but these kinds of posts do nothing but create the illusion of being useful.

That’s not how stats works. Obviously you’re not going to be able to get reviews from everyone, that’s why having a good n size matters (and 2000 probably could be!) There are other reasons why just deferring to Google Reviews is not a truly representative sample, but not with this argument.

 

[MrPromey]

That’s not how stats works. Obviously you’re not going to be able to get reviews from everyone, that’s why having a good n size matters (and 2000 probably could be!) There are other reasons why just deferring to Google Reviews is not a truly representative sample, but not with this argument.

I guess I could have tossed "self selecting representation" in there but I don't see you make mention of my primary point which was the gap between Google and TripAdvisor (where I did the crazy all caps thing) which comes in with an average roughly 50% lower and 85% fewer reviews to base that on.

What do you feel is the appropriate takeaway? That Google reviewers are less biased against the park than TripAdvisor or more biased for it? That the more reviews it gets, the higher the average climbs? That a single day of operational issues or rain could skew things with either set of numbers in a meaningful way?

I mean, these aren't polling numbers so I don't see how they can be looked at as such. Lacking any control, I don't see how much can be gleaned from such a small percentage.

Personally, the 4.9 actually seems good to me, all things considered but I still don't see how it can be trusted by anyone to accurately represent a consensus, especially when half of that could have been from preview visits and with numbers low enough that crazy Disney and Universal fans that haven't even been can review bomb in both directions enough to meaningfully affect the average.

 

[TalkingHead]

Just a reminder there aren't enough people who've yet left reviews for them to be statically of any value.

The Google reviews have 3.9 out of 5 with a total of 1,989 reviews. That's not a quarter of a single day's attendance.

The far worse Trip Advisor at 2.1 is based on ONLY 304 FRIGGIN' REVIEWS. There are like three to four times as many people in line for the Potter ride at any given moment than have left a review there at Trip Advisor.

If people don't like the park, the OVERWHELMING majority are not bothering to leave a review saying so which could very well be true but these kinds of posts do nothing but create the illusion of being useful.

And yet Universal has someone pasting boilerplate (AI?) responses to acknowledge poor reviews so somebody in corporate doesn’t think it’s a good look. Which is the whole point of mentioning the reviews in the first place. It’s bad for the brand.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

I guess I could have tossed "self selecting representation" in there but I don't see you make mention of my primary point which was the gap between Google and TripAdvisor (where I did the crazy all caps thing) which comes in with an average roughly 50% lower and 85% fewer reviews to base that on.

What do you feel is the appropriate takeaway? That Google reviewers are less biased against the park than TripAdvisor or more biased for it? That the more reviews it gets, the higher the average climbs? That a single day of operational issues or rain could skew things with either set of numbers in a meaningful way?

I mean, these aren't polling numbers so I don't see how they can be looked at as such. Lacking any control, I don't see how much can be gleaned from such a small percentage.

Personally, the 4.9 actually seems good to me, all things considered but I still don't see how it can be trusted by anyone to accurately represent a consensus, especially when half of that could have been from preview visits and with numbers low enough that crazy Disney and Universal fans that haven't even been can review bomb in both directions enough to meaningfully affect the average.

I don’t really disagree with any of this, which is why I didn’t respond re: the TripAdvisor rating, I think 304 probably isn’t enough. But you said “there aren't enough people who've yet left reviews for them to be statically of any value”, and that’s just not really true.

 

[MrPromey]

I don’t really disagree with any of this, which is why I didn’t respond re: the TripAdvisor rating, I think 304 probably isn’t enough. But you said “there aren't enough people who've yet left reviews for them to be statically of any value”, and that’s just not really true.

If we were talking scientific polling with representative samples, I'd agree - just a thousand would be plenty - but that's not what this is so I don't understand how it possibly could be.

 

[MrPromey]

And yet Universal has someone pasting boilerplate (AI?) responses to acknowledge poor reviews so somebody in corporate doesn’t think it’s a good look. Which is the whole point of mentioning the reviews in the first place. It’s bad for the brand.

Yes, I'm sure it's a full time job. They do it for the other two parks that both have over 100k Google reviews, too asking for people with negative reviews there to reach out to customer service so they can try to "make it right". Both of those have averages of 4.7 stars so it's not like they're treating the Epic reviews any differently.

Funny enough, Disney, approaching almost 250k reviews with a 4.6 average for the MK does not appear to respond like this to any of their negatives.

For what it's worth, the first (most recent) one star review I came across for MK started with "Oh my gosh, there is nothing good to say about magic kingdom" which I mean, how does anyone take that seriously? but with enough reviews, outliers like this with a clear ax to grind get watered down, significantly.