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Universal Epic Universe (South Expansion Complex) - Opens May 22 2025
- Thread starter Bob Harlem
- Start date
Casper Gutman
Well-Known Member
Raya?
By process of elimination: How To Train Your Dragon.
Dragons were featured in Raya And The Last.
You think that if Disney built a new park in Orlando it wouldn't have a DVC resort tied to it at the entrance gate? How precious.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
Raya and the Guide for How to Train Your Last Dragon (2021)
Casper Gutman
Well-Known Member
Brat Stoker’s Raya and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to how to Train Your Last Pete’s Dragonheart and Where to Find Them: The Squeakquel
Did I do this right?
tommyhawkins
Well-Known Member
Rough locations of main buildings (blue is bodies of water). if anybody has any serious ideas about why they have a trench where ride buildings should be and not where the lagoon is, other than the Theatre is canned for something else, please let me know. The layout is such that the land appears in a valley of sorts, so it just could be theyre working their way through the grading as the entire site was graded uniformly. anybody has questions of whats what, feel free to ask
tommyhawkins
Well-Known Member
When you enter the part, the first thing you are going to see is a beautiful hexagonal restauraunt, then the first of the lagoons, with water features, then a the second lagoon with its own ride building attached. Then the final lagoon which is the circular fountain clearly designed to be running at different times in the day. So no the hotel is not the Weenie. There is also probably going to be grand entrances to each land as well as many other things to look at.
Will it be well done and complimentary to the rest of the park? most probably. But its not the centre piece. Perhaps its time to stop looking at this park through the prism of how few guys built a park in the 1950s
sedati
Well-Known Member
Not a centerpiece nor weenie, just a center-aligned dominant feature.
I'm assuming the trenches are for the pipes for drainage and/or utilities. Theres a big pile of black pipe for chiller lines and a whole lot of sched 35 pipe on site.
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Casper Gutman
Well-Known Member
Numerous posters have explained, in detail, why your characterization of it as "dominant" is misleading. You should probably address that. As well as addressing why this is equivalent to Disney's division of the park experience into a hierarchy based on payment.
tommyhawkins
Well-Known Member
A centre allign dominant feature that happens to have a large fountain directly in front of it the size of the same size as the centre ring of Bellagio
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Crowd flow would have been one major concern. Disney springs / City Walk can get quite congested.
But having to whip out your ticket admission that many more times a day would have been the bigger issue. Every land having an entrance gate did not sound like smart planning. Fortunately I guess they did indeed ditch it!
Albeit then Universal could have claimed 7 Gates.
Casper Gutman
Well-Known Member
It wasn’t going to be physical tickets. It was going to use facial recognization.Crowd flow would have been one major concern. Disney springs / City Walk can get quite congested.
But having to whip out your ticket admission that many more times a day would have been the bigger issue. Every land having an entrance gate did not sound like smart planning. Fortunately I guess they did indeed ditch it!
Albeit then Universal could have claimed 7 Gates.
Im just as happy with a more normal design.
tommyhawkins
Well-Known Member
The biggest issue and reason to not have a free hub is that it reduces capacity of the park significally. If you reduce the size of your park by 25 acres, thats 25 acres worth of space you could have people willing to buy a ticket at peak hours/days as not park capacity is preened from just rides and their queues, it would have been a major own goal if they had done.Crowd flow would have been one major concern. Disney springs / City Walk can get quite congested.
But having to whip out your ticket admission that many more times a day would have been the bigger issue. Every land having an entrance gate did not sound like smart planning. Fortunately I guess they did indeed ditch it!
Albeit then Universal could have claimed 7 Gates.
The Grand Inquisitor
Well-Known Member
Are the rumors true that creature from the black lagoon will now open with the park instead of being a phase 2 attraction? What about the rumors of a secret life of pets mini land ?
matt9112
Well-Known Member
Well to be fair tron and guardians will still ve fresh in 2025 only a few years old....i cant imagine disney really ramps up anything else large? Could fire up the reimagined epcot and do a grand opening "rebranding " to call it new. Make it buzz worthy.
I also dont think disney needs to legitimately compete 1 for 1 disney is still the leader here and still has 4 parks. I agree the gap continues to shrink but disneys latest buisness practices really hammer home to me the fact they only want that well off pixie dust lover. Those die hards who come for a week once a year etc. Those folks wont be turned off by epic. If anything that demographic can just add days to there Orlando vacation and do both. Now its possible epic universe steals some filler days away from Disney but i dont see it having a huge impact. I think pie is big enough. Plus disney os okay trading away APs those APs like myself will just hang out at uni.
IMDREW
Well-Known Member
Don't think that concept works anymore with masks.
tommyhawkins
Well-Known Member
Creature is most likely still Phase 2 but what Phase 2 means is anyone's guess. Could mean end of 2025, summer 2026 etc .
As far as the SLoP mini land thing goes, that's a bit of a game of telephone. An conference call from Comcast/NBC suggested there might be "Illumination and DreamWorks" in Epic. I was able to demonstrate where SloP could go and how there's room for a mini land if they wanted to do. There is also a 7 and 20acre expansion pad. Nothing is true until there are permits, and currently there are none.
As I've said elsewhere, no one is suggesting that Uni are going to take all of WDW business away. But it's quite realistic they could take 5-10% of Disney's visitors which would be the same amount (5m) that Michael Eisner lost from Disney World visitors between 1990 & 1994 through scalping people on ticket prices...only back in the day that represented 15% of the visitors.
There's a few things every Disney fan should consider though:
Universal have enough land to build a fourth 100acre park. They will be able to match Disney in Gate numbers inside a decade if they choose.
It's ok if Universal do take significant numbers from Disney, competition is good for the consumer, certainly for pricing, and Animal Kingdom was built as a result of Eisners failings with visitor numbers. Disney have the ability to add ~200acres of expansion across the four parks if they chose to. I would emplore every hardcore Disney fan to encourage this situation as long term you will benefit from it.
trr1
Well-Known Member
bioreconstruct
@bioreconstruct
Jan 29
Aerial look at what's on the other side of the fences and berms along Destination Pwy. Center right is an intersection with "Public Rd", into the Epic Universe site.
An aerial overview of Epic Universe.
Aerial photo showing an unusual half circle forming in the service area north of Epic Univers
Aerial look at the service area north of Epic Universe. Seems like a secure checkpoint, with U-Turn circle, at lower right, from Sand Lake Rd. Seems like pads for warehouses nearby.
Arrow in this aerial is at the chilled water plant for Epic Universe. A type of central air conditioning. Located in a service area along Sand Lake Rd. Center of the park at bottom, with fountain basin at left.
Arrow in this aerial at the chilled water plant of Epic Universe. For scale, Nintendo land is at left of the blue fenced area top center.
Aerial look at the chilled water plant of Epic Universe, and an excavation at what seem to be some of the pipes for circulating the water. It's a form of central air conditioning.
Aerial look at the first structure built in Epic Universe. The chilled water plant. Second structure at top. Seems like pipes for circulating chilled water are in the excavation at left center.