Universal's Epic Universe General News & Discussion

[HalfGlass]

I saw some complaints yesterday that with Monsters down, and when it rained, there was really only two rides (Mario Kart and Carousel) you can do since Ministry was on virtual. Didn’t initially consider that but it’s actually pretty wild. I guess Islands wasn’t much different at open though with Spidey, Cat in the Hat and Poseidon being the only indoor offerings.

Hopefully MoM and Monsters can run much more reliably in the near future.

 

[JustLikeMe]

I saw some complaints yesterday that with Monsters down, and when it rained, there was really only two rides (Mario Kart and Carousel) you can do since Ministry was on virtual. Didn’t initially consider that but it’s actually pretty wild. I guess Islands wasn’t much different at open though with Spidey, Cat in the Hat and Poseidon being the only indoor offerings.

Hopefully MoM and Monsters can run much more reliably in the near future.

I see people comparing the opening lineup at Epic to Islands quite frequently, but it’s not really a fair comparison given how much quieter Universal was back in 1999. I visited IoA for the first time in October that year and it wasn’t busy at all. In the post Potter era, the opening lineup will be stretched much further.

 

[Mad Dog]

IOA had absolutely terrible, unexpectedly low, attendance in their opening years, partly due to the ill conceived Escape marketing plan. Epic should have a pretty decent first year attendance wise. IOA's low ride waits were more a result of little attendance, more so than the ride capacity situation.

 

[Imperius]

Seems gamer parking lot was changed to Dragon. Good to know I was an OG gamer.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

IOA had absolutely terrible, unexpectedly low, attendance in their opening years, partly due to the ill conceived Escape marketing plan. Epic should have a pretty decent first year attendance wise. IOA's low ride waits were more a result of little attendance, more so than the ride capacity situation.

Just for reference, Universal themselves reported 12.1M in attendance for BOTH USF & IOA in 2002. USF & IOA did 21.8M in 2022.

Epic will be opening up with roughly ~14.3K in theoretical hourly capacity for ride attractions (excl. shows and interactive areas/exhibits).
IOA opened up with about ~14.5K in ride attraction hourly capacity (excl. shows and interactive areas/exhibits, and no High in the Sky at open).

IOA & Epic are very comparable parks on opening day, however IOA had more flat ride & water ride capacity than Epic, where as EU prioritized Dark ride capacity (as it should).


During weather delays, Epic drops to 6.2K an hour, IOA drops to 4.3K (opening day, not existing numbers). The benefit Epic has is that there's plenty of indoor seating and areas to take shelter.

Epic is a great park, but I think a major capacity addition needs to be done relatively soon as I don't think the park has enough capacity to match the desired attendance level they want.

 

[JohnHammondsCane]

Today is our preview day, and ohhhh boy are operations ROUGH here. Especially after visiting 3 Disney parks.

Also, Mine Cart is closed today for anyone wanting to ride it

Adding to my previous post

Early park admission is a disaster. There were two TMs from the split to the portal. One was on their phone the entire time and the other had a microphone and only talked to one side of the line(towards the portal) and never walked up and down the line.


There was a line, but TMs let people cut everyone and just walked to the merge point and filled in the line. Also, there is maybe one sign from when you enter and that just points in the general direction. Ops need a lot of work in getting people *into* the park

On top of Minecart being down

Werewolf
Hiccups Gliders
Fyre Drill
MoM
Stardust Racers

Were all delayed

The park is pretty much useless outside of PowerUp bands and Monsters, which is flooded with everything being down

 

[Grabnar]

Today is our preview day, and ohhhh boy are operations ROUGH here. Especially after visiting 3 Disney parks.

Also, Minecraft is closed today for anyone wanting to ride it

We'll be there next Fri for this and Volcano Bay Nights, hoping that ops get a little better but given it's been a month and they're still having issues I'm not super optimistic

 

[saint.piss]

Today is our preview day, and ohhhh boy are operations ROUGH here. Especially after visiting 3 Disney parks.

Also, Minecraft is closed today for anyone wanting to ride it

I read Minecraft and got really confused. Lmao

 

[david10225]

Just some random thoughts as we are about 7 weeks out from our end of June visit.......

1. I am retired and in my late 60's so I can spend a lot of time browsing YouTube videos and reading Reddit about the new park. Seems to be that that vast majority of the video reviews are very positive. Of course I understand that most of these are professional video bloggers and were either invited to attend or need to attend to keep their numbers up. On Reddit, it seems to be a different story with lots of posts are the things you have all written about, (rides breaking down, no shade, nothing to do when it rains, value vs price, etc.) I suppose the reality is somewhere in between and is about the best we can expect for our visit.

2. I'm always confused to read that rides are not open when the park opens, especially if the ride was operating correctly when shut down for the nights. I wonder what could cause that kind of issue? Perhaps they decided to do some maintenance in the early morning and don't really have an overnight maintenance schedule? Just conjecture.

3. My wife uses a wheelchair for longer distances so we planned to take it easy and had a goal of only visiting two portals on our first day. I bought that ticket a few weeks ago. This week I tried to but the second one day ticket and low and behold - all sold out the week we are in Orlando. Yikes. I'm hoping this is an attempt to manage capacity for the first full month to limit any negative reviews. I know everyone wants to visit, but July is wide open. So since I couldn't get an EPIC ticket, I went ahead and bought a ticket for evening after hours at Disney for basically the same price. At least it won't be so hot! My wife really wants to go to Volcano Bay (I've been by myself, but I know she can't do all those stairs). I'm sure she will be happy in the lazy river and the wave pool.

4. Just an observation, but that second restaurant in the HP section always looks empty on any video I've watched. I guess if there was another attraction near by it might garner more attention, but I'm concerned about the long term viability of that location. It looks huge with all those various rooms.

Looking forward to this trip. Will be buying a solar umbrella for sure!

 

[Mad Dog]

Just some random thoughts as we are about 7 weeks out from our end of June visit.......

1. I am retired and in my late 60's so I can spend a lot of time browsing YouTube videos and reading Reddit about the new park. Seems to be that that vast majority of the video reviews are very positive. Of course I understand that most of these are professional video bloggers and were either invited to attend or need to attend to keep their numbers up. On Reddit, it seems to be a different story with lots of posts are the things you have all written about, (rides breaking down, no shade, nothing to do when it rains, value vs price, etc.) I suppose the reality is somewhere in between and is about the best we can expect for our visit.

2. I'm always confused to read that rides are not open when the park opens, especially if the ride was operating correctly when shut down for the nights. I wonder what could cause that kind of issue? Perhaps they decided to do some maintenance in the early morning and don't really have an overnight maintenance schedule? Just conjecture.

3. My wife uses a wheelchair for longer distances so we planned to take it easy and had a goal of only visiting two portals on our first day. I bought that ticket a few weeks ago. This week I tried to but the second one day ticket and low and behold - all sold out the week we are in Orlando. Yikes. I'm hoping this is an attempt to manage capacity for the first full month to limit any negative reviews. I know everyone wants to visit, but July is wide open. So since I couldn't get an EPIC ticket, I went ahead and bought a ticket for evening after hours at Disney for basically the same price. At least it won't be so hot! My wife really wants to go to Volcano Bay (I've been by myself, but I know she can't do all those stairs). I'm sure she will be happy in the lazy river and the wave pool.

4. Just an observation, but that second restaurant in the HP section always looks empty on any video I've watched. I guess if there was another attraction near by it might garner more attention, but I'm concerned about the long term viability of that location. It looks huge with all those various rooms.

Looking forward to this trip. Will be buying a solar umbrella for sure!

Reddit is Reddit. With it's reputation, I wouldn't give much credence to reviews from the cast of characters that post there. A pretty negative bunch resides there.

 

[Tereglith]

Seems gamer parking lot was changed to Dragon. Good to know I was an OG gamer.

Same here lol. Luckily I took a picture to commemorate it, my first EU bragging rights point.

I wonder if someone clued them in to how many ignominious connotations the term "gamer" has in online discourse the past decade or so.

 

[Rikku]

As much as I enjoyed the park, if this is ever implemented I will never go back while in use.

Just doubling down on this that if VQ is used to just enter the worlds then I wouldn't go and it would be a far inferior product, when lines are long I am very ok just walking around and taking in sights, bar hoping, character interactions and shopping. Also with the downtimes it just wouldn't add up being a land if nothing is working then if you leave need a new VQ to return when things are working or something like that, the ride downtimes are just to unreliable I feel to garner this type of system I'd say.

 

[Captain Spaulding]

4. Just an observation, but that second restaurant in the HP section always looks empty on any video I've watched. I guess if there was another attraction near by it might garner more attention, but I'm concerned about the long term viability of that location. It looks huge with all those various rooms.

I'm interested in the long term attendance in this land. You still see people's super enthusiastic reactions, even teary eyed, walking into Hogsmead and Diagon Alley. I didn't see any of that in "Paris". Sure there is a wow factor, I just don't see the emotional excitement to the land that will keep people in there or coming back over and over again, except to ride Ministry.

 

[JohnHammondsCane]

0/4 on VQ drops. Does everyone just stay on the MoM page and wait for the VQ logo to turn blue? Or do you go in and out of the page? Paris is pretty crazy to walk through with the amount of people on their phones trying to get a slot. Also, people were lining up for the show 45 min early

 

[HHN Maddux]

Hopefully Unchained as well? To quote Ygor, it could still use a little more fine tuning.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

So did the park just go ka-put this week?

 

[HalfGlass]

I was worried about closures before it officially opens. I was going to move my ticket up from June to the last day of softs but now I’m thinking it may not be worth it.

Can’t help but feel like there’s a chance they will try to run MoM without virtual queue those last three days of softs, but close other rides like Monsters during that time for touch ups.

 

[Brian G.]

Something to keep in mind is that not all closures are due to issues. That’s not to say there hasn’t been any, just that it’s not an ALL the time deal.

 

[HHN Maddux]

Something to keep in mind is that not all closures are due to issues. That’s not to say there hasn’t been any, just that it’s not an ALL the time deal.

Ministry I imagine is likely for issues and of course altering the sensors to be less sensitive, Training Camp is definitely just finishing touches, and Unchained just needs to have the irons kinked out (lighting, consistent effects and animatronics not going ka-put in the final hours).

 

[boomerthom]

This has prolly been mentioned elsewhere but DK was closed today. Wondering if it has anything to do with fixing the DK/Diddy mine cart effect that hasn’t seemed to operate very consistently, or the botched splashdown effect.

I’m going back on the 9th, this Friday, likely my last visit until at least September. Very curious about crowds since it’s the first day of the second window for previews. Maybe everyone that wanted to go will have already gone lol.