An Epic Weekend (11/6-11/9)

[Clive]

Going to do my best to recount (and remember) what was an excellent weekend visit to Epic Universe over two days. I'll probably cross post attraction/portal-specific thoughts in their respective threads so that any highly specific discussions can continue there.

First of all, I want to emphasize that my experience was heightened by extraordinary luck at all levels. That includes flights (we had no delays despite the ongoing travel chaos), crowds (felt moderate but never uncomfortable), ride uptime, and general timing/dumb luck.

Stella Nova Hotel

• Our stay was for three nights in a two-queen room. We had originally booked at a far more expensive rate - I want to say averaging $250/night - but happened to find a $150/night rate several nights ago, which I jumped on. A reminder to routinely check hotel rates to see if things have dipped.
• The hotel is spare and utilitarian but overall looks slick, with some nice touches between the (custom?) lobby furnishings and eclectic lighting fixtures. Felt like a combination of Aventura and Cabana Bay with a dash of Tron, maybe.
• Check-in was expedient and helped along by a very kind team member. She hooked us up with the room directly over the porte-cochère, with a view of the park and a short jaunt to the elevators.
• The room itself was more spacious than I expected. Beds were very comfortable. Shower had good water pressure. Appreciated the Stella Nova-specific soaps and shampoos.
• A note for those used to the will call machines located in or near the lobbies of most of the other Universal resorts: Stella Nova does not have one. If you booked tickets to be picked up at will call, you need to go to the travel center, which isn't always open. Not sure if they're phasing out those machines, but fortunately, we caught the travel center right before they closed.

Grand Helios

• Since we arrived on-time (again, a miracle), we found ourselves with little to do on Thursday evening before bed. I quickly booked a dinner reservation at Flora Taverna and a 10pm reservation at Bar Helios (which requires you to put down a $25 deposit you'll be charged if you no-show, FYI.)
• We took an Uber to the Grand Helios - it looked like you could theoretically walk, but it'd be quite the trek in the (mostly) dark.
• While we did dress up a smidge, the team member who let us out of the Uber did politely ask if we needed help finding our way, perhaps correctly intuiting that we were not guests. The interaction was warm, to be clear, but I'm not sure you're always allowed to waltz in if you don't have a key card or a dining reservation. Once I mentioned Flora Taverna, we were on our way.
• Flora needed about 10 minutes before they could seat us, which worked out great - it gave me a chance to step into the courtyard overlooking the park outside and see the park up close for the first time. The views from this courtyard are stunning, especially at night, and I highly recommend dining at Helios so you can take advantage of the photo opportunities. The gentle vibe, emphasis on running water, and Grecian touches reminded me quite a bit of the Atlantis area of The Lost Continent - not a bad thing at all.
• Flora Taverna is very pretty, with moody low lighting at night. My take is it feels like a place designed to appeal to agents and other movers and shakers - it'd feel right at home in Century City in Los Angeles. I noticed families were seated at the very far end of the restaurant, cloistered, while couples and adults-only groups were positioned toward the front. An appreciated touch. Food was great, and the drinks even greater. I would recommend.
• The overall vibe and aesthetic of Helios is intruging but doesn't always come together. For all the lovely Celestian flourishes - the courtyard, the indoor greenery in Flora, the stain glass art over the lobby desks, the animation in the elevator vestibule - there's just so many bland choices. It can't seem to decide if it wants to be a themed hotel or an opulent hotel, so it doesn't quite succeed at either. The theme sort of just becomes "opulence," except when it doesn't.
• Given the general stratospheric price point of the hotel at this time, I get the sense that this is the hotel designed only for those without any concerns about money - a wealth extraction hotel, if you will. It's objectively not a good value for the price you're paying, as you'd get better and more cohesive accommodations at the other premium resorts given their more central location and Express access for the legacy parks. The only real asset you get for Helios is the exclusive park entrance and accompanying proximity, which, while presumably nice, does not justify the expense, at least in my book. However, the folks who don't flinch at a $700/night rate are also not going to mind paying for separate Express tickets as needed. Anecdotally, that observation bears out given the clientele I observed. I think eventually - once the newness wears off - rates for Helios will come back down to earth, and they'll eventually add Express access to the legacy parks. (I'm not saying anytime soon - I'm talking in two or three years, perhaps.) All that to say, I think this is a good hotel, but not the finest one Universal has produced. I think that crown still belongs to Hard Rock or Portofino.
• Bar Helios is gorgeous. Everyone talks up the views, which are also predictably stellar, but the interior constellation dome is lush and captivating, especially after dark. We were seated inside, but our server encouraged us to step outside to watch the fountain show when it started. They do play the in-park show audio (and stop all other music), so everyone basically goes out to watch. And...
• Wow. People are underselling this show, or at least the scope of it can't be truly appreciated unless you're up in Bar Helios. The entire park comes alive as a synchronized, wondrous beast. The scale of the lighting work took our breath away, and we hadn't even stepped foot in the park yet. Everyone up there applauded and was extremely impressed. I highly, highly recommend making it up to Bar Helios for the show if you can before the secret gets out.
• I got a night cap - their take on a Paper Plane - and was really impressed with the cocktail, which had a spicy kick despite the bourbon base. Big fan and would get again. My fiancee got a smoky chocolate mousse desert that came with a sort of "instagram" moment as the fog dissipates. Also very tasty and a generous portion.

Soon, we headed back to Stella to get some shut eye ahead of day one... more to come!

 

[Brian G.]

Looking forward to more!

 

[Mad Dog]

Excellent review so far. I'll be there in a few days myself.

 

[Co@sterDuck!]

day and night; your trip and mine

 

[Clive]

We got up around 7AM to prep for 9AM early entry. By 7:40AM or so, we were downstairs and found a lengthy line snaking out of Stella Nova's grab-and-go market/coffee shop. For those who don't realize, this is essentially a Starbucks, even though it isn't branded as one. It carries all of the Starbucks coffee and equipment, but because the store sells other non-Starbucks products (including generic snacks and ice cream), they went with a Stella Nova-specific name. The good news is they worked through the line quickly, and we were on the move by 7:50AM or so.

The walk from Stella Nova to the Epic Universe gates is very fast - about ten minutes at a good pace - though it is inevitably not as picturesque or enclosed as the walks from the resorts to the parks on the North Campus. There are shuttles for those who wish to avoid the trek.

We arrived to a smattering of people waiting for security to open and picked a short line. A very boisterous and friendly security guard was going the extra mile to hype up the crowd and entertain guests (think WaterWorld competitive chants). He made the wait memorable, and I really enjoyed his antics.

Security opened by 8:15AM or so, and then there was another 15 minute wait for them to start scanning tickets and admitting us through to Celestial Park. I really like the new turnstile-less ticket scanners, and I had no issues with the facial identification at any point during the trip.

The front-of-house areas for Celestial Park are very attractive and engaging, though they don't reach the heights of Port of Entry - still Universal's gold standard. The Chronos is striking, but sadly, no part of it ever span during our visit. Not a great sign for a park this young. Many guests looked up at it confusingly when we were directed to do so by staff and the opening announcements.

A quick thing: I really, really like the term "travelers" as both a way to position guests in this world and a means to refer to everyone in a gender neutral term. I despise the use of the word "friends" by the Disney parks, which feels condescending and presumptive.

We stayed to the left and were near the front of the crowd. By 8:45AM, the opening announcement played, and we were gently guided to...

Super Nintendo World

• I get why it's set up the way it is, but those poor dual escalators just inside the portal get absolutely bombarded at the top of the day. It's a nasty chokepoint that the team members did an admirable job managing. It just makes for an unfortunate moment of chaos after an otherwise fairly leisurely and respectful rope drop procedure.
• I've been to the Hollywood Super Nintendo World more times than I can count at this point, so there was inevitably less of a "wow" factor for or even innate excitement for this portal. With that said, my biggest takeaway is the sheer size of Orlando's installation. Everything - everything - feels scaled up. More games. More food options. More nooks and crannies with activations. More figures (more on that in a minute). More stairs.
• I was laser-focused on getting us to Donkey Kong Country as quickly as possible, so we slipped through the stampede toward Mario Kart and made our way through the secondary pipe, which is fairly tucked away!
• Now, I was aware that Mine Kart Madness frequently does not open for early entry, but I don't think the park does a sufficient job messaging this to the average guest. The sign at the front of the park indicated that Super Nintendo World would be open, but it made no distinction as to what specific rides would and would not be available. Signage at Mine Kart's entrance indicated a 10AM opening, but the ride was already cycling, so we decided to wait. We had no Express on Friday, and we figured this was our only chance to get on the ride. (My fiancee will not wait more than 40 minutes or so for anything.)
• We observed tides of people arriving, learning the ride was not open, and receding. A small crowd stuck it out despite halfhearted warnings that they expected to open at 10AM.
• I had noticed some complaining about the lack of musical variety in Donkey Kong Country. I will admit that I chalked that up to Nintendo super fans hoping to see more tracks from what's undeniably a storied library of great tunes. Now that I've spent some time in the area, however, I see this is a literal pain point. As far as I can tell, there is exactly one (1) track that loops in the entire DK Country walking area (i.e. anywhere outside the ride or its queue).
• In fact, I would go so far as to say that Donkey Kong Country has a hostile guest design. It's a dead end that isn't the easiest to find in the first place, as the loud entrance is hidden behind a blind corner. Everything appears built to funnel you toward Mine Kart Madness, with the character meet and greet area, snack stand, power band game, and shop cart feeling like afterthoughts shoved to the side. But it's that one music track playing incessantly that seems configured to compel you to get in, ride, spend your cash, and leave as quickly as possible. I do really think they need to add a few additional music tracks, as that would help, but it wouldn't fix all of this sub area's problems.
• Around 9:30AM or so, we were led into the queue and managed to be among the first 20 or so standby guests.

 

[Clive]

Donkey Kong Mine Kart Madness

• From the ground, this attraction looks very exciting. There's almost constant movement, the illusion is solid from most of these vantages, and it feels tightly packed. The extended queue (which they walked us through) is also really attractive and nicely themed. I'd actually go so far as to say that the Donkey Kong Country area, despite its aforementioned issues, is probably the most aesthetically pleasant area of Super Nintendo World.
• The interior queue was refreshingly and surprisingly cool in temperature. We had already started sweating a bit in the sun outside, so the temple felt pretty great despite the lack of any apparent air conditioning.
• I cannot imagine spending a lot of time in this queue, but what's here is well done. I'm not really sure what else they could have added, and I think it was prudent to allocate budget to other things. The Cranky Kong animatronic is a legitimately impressive figure - easily the best executed Nintendo character (though it's not particularly close).
• I can see how getting stuck in that final hallway with Cranky intermittently yelling about the "nincompoops" could get annoying. I get they are trying to convey the (loose and mostly pointless) premise, but I would maybe adjust the frequency of that spiel down a little.
• We were on the ride by 9:40AM or so, meaning we had in fact waited about "45 minutes," with most of that outside the queue. Maybe not the greatest payoff to our gamble at first glance, but the ride's wait time hovered around 195 minutes for the rest of the day. By the time we reached the station, the Express queue was already completely full, as was the Single Riders line, which had been promptly closed.
• I love the look and feel of the karts. The restraints were extremely comfortable, IMO.
• The ride itself? Both more fun than I expected but still came with some disappointments. I did not experience any roughness issues that have been reported. Bumpy in moments, absolutely, but that felt intentional and consistent with the show/intended experience.
• I really do not like that the entire illusion for how the karts "jump" the track is spoiled right before you launch out of the station. There is no effort to mask the mechanisms as the kart ahead of you makes its first turn past Dixie.
• The Dixie figure is adorable. I did appreciate they planted a tree to specifically conceal her from the station until you pass her.
• We did "launch" out of the barrel, which gives you a really nice, unexpected pop of motion. The waterfall out of the temple was down our entire visit.
• The Donkey Kong/Diddy Mine Kart figure did not fire, though its lights turned on.
• The cave sequence everyone is lamenting is not as dire as the POVs would have you believe. The low light cameras pick up way more than the naked eye can see. Are there still seams? Yes, but I had to look for them. The ride path and show sequence direct you between points of interest as you fly through there.
• Loved the pig at the checkpoint - this is a Diddy Kong Racing reference, right? A neat deep cut!
• I don't know how to explain to Nintendo that no one cares about Tiki Tonga. It's just not going to happen. He's a boring, anonymous villain, but sadly, he is immortalized here. The figure is fine, though sometimes almost completely obscured by the fog effects beside him.
• The final show scene is cute but underwhelming. Donkey Kong sort of just... taps Tiki Tonga's head. It took me a second to realize Donkey Kong was meant to be on top of him, as your view is semi-obscured, and it's probably unclear to most guests 1) what Tiki Tonga looks like and 2) what size he's meant to be. His first appearance makes him look relatively small. The Diddy Kong figure is nice, and I liked the spinning wheels on the mine kart.
• All in all? This is not worth the wait it regularly generates. The ride movements are very fun, the views of Donkey Kong Country are terrific, there's plenty of cute but not astonishing figures and vignettes, but none of that justifies anything more than 30 minutes of your time. As I feared, this is the park's Crush's Coaster - a solid, zippy little coaster burdened by an objectively terrible capacity that never should have made it past the design stage. I'm sure Nintendo nixed this idea, but my proposed fix would've been chaining two mine karts together with commensurately longer brake runs, effectively doubling capacity. Too late to make that work, obviously, so I imagine this will be an operational headache for Epic for... well, ever.
• One last operational thing - the Express merge for DK is right before the station. As in, they check your photo/scan your pass, and then immediately group you. This is both a blessing and a curse. It's awesome in many ways if you have Express because the likelihood of you "burning" your Express slot before a breakdown leaves you trapped in that last hallway is low. If you get in the Express line and the ride suffers a delay, you can pretty easily just jump ship and try again later without trouble. The downside to this setup is the poor team members are swamped as they attempt to group guests and manage checking Express guests. I observed communication issues and clearly stressed employees on both visits to this ride as they attempted to make this work. I have a feeling that, somewhere down the road, they will move the Express merge/checkpoint a bit further down the hallway so that the groupers are not on top of each other.

Next up - Yoshi, Dark Universe, Constellation Carousel, and Cirque!

 

[Parkscope Joe]

I don't know how to explain to Nintendo that no one cares about Tiki Tonga. It's just not going to happen. He's a boring, anonymous villain, but sadly, he is immortalized here. The figure is fine, though sometimes almost completely obscured by the fog effects beside him.

Retro was handling DK at that time and they invented Tiki Tonga. Simple as that.

 

[Clive]

Retro was handling DK at that time and they invented Tiki Tonga. Simple as that.

Oh, I understand why Tiki Tonga is here in the same way I know why certain aesthetic choices for the rest of Super Nintendo World were made. Nintendo habitually defaults to its most recent iteration of a given franchise when developing location-based entertainment and crossover experiences (i.e. Smash Bros). I'm just pointing out that Tiki Tonga's an extremely underwhelming character.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Oh, I understand why Tiki Tonga is here in the same way I know why certain aesthetic choices for the rest of Super Nintendo World were made. Nintendo habitually defaults to its most recent iteration of a given franchise when developing location-based entertainment and crossover experiences (i.e. Smash Bros). I'm just pointing out that Tiki Tonga's an extremely underwhelming character.

I want to be specific about Retro here because Nintendo has used other bad guys in other things. Retro was handlers of the DK brand when they had it, even if Nintendo owned it and published the games.

 

[Clive]

I want to be specific about Retro here because Nintendo has used other bad guys in other things. Retro was handlers of the DK brand when they had it, even if Nintendo owned it and published the games.

Totally, I get that Retro has prioritized that character and likely mandated its use as part of its relationship with Nintendo. My argument is that they've they done this despite fan disinterest and the reality that the character just isn't that interesting or even visually striking. It's not the end of the world, but it's one of those things that will potentially make for an interesting bit of trivia ten, twenty years from now ("who is this Tiki Tonga guy and why did they go with him instead of the Kremlings, etc.?")

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Totally, I get that Rare has prioritized that character and likely mandated its use as part of its relationship with Nintendo. My argument is that they've they done this despite fan disinterest and the reality that the character just isn't that interesting or even visually striking. It's not the end of the world, but it's one of those things that will potentially make for an interesting bit of trivia ten, twenty years from now ("who is this Tiki Tonga guy and why did they go with him instead of the Kremlings, etc.?")

Retro, not Rare.

Let me not dance around the point:

Spoiler: DK Bananza spoilers

King K Rule is the main bad guy in the Nintendo developed DK Bananza so I expect if this land was developed even just a year or two later we might have gotten something very different. Same for the design of DK.

I agree with your point, just trying to apply the correct blame lol

 

[Clive]

Retro, not Rare.

Let me not dance around the point:

Spoiler: DK Bananza spoilers

King K Rule is the main bad guy in the Nintendo developed DK Bananza so I expect if this land was developed even just a year or two later we might have gotten something very different. Same for the design of DK.

I agree with your point, just trying to apply the correct blame lol

That was my bad! Yes, Retro. And I agree, if things timed out differently, I suspect we'd have gotten the King in some capacity. Just the way it goes sometimes!