Epic Universe Ticketing Info, Advice, & Speculation

[nikem3]

I’ve talked about it before, but besides the fun shared experience and party-like atmosphere of an opening day, sometimes rides change shortly after opening. I was lucky enough to attend Animal Kingdom
previews and shortly after opening Countdown to Extinction’s motion profile was lessened, Big Red removed from the Safari, and skewered knights taken down from the boat ride. We know what happened to the Yeti shortly after opening. It was nice to see the Rise of the Resistance cannons actually work on opening day. And I’m so happy I had a perfect ride on Tiana’s opening day, considering nothing is working on it now lol

But yea, to each their own. Mostly I like the party feel and shared experience of opening days, and have been experiencing them decades before I started covering the parks.

Agree with all of this. Especially the high end animatronics. Could never work again or be limited after the first few weeks if Disney is an indication of anything.

 

[TheCodeMan95]

I'm worried enough about it being insanely packed in September, lol

 

[belloq87]

My impulse for wanting to see the park "early" (if you can call September early), beyond just the obvious "We've been waiting years to see it complete" thing, is that I don't want to have to self-exile from being part of the conversation about the park longer than I have to.

 

[amar831]

I’ve talked about it before, but besides the fun shared experience and party-like atmosphere of an opening day, sometimes rides change shortly after opening. I was lucky enough to attend Animal Kingdom
previews and shortly after opening Countdown to Extinction’s motion profile was lessened, Big Red removed from the Safari, and skewered knights taken down from the boat ride. We know what happened to the Yeti shortly after opening. It was nice to see the Rise of the Resistance cannons actually work on opening day. And I’m so happy I had a perfect ride on Tiana’s opening day, considering nothing is working on it now lol

But yea, to each their own. Mostly I like the party feel and shared experience of opening days, and have been experiencing them decades before I started covering the parks.

Seeing the functioning yeti is a big one for me personally. No one in my circle believed me until I gave them proof of disco yeti.

 

[wutisgood]

I'll just never understand the allure of wanting to be the first in a new park or on a new attraction. Standing in a many hours long line to try to experience something brand new that has a huge chance of breaking down while you're in that super long line just isn't my idea of fun....I'll be patient and wait for an opportune time when I can actually 'enjoy' the experience.

I actually cant remember why I rode rise of the resistance on the 3rd opening day. I think maybe I got lucky and already had the trip planned that just lined up. That being said when I learned disney was opening studios about 3 hours early (as I believe they had also done for the land when it originally opened) I booked a hotel near enough and drove to get in when the lots oppened knowing that there would not be a lot of people doing the same at that hour and counting on disney to open at an unofficial time.

Being able to experience what I believed at the time and arguably still do as the best end to end attraction in the world with everyone else for the first time was an experience I will never forget. I still remember no one really knew how exactly the ride seemed to start and then take a break and then start back up again given the transport ship/interrogation/main ride layout. Also like someone mentioned with the working yeti I had working cannons (although its a more minor detail here).

That being said if you asked me to do opening day on either harry potter land hard pass. Disney was so afraid of giant lines overwealming their infrastucture and crowd control they actually did a really great job with star wars and the introduction of virtual queue for rise of the resistance.

At the time of harry potter especially with the first land universal really needed the mdia attention of giant lines as well as it was better for publicicty for them overall. There really is no point these days of generating giant lines on limited capacity (and useless crowd management for guests that cant even ride anyways) and I imagine that is actually a detterant, Even with Galaxys edge we had a large portion of people delaying vacations until rise of the resistance was open. It is all about getting "Media" and influencers in early and managing crowds to favor those who are buying top end vacation packages.

The question overall in here is how greedy is universal willing to get and where do they draw the line between packages, passholders, and day tickets. I think overall the right move is to wait over buying expensive packages in this case to be first. I just cant see universal doing something like disney did with galaxys edge for a whole park, but if they did and opened at 6 am for long preview days I would certainly be there for it.

 

[Mad Dog]

I actually cant remember why I rode rise of the resistance on the 3rd opening day. I think maybe I got lucky and already had the trip planned that just lined up. That being said when I learned disney was opening studios about 3 hours early (as I believe they had also done for the land when it originally opened) I booked a hotel near enough and drove to get in when the lots oppened knowing that there would not be a lot of people doing the same at that hour and counting on disney to open at an unofficial time.

Being able to experience what I believed at the time and arguably still do as the best end to end attraction in the world with everyone else for the first time was an experience I will never forget. I still remember no one really knew how exactly the ride seemed to start and then take a break and then start back up again given the transport ship/interrogation/main ride layout. Also like someone mentioned with the working yeti I had working cannons (although its a more minor detail here).

That being said if you asked me to do opening day on either harry potter land hard pass. Disney was so afraid of giant lines overwealming their infrastucture and crowd control they actually did a really great job with star wars and the introduction of virtual queue for rise of the resistance.

At the time of harry potter especially with the first land universal really needed the mdia attention of giant lines as well as it was better for publicicty for them overall. There really is no point these days of generating giant lines on limited capacity (and useless crowd management for guests that cant even ride anyways) and I imagine that is actually a detterant, Even with Galaxys edge we had a large portion of people delaying vacations until rise of the resistance was open. It is all about getting "Media" and influencers in early and managing crowds to favor those who are buying top end vacation packages.

The question overall in here is how greedy is universal willing to get and where do they draw the line between packages, passholders, and day tickets. I think overall the right move is to wait over buying expensive packages in this case to be first. I just cant see universal doing something like disney did with galaxys edge for a whole park, but if they did and opened at 6 am for long preview days I would certainly be there for it.

Nice interesting story. But, like you said about Potter, I'm patient enough to wait until the experience gets settled down. Chances are that most of the opening effects will still be around for at least the first year. It's generally down the line when stuff stops working. I finally got on RotR for the first time in spring 2023, after unsuccessfully attempting the Virtual line back in the month before covid. The canons, and everything else, was in good working order (2023), and I rode three times during that vacation with fairly short (around 15 to 30 minute) line times during a fairly slow week. And on this vacation in June, lines were fairly short again, and everything worked but the canons and laser for two rides. So I don't really envision that I will miss much by waiting 6 months or so after Epic opening....And yes, RotR is the best attraction, by far, in my opinion.....Another issue is that the new attractions don't often operate well the first few months, and lots of effects don't work, or don't work properly. Gringotts is a great example. It had horrible reviews the first couple of months. Long lines and effects not working consistently, plus constant breakdowns. It opened early summer. We went in September, and everything worked good, and the lines were no longer real long. Loved the ride then and love it now. ....

 

[TheCodeMan95]

My hope is that - by September 2025, most of the major attractions will be down to 2 hour waits each lol

 

[IzzyB]

My hope is that - by September 2025, most of the major attractions will be down to 2 hour waits each lol

I think weekdays in September till be way less crowded. I don't know any families who would vacation in September or Early/mid May that have kids in school. You want your kid to get in a pattern of school at beginning of year before pulling them and then in May you have too much testing they would need to make up it isn't worth it. It is why historically those are lower crowd levels.

I highly doubt there are a ton of no-kid people or homeschool families to cause massive crowds in September.

 

[TheCodeMan95]

I think weekdays in September till be way less crowded. I don't know any families who would vacation in September or Early/mid May that have kids in school. You want your kid to get in a pattern of school at beginning of year before pulling them and then in May you have too much testing they would need to make up it isn't worth it. It is why historically those are lower crowd levels.

I highly doubt there are a ton of no-kid people or homeschool families to cause massive crowds in September.

We went the 2nd week of September last year, and the crowds were great. We're doing the 1st week of September this year (literally arriving on Labor Day) so I imagine it will likely be the same.

But it's been so long since a new park opened in Orlando - I think it's hard to predict what things will be like. I'd have to imagine it will still be VERY busy only 3-4 months after opening.

 

[Jake S]

But it's been so long since a new park opened in Orlando - I think it's hard to predict what things will be like. I'd have to imagine it will still be VERY busy only 3-4 months after opening.

I think it'll be pretty quiet (relatively speaking), though it does seem like every person on this forum is coming in September/October so it'll definitely be over-indexed on dorks.

 

[TheCodeMan95]

I think it'll be pretty quiet (relatively speaking), though it does seem like every person on this forum is coming in September/October so it'll definitely be over-indexed on dorks.

Just a couple thousand people complaining about mobile ordering and the lack of physical maps

 

[Jake S]

Just a couple thousand people complaining about mobile ordering and the lack of physical maps

Gonna be a lot of sightline chat at Celestiki.

 

[OLSinFLA]

So is there a chance this park will be at full capacity / sell out each day for the first few weeks?

If ir does, it will e the first theme park in Orlando to do so. I've been to opening day of ever park in Orlando except the Magic Kingdom. The most crowded was Epcot (although by 11 am nearly everything was down so people were getting refunds and leaving)

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Gonna be a lot of sightline chat at Celestiki.

Now I don’t want to go to CelesTiki

 

[UniversalRBLX]

So is there a chance this park will be at full capacity / sell out each day for the first few weeks?

Artificially sure. I'd imagine the first day is guaranteed to sell out, artificially or not (to combat bad press).

Depending on ticketing structure, it'd be hard to sell out the true capacity of the park each day. Let alone reach average MK-like crowds each day.

 

[belloq87]

Just a couple thousand people complaining about mobile ordering and the lack of physical maps

Why did you have to remind me that there will be no park map to add to my collection of all parks I've ever visited?!

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

Now I don’t want to go to CelesTiki

EDIT: This song maybe goes too hard for the joke I was trying to make.

 

[jarmor]

Is this the crowd speculation thread now?? ;lol lol

 

[OLSinFLA]

Artificially sure. I'd imagine the first day is guaranteed to sell out, artificially or not (to combat bad press).

Depending on ticketing structure, it'd be hard to sell out the true capacity of the park each day. Let alone reach average MK-like crowds each day.

I've said it before... no park in Orlando has every sold out during its opening month, never mind opening day

 

[ilovetotravel1977]

Hoping by early February 2026, lines are manageable LOL