I think UOR will tie their lowest AP w/ Pixie Dust (possibly even a few dollars above), but really start to increase the number of blockout dates, especially for Epic. UOR's upper tiers will definitely be priced far lower than the ridiculous $1.5K WDW Incredi-pass though.
I do think some of the more unique benefits for Premier pass will start to dwindle (like Valet parking) and be "replaced" by increased blockouts at the other passes.
I don't use Valet anyways, so don't care about that. The few times I tried years ago it took forever to get my car and I decided walking the extra distance was faster.
I'm expecting tickets to be pretty high, especially if there's no passholder previews. Everyone is gonna want to be here on opening day. A little price gouging could actually be a good idea.
I can't imagine them not having AP preview. They have to soft open this park or day 1 will be a nightmare.
At MOST, Epic will match whatever the Magic Kingdom day-ticket is.
It’ll most likely match whatever the day-ticket is for their other dry parks is. It’s first three months will be blacked out for all APs (including any APs that include Epic). The day tickets will likely be able to be purchased in advance.
So are you hearing any rumors on how long softs will be? Or is it really based on a drop dead go-live date and when they are ready to open for softs? So if they are ready to open softs early they will give themselves longer softs? I just feel if they don't have at least a solid month of softs this park on day 1 is going to be an operations nightmare.
To everyone who has been commenting that they don't expect the park to be as insanely busy as others do, what are you expecting? How do you think crowds will shake out for the first year or 2?
I'm not arguing btw, I'm genuinely curious how all of our expectations are differing
I think it will be busy, I don't think it will be at capacity or near capacity every day after a few weeks. I think after a few weeks they will have some really busy days and then some normal days. If they keep AP out for 3 months they will for sure won't be as busy after 1 month.
Epic Universe will be in every NBC commercial break, but we also have to note that the general public will go when they can and not just within the first few weeks, no matter how excited they are. We saw with Disneyland that hardcore fans showed up the first week in June for SWGE, but everyone else showed up in August when it was cheaper and APs were unblocked.
There will be far more people at Magic Kingdom on any given day compared to Epic Universe. Universal isn't ready (or capable yet) of handling 40K+ guests on average each day.
Agreed. I don't think people understand how non-theme park fans vacation. You will have some that will absolutely want to go the first summer and the flexibility to book a trip. You will have others that just want nothing to do with opening crowds and will wait for the following year. You will have non-kid people wait for school to go back in session so as to not have the crowds. You will have others wait for the weather to cool and without kids go any time between Nov to Feb and kid ones go at Thanksgiving or Christmas. The crowds will be way more spread out than people think. Other people are planners and have destinations already in mind for 2025 and won't change for a new park at this point.
The influencers will all be there the first month which will inflate the attendance. Theme park fans will also be there the first month, but even many of them will spread out as not everyone can just afford to go or have the time off work to go when they want.
Put it this way, I was super excited for a whole new land to open at Dollywood, same when they opened a new coaster. But I didn't go plan a trip later in the year, I stuck with our normal routine of March and just caught both the following year. Why? Because we like going in March when it is cooler and we can snow tube and have a chance of catching snow. Do we sometimes plan a second trip? Yes, but those years we already had other places we were going and so a second trip wasn't feasible. So we all waited and got to it when we got to it. And I am a theme park fan and even I didn't rush to opening summer. Heck my in-laws are talking about cancelling their universal AP passes before Epic even opens and switching to Disney. They probably don't want to deal with the crowds and they miss Disney. Epic will be popular, but it won't be sold out park for months and months.