I-4 had toll lanes by Disney in the past, you can still see the diamonds in places
Universal's Epic Universe Construction Thread
- Thread starter Brian G.
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I hate those things. They've made the trip through 77 Charlotte much much much slower than it was before they put those in. All that money. Such a waste.
I do like the dedicated toll roads like Kansas Turnpike or the Indian roads but those are out in the country and really don't cost much. Take the 417 on a loop around Otown and you feel like Disney is running the road with all the nickel and diming of so many toll booths/reads
Nah, those were High Occupancy Vehicle lanes. supposed to be only 2+ people in the vehicle allowed in those lanes, and no trucks.
They just started work on the Daryl Carter onramp that will either alleviate things or make traffic far worse with additional merge lanes.
The 2+ requirement at least was NEVER enforced, so an easy mistake to make.
No even going to try to address all the area's traffic hassles, but the problem with Universal Blvd is access to I-4 West. As it backs up at 535 and the merge point just before that, it backs up 528 and eventually Universal. This has the potential to make things here worse,
As far as I've heard Team Members coming in, and other stuff like furnishing room isn't until Dec 2024/Jan 2025. I still think summer 2025 for the whole shebang, but we'll see.
They won't be able to open the 2nd of the twin Nova/Luna hotels until the roundabout is finished, but they can definitely open the other one late next year if that's the plan.
Hopefully June/July Summer not "Mummy" Summer.
If furnishings are going in around January, they can soft by mid-March to early April. Grand opening would probably be 45-60 days after soft opening.
They won't put furnishings in until the vast majority of the punch list is completed.
That's about when I expect to see TM previews for select areas of the park too.
And 60 days later would be early June, the target grand opening for Epic I am sure.
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Is the order for furnishings already established this far out due to the sheer number of items required to populate the entire park?
I dont want to have to think about such a grand task. It hurts my brain. But, I assume so!
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In my experience handling furniture procurement for themed hotels, especially the many (no doubt) custom pieces... they have to be pretty far along in the planning phase if not outright production by this point.
We have a 5 month lead time for replacement furniture where I work and we're just reordering the same items that we used in our most recent renovation in 2017. We're also only ordering 20 sets of each item.
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Universal probably had agreements in place before COVID shutdown.
They might have gotten lucky with some of those contracts as well with just how expensive things have gotten now.
Can't imagine the price tag now had they started from scratch today.
There was a lot of stuff that was well under way pre pandemic, so it wouldn't surprise me to hear that things like furnishings were ordered as well.
I know even when things were "on hold" in the middle of the pandemic, some of the groups were still sourcing and ordering things (fabrics, equipment, etc.). I'm hopeful that between the work done ahead of time, the long lead time, and the improving supply chain situation that it will all come together for 2025.
I know even when things were "on hold" in the middle of the pandemic, some of the groups were still sourcing and ordering things (fabrics, equipment, etc.). I'm hopeful that between the work done ahead of time, the long lead time, and the improving supply chain situation that it will all come together for 2025.
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