jon81uk
TS Member
I don’t think Epic will be as bad as Busch for that sort of thing, it has multiple indoor shows and and attractions plus restaurants. Busch Gardens is more like Thorpe Park in that it’s mainly outdoor coasters.
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Universal Epic Universe - New Florida Theme Park
Yes you are right, although I still take breaks at the Disney/universal parks. I get there for opening and then take break mid afternoon and return to a park late afternoon. Will See how get on as plenty of indoor quick serve restaurants to take a break in with food/drink etc.
Benjsh
TS Member
We won't be taking any afternoon breaks back to hotel. Knowing my wife and son they won't wake up for hours and go back that day.
We have planned for a day off on the 7th day (Saturday) of our holiday though to recharge the batteries. Definitely needed.
We have planned for a day off on the 7th day (Saturday) of our holiday though to recharge the batteries. Definitely needed.
LIVE from the Blue Carpet! Universal Epic Universe Grand Opening Celebration
Live stream of the grand opening starts at 10:45pm tonight
Live stream of the grand opening starts at 10:45pm tonight
Benjsh
TS Member
(Thrill data)
Looks like they have managed to open the park with all the major attractions open which is positive news.
Battle at the Ministry clearly proving to be very popular though but I suspect these figures are slightly skewed down to so many people missing out on it during their previous visit.
Great opportunity to get lots of rides in though if you don't mind missing out on the BATM early doors.
Rob
TS Team
Possible stupid question, who are Toothless and Friends? I'm guessing this is like where at a Disney park the meet and greets with Mickey or the Princesses often have one of the longest queues.
What a day to be there yesterday though! Other the Battle of the Ministry, all the queues appeared to be absolutely fine.
I can't quite believe this park is open already. It only feels like 5 minutes ago that I was reading on the Inside Universal forums about Kids Zone being transformed into a Nintendo themed area, never mind that a whole new park going to be built!
What a day to be there yesterday though! Other the Battle of the Ministry, all the queues appeared to be absolutely fine.
I can't quite believe this park is open already. It only feels like 5 minutes ago that I was reading on the Inside Universal forums about Kids Zone being transformed into a Nintendo themed area, never mind that a whole new park going to be built!
John
TS Member
Toothless is the dragon , it's exactly like the character meets at Disney where you don't actually know which character you'll be seeing
I suspect opening day crowd levels is similar to the UK bank holidays effect - everyone avoids them thinking it'll be packed and the park ends up being unusually quiet
I suspect opening day crowd levels is similar to the UK bank holidays effect - everyone avoids them thinking it'll be packed and the park ends up being unusually quiet
jon81uk
TS Member
(Thrill data)
Looks like they have managed to open the park with all the major attractions open which is positive news.
Battle at the Ministry clearly proving to be very popular though but I suspect these figures are slightly skewed down to so many people missing out on it during their previous visit.
Great opportunity to get lots of rides in though if you don't mind missing out on the BATM early doors.
I think ticket sales were capped quite low for opening day to ensue the queues weren't too bad.
Hopefully the issues with Battle at the Ministry will be resolved so it can actually cope with a full park.
Yep universal capped attendance low yesterday- (single day tickets were actually sold out for yesterday). Helping ensure there was not reports of huge queues everywhere while the media spotlight is on the park. I understand it will be similar for the next week before rising. Think it’s 15k ish yesterday and up to 22k+ as we move into June.
Toothless is the main "character" from How to Train Your Dragon - black dragon.
In the films he has teeth but they're retractable hence the name, I believe in terms of the park he's a Boston Dynamics robot
Hopefully by the time I visit in August 26, everything will be settled down but will be interesting to see how queues progress as visitor numbers increase..
Benjsh
TS Member
I thought they might cap it for opening day / week but I genuinely didn't think they'd go as far as they did. I believe every ride bar BATM was walk on all day long. Seen multiple reports of people getting over 30 total rides. Absolute dream for the people who chanced it. I bet a lot of them were expecting to get 6 or maybe 7 rides total.
And then there’s the melonheads standing for hours in the harry potter queue. Even that dropped down to like 1hr toward the end of the day too. It will be interesting to see how the rest of this week fares especially with it being Memorial Day weekend over there; lots of people off work on Monday.
Reminds me of the Nemesis and Curse at Alton manor opening day crowds…
Benjsh
TS Member
I think they (Universal) have brought this on themselves a tad though. They have created an enormous hype around it by adding the VQ in previews. It's sent people into a frenzy and now people think they have to ride it first otherwise the queue will only get bigger which isn't true.
The other reason is a lot of people there at opening day will have visited at least once during a preview day and not managed to get a Virtual line for it at all.
I hate Virtual lines. Don't think they are fair or justified. Let people choose if they want to ride or not.
Llama
TS Member
I don't think the first few days of a park's official opening really matter much either way for its future success but you do have to give them credit for erring on the side of too few people instead of too many for the opening. They're leaving a small amount of money on the table in exchange for no articles about how much of a nightmare it is to visit Epic Universe which seems like the absolute right trade to me.
I do think the "at exactly 9:00:00am you have 0.78 seconds to press a given button" method of doing it is terrible. It could just as easily be a true lottery where you leisurely express your interest before a given time and then a computer randomly allocates the available slots at once.
This is just a guess but virtual lines are not so much about fairness or anything really other than managing guest expectations and preventing the kind of negative publicity that comes with "Rise of the Resistance opens to a 9-hour standby queue". I think it's kind of a good thing for high-tech rides like that one or Ministry of Magic where the capacity and reliability are both up in the air. The virtual queue method, as unfair as it is compared to a normal standby queue, gives you a realistic idea if you'll be able to ride that day without having to waste time standing in a queue that due to downtime or capacity issues might never actually let you on the ride.
I do think the "at exactly 9:00:00am you have 0.78 seconds to press a given button" method of doing it is terrible. It could just as easily be a true lottery where you leisurely express your interest before a given time and then a computer randomly allocates the available slots at once.
I don’t like VQ either am so glad Disney have removed them for Guadians, Tron and Tianna now. While last summer I didn’t have any issues getting them for gurdians even when returned was still nearly and hr wait to ride. Looking forward to being able to choose when and what time I join the lines for these rides and also be able to ride more than once a day if choose to.
Hopefully Universal don’t need to implement any as capacity increases over the next few weeks.
Also helping is there is no annual pass that includes epic so pass holders have to pay for tickets, also multi day tickets limited to one day entry. Most people won’t be buying multiple days of single dates tickets due to the cost. All of which means universal getting max revenue from each person visiting while helping manage numbers/capacity than if pass holders could visit epic or multi day ticket holders could visit as often as they wanted during their ticket validity period.
Hopefully Universal don’t need to implement any as capacity increases over the next few weeks.
Also helping is there is no annual pass that includes epic so pass holders have to pay for tickets, also multi day tickets limited to one day entry. Most people won’t be buying multiple days of single dates tickets due to the cost. All of which means universal getting max revenue from each person visiting while helping manage numbers/capacity than if pass holders could visit epic or multi day ticket holders could visit as often as they wanted during their ticket validity period.
Benjsh
TS Member
As long as it's clearly advertised outside the entrance I think it's fine.
A virtual line is a lottery and makes you feel like you've been robbed if you don't get one. At least if you have the choice of standby you can choose to wait or not. And that's not accounting for the issues with the system too where people get multiple goes and others get zero.
I believe Shawn (TPWW) had 3 goes in one day where I was seeing comments from folk who didn't get any.
And finally.....if you have the standby for those willing it massively helps lower wait times on the other rides as well.
Llama
TS Member
To be clear, I only think VQ is a good idea in special cases, like when RoTR opened and the reliability was all over the place, or Ministry of Magic where the capacity in the first days was rumoured to be something like 1 to 4 simultaneously working elevators out of the planned 16 or however many. It's a bit of a cop-out for rides like Cosmic Rewind or Tiana's where the reliability wasn't so much of an issue and Disney just wanted to avoid the optics of having 300-minute queues. Especially if they're also offering a pay-to-ride option which is, if you don't win the lottery, effectively the only way to guarantee you'll get on something in a given day.
I've seen talk elsewhere of the ride sequence being modified to remove a drop that was causing the seat/foot sensors to trigger. Whether that's true or not I couldn't say; I do want them to iron out the bugs but I think the technical previews were a bit of a disaster when they opened them to all and sundry.
Wonder what that average looks like when you strip out Harry Potter from the dataHere's day 2 at 9.26am Floridia Time. You might say there's a pattern emerging.
Aint no way in hell I'm waiting nearly 5 hours for a 6 min attraction.
