• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Universal Epic Universe - New Florida Theme Park

Benjsh said:
I certainly hope so.

We've made a plan to try and have our 1 day at Epic on Tue/Wed/Thurs in week 1 and if we fail then try again week 2. Give ourselves more chances basically.

Probably going to have to get there a good hour or so before the park opens to stand a good chance of getting in too. I think it will probably hit capacity every single day in August unless there's a bad storm.
Click to expand...

August is now one of the quieter months of the year, well as quiet the parks can be in Orlando But am sure Epic will be rammed still. This is shown in Disneys park ticket prices where August dated tickets are in the lowest price band. This is evident from the second week in August when us school start going backafter Summer. Having been in August twice now, while parks are still busy they are not manic and outside Hagrids most lines don’t average anything much past 45 mins at universal, often less. October was certainly busier when visited previously.

on a side note if you can visit MK on a Halloween party night as while closes early at 6pm the park is much quieter than a non party day. Then visit again just in the evening for the fireworks on a Non party night (maybe tagged onto another park you have visited earlier, ie Animal Kingdom.
 
Maelstrom said:
August is now one of the quieter months of the year, well as quiet the parks can be in Orlando But am sure Epic will be rammed still. This is shown in Disneys park ticket prices where August dated tickets are in the lowest price band. This is evident from the second week in August when us school start going backafter Summer. Having been in August twice now, while parks are still busy they are not manic and outside Hagrids most lines don’t average anything much past 45 mins at universal, often less. October was certainly busier when visited previously.
Click to expand...

Yeah it usually is quieter in August but it won't be this year. I think it's going to be rammo all month. And given that you can't buy a single day ticket to Epic then it's going to make the other parks busier too. Not a bad strategy from Universal really to make people buy 3/5 day pass and only have 1 day at Epic.

I am anticipating much larger crowds than normal but we are going to plan as best as we can for this. We are even prepared to drop a Disney day if needs be as we are far more excited about Universal anyway.
 
Benjsh said:
I certainly hope so.

We've made a plan to try and have our 1 day at Epic on Tue/Wed/Thurs in week 1 and if we fail then try again week 2. Give ourselves more chances basically.

Probably going to have to get there a good hour or so before the park opens to stand a good chance of getting in too. I think it will probably hit capacity every single day in August unless there's a bad storm.
Click to expand...

Uh oh, is a ticket not going to guarantee entry?

I’m off in Sept with tickets bought through the American universal website which allows 1 visit to each 3 parks once over a 5 day period, including one epic universe. Do you think there’s a chance we could be turned away from Epic if crowd levels are high? Our ticket is dated in the sense that we’ve set the 5 day period, but no more specific than that. I never considered they may stop admittance due to capacity, as I assumed that’d be factored into tickets sales 😬
 
James5696 said:
Uh oh, is a ticket not going to guarantee entry?

I’m off in Sept with tickets bought through the American universal website which allows 1 visit to each 3 parks once over a 5 day period, including one epic universe. Do you think there’s a chance we could be turned away from Epic if crowd levels are high? Our ticket is dated in the sense that we’ve set the 5 day period, but no more specific than that. I never considered they may stop admittance due to capacity, as I assumed that’d be factored into tickets sales 😬
Click to expand...

It does NOT guarantee you get in unfortunately. It just means you can have one day in the park subject to capacity. As we are visiting last two weeks of August a lot of US kids are back at school so pretty confident we will get in on one of the days but we will arrive very early and queue to make sure.

However if you visit on a week day in September you won't have any issues at all.
 
While August will be busy hotel prices for onsite at Universal are cheaper currently than they were for August last year. Have paid £100 less for 9 nights at Aventura vs what paid for same in August 2022 for same dates. I tracked prices as well for last year and rebooked a number of times when they dropped. Aventura booked 9 nights early August for £980 for this year. Endless summer dockside for same dates has been available for £688- didn’t see drop below £800 last year for same dates. While I expect epic universe to be very busy August (and Sept) won’t be as busy as June and July, October-Dec.

From what hearing while sales of epic tickets have been strong- they not been as high as some had expected as this stage. in fact apart from opening weekend/day single day ticket for pass holders are still available for every day. I believe you can also still get tickets for opening weekend with multi day tickets- it was expected that universal would have restricted sales for certain dates by now but as it stands they haven’t needed to.
 
We've booked for August 2026 to spread 10 nights across the 4 Universal sites. Hopefully by then Epic should be well and truly settled down and bedded in, I haven't been to Florida in almost 15 years so will be interesting to see what all the parks, never mind going to what is effectively a fresh/brand new one.
 
Maelstrom said:
August is now one of the quieter months of the year, well as quiet the parks can be in Orlando But am sure Epic will be rammed still. This is shown in Disneys park ticket prices where August dated tickets are in the lowest price band. This is evident from the second week in August when us school start going backafter Summer. Having been in August twice now, while parks are still busy they are not manic and outside Hagrids most lines don’t average anything much past 45 mins at universal, often less. October was certainly busier when visited previously.

on a side note if you can visit MK on a Halloween party night as while closes early at 6pm the park is much quieter than a non party day. Then visit again just in the evening for the fireworks on a Non party night (maybe tagged onto another park you have visited earlier, ie Animal Kingdom.
Click to expand...
Yeah that’s why we looking at going the last 2 weeks in August next year as 1 like u said the US kids are back at school and with bank holiday Monday been on the 31st Aug I got 4 days to get over the jet lag before going back to work.
Also with the amount of Construction work that will be taking place it will put off a lot of visitors.

We not gonna do Epic universe yet as my son will only be roughly 1.2m tall by August next year and been his 1st visit to Orlando we just gonna do Disney.
 
Themeparksandy1981 said:
Yeah that’s why we looking at going the last 2 weeks in August next year as 1 like u said the US kids are back at school and with bank holiday Monday been on the 31st Aug I got 4 days to get over the jet lag before going back to work.
Also with the amount of Construction work that will be taking place it will put off a lot of visitors.

We not gonna do Epic universe yet as my son will only be roughly 1.2m tall by August next year and been his 1st visit to Orlando we just gonna do Disney.
Click to expand...

Won't it be just Stardust racers he won't be able to ride? I can't think of any other attraction that is 1.3m or higher.

Epic Universe is a park aimed at families so you'd be fine I reckon. I wouldn't miss that one.

Plus you can always get in single rider line for a solo ride on Stardust racers. 😉
 
That's a shame, but sounds like a necessary evil. As stated in the video, regulations are regulations and sounds like a trim was the only viable option they had.
 
Benjsh said:
Won't it be just Stardust racers he won't be able to ride? I can't think of any other attraction that is 1.3m or higher.

Epic Universe is a park aimed at families so you'd be fine I reckon. I wouldn't miss that one.

Plus you can always get in single rider line for a solo ride on Stardust racers. 😉
Click to expand...
It’s costs also I been saving £30 a week since our last visit in September 2016 so we could still have holidays every year and do home improvements. Prices for next summer come out In April but I do a dummy booking last year for staying at a Disney Moderate resort with the free dinning plan and 14 day tickets and it was coming in at roughly £12000 for the 4 of us.If I was to add on Universal 4 parks I bet that will be roughly £1500-£2000 then you got spending money.
We hope to go again in 2031 for my 50th
 
Themeparksandy1981 said:
It’s costs also I been saving £30 a week since our last visit in September 2016 so we could still have holidays every year and do home improvements. Prices for next summer come out In April but I do a dummy booking last year for staying at a Disney Moderate resort with the free dinning plan and 14 day tickets and it was coming in at roughly £12000 for the 4 of us.If I was to add on Universal 4 parks I bet that will be roughly £1500-£2000 then you got spending money.
We hope to go again in 2031 for my 50th
Click to expand...

Fair play. If you're planning on going back in the next 5-6 years then it's a no brainer.

This will be my 3rd time in Florida but will be the 1st time for our son who will be 11 when we go in August. We're doing the 14 day ultimate pass and doing Disney, SeaWorld, Busch and obviously Universal so it's going to be very tiring.

We're already planning on going back at some point in the next 4-5 years though and just doing a week at Universal and nowhere else. By then we should be able to do multiple visits to Epic hopefully rather than just the single day.
 
Looks like Staff Member previews are starting this Saturday. Exciting!!!

I don't think everything is fully ready yet but most of it is so should get some early reviews next week.
 
Interesting that many of the rides have single rider lines. I will be definitely be looking at taking advantage of those when we visit later this year.

Rumours over at IOA are the single rider line for Hagrids is being changed into Express soon. 6 years before Express was introduced for that ride which is wild.
 
The Sky Fly ones aren't too bad imo, a lot of the queues here are covered but the Curse of the Werewolf ones are terrible.

I understand why they're there... but it majorly dulls the impact of having trains flying over guests and even worse still, due to how the nets encapsulate the train, it's must have a significant effect on the ride experience.

Maybe the density of the netting is exaggerated by the angle and distance these images are taken from, so maybe up close they're not as obtrusive, but they remind me of a Merlin afterthought against all that wonderful theming.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top