A Geeky Guy's Guide to Universal orlando Epic Universe
A couple of months ago, I took my family to the new theme park at Universal Orlando. Since then I wrote a scathing review of the Mario Kart ride and a reflection on a couple of little kids who could teach the world a thing or two about acceptance and kindness. But I never shared my opinion on the park itself.
Well let's just say the park lived up to its name. It truly was epic! In fact, it is definitely the best of the three parks at Universal Orlando.
The park is split into five different worlds. These include: Celestial Park (the central hub), Super Nintendo World, How to Train Your Dragon (Isle of Berk), Dark Universe (Universal Monsters), and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Ministry of Magic). Each world has a cool gimmick where you walk through a spectacular portal in order to enter it.
The Celestial Park is pretty useless. It really just connects all of the other worlds. I believe it was meant to be headlined by the Stardust Racers roller coaster but we did not even bother going on this ride. Actually no one in the entire park did. After hearing horrible reviews it is no surprise that the line was never more than 15 minutes long all day. There are some cool fountains and its pretty cool to look at when it is lit up at night. But it is not a destination.
Super Nintendo World was definitely sensory overload. They were trying to make you feel like you were in a Mario video game... and they succeeded. There are non stop coin capturing noises and everything lights up. Every kid under the age of ten seemed to be strolling through their version of heaven. There is a cute kid friendly Yoshi ride which my adult son rode and said was cute but i wasn't missing anything. This is also where the overrated and often broken Super Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge ride was. I hated it. If you want more info about why, please check out my previous rant. By far the highlight of this world is the Donkey Kong Mine cart Madness. It is a very clever roller coaster with some very cool effects. We rode this twice and would have ridden it more if the lines were shorter.
Because it is Universal, it will of course include yet another Harry Potter World. This one is supposed ot be base don the Ministry of Magic but it is really just the exact same thing as Diagnal Alley... but in France. It was OK but it was nothing special. The featured ride: Harry Potter and the Battle At The Ministry is another one of the 3D motion simulation rides. It was fine. We only rode it once. As always the displays as you walk through the line were far more impressive than the ride itself.
Dark Universe was incredible! The theme of this world is classic horror movie monsters. Think Dracula, Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon and the Wolf-man. I honestly was not expecting to like this land so much. Although the rides, Wolf-man and Frankenstein, were fun in the day, the world was simply amazing at night. This world was done perfectly with little Easter eggs like being able to listen in on Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde arguing or meeting the Invisible Man. yes I am a dad so every five minutes I said to y family "Look the Invisible Man!" while pointing at nothing but there really was a cast member dressed and acting like the lunatic. He comes out and chats with the crowd. He's a cranky scientist who loves to insult people. Being the good guy I am, I decided to give him some material to work with because everyone else around was being silent. At one point he asked me "What potion did you take to make you so stupid?" It was awesome! The Frankenstein ride is basically the exact same thing as the original Harry Potter ride. It relies on visuals more than thrills. It was ok. But the Wolf-man roller coaster is a ton of fun.
By far the highlight of the park is the How to Train Your Dragon Isle of Berk World. It was perfect. It is decorated just like Berk with lots of dragons everywhere. The featured ride, Hiccups Wing Gliders is one of the best roller coasters I have ever been on. It is important to note, I am old and don't like loops anymore. So I look for smooth and fast roller coasters. This one definitely had those. In addition to the thrill of the ride, the decorations are amazing. There is even an incredibly fun audio track that changes every time. It involves Hiccup talking to you while a dragon carries you and your fellow passengers. It was amazing! We rode this one five times! Again, this one looked even cooler when it was lit up at night.
Even though the park is insanely expensive, it is definitely worth it if there are Monster, Dragon, or Mario fans in your group. I also bet Harry Potter fanatics would love the new addition as well... but we found it a bit redundant.
Has anyone been to Epic Universe? What did you think?
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I figured I'd wait a couple years. I've heard horrible things about wait times. How was it when you were there?
I wait during Thanksgiving Weekend. Aside from the Mario Kart ride they weren't that bad. In the morning, we were able to ride everything once by about 12:00. Then we came back at night and used our fast passes for each ride. We only had the 1 ride fast pass so the rest of the time we just waited in a short regular line. The lines were much shorter at night even though everything looked so much cooler then.
There is no such theme park around here but surely visiting such places is worth of every penny. We have the film city around but mostly it captures some odd film set-up and equipments.
That is very much something I would prefer to do off-peak assuming it operates during off-peak XD Sounds like generally overall good?
Hmm I wonder if I've stopped liking loops yet, I'm getting old too XD A few short years ago we went to Adventure World (basically a water park with some rides) and I promised the kids I would go on one ride with each of them. One of them wanted to go on a roller coaster (I think it had a loop or a corkscrew or something) so we went on that. I hadn't been on a roller coaster for many years by tthat point but I used to love them and we went into a dark bit so of course there was going to be a sharp turn at some point. There was the expected sharp turn but I still managed to somehow hit my head on the safety harness and then guess which idiot went on two more high speed bendy twisty spinny rides to worsen the concussion because I always try to do what I said I would do even if it kills me apparently x_x
It’s so cool that they gave the classic monsters so much love! Dracula and Frankenstein never go out of style if done right.
I've never been and I don't think I ever will, but well, if it's an Epic Universe with 5 different worlds for all tastes, a trip for everyone from children to adults, I imagine they'll enjoy the different attractions
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Oh man I so much wanted to visit an universal studio park... Here we have Gardaland or Disneyland Paris but universal studio parks look epic too... You make me want visit one, but it's sooooo far away
And well all parks are expensive
Isle of Berk comes across as the real winner here. Riding the same coaster five times pretty much says everything about how good it is.
I love video games, especially since I spent hours and hours playing them peacefully as a child. So, if I ever had the chance to be in the Epic Universe, I wouldn't hesitate. My inner child would be so happy. But for now, it's just a dream, but dreams do come true. You just have to work hard to make them a reality, and who knows, maybe I'll even get a picture with Mario, Luigi, Toad, Peach, or my favorite character, Bowser.
Without a doubt, these are 5 different but fantastic worlds to enjoy with the family. I've never been, but I would love to go and see what this Epic Universe has in store for us. My favorites would definitely be Super Nintendo World and Dark Universe. I'm a big fan of video games as well as movie monsters, and all those worlds would be a unique and unforgettable experience for the rest of my life.
Believe it or not, I have never read any of the Harry Potter books or seen any of the movies. It's not something that ever really appealed to me, then as the hype grew, I dragged my feet even more on it!
For me, I had to for my kids. They were super into it. I doubt I would have gotten into it on my own. But I did thoroughly enjoy the books and most of the movies. The key for me was that we listened to the first few books on audio during family roadtrips. In fact we listened to the first one on the way down to Disney many years ago and had to have the second one delivered to our hotel for the ride back. Our kids loved it so much we breezed through the first one.
That is cool. I think my wife read them, but I am not sure why because she doesn't really care for fantasy or science fiction type stuff. Perhaps one day I will circle back to them. It makes sense why you would go.
Two times in my life I made it to Orlando. Both times, I didn't schedule any parks in my schedule. Not so cleaver of me, being from Europe and all, with perhaps mucho less quality parks. That said, the first time I was in Orlando, I got my fair share of a bumpy ride: Flying with an MD11 aeroplane through these tiny but high clouds that may or may not produced super local rain. While other planes were circling around them, we went straight in, dropping the plane at least 500 feet whenever we did hit one of those clouds. Most people in the plane got sick after doing this for at least ten times. Was a super fun ride. And the best of all, no waiting lines for this ride 🥳
Getting very curious: What was your response?
The first thing that comes to mind when we think of traveling somewhere is the prices. If things are not expensive there, then only we take our family there. I have also played the Super Mario game many times in my childhood