One of the things that’s been frustrating me lately is the consistently high wait times at Epic Universe—and I haven’t even been in the park recently. In this post, I’m going to take a look at some recent wait times and see what the options are for touring Universal Epic Universe these days…
About This Post and Related Posts
This post is sort of a current, data-focused addendum to our One-Day Epic Universe Plan. If you’re familiar with the park, then this post probably says enough for you. If you’re new, you’ll want to start with that one before returning to this one.
First Things First — What Rides To Focus On
Let’s start with the rides that we’re going to be working through…with some notes…
Stardust Racers…but not. Stardust Racers is the premier roller coaster at Epic Universe…except it hasn’t operated since February 19. This closure was only initially expected to last a few days, but it’s been repeatedly extended and now the ride is set to be closed into April.
The big three. The most popular three rides at Epic Universe are:
Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry
Mine-Cart Madness
Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge
While these three have overall good reliability (i.e. not a ton of downtime), they’re not all reliably open during Early Admission. As a result, we recommend starting in SUPER NINTENDO WORLD because you’ve at least got a chance of one of the two major rides being open there.
Isle of Berk (How to Train Your Dragon) rides. There are three rides at Isle of Berk, but we only consider one a must-ride—the coaster, Hiccup’s Wing Gliders.
Dark Universe rides. We consider both rides in Dark Universe—Monsters Unchained and Curse of the Werewolf—must-rides, so we’ll be planning for them in this analysis. This brings us to six rides we’re really focused on in this post.
Rides we’d probably skip. There are four rides we just wouldn’t be focusing on these days. Would I ride them if I was walking by and they fit into my day? Sure. But I won’t be building a strategy that focuses on fitting these in until I’m sure I’ve got the other ones handled. These four rides are: Dragon Racer’s Rally, Constellation Carousel, Fyre Drill, and Yoshi’s Adventure.
Meet Toothless. The Meet Toothless character greeting also has a posted wait throughout the day. It tends to be only slightly less popular than the most popular rides. I won’t be including it in this post.
Shows. Finally, there are two major shows at Epic Universe—The Untrainable Dragon and Le Cirque Arcanus. Now, when I say I’m not prioritizing the four rides above, about 1% of me really means “please please please let these have short waits at the end of the day.” Of course, you can’t have that hope with shows that are operating on fixed, limited showtimes.
So, while I wouldn’t prioritize the two shows to the same extent as the six rides I’m focusing on in this post, I would put these above the low-priority rides. If you think you’ve got an hour (or less if there’s no line close to showtime) and can fit in a show, it’s not a bad use of time.
Park Hours, Early Admission, and Wait Time Data
Epic Universe typically uses an opening time of 9AM or 10AM, with Early Admission starting an hour before that. The park usually closes at 9PM or 10PM.
ICYMI, Early Admission is now advertised as including “select” attractions at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, SUPER NINTENDO WORLD, and Isle of Berk. For our purposes, this means guests with Early Admission will be getting on one of the major SUPER NINTENDO WORLD rides during Early Admission, while other guests will have to fit both into regular park hours.
I’m relying on wait time data from Thrill Data for this post. If you’re still reading this post because you have an upcoming trip, I cannot recommend enough that you take some time to familiarize yourself with the Thrill Data website and then pay attention to the data as your trip nears. This post provides some insight into how to use that data.
Finally, I’m going to be using data specifically from February 14, 2026 for this post. It’s a month old, but it was one of the busiest days at the park since it opened (not the busiest). Posted wait time data is not necessarily reflective of actual wait times, but it’s the best data we have.
There are pros and cons to using a specific date (versus average waits or wait “trends”), but I’m not going to get much into that (one reason you might not like trends or averages is that they’ll fail to account for how a problem with one ride at some point in the day impacts waits at other rides and other times in the day).
The park operated from 9AM to 9PM that day, with Early Admission at 8AM.
Strategizing a Day at Epic Universe
Now I’m going to take a look at putting together a day at Epic Universe based on the data from our chosen date. I’ll start with Early Admission and rope drop before shifting to the middle and end of the day.
Early Admission and Rope Drop
Mine-Cart Madness is our go-to for Early Admission, and getting in line by, say, 8:10AM would have had about a 90-minute wait (the posted 120 to start can’t be correct since it was down to 90 only 15 minutes later). That would put us off the ride around 9:40AM.
Without Early Admission, you’re queuing for a ride at 9AM. Based on the data, I think the best option is actually Curse of the Werewolf. It’s pretty consistently a short wait to start the day, though it does operate during Early Admission sometimes. Since it can reach 100 minutes, I think it’s a fine ride to get done with right away. Everything high priority is simply high throughout the day, so there’s no time saved by starting with any of those options.
There’s every reason to think—and the data on our date agrees—that you could finish Curse of the Werewolf and Monsters Unchained by 9:40AM. This “shrinks” the park for you the rest of the day—hopefully you get to come explore this fantastic land later, but you don’t have to trek back for rides.
Important: Read both of the next two sections regardless of whether you have Early Admission or not. If you have it, you can’t be sure ride breakdowns won’t completely botch your morning, and both sections contain tidbits on touring strategy.
Midday Waits Without Early Admission
Epic Universe waits tend to taper off around 6PM, so these two sections will focus on fitting rides in before 6PM, with the plan to save one major ride—we’ll go with Battle at the Ministry—for the very end of the day. This carries the risk that the ride will break down and close early, and Battle at the Ministry also sometimes closes early for “capacity” reasons, so keep those factors in mind. (Note: Maybe Battle at the Ministry isn’t the best pick for this slot. You could look at reliability heading into your visit and instead defer a different ride into the evening.)
From 10AM to 6PM is basically “peak” park time. That’s 8 hours, but between lunch, time getting between rides, and time on the rides themselves, you’re really talking about around 6 hours (360 minutes) of waiting for rides (and that’s maybe generous).
Our guest who didn’t have Early Admission still has the three major rides to get on. Saving Battle at the Ministry for the end of the day would mean probably waiting a combined 260 minutes for Mine-Cart Madness and Mario Kart. That leaves this guest 100 minutes for Hiccup’s Wing Gliders. That ride averaged 90 minutes on February 14, spending much of the middle of the day above 100 minutes. It’s close, but probably you can get this done by 6PM.
Now—you’re probably thinking “why not save one of Mine-Cart or Mario Kart for after 6PM, too?”, the plan being to ride two of the three major rides after 6PM.
The problem is that if you save two major rides for after 6PM, you’re in a much riskier situation. You need to be on your last ride by the time the park is scheduled to close. At 6PM—with 180 minutes left in the day—the posted waits for our three major rides are:
Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry — 135 minutes
Mine-Cart Madness — 165 minutes
Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge — 125 minutes
Mine-Cart Madness is clearly too tight to go to right at 6PM. But even Mario Kart and Battle at the Ministry are in risky territory. A 30-minute delay on either of them could mean missing out on your remaining major ride.
What’s more—these aren’t huge time savings. Those waits are more or less the average for the day. Sure, you could wait even longer, assuming the wait will drop sharply as the end of the day nears. But that would be an inadvisable approach to getting on must-do rides. The bottom line is you’re going to have to stomach these long waits in the middle of the day.
So, by 6PM our guest without Early Admission has managed to ride five of our six must-do rides:
Curse of the Werewolf and Monsters Unchained with short waits to start the day
Mine-Cart Madness, Mario Kart, and Hiccup’s Wing Gliders averaging about 2 hours each
This leaves three hours for exploring the rest of the park, getting on the rides we de-prioritized, having dinner, and probably getting in line for Battle at the Ministry to end the day. Unfortunately, it leaves no time for shows (unless there are late showtimes) because you can’t push your long ride waits too late into the day.
Midday Waits With Early Admission
Our guest who rode Mine-Cart Madness by 9:40AM has a slightly easier day. The main reason is that this guest can afford to wait out any long waits at Curse of the Werewolf and Monsters Unchained, the two rides he didn’t get to that the guest without Early Admission got to.
Still, since we want to favor flexibility later in the day, it’s going to make sense to just head to Mario Kart right after Mine-Cart Madness. At 9:40AM, the wait of 85 minutes means being off the ride around 11:10AM. This leaves about 290 minutes of waiting until 6PM (6 hours and 50 minutes minus 2 hours for lunch and walking etc.).
Let’s run this two ways. The worst situation is that this guest spends 180 minutes waiting for Battle at the Ministry, figuring he doesn’t want to risk it breaking down and closing early. If he instead plans to save Hiccup’s Wing Gliders for late, he’s still got 110 minutes to wait for Curse of the Werewolf and Monsters Unchained. This is more than doable. But you shouldn’t have trouble finding even a 120 minute wait for Battle at the Ministry, so this approach still has the potential for some flex time before 6PM.
The other approach is to stick to the plan of saving Battle at the Ministry for the end of the day. In that case, you’ve got 290 minutes for Hiccup’s Wing Gliders, Curse of the Werewolf, and Monsters Unchained. Assuming the same 100-minute wait that we relied on above for Hiccup’s Wing Gliders, that’s a ridiculous 190 minutes for Curse of the Werewolf and Monsters Unchained—or, at least 100 minutes of flex time before 6PM.
I think this is probably the better approach, and our guest with Early Admission managed to finish five of the six major rides by 6PM:
Mine-Cart Madness and Mario Kart with 90-ish minute waits to start the day
Curse of the Werewolf, Monsters Unchained, and Hiccup’s Wing Gliders with 30 to 100 minute midday waits to start the day
100 minutes of flex time for a show, character greeting, or other rides before 6PM
Closing Out the Day at Epic Universe
So, we’ve gotten to 6PM with one must-do ride left—probably Battle at the Ministry. The first question you have to ask yourself is how late do you want to push Battle at the Ministry. It can close early for “capacity” or technical reasons, so I don’t really recommend waiting until 8:59:59PM. If your heart is set on not taking this risk, then you’d simply need to pick another popular ride to defer until after 6PM and instead wait for Battle at the Ministry midday.
Besides simply taking in the park and eating dinner, we’ve still got four rides and a major character greeting we didn’t talk about yet. Here’s a look at that list, with the rough wait range for between 6PM and 8PM (one hour before close) on our chosen date:
Dragon Racer’s Rally — 30 to 40 minutes
Constellation Carousel — 30 to 50 minutes
Fyre Drill — Closed this day
Yoshi’s Adventure — 40 minutes throughout
Meet Toothless — 65 minutes throughout
I’m sorry I picked a day Fyre Drill was closed, but I can also take this opportunity to say in no way would I prioritize that ride ever.
Otherwise, you’re looking at picking 1 or 2 rides to get on before 8PM, at which point I’d probably want to be in line for Battle at the Ministry. Personally, if Zoe really wanted to ride Yoshi’s Adventure, I’d do that, but probably we’re just taking in the lands of the park during this time.
Conclusion — How Good Was This Day?
I wasn’t exactly rigorous with the math throughout the entire midday section, but for the five major rides our guests go through before 6PM, the data roughly comes out to:
Average Wait for Guest With Early Admission — 73 minutes
Average Wait for Guest Without Early Admission — 80 minutes
If you’re wondering why those are so close, the main reason is that the guest with Early Admission had an extra 100 minutes of free time in the middle of his day; that was where the “perk” of Early Admission was realized. He still winds up waiting a similar amount of time, it’s just that some of the wait shifts to Early Admission.
Waiting over an hour for these five rides is a bit much for my taste. But the approach laid out here resulted in 100 minutes of midday free time for our guest with Early Admission, and 2+ hours for all guests to fill in the evening.
While I’d like to see Epic Universe bring wait times down, there’s a pretty clear bottom line here—it’s about the rides.
The truth is, I think Battle at the Ministry, Mine-Cart Madness, and Monsters Unchained are easily worth more than a 70-minute average wait. Hiccup’s Wing Gliders is pretty close. Curse of the Werewolf doesn’t really do it for me. And Mario Kart—well, it doesn’t do it for me, but lots of people seem to love it.
If you’re telling me that putting together a day to see these rides requires these average waits, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad deal.
I personally prefer a more well-rounded park with a deep ride lineup where I can choose between massive waits and no waits at all—like Disneyland or Europa Park, but that’s not what Epic Universe is selling. It’s selling a handful of the best rides in theme parks right now, and it’s selling them at high-but-manageable wait times.
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