After years of waiting, Universal Epic Universe has finally debuted! In this post, we explore the ins and outs of putting together a day at Epic Universe. After a slow first few days, Epic Universe has gotten very popular. It offers a lot, but it will take some planning for you to figure out exactly the best way to spend your limited time in the park. Read on to learn how to plan your best day at Epic Universe!
About This Post
When I go into a theme park, I have a plan. Most of the time, I’ve been to the park several times before. I’ve researched wait time trends in between visits. I’m pretty good at remembering which details I’ll want to double check (“does this close early some days?” “how often does this ride break down in the morning?”). And throughout the day I can sense what tradeoffs are required and what the cost-benefit analysis looks like.
I write my one-day itinerary posts with the goal of imparting that information onto you. When a park has been open a while and the internal procedures are pretty stable, the post can be more specific, which saves you, the reader, a bit of work. But we’re not quite there yet with Epic Universe.
There’s still too much variance—particularly in wait times, Early Admission procedures, and ride reliability—at Epic Universe to have definitive expectations for what you’ll get out of various parts of the day. That said, I’ve seen enough data and had enough experience to put together a good strategy for you to work from.
It’s important to know that you should not be planning to do everything at Epic Universe in a single day. There’s three main reasons for this. First, the wait times for the rides are typically long enough to make riding all them in a single day challenging or impossible.
This particular issue is complicated by the fact that attraction reliability is still at least a small problem. Battle at the Ministry still sees some downtime. And while we were in the park we experienced a lot of downtime that didn’t even make it into the data—rides would be taken offline while we were in the queue, but the ride never actually temporarily closed. (To be clear, the worst of the reliability issues seem to have been fixed. At this point, the problem with reliability is more of one factor in a very challenging park.)
Second, Universal has given Epic Universe pretty limited hours. A typical day has the park open from 10AM to 9PM. This is in contrast with, say, Disney’s Magic Kingdom, which can sometimes be open from 8AM to 11PM. Even Universal Islands of Adventure is often open from 9AM to 10PM—two hours longer than Epic Universe.
These first two issues hopefully see some resolution in the coming months. Limited operating hours may be maintenance related, for example. As the rides get put in better shape, longer hours will be possible and reliability will go up.
Other, less obvious, factors are probably impacting wait times, too. It’s possible the park saw an inordinate amount of Express Pass sales, which pushes standby waits up, for example. Whatever the issues at play, we hope that the park will be a little more straightforward to tour a few months from now (and we will continue to revisit the park and our plans).
Third, there is plenty more than rides to do at Epic Universe. Since I started this website a decade ago, I’ve had a strong bend toward riding rides. And while I typically treat entertainment and characters as relatively important, I’ve never tried a wand at Wizarding World, for example. The current state of Epic changes my calculus a bit. It’s not just that we really enjoyed our non-ride activities, but because I felt like the ridiculous wait times dictated I do something other than rides with much of my day.
With that in mind, let’s quickly talk through what to expect from Epic Universe before moving onto actually getting through the day.
Getting a Grip on Epic Universe
Here are some of the key ideas behind touring Epic Universe.
Look At Recent Wait Times
Almost 100% of the time the night before I go to a theme park these days I open thrill data and look at wait time patterns. Here’s the thrill data page for Epic Universe. This should give you some sense of what you’re up against.
Put Together A Must Ride / Can Skip List
Epic Universe leans heavily into the hub-and-spoke model of theme park design. The hub land is Celestial Park. Around the hub are four portals—literally semi-circular tunnels—to the four other lands (for a total of five lands). There’s no going from one land to the other except through the hub.
While this adds a little bit of travel time between rides in different lands, it simplifies discussion of touring strategy and makes it easier for the typical guest to navigate. There’s no “wait by the Tangled bathrooms in hopes of being the first on Jungle Cruise or Haunted Mansion” to boggle the mind here.
As I said above, you shouldn’t be planning to do everything at Epic Universe. Personally, I don’t think you need to, and I’ll probably only try to do so ever again as part of a professional challenge (I’m happy to skip anything I marked “can skip” below). To that end, you should have a list of rides you’re willing to skip. Hopefully you get on most of these, but more than most theme parks we cover here, you need to be deliberate at Epic.
I’m going to give a brief overview of each land here, including my “must ride” and “can skip” items. I encourage you do to some research on your own to figure out what rides you’ll have low on your list. I’ve listed 13 items (11 rides, 2 shows) and categorized only 5 as “can skip”. That leaves 6 “must ride” rides and 2 “must see” shows. I think that’s reasonable.
Here’s some quick back-of-the-envelope math. A standard day at Epic Universe has 1 hour of Early Admission plus 11 hours of regular operations for 12 total hours. If you assume the shows take 90 combined minutes from your day (showtime + wait time + time to get to/from the show), and meals take 90 minutes, that would leave 9 hours in a 12-hour day to wait for and ride 6 “must ride” and 5 “can skip” attractions.
On a bad day, you might face two 2-hour waits on “must ride” attractions, which would leave you 5 hours for 4 “must ride” and 5 “can skip” attractions. That’s not awful, but it reflects the necessity of being willing to skip some rides or shows—on busy days, the time just gets too tight.
So, with that said, here’s how I break down my list, land-by-land:
Celestial Park
Stardust Racers (coaster, must ride)
Constellation Carousel (carousel, can skip)
Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter)
Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry (motion simulation, must ride)
Le Cirque Arcanus (show, must see)
Super Nintendo World (Mario, Donkey Kong)
Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge (VR / dark ride, must ride)
Mine-Cart Madness (coaster, must ride)
Yoshi’s Adventure (dark ride, can skip)
Isle of Berk (How to Train Your Dragon)
Hiccup’s Wing Gliders (coaster, must ride)*
The Untrainable Dragon (show, must see)
Dragon Racer’s Rally (flying thrill ride, can skip)*
Fyre Drill (water blaster ride, can skip)
Dark Universe (Classic Monsters)
Monsters Unchained (motion simulation, must ride)
Curse of the Werewolf (coaster, can skip)
*I think the naming of the two How to Train your Dragon rides is so bizarre I just have to make sure you’re clear. Hiccup’s Wing Gliders is the coaster, not the flying dragons. Dragon Racer’s Rally—which has nothing resembling racing and looks more like gliding—is the “flying” attraction.
The Meet Toothless character greeting at Isle of Berk routinely sees wait times in excess of an hour. If that one is important to you, prioritize it.
I’ll try and give more context on my personal recommendations as they come up later in the post.
Plan To Take Multiple Laps
I understand that you want to keep your step count reasonable. I also understand that it’s going to be hard to pull your kids (and yourself) out of Super Nintendo World without doing everything the first time you visit it. But you really should plan to take multiple laps around Epic Universe.
The reason is obvious enough—wait times and ride distribution. Waits are (generally) shortest early in the day. And, for the most part, each land has a better ride (or two) and a worse ride (or two). I prefer to take a lap with the aim of getting some of the better rides done before settling in to exploring and maybe waiting for the “worse rides.” That is, you spend the early part of your day on your “must ride” rides and the later part of the day on your “can skip” + exploring lands + watching shows.
Is this strategy foolproof? No. Epic waits can peak quickly. Look at this day, for example, where waits more or less plateaued around 11AM—one hour into regular park hours. It doesn’t really matter what order you did things the next few hours because the waits didn’t move. But even if that’s the case, I’d rather be checking off my “must do” items early rather than waiting for my “maybe skip” items just to save some steps.
Remember The Three Good Queues
When you have to wait in line, you’d like it to be as pleasant as possible. Some queues are definitely better than others. Indoor queues with a lot of theming and details can keep you engaged while in line. There are three in particular that I’d be happy to wait in:
Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge
Monsters Unchained
Battle at the Ministry
I don’t want to wait 2 hours for any ride (and no queue is that good for that long). But for these three rides I’d say, for example, that the queue makes them worth 30 minutes more in line than I’d otherwise be willing to wait.
As it so happens, Mario Kart and Battle at the Ministry tend to have the longest waits in the park. Monsters Unchained isn’t as popular, and I’d say the combination of reasonable waits, plus a good queue, plus a great ride, makes Monsters Unchained one of the best “time value” rides in the park.
Consider Single Rider, Express Pass
Seven rides at Epic Universe have single rider lines (the four that do not are Fyre Drill, Yoshi’s Adventure, Dragon Racer’s Rally, and Constellation Carousel). Single rider lines are a decent alternative if you need to cut down on wait time and can be separated from your party.
Universal tends to use a height not age cutoff for using the single rider line, so make sure everyone in your party is eligible (I’ve seen some sources mention an age cutoff, so confirm that at the ride entrance, too).
Some single rider lines bypass major parts of the queue. If the queue for a ride is important to you, you may want to stick with the regular standby line (check reddit, forums, social media, etc. for more information on specific single rider lines).
Single rider lines often do not offer a significantly shorter wait. Universal guests tend to be a bit more savvy and willing to use the single rider lines than Walt Disney World guests.
Finally, you might also consider purchasing Express Pass. At some point I will have a post recounting our time using Express Pass at Epic Universe (our pre-Epic Universal Express Pass review is here), but the bottom line is that Express Pass does not mean no waiting—it means less waiting. We waited 52 minutes for Mario Kart when the standby wait was 135 minutes, and 39 minutes for Fyre Drill when the standby wait was 80 minutes, for example.
Take Meal Breaks When and Where They Make Sense
Want to know more about food at Epic Universe? This is not the post you’re looking for (er, sorry, wrong resort). As always, we’re “eat what you can, when you can” theme parkers. Basically, we hit the rides until the wait times plateau and then either eat (1) where we are or (2) in the land we’re heading to next. We don’t have recommendations for going out of your way for specific food.
Of course, I don’t begrudge you if you go into Epic Universe with a “must eat” list. But if you have particular restaurants that you want to visit for lunch and dinner, I highly encourage you to have flexibility with when lunch and dinner will be.
There are basically two types of restaurants at Epic. At counter service restaurants, you’ll order in the app, tap “I’ve Arrived, Prepare My Order”, and then be summoned to a counter to pick up the food. At table service, you’ll usually first find a table. Then you’ll do the same ordering process in the app, but after you tap “I’ve Arrived” you’ll be asked to enter the table number you’re sitting at. Then, they’ll bring the food to your table.
Have a Plan for Battle at the Ministry
Battle at the Ministry is arguably the best ride at the park, and it’s inarguably the one that has had the most reliability issues. I have to say that the situation seems to improve day-by-day. The problem is that even as reliability improves, we’re still seeing some variance in when it opens and whether or not the queue closes early.
In any case, you’ll want to have some plan for it. My recommendation is to save it for the evening. There are two crucial things to know about this approach. First, the ride might break down before the end of the day and never reopen. That’s always a risk. Second, the ride queue can close for “capacity” before the end of the day. When I tried this approach, I got in line at 7PM with a posted wait of 180 minutes. The line was “at capacity” at around 8PM, and I waited 90 minutes, riding at 8:30PM.
You also might just try to ride it early. In this case, you’ll head straight there and…wait. If it opens on time and you’re one of the first people on—yipee. If it opens late, well, you’ve lost some time, but maybe not the 2 hours you’ll lose getting in line 2 hours before the park closes.
You also can always just ride it in the middle of the day. The queue is notably good, and if the wait is not much longer than, say, Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge, then saving that (more reliable) ride for the evening could be a better strategy.
Strategy With and Without Early Park Admission
Early Park Admission is a perk of staying at a Universal Orlando Resort hotel that grants these guests access to specific lands and rides an hour before the park opens to other guests. For what it’s worth, I think it’s definitely worth staying at a Universal hotel in order to have access to Early Park Admission. Stella Nova Resort is a good, reasonably-priced Universal hotel with a walking path to Epic Universe (and Helios Grand, of course, is directly adjacent to Epic Universe).
Epic Universe has wavered between using a fixed list of available rides and just telling guests they’ll have access to whatever is available. As I look at the list today (which I won’t share, to avoid confusion), it doesn’t even match the actual rides that were operating early (you can see when rides opened over on thrill data). This limits our ability to get into specifics at this point, but I’ll do my best to describe general strategy.
Guests with Early Park Admission will (generally) want to prioritize arriving early and getting on the included rides while waits are short. It’s more straightforward to tour the park with Early Park Admission, so the next section, outlining the full day, will start with strategy during Early Park Admission. For now, let’s quickly divert to discuss guests without early access.
Quick Tips for Morning Without Early Park Admission
Guests without Early Park Admission will be let into the park at the same time Early guests, they just won’t be able to access certain portals or rides until regular park hours. We recommend arriving early so that you’ll be behind as few people as possible, but in any case, these guests have a choice. They can either
head to rides that are included in Early Admission, figuring they’ll have some wait that won’t be as bad as waiting later in the day, OR
head to rides that aren’t included in Early Admission, figuring they’ll have the best chance at short waits there (the later these guests arrive, though, the more Early and non-Early guests will be amassed in front of the portal, though).
Process of elimination helps non-Early guests settle on strategy. First, avoid Super Nintendo World—ride reliability and high waits even during Early Admission make it no-go. Second, don’t start with Monsters Unchained. The ride rarely has significant waits, and the queue is definitely worth an hour wait at any point of the day.
This leaves you with three good options—you’ll want to evaluate wait times / Early Admission operations for your visit in deciding between them.
Stardust Racers is the most straightforward. It is located in Celestial Park, so you’ll actually be able to witness its operations, posted wait time, and crowds before you’re allowed to queue for it.
Hiccup’s Wing Gliders—the coaster, remember?—is a pretty safe play. It’s a great ride, and not a queue you’ll particularly want to lounge in later. Since there’s two other rides in Isle of Berk, you’ll also have those as backups or maybe as good options once your’e done with Hiccup’s Wing Gliders.
Then there’s Harry. Battle at the Ministry usually isn’t a part of Early Admission. If that’s the case, you can hope it opens on time (or even early) and head to the Ministry of Magic portal to queue and wait for it. For a ride with famed reliability issues, it actually does a decent job of opening around normal park hours.
I’ve never tested what the wait would be like, but this option is a little appealing to me. The nitty gritty here is that the portal to Ministry of Magic is near Stardust Racers, so you’ve got a decent backup option if your Battle at the Ministry plan doesn’t work out.
Rope Drop and First Lap at Epic Universe
Now, let’s walk through what a day at Epic Universe could look like, starting with Early Park Admission. My goal for the start of the day is basically to get through up to four rides:
Mine-Cart Madness OR Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge
Hiccup’s Wing Gliders
Monsters Unchained
Stardust Racers
Those are the five best not-Battle-at-the-Ministry rides in the park, but you’ll probably not be able to get through both Super Nintendo World rides.
Arriving and Entering Epic Universe
In its early weeks, people are still getting to Epic Universe way early. For my part, I think arriving an hour before the start of Early Park Admission is fine. In “normal times” I think it’s worth it to try and be among the first people into a theme park. At Epic, I think trading a few hours of sleep for maybe a shorter wait on one ride just isn’t quite worth it yet.
Guests are held in a loooooong queue outside the entrance until the security queues open on either side. You might pay attention to park geography when picking your side, but you’ll also have more waiting to do once through security, when you can head to the other side.
Signs near the security queues indicate what lands will be open during Early Admission. Note these and make sure you know how they fit into your plan.
After security, you’ll be held outside the Chronos Tower until the gates open about 5 minutes before the scheduled start of Early Park Admission. At this point you’ll want to be sure to be on the proper side for your first destination.
If you don’t have Early Park Admission, we discussed your options above. Basically, since Super Nintendo World is the most common popular option during Early Admission, you’re going to miss that early on and have to plan for both “must ride” attractions in there later. Skip ahead to the next section. But if you have Early Admission…
Super Nintendo World (Part 1)
If you have Early Park Admission, the most typical situation we’ve seen is that Super Nintendo World is open during this time. If I arrived at the park and found Super Nintendo World was not open during Early Admission, my goal would probably be to quickly do one ride in whatever land was open before just waiting for Super Nintendo World to open (though if the option to ride Battle at the Ministry was available, I’d take even a long wait on that).
We prefer to start with Mine-Cart Madness. Mine-Cart Madness is all the way in the back of Super Nintendo World (enter the land, go downstairs and to the right). It’s a great ride and it isn’t a part of Express Pass. Unfortunately, it isn’t super reliable when it comes to opening on time.
But that’s okay(ish) because Super Nintendo World comes with a good backup—Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge. If Mine-Cart Madness is not open on time, go to Mario Kart instead.
Given that Mario Kart tends to have longer waits than Mine-Cart Madness throughout the day, you might wonder why I don’t recommend starting with it in all cases. Well, you can, and I don’t think you’d be wrong. I even think if you’re at the front of the pack and you start with Mario Kart, you might be able to get reasonable waits on both rides to start the morning—a dream scenario.
But, personally, I think the queue for Mario Kart is superior enough to the Mine-Cart Madness queue (which isn’t bad) that I’d rather wait longer in that one later in the day than I would Mine-Cart Madness.
There’s another reason, too. Honestly—I didn’t love Mario Kart. It would definitely be the bottom of my “must ride” list. I tell you that not to discourage you from riding (it is widely loved), but just to concede a bit of bias on my part. I think Mine-Cart Madness is enough of a better ride that I’m willing to prioritize it early in the morning, even if that means I might miss Mario Kart altogether. (FWIW, we are a household that plays Mario games and Mario Kart specifically—the theme of this ride is definitely in my wheelhouse. The execution just didn’t get me.)
The hardest thing you’ll have to do all day is leave Super Nintendo World. It’s going to be particularly hard because when you come back later—which you will—it will be CROWDED. While the rides are busy as soon as Early Admission starts, the land is very pleasant. But once the floodgates open, the whole thing becomes packed with people. But still, we have rides to get to…
Once you’re done with your first ride in Super Nintendo World, you might still be in Early Admission time. If that’s the case, your best option will be to go to whatever else is open. You also could join whatever crowds are queuing for Battle at the Ministry, but keep in mind that if you’re queuing 15 minutes before open your wait for the ride is still going to be long.
Isle of Berk (Part 1)
My above list has three rides outside of Super Nintendo World on it, each in different lands: Hiccup’s Wing Gliders, Monsters Unchained, and Stardust Racers. Of these, I think heading to Hiccup’s Wing Gliders makes the most sense. The queue isn’t somewhere you particularly want to spend time later in the day (unlike Monsters Unchained), and it puts you in the same land as two other rides (Dragon Racer’s Rally, Fyre Drill) that you might be able to nab short waits on.
In particular, if you can grab a short wait on Fyre Drill now, it’s a good idea to do so. I say this because I absolutely do not think it is worth any substantial wait later in the day. There’s no time I spent in Epic that I regretted more than 30 minutes waiting for Fyre Drill (a ride that posted a 2-hour wait as I’m writing this). To that end, I probably wouldn’t even spend the time in the morning on it unless Zoe was begging to ride it. Relatedly, I wouldn’t wait long for Dragon Racer’s Rally, either, but there’s some novelty there that I think can justify it a bit.
Leaving your first visit to Isle of Berk, I’ve got two rides left on my “lap one” list—Monsters Unchained and Stardust Racers.
More than other rides, Stardust Racers waits tend to plateau early, and it’s rare that things get out of control later. It’s also more or less centrally located. I’ve seen this called this Universal’s best coaster, so you won’t want to sleep on it. But from a scheduling perspective, I’m fine waiting on this one a bit.
Dark Universe (Part 1)
This brings us to Monsters Unchained. This is a fantastic ride with a fantastic queue. The ride usually averages around a 30-minute wait, and I’d happily wait double that for it. The only real question is if you get to Dark Universe and see a short wait for Curse of the Werewolf, should you do that first? Probably.
Curse of the Werewolf barely makes my “can skip” list. It’s probably the best of the five rides I marked “can skip”, and part of me feels like I just don’t “get it” in some way. I just didn’t find it thrilling, despite its (seemingly) exciting design. It’s way more than a kiddie coaster, but I felt like Hiccup’s Wing Gliders—another coaster with a 40” height requirement—was far, far superior.
But I think it’s a close enough call—and, again, the Monsters Unchained queue is that good—that I’d take a wait time below 30 (maybe 45, at this point in the day) minutes on Curse of the Werewolf, if I lucked into such a wait, before hopping on Monsters Unchained. Keep in mind this might be the end of your “first lap”—where are you going after Monsters Unchained? If the answer is “to Curse of the Werewolf”, then just do it first.
Second Lap - Shows and Lands (And Rides!)
Your second lap around the park can go a variety of ways. I’m going to start by discussing the remaining rides because I assume those are the core of what you’re here for.
But shows and lands (including characters) are worth some attention, too. In this second lap, I think it’s best to take your time through the lands, fitting in your “can skip” rides if they make sense.
Sorting Through Your Remaining Rides
By this point, your list of completed rides hopefully looks something like Mine-Cart Madness, Hiccup’s Wing Gliders, Monsters Unchained, plus some number of the “maybe” skip rides that you were able to squeeze in.
The biggies that you still have to deal with are Mario Kart, Battle at the Ministry, and Stardust Racers. The main challenge is balancing Mario Kart and Battle at the Ministry, as both of these rides can have 2-hour-plus waits, and Battle at the Ministry notably has used the “at capacity” excuse to close the queue early.
Personally, I think Battle at the Ministry is a significantly better ride than Mario Kart. I think a 2-hour wait in the middle of the day for Mario Kart is justifiable (though outside my personal limit, probably), but if it came to the end of the day and I had to choose, I would pick Battle at the Ministry every time.
With that bias in mind, my approach to locking both in would be to ride Battle at the Ministry midday and plan to head to Mario Kart late. Doing the reverse might seem more sensible, since Mario Kart tends to be the one with the shorter wait, but then you still have to get in line for Battle at the Ministry some time before park close to avoid an “at capacity” situation. That lost time at the end of the day—when waits are short in the rest of the park—might be more valuable than time lost waiting in line midday.
Stardust Racers - A Dueling Coaster
Stardust Racers is a must-ride, but it tends to have only moderate waits and it’s located in the hub land of Celestial Park, so not super inconvenient to get to any time you’re moving between lands. Don’t wait too long on it—you’ll probably need the end of the day for one of the two rides discussed above.
Then there are any remaining “maybe skip” rides. Basically, I think you should fit these in around showtimes, meals, and time spent exploring the lands if it makes sense to do so or if any is particularly important to you. Just be sure to budget your time, keeping high waits for the “must do” rides in mind.
The only one I want to specifically call out is Constellation Carousel. This one is very centrally located—basically in the middle of the park. It’s a cool take on a carousel, but I think it’s way over-engineered from a practical perspective. It’s one of the lowest-capacity carousels I’ve ever seen, with quirks like Team Members awkwardly trying to coax you into certain vehicles to maximize capacity (sorry, nope). I suspect we’ll still ride it most visits, but I wanted to let you know to pack your patience when you get in line for this one.
The Two Must-See Shows
The two must-see shows at Epic Universe are Le Cirque Arcanus in Ministry of Magic and The Untrainable Dragon at Isle of Berk. Both of these have several showtimes throughout the day, usually 45 minutes apart but sometimes with longer gaps between shows.
The key to planning these shows is to make sure you know when any big gaps in showtimes are. Whatever your strategy, you don’t want to be in a situation where you arrive just before showtime, find the show at capacity, and then have to wait 90+ minutes for the next show. Plan for each of these shows to take 25 minutes.
Exploring the Lands
Finally, you should plan to spend some afternoon time exploring each of the lands. While I enjoyed Dark Universe, it’s probably the one that requires the least amount of time, though horror fans may get more of a kick out of some of the wandering characters (we had a nice chat with a monster hunter who told me I had to behead Emily after she drank the monocane mocktail). Isle of Berk has the Viking Training Camp playground, which Zoe had a ton of fun at, and the popular Meet Toothless greeting, which has a posted wait time.
Ministry of Magic and Super Nintendo World are more involved…mostly for a price. If you opt to buy a wand, Ministry of Magic has a dozen spell-casting locations. Without a wand, we had fun exploring the land but it still doesn’t come close to Diagon Alley, in my opinion.
Super Nintendo World is a different story. First, for $50ish, you can buy a Power-Up Band. These have some variety of functionality that we didn’t get to explore, but the main (I think) activity is using the band to play the “Key Challenges.”
There are five of these small games in the land, and you need to successfully complete three of them in order to access Bowser Jr. Shadow Showdown. You can see the key coins identifying the locations of most of these pretty easily, but Google and otherwise-unexplained queues of guests might also help you with finding their locations.
Once you pay $50 for a band and collect three keys, you earn the privilege of joining the queue for Bowser Jr. Shadow Showdown (aka Bowser Jr. Challenge). The wait for this one tends to be between 5 and 30 minutes. The queue is a fine small room, but the experience is very slow to load. It’s a fun enough game (use your projection shadow to cast items and battle Bowser Jr.), but more of a “cherry on top of the expensive sundae” type thing.
You only need one band per party to access the challenge. I’m not sure how many guests can be in one party, but we had five. We were also all allowed to help Zoe with challenges as necessary. We wound up getting 3 of the 4 challenges we attempted, with minimal but nonzero waits for each.
If you don’t want to pay $50 for a power up band, there is still a lot of fun to be had in the land. Besides punching power up blocks there are a few mini-games around, plus some character greetings. Just allot some time to explore and take it all in.
Yoshi’s Adventure
I haven’t mentioned Yoshi’s Adventure yet. This is a nice enough dark ride (often outdoors, so not all dark), but not one I’d wait more than 20 minutes for. The main problem is that it doesn’t offer much more than you’d get just being in the land. Much of the ride is spent riding through the land, and the scenes that aren’t in the land are nothing too special.
Evening At Epic Universe
As evening arrives, you’ll have to make your final decisions about what you want out of your visit. Chiefly, if you’ve got something like Battle at the Ministry or Mario Kart still to be ridden, it’ll be time to hop in line for one of those.
As I’ve noted a few times, rides can close early if their queues hit “capacity.” I believe this is overwhelmingly more common with Battle at the Ministry than anything else, but I can’t say for certain it doesn’t happen anywhere else. You really hate to get into your last line of the day with 90+ minutes left in the day, but you might have to.
Personally, I found the evening approach to Battle at the Ministry to work out just fine. I had to get in line at 7PM—two hours before close—but I’d already had a great day. And the 180 minute posted wait turned out to be just 90 minutes, so I theoretically could have gotten in another line if I’d wanted (I didn’t).
There is some nice lighting around the park at night, too. It’s been pointed out by several commentators that Epic Universe’s limited hours are maybe most disappointing because some parts of the park really shine at night.
Finally, there is a small nighttime fountain show in the middle of the park. It’s fun, and I wish Zoe had gotten to see the Mario segment, but it is more or less just a fountain show. It’s worth seeing if you’re in the right place at the right time, but if there’s something more important you can be doing, don’t think you’re missing out.
Conclusions
After it became clear we’d missed the “low crowd” debut of Epic Universe, I was a bit worried that the park wouldn’t be able to be tamed. It seemed going in like there was just too much great stuff to squeeze into one day—like we’d inevitably leave any day missing something big.
But it turns out that in this regard, Epic Universe’s weaknesses sort of become a strength. To some extent, you want a well-rounded theme park to have some things that aren’t must-do. If a bunch of people want to wait in line for Fyre Drill instead of crowding Super Nintendo World, I’m happy they’re there and I’m not. When we just want one nice ride as a family on the way out, it’s good that Constellation Carousel is there with a reasonable waits. These are things that I didn’t love, but they serve the park well.
The biggies may still shine too brightly. It’s wild to me that Mario Kart rivals Battle at the Ministry when it comes to wait times—and even wilder that the pair sits around 120 minutes some days! I hope this gets sorted out—it’s still not clear to what extent the park is at capacity, and it’s hard to make sense of how you’d hit the highlights in deeper crowds.
Overall, I look forward to returning in a few months. I hope mornings are more predictable, and I hope I’m not staring down multiple 2-hour waits. But I’m pretty sure that by keeping my expectations grounded, knowing the things I’m willing to miss, and making sure to take in the sights and sounds of Universal’s wonderful new park, I’ll have a great day!
Are you ready for your day at Epic Universe?
All Your Other Universal Orlando Planning Questions Answered
Don't be overwhelmed by Universal Orlando planning! Take a second to check out our most important content!
Just starting out? Start with our Universal Orlando Resort planning guide! If you’re considering a Universal hotel, read our Guide to the Hotels of Universal Orlando Resort!
You’ll want to know what rides the parks offer, so we’ve got a Universal Studios Florida Rides Guide, a Universal Islands of Adventure Rides Guide, and a Universal Epic Universe Rides Guide.
If you’d like an idea of how to plan a day at these parks, we can help there, too. Our One Day Universal Studios Florida Itinerary covers a full day at the original park, our Universal Islands of Adventure One Day Plan covers Hagrid's, Velocicoaster, and more, and we even have a One Day Guide to Epic Universe covering Universal's newest park.
Want to know how to get on rides without the long waits? Read all about Express Pass at Universal Orlando Resort. Plus, early risers always have the best theme parks days (well, we think so). Read about Early Park Admission at Universal Orlando to learn how to get an extra hour in the parks.