Epically Worried

 

An Epic opening day? A tale of two pictures. 

Above you see a sign for the wait time to the Battle at the Ministry ride and below that a drone shot of the main parking lot at noon time. From what I can gather from two different sources, the first picture was taken shortly after rope drop when a large number of the crowd made their way directly to that ride, bringing the wait time to just over 2 hours. The wait time apparently continued to increase throughout the morning until some time before noon when the ride broke down. 

Here's a little video showing the line as it existed before the ride broke down when the wait time was something like 300 minutes. 

The ride eventually reopened around 3:00 p.m. And again the wait time shot up. But wait a minute, why the hefty wait time? Look at that parking lot. That's right, it's practically empty. Apparently, Universal didn't want to repeat something like the shit show I filmed in the clip below back in 2010 so they kept ticket sales for today's opening capped.  

It looks like the vast majority of guests in attendance went directly to that ride. People on Reddit are assuming that many of today's guests are likely some of the same folks that have also attended some of the previews that have been taking place for the past few weeks. Makes sense because during those previews this ride was on virtual queue and it looks like today it was on standard standby queue. From the look of it on an app that gives you wait times for the rides, all other rides were almost walk on times, like no more than 15 minutes in most cases even for Monsters Unchained. 

Here's a cool little clip from a media event showing the opening of one of the portals. From the looks of it, I think they're doing something like this every morning for each portal at rope drop. How cool! 

I've seen Universal's official streaming videos for today's opening but I haven't seen a lot of videos from guests that have attended I guess because it's still only 5:00 and if I were them I'd still be there. 

Here's a little bit of a worrisome rundown from a guest who attended few weeks ago during the previews and all of the issues they had to deal with. I had to chuckle a little while reading this regarding all the bad luck they had but I'm sure if it were me I wouldn't be laughing. We can only hope they get their act together even with lowered attendance levels, it's still kind of a shit show if your main lesson, like the person below had to teach themselves, is that you don't plan on riding any rides -- at a theme park!

Reflecting on my trip to Epic Universe May 5th I don't think I benefitted all that much from these magical trip reports where the writer gets to ride everything and gushes about the rides. But if you are looking for tips from a... suboptimal experience-

We got in the bus line at Aventura at 9:15am. We were walking into Epic roughly an hour later, well after rope drop.

Lesson: Unless you are super early to the bus line just consider getting a Lyft to the park so you can be there before rope drop.

During Monday's early access hour, only Super Mario World and Stardust Racers were open. Mario Kart was down. The line for Donkey Kong stretched into Mario land and the barker probably went hoarse from telling everyone "the line is four hours long from here!!!". Later that morning DK went down.

Lesson: Maybe just go to Stardust first and expect to wait for Mario Kart or Donkey Kong?

We got in line for Stardust Racers around 10:30-10:45 or so and our phones were in lockers when Stardust went down- so no way to access Harry Potter Virtual Queue.

Lesson: Perhaps another reason to knock out Stardust immediately at rope drop so you can have your phone at 11am. (Of course the Virtual Queue wasn't even open at 11am Monday so that didn't impact us).

Next up we went to Berk. We grabbed some food before joining the ~50 minute queue (as posted) for Hiccup's Wing Gliders but finished our food before Hiccup went down while we were waiting in line.

Lesson: Maybe get a snack before getting in line for Wing Gliders.

Fyre Drill sounds fun on a hot day but Fyre Drill was down every time we walked by.

Lesson: Don't plan on riding any rides.

Harry Potter Paris looked awesome and we enjoyed a late lunch at Cafe L'air. The line for the Cafe stretched to the door, but we waited longer for our food- around 30 minutes after we set down and clicked 'order' than we waited to get a table.

Lesson: Bring snacks to the cafe for your kids while everyone waits for food.

Bonus Lesson: The wand selection at Harry Potter Paris is more extensive than at USF or IOA, so if you want a Dumbledore wand than go to Epic.

At some point in the early afternoon Monsters Unchained went down and never seem to reopen.

Lesson: Don't plan on riding any rides.

We got in the 80 minute queue for Mario Kart. The bulk of the queue is in a large mind-numbing room that begs you to use your devices.

Lesson: Maybe embrace devices because you will be spending lots of time in queue or not riding rides.

Bonus Lesson: I can't imagine more people in that Mario Kart queue room all doing the same thing at 3pm but the internet connection itself seemed fine. I gather there were 2-3 people in queue that actually got Ministry of Magic spots since they promptly left.

The Mario Kart seat had this large bump in the middle of the seat that was very uncomfortable. Do all seats have this?

Lesson: Maybe pay close attention to sitting down in the kart or hope that my seat was uniquely uncomfortable or complain to the ride op before getting strapped in?

When we got out of Mario Kart it was raining and virtually all outdoor rides were down.

Lesson: Bring an umbrella or poncho.

Lesson 2: Since we planned on rides, I didn't plan on any shows. Plan on shows since you might not be riding rides all that much.

With four days at the Universal Parks I left Epic Universe for last and it was by far the worst experience.

Lesson: Plan for Epic Universe early in your trip so you can finish your trip on a high note.

Hopefully many of these lessons will age poorly and not apply by the time you go. The theming is amazing and we enjoyed the food from Cafe L'air and Berk. One star.