A Visit to Epic Universe in Orlando, Florida – My In-Depth Review
As I mentioned above, the new park is about 15 minutes from the old Universal theme parks. I wanted to utilize the early park entry perk for Universal hotel guests, so I stayed on Universal property. We chose the new Stella Nova Resort, which is one of three choices that were built by the new park. The Grand Helios is a large, well grand, hotel that is pricier and literally connected to the rear of the park. Both the Stella Nova and Terra Luna are across the street from the entrance – but only Stella Nova has a dedicated walking path directly to the front gates. We chose this hotel for that walking access and it being a bit cheaper than The Grand Helios. However, both Nova and Luna have constant bus access to Epic Universe as well as other Universal properties and parks all day and night!
We really liked staying at Stella Nova. It has a cool iridescent exterior look, and when you step inside it features a retro (some would say futuristic) Googie style architecture throughout that made me feel like The Jetsons might be checking in at any time! As mentioned before, it is brand new so everything was crisp and clean! The rooms looked sharp and futuristic with a nice large and roomy walk in shower with plenty of water pressure and a great shower head – very important after sweltering in the Florida heat and humidity all day and night! I found the beds comfortable after our three night stay, with ample lighting, storage for luggage, and a closet safe - which I always love having! We ate at the hotel twice: Once for our arrival meal and ice cream the final night after returning from a park. The food was good, but a tad pricey - more on that later. Everyone in the hotel was helpful, friendly, and I will be staying here again.
And now on to the park, where the fun begins! We are “rope droppers” – meaning we do everything we can to be the first in line when a park opens to maximize the amount of rides we can get on. When most park goers are finishing their breakfast, we try to strategize to get as many rides in those first few opening hours than others will get in their entire day. This isn’t for everyone, but we usually aren’t at these parks for relaxation! As we went through the gates our first destination was heading to the new Harry Potter ride, but it was really hard to not slow down to take in these stunning views displayed before us! This place looks REALLY cool! But we didn’t have time to dilly dally… a new ride waits!
Honestly, I’m not a big fan of the Harry Potter franchise. But even if you don’t care about the movies you can still really enjoy how immersive Universal Studios makes it feel when you step into the Harry Potter lands at this and their other parks as well. Epic Universe’s Harry Potter area is themed around 1920's Paris, and The Battle at the Ministry ride has you take the Metro and time travel to the 1990s in London to witness a witch on trial – and of course all kinds of craziness breaks looks resulting in a very technologically advanced and most of all FUN ride! This ride is a headliner here with typically the longest lines, anywhere from 90 to 120 minute wait times! So it was imperative for us to ride it as soon as we got in the park, which we did. We practically walked on being at the front of the pack! I am told it typically has a delayed opening but we somehow walked on at rope drop and knocked it out right away!
For me, the real star of the show was Epic’s Dark Universe land, which features the classic Universal Monsters like Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Mummy, and more! The Dark Universe is made up of a fictional town called Darkmoor, which looks like it is straight out of a 1930’s horror movie! It features creepy graveyards, shambled village structures, mausoleums, castles, smoking wells, and even a particularly famous windmill that catches fire every 15 minutes by irate villagers! This is something that “Monster Kids” have hoped to see for decades! The main ride in this land is "Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment", which involves Dr. Frankenstein’s great-granddaughter reviving the monster and them attempting to captures and control all the classic monsters, mentioned previously. It is quite possibly the greatest dark ride I’ve ever been on, with astounding animatronics and set pieces that simply look REAL! The blend of physical set pieces, screens, and special effects with a state of the art ride system delivers a ride like no other. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey over at Universals Island of Adventures always seemed too “screen heavy” to me, but with this ride they have that tamed with the perfect amount of practical effects leaving you unable to tell what was “real” or what was done on a screen. It is simply amazing!
I’m not particularly a fan of the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, but the Isle of Berk was a delight and one of the prettiest of the lands! It is a delightful mix of waterways and mountains, with a visually appealing color palate. It is very striking on a sunny day! Animatronic, robot, and puppeteered dragons will great you along the way and there is a fantastic show that can be watched - and get you out of that Florida heat for a nice break! I was really impressed with Hiccup’s Wing Gliders, a family style roller coaster that was very smooth and gives great views as it soars through the land.
I have been to Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Hollywood, and Epic’s version of the classic video game world is far superior! For one, it’s has a much larger footprint so we never felt as cramped walking around as we did in California. The new park also has the inclusion of Donkey Kong Country, which features a fun roller coaster called Mine-Cart Madness – which reminds me of the classic mine cart scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom! You can buy power bands that look like oversized watches to be able to play games within the world and track your progress and unlock special effects and features. It feels like you just warped back to 1986 and are trapped in your TV set playing your old NES! Again, this was a much better experience than the Hollywood version, which can’t really help that it is built on the side of a mountain with hardly any space.
Finally, the last world is Celestial Park which is sort of the home and entrance to all of these other great lands. Like the name suggests, everything is based on astronomy and outer space and it is a visual delight – especially at night! They rely heavily on the use of water, fountains, blue and green hues, and lighting and LEDs to create spectacular visuals. Many times walking through I said to my wife, “this place is just beautiful!”. It really is. Unfortunately, my wife and I were unable to ride their signature attraction, the roller coaster Stardust Racers. My son and his friend got on it twice and said it was one of the best and smoothest coasters they’ve been on. It will be my priority when coming back again. It’s just hard to fit everything in on one day, as my son and his friend never got to ride Mine-Cart Madness, themselves!
We will be back. And we will stay at Stella Nova again, too. If you want to spend more money I am sure the Grand Helios is a great choice as you can walk straight into the park, but I didn’t mind the 8 minute walk from the hotel we chose. After all, what is another 8 minutes after spending 12 hours walking anyhow? And staying at one of their hotels is a must in my opinion because of the extra hour of early entry. It enabled us to knock a few rides out right off the bat before the general public could get it in. Walking right on to the Harry Potter ride instead of waiting 120 minutes is BIG PLUS. However, I will say if you are waiting at ANY of the rides, you’ll never find more decorated and interesting lines to wait in!
Be warned, whenever you are OUT of those lines or rides just walking around keep in mind it is Florida, and if it is summer time you are talking about 95-100 degree heat and a heat index that far exceeds that! You must drink consistently throughout the day and apply sunscreen liberally! We felt just fine inside the well air conditioned rides, and many of the lines go into buildings out of the heat as well. But walking from land to land, and just being “out” in the park could prove taxing on some that have issues with hot weather. Also, this park didn’t seem to be very “small” child friendly regarding “kiddie rides” and things for the little ones to do. I think it’s a lot of wasted money spent on those under 5 or 6 year old, and you’d be better off going down the road to Disney World. I also felt like the food prices were heftier than Disney. This past year I’ve been to both Walt Disney World and Disneyland Paris and I felt like our food at Epic had more “epic” prices – so be prepared for that! But dang, the food was good! Make sure to check out Pizza Moon and try some Butter Beer Crepes while in "Paris", by the way!
Overall, it was a fantastic first trip to the new Universal’s Epic Universe! Our second day we took the bus over to Universal’s Island of Adventure to revisit some of our old favorite rides over there, but we were already plotting our next return to Epic on the ride home! Look below for more photos from this amazing theme park!
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