04/26/2025
Yesterday I had the opportunity to check out Universal Orlando Resorts’s newest theme park. It’s set to open May 22, 2025 and they are currently rehearsing and testing park operations.
The park opened at 11am, but was open 1-hour early for guests staying at a Universal hotel. We arrived to the bus stop at 8:45am and there was already a bus loading people. It was packed full and a second bus followed immediately behind it. We got on the second bus. It took less than fifteen minutes to go from Dockside Inn and Suites to Universal EPIC Universe. It was a short walk to the park entrance. We were taking pictures in front of the entrance at 9:12am so the whole journey over took about 30 minutes between waiting to get on the bus, riding over, and walking to the entrance.
The park gates didn’t open until 10am so we waited a decent amount of time. They did open some of the security checkpoints earlier than 10am so that was a nice break in the wait. Once we entered the park, we stayed to the right hoping to go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We reached a checkpoint where they were splitting guests. Guests with a Universal room key were allowed past while those without waited here until 11am. Once past the checkpoint, a line formed for Stardust Racers. We continued onwards. Many of the portals were not open for the 10am crowd. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Dark Universe, and Isel of Berk were closed. We took the opportunity to take pictures while the park was empty.
Celestial Park is in the center of the park and is the area that connects all portals. It features a very large and beautiful water fountain, a carousel, and racing roller coasters. My first ride of the day was the carousel. This isn’t your typical carousel and was a very modern experience. The carousel moves to futuristic music and moves in unexpected ways. This isn’t two minutes of a monotonous circle around. It was really enjoyable and I recommend riding it. It is pretty tame and two people can ride together on the animals. The animals go up relatively high so may be a little scary for some children. Stardust Racers is two roller coasters that mirror each other and another attraction in this area. You have the green side and the yellow side. All loose items are placed in lockers and they have metal detectors to keep you honest. The ride seems unassuming from the front and “Stardust” just doesn’t sound as ferocious as a name like the Velocicoaster. Within the first few seconds of the ride it was obvious that looks can be deceiving. I was giggling so hard. I absolutely loved it. If you like speed and you like fast launches, you’re going to love it. It was daytime when we rode it, but this would probably be amazing at night too. Spoiler alert. This was my favorite ride in the park. (Although many other good ones too.)
The next land to explore is The Wizarding World of Harry Potter™ — Ministry of Magic™. This land looks like Paris and feels much larger than Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. The thought of Butterbeer™ Crepe summons us so we walk to
Café L’air De La Sirène™ for a late-breakfast. We order the Butterbeer™ Crepe and I also order a lavender lemonade. Butterbeer cream is layered into the folds of crepes with thick whipped cream, strawberry, and a touch of caramel. There is also a small piece of white chocolate. 10 out of 10. I would get this again. Le Cirque Arcanus™ will be starting soon so we make our way to the circus tents. We wait in line and then the doors are opened and we all move into what feels like a large tent. There is a small stage towards the top left and a train cart to the right of the stage. Once everyone is in, the pre-show starts with real actors and a bit of magic. The next set of doors opens to a decently large theater. There are several rows and we’re told to move all the way down. Being towards the middle of the first room would likely give you the best seats for the performance. There was sorcery bubble magic, a short trapeze act, and then the main show. Overall is was very cute and the theater is very high-tech. Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry ™ is the main attraction in this land. It uses a virtual queue which theoretically opened at 11am, 3pm, and 6pm. I’m pretty sure the 6pm time was the only one that actually opened, but it didn’t appear in my app. The ride was not open when we were exploring, but they did let us in the queue to explore. That is one long queue! Even with the virtual queue, it appears there will be a significant wait judging on the size of the queue.
Dark Universe is the next land to explore! This land has a Frankenstein/vampire/horror vibe to it. There is a place to go full monster and they will transform your face with makeup to a monster fit for this land. An important thing to know is that monsters aren’t served alcohol. The main attraction in this land is Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment. If you love haunted houses, you’ll probably love this ride. Each bend there is a monster waiting to scare you. It is a mostly slow moving ride, but you are whipped around as well. I’m prone to motion sickness and this one was tough for me. My favorite feature was being “shocked” which was basically like sitting in a Brookstone chair and being massaged. Massages and monsters. That sums up this ride. Next, we went to the character meet-and-greet where we met Frankenstein and his bride. The makeup job on Frankenstein was incredible and realistic. I could see this land bringing nightmares to small children so beware. The other attraction at this land is Curse of the Werewolf which is a roller coaster. I rode this at night and wow was it a blur. It’s a roller coaster, but each car spins so you have the movement of the roller coaster combined with the movement of the spinning. My son would have loved it. It spins you so much that all you can see is black with lines of white and red. My brain couldn’t process what was going on. Other riders told me the experience in the day felt much different. They said the world didn’t blur like it did at night. We also tried Das Steakhouse which is the dining option here. We ordered the Forager Salad, Red Velvet Death, and Monocane which was a “mocktail.” The salad was delicious and included pear, beets, mushrooms, chicken, and cheese. The cake was served on a platter of Oreo cookie crumbles that looked like dirt and a sprinkle of rice crispies to resemble maggots. The thought of eating maggots was a little disturbing, but the actual taste was very good. The mocktail was basically sprite dyed blue.
The land next door is SUPER NINTENDO WORLD™. This was the land I was most excited for when Universal EPIC Universe was first announced. We grew up playing Nintendo and I was so excited to see it come to life. This land makes you feel like you’ve jumped into your Nintendo Switch. We walked into the portal for the land and a giant green tunnel greets us. Escalators rise to bring us into this world. We step off the escalators and we are in the Princess Peach Castle inside of Mushroom Kingdom. Cheerfulness and bright colors welcome us. We walk to Mario Kart™: Bowser’s Challenge where we are immersed inside of an interactive Mario Kart race. You are given a helmet for your race car in line. You enter your car and remove the visor from the car and it snaps into your helmet. You collect boxes filled with shells and shoot them at your opponents. It was fun! Next, we went to a much simpler “video game.” Here we hopped onto Yoshi and helped him find eggs. This ride is called Yoshi's Adventure™ and is geared towards small children. We took a break from the heat inside of Toadstool Cafe™. This is an eatery where you find your table, order from the QR code on the table, and then your food is delivered to you. We order the Toadstool Cheesy Garlic Knots, ? Block Tiramisu, and Super Star Lemon Squash. The Super Star Lemon Squash was perfection for a refreshing non-alcoholic drink. It didn’t have the syrupy taste of soda. 10 out of 10. The Toadstool Cheesy Garlic Knots were cute and shaped into little mushrooms. The ? Block Tiramisu was also a super cute presentation. It had cookies to form the box and then the box was filled with tiramisu. The final attraction to ride was Mine-Cart Madness™. This is the first ride that we’ve come across that didn’t have an ExpressPass line. There is a spot for the line, but they are currently not offered it. The line was 25 minutes when we had looked at the app a few minutes from getting in line, but it jumped to 75 minutes once we entered the line. We found out that this ride had gone down a few times today so many people in line had tried to ride it earlier in the day without luck. It meant for a long wait. Also, the ride broke when we were in line. They removed a car from the track to get it back up, but it meant the line would move slower. It ended up taking two hours to ride this. The theming of the ride was super cute and it’s fun to be in a little cart, but I personally wouldn’t wait 2 hours to ride it again. This is to be expected. This is a PREVIEW of the park and we knew coming into it that the kinks are being worked out. I’m so glad that Universal Orlando Resort is really testing their systems before the grand opening on May 22, 2025. Overall, the day went pretty smoothly and we were able to see a lot.
I’m at the park with another travel advisor and we had a decision to make when Mine-Cart Madness™ was down. Do we ditch the ride and explore the last land or do we stay in line? We decided for the third option. I stayed in line and the other travel advisor left the line to see Isle of Berk before the sun set and the park closed. She was able to fully experience the other land while I waited in line. It was about 8:30pm when I left the ride giving me 30 minutes to explore another land. Luckily, the park had really emptied by this time.
How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk is the last world to explore. This is a vibrant children-oriented land and is more of a daytime land. The land was empty at 8:30pm. There are three rides in the land. The first ride I see is Dragon Racer's Rally. It is a rotating arm with lots of spinning. I have limited time so I decide to pass. Next up, Hiccup's Wing Gliders which is a roller coaster. Don’t let the children-oriented land fool you, this is a legit roller coaster. This one was really fun and I will be riding it again on another visit. The last ride is Fyre Drill which is a water ride. A family I spoke with in line told me about how drenched they got on this ride. The sun had set and we had dinner reservations so I passed on this ride too. It looked really cute and would have been perfect for the middle of the day.
I had a little time to race over to Dark Universe to see the windmill on fire and then our time in the park was quickly coming to an end. We have reservations for Bar Helios at Universal Helios Grand Hotel. This is a rooftop bar with amazing views of Universal EPIC Universe.
We leave the park via the back entrance. I wasn’t sure we’d be allowed through because we aren’t staying at the hotel, but have dinner reservations here. The gate was open so we didn’t need to scan our key cards. Phew. We have some time to kill so we found a nice spot at the bar and ordered one round of drinks. I had the Flora Southside which consists of Ketel One, Tanqueray, strawberries, mint, strawberry and rose syrup, lemon juice. It was light and refreshing.
I planned on just having a drink when I initially made the reservation. No way I’d be eating at 10:15pm. Well, I was wrong. We snacked through the day, but didn’t really have a proper breakfast or lunch. We were eating dinner here. I order the WAGYU BEEF SLIDERS which had aged cheddar, charred onions, and arugula on them. I also split the Farmer’s Cheese which was whipped farmer's cheese, honeycomb, citrus, local seasonal fruit, pistachio, grilled focaccia. Both items were amazing. I also had the MOUNT OLYMPUS cocktail which was Hendrick's Gin, St~Germain, lemon and lavender cordial, lime juice, mint, Ferrari Brut. The bonus for this meal was the view. The rooftop overlooks Universal EPIC Universe and it’s beautifully lit up at night. You can see most of the park from up here.
We had a bit of an adventure on our way back to our hotel. The plan was to take the bus from Grand Helios Hotel to CityWalk and then switch buses to go back to Dockside Inn and Suites. The sign stated that the buses run one hour after CityWalk closes so theoretically a bus should have come. It was 11:45pm and we waited about 45 minutes. We decided to cut our losses and take a Lyft. We initially avoided this based on feedback from others. This whole area is brand new and GPS doesn’t have the area fully in the system. As a result, there is a high rate of Uber/Lyft cancellations. We were assigned a driver pretty quickly, but he cancelled. Second driver cancelled. Third driver finally took us. Our ride comes and then it’s the next adventure. Many of the roads are closed at night. We took a very roundabout way to make it back. The good news is that Lyft recognized the route changed. I received a notification asking if I was safe which was nice. Our EPIC day ended around 1:30am which is way later than I’m used to being up. I absolutely love EPIC and can’t wait to come back with my family.
Travel agent specializing in family travel including multi-generational family vacations, run relate My love for travel began as a little girl.
