On May 22, 2025, the first multi-billion dollar theme park to open in the western hemisphere since 1999 will open. Universal's Epic Universe is a new full size theme park located in unincorporated Orange County, Florida. With apologies to our friends on the other side of the Atlantic, I shall refer to the park as EU for the rest of this post.
I was fortunate enough to get a chance to visit EU during previews on April 19 and May 19. So, I decided to record my first impressions of the resort and the specific rides so that everyone will know how cool I am, or something.
Note, both times I visited the park, I did not want to worry about taking photos, except when I was not sure that I would be able to find a comparable photo by others. I did actually go, I swear!
This review is broken into six parts, with general observations about the new resort campus in part one, with reviews of all the rides and attractions I saw in the subsequent parts, divided by land.
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| Photo credit: @bioreconstruct |
Universal Orlando South Campus ★★½☆
Over the last 35 years, Universal has built out their main Orlando campus north of Interstate 4. That campus is extremely well laid out, with a compact walkable retail dining and entertainment core (CityWalk) anchored in each corner by the parking structures and two theme parks (Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure). Connecting this area to four resort hotels is a landscaped waterway with frequent boat service. At the periphery of the site are two additional value hotels, a water park, back of house service facilities and employee parking.
On the other side of I-4 at the former Wet n Wild site are two additional value hotels connected to the main campus by bus.
The new park is located on property that has gone in and out of Universal's hands a couple times over the past 35 years. This site is within a mile of the Orange County Convention Center and has been connected to the north via an extension of Kirkman Road, including dedicated bus lanes in the median. As far as I know, this additional resort area does not have a name, so I will call it the South Campus.
The South Campus is home to EU, a park-integrated resort hotel, two value resorts, surface parking, and an extensive back of house complex.
Near the center of the South Campus on Kirkman Road is a strange elevated traffic circle over top a very slow conventional traffic signal. This connects to the resort road that serves EU's surface parking lot as well as two resort hotels.
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| Photo credit: @bioreconstruct |
As far as I can tell, this circular bridge structure is intended to eliminate south-to east turn movements for cars and buses from the traffic signal. But I can't figure out what some portions of the bridges are for (in particular, the bit between the ramp at the 3 o'clock position to the ramp at the 2 o'clock position). If I had to guess, I would say it has something to do with hotel busses coming from the Kirkman southbound general lanes. But what an expensive way to make that connection!
I get that they used circles as a design motif across the South Campus. But it doesn't look circular from the ground, and those long retaining walls are never going to be as appealing as some of the other ways to make these roads work. The scale is weird, and it feels like nobody questioned it after the first sketch. But I know Universal and I know traffic engineers, so that seems unlikely.
In general, the South Campus isn't particularly walkable. Getting between the closest value hotel to EU requires crossing an eight lane road at a traffic signal with a 3+ minute cycle time. A far cry from the waterfront walkway that connects most of the main Orlando campus.
I don't want to overstate any of my criticisms of the South Campus--many of these observations go away if the full density of the campus is built out. It looks like a parking structure could go in the lay down yard south of Epic Boulevard east of Stella Nova resort if they ever wanted to put a fourth park in Epic's parking lot.
Overall, I would say that the South Campus is currently a step down from the main Universal campus, but I suspect that the resort will grow into it over the next decade.
Terra Luna Resort ★½☆☆
In order to have a place for my wife to rest in the middle of the day if it got too hot while we were at the park, I decided to book two nights at Terra Luna resort for about $150/night for the visit on April 19. The price was slightly lower than the price of a room at Cabana Bay, my favorite Universal value resort.
At check-in, the staff were efficient and friendly, and I was happy to discover that we would get early entry to EU as a perk for staying on site!
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| Photo credit: Universal. ©2021 Universal Orlando. All Rights Reserved. |
The lobby is nice, although the bar at the end of it struck me as too "out in the open". Nobody appeared to be getting drinks there any time I walked past.
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| Photo credit: Universal. ©2021 Universal Orlando. All Rights Reserved. |
The elevators appeared to be inadequate for the number of rooms, as the line for the elevators often stretched back to the lobby at all hours of the day and night.
The room itself was nice, if a little spartan. The finishes in the room were very solid, so there wasn't a lot of sound attenuation. Any time anyone turned on a sink in the room above or next to us, we could hear it. We were also kept up at night by the conversations of the people in the hall or in nearby rooms.
A bit of noise is to be expected, this is a family-oriented hotel at a theme park after all. But I did recently stay at a Hampton Inn in Vermont for the same price where all the rooms surrounding mine were occupied by a motor coach full of high school-aged boys in some sort of traveling sports team. And I could not hear them at all from inside my room.
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| Photo credit: Universal. ©2021 Universal Orlando. All Rights Reserved. |
Overall, I like the exterior look and the lobby of the hotel. But I cannot recommend staying at Terra Luna. If you want to stay on site at Universal on a budget, Cabana Bay has a similar vibe and will be much more comfortable.
Epic Universe Guest Parking ★★★½
The parking lot for EU is arranged to allow speed parking. It appears as though premium parking is shaded under solar panels. And handicap parking is provided in the front adjacent to the bus loop for off site hotels. Ride share pickup is also provided.
The vehicular circulation patterns are clear and probably will provide a very high level of service even on busy days.
The only thing keeping the parking lot from getting four stars is the lack of shade down the pedestrian spine in the center of the lot. With a parking layout this simple, there is no need for a parking tram. But given the lack of tram, it would be nice if there was something to reduce the inconvenience of such a long walk. Disneyland Paris's guest parking has moving sidewalks. Just sayin'.
Main Entrance ★★★½
The park entrance is somewhat unusual for a Universal park. Guests who are purchasing or picking up tickets are separated from guests who already have their park entry media.
If you need to pick up your tickets upon arrival to EU, you and your entire party will be funneled into a shaded queue which leads to its own security station. Once beyond security, you will be sent to one of many ticket counters where a friendly team member will help you with your tickets. After you receive your tickets, a turnstile brings you straight into the park.
This is a dramatic improvement over the typical ticket booth setup where each window has a separate line and the whole experience occurs in the brutal Florida summer heat.
Guests who do not need to purchase or pick up tickets go straight to the main entrance shade structures which are operationally unlike anything else in Orlando. This entrance features security only a dozen or so feet in front of the entry turnstiles. This arrangement is fairly common at lower volume amusement parks. But Universal does have experience making this work at their busiest park, Universal Studios Japan.
A danger of this arrangement is that delays at security are more likely to lead to the turnstiles being underutilized or vice versa, because the close placement reduces the amount that guests can find the shortest turnstile line in the interstitial area between that and security. In Japan it generally works because the staff and visitors are both fairly efficient in their movements.
If rumors are to be believed, this arrangement is likely the result of an early concept for this park to have the Celestial Park area open to the general public without tickets, so this structure may have originally been intended to only host security. Time will tell whether this will be adequate, but if push came to shove, there is enough space that a new security station could be added in the future.
Regardless of the origin of this arrangement, it is an unexpected change to the park entry procedure. And even if the jury may still be out for the primary entrance, the entrance for guests who need to purchase or pick up tickets is excellent and should be applauded for making such a significant advance in a part of the theme park experience that has seen little innovation since the invention of the credit card.
In the next part, I will review every ride and show in the park that I was able to experience across my two visits. I got to see every ride except for Fyre Drill and Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry.
Series Directory
Review of Epic Universe Part 3: Super Nintendo World
Review of Epic Universe Part 5: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter — Ministry of Magic
Review of Epic Universe Part 6: How to Train Your Dragon — Isle of Berk
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