Epic Universe 2025 Crowd Calendar Predictions: High Crowds Despite Low Attendance?!
Epic Universe has now been open for a few weeks. With that, attendance and crowd level patterns are starting to crystalize. This covers those, plus predictions for July 2025 and beyond at Universal Orlando’s new theme park, and why daily capacity versus wait times (and more) might come as a huge surprise.
We’ve been tracking wait time data since the start of paid previews of Epic Universe, as well as ticket sales statistics and how wait times have varied from day to day based on a variety of factors. This was one of the big motivations for writing Why You Should Skip Epic Universe before the park even opened.
Note that “Heavy Crowds” was not one of the reasons; but rather, “Unpredictable Attendance & Crowds” was. It would now seem that this perspective has been vindicated, as Epic Universe has had a veritable roller coaster of crowd levels and average wait times since its official opening about a month ago.
Epic Universe officially opened on May 22 after months of previews, and its grand opening day was the slowest ever in the park’s brief existence. The trend continued throughout Memorial Day weekend, as covered in Epic Universe is Dead. During those days, as well as many preview dates, Epic Universe had a park-wide average wait time of 25 minutes or less for a 1/10 crowd level.
Then came Epic Universe is Not Dead Anymore, which detailed the 10/10 crowd levels and average wait times of over an hour that followed hot on the heels of those 1/10 crowd levels. That post also covered breakdowns, weather delays, dumped queues, and reports of long lines for refunds or guest recovery on at least two of those days.
You’d probably be hard-pressed to find any theme park with a greater spread during a single three-day stretch than May 26, when Epic Universe had an average wait time of 31 minutes, to May 28, when Epic Universe had an average wait time of 73 minutes. That latter number is busier than any single day at Walt Disney World since at least 2019. Crowd levels have continued to be high since then, but not across the board–there have been a scattering of days in the 30-40 minute range since late May.
The really interesting wrinkle here is that it’s our understanding that Epic Universe bookings have been underperforming internal expectations. Aside from 1-day tickets, Universal Orlando has had a challenge selling vacation packages and multi-day admission that includes Epic Universe.
In talking to a variety of people, including travel agents, this has been largely driven by a mixture of the restrictive rules for ticketing, concerns about ride reliability and operational issues, and fears of a “crowdpocalypse.” Consequently, many potential guests are taking a wait and see approach with Epic Universe, just as they did with Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, and Fantasy Springs at Tokyo DisneySea.
This might seem really difficult to believe in light of the above crowd levels and average wait times, but we’ll try to explain the discrepancy here. In a nutshell, Epic Universe doesn’t do a great job of absorbing crowds, and even at lower attendance levels, the park is strained due to its top-heavy ride roster. It’s similar to Disney’s Hollywood Studios in this regard–a lot of popular headliners, but not enough easy filler.
In any case, here are a few observations and predictions about Epic Universe crowds thus far and going forward:
- Fridays through Mondays have lower wait times at Epic Universe thus far.
- Epic Universe attendance will be below half-capacity on all dates throughout Summer 2025, and below one-third capacity on many dates barring massive policy changes.
- Despite low attendance, wait times will fluctuate significantly and suggest above-average crowd levels on most dates–unpredictably so.
- Epic Universe will have higher attendance from October through December 2025 than opening day through August 2025
I’m pretty confident in all of these observations/predictions, but there are some major asterisks to a couple, so let’s break down each point in turn.
Lowest Crowds on Weekends
This one is not a prediction–it’s what is already happening, as observable in wait times (via thrill-data). Since the official opening, the two days of the week with the lowest average wait times have been Saturdays and Sundays. Friday is third-lowest.
There’s very little consistency for Mondays through Thursdays, and not enough data points to draw any conclusions. (I would personally avoid Mondays, as ticket sales data suggests those have the strongest attendance indicators going forward in July and beyond.)
Interestingly, the rest of Universal Orlando is busiest on Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays, followed by Sundays. This is fueled largely by locals and Annual Passholders over the weekends, and then tourists being most inclined to visit on Mondays. Midweek is the absolute best time to visit the other parks, with average wait times bottoming out on Wednesdays.
This makes sense! Floridians work on weekdays, making weekends their best time to visit the other parks for Annual Passholders. But Epic Universe doesn’t have APs, and many locals got their “fix” during previews and over the opening week. The result has been a similar dynamic as we saw at Walt Disney World when AP sales were suspended for so long (it still exists to this day, but isn’t as exaggerated).
One thing to note is that as soon as Annual Pass sales or Florida resident ticket deals start for Epic Universe, this dynamic flips. Saturday and Sunday will become the busiest days of the weekend.
Epic Universe Attendance Will Be Below Half-Capacity…
One of the more interesting developments is that real-time ticket sales data has leaked for Epic Universe. It’s my understanding that this is obtained by scraping the Universal Orlando backend website, as the data has been consistently reported by multiple sources. Take a look at this thrill-data page, which aggregates the various ticket types to show total and available capacity.
To start with, Universal Orlando was limiting attendance at roughly one-third of total park capacity–roughly 12,000 to 15,000 guests through the end of June, depending upon the day. That then expanded to roughly 22,000 guests per day on July 1, 2025. That’s where the upper limit stood through the remainder of 2025, per their data. (All of this is past tense–it’s where numbers stood from when ticket sales started through May 30.)
Separately, we’ve been told that Epic Universe has a total theoretical capacity of around 35,000 to 40,000 guests. It would seem that number is actually on the low side, as Universal Orlando has since increased its ticket cap to 45,000 across the board for the remainder of 2025, doubling or tripling the limit depending on the date.
However, as we explain in another post detailing the increase, the numbers are a bit misleading, as the increase is to undesirable multi-day ticket types that few guests are purchasing in the first place. But they are available, and Universal wouldn’t be selling them if they didn’t believe the park’s capacity was 45,000 guests.
Based on these numbers, our prediction that Epic Universe will be at one-third to one-half of its total theoretical capacity is wrong on its face, right? Well, no. That assumes Epic Universe sells out of tickets every day. They are currently only selling out of single-day tickets, and that’s a small percentage of overall inventory.
At this point, it’s unlikely that there will be many impulse buys of the multi-day tickets, so the limiting factor is not the higher cap–it’s demand. And even after the increase, demand is still falling well short of the caps. What would meaningfully move the needle is increasing the ticket inventory to match the total park capacity, and eliminating the buckets of tickets. If the capacity exists, selling it in advance as any admission type instead of playing games. Disabling the friction, as opposed to adjusting different dials. But all of this is a bit in the weeds, and ground we’ve already covered.
The bottom line is that even though Universal is offering to sell ~45,000 tickets per day to Epic Universe, but most days they’re actually selling about 13,000 to 19,000. The capacity cap increase has played some role in reaching these numbers, and pop-up availability for single-day tickets suggests Universal is shifting around inventory to some extent. Regardless, there has yet to be a single day when Epic Universe ticket sales have surpassed half capacity.
In fairness, Walt Disney World very rarely “sells out” of tickets on any given day, but we don’t have visibility into Disney’s ticketing sales like we do for Epic Universe. In terms of raw numbers, I would think that Epic Universe will not experience crowd numbers anywhere near what Magic Kingdom pulls for a long time.
In 2023, it is estimated that Magic Kingdom averaged some 49,000 guests per day. If there were over 50,000 people in Epic Universe, it would be an absolute operational nightmare. The park can barely handle 20k, nevermind more than double that.
To put that in perspective, Islands of Adventure averaged roughly 27,400 and Universal Studios Florida averaged 26,700. Animal Kingdom, the “worst” of the Disney/Universal parks, averaged 24,100 guests per day in 2023. 2024 numbers are not yet available.
It will be interesting to see where Epic Universe settles in once “normal” normal hits sometime early next year, but without a significant change in ticketing strategy (and probably the introduction of Annual Passes), it will fall behind the existing theme parks. That’s a good thing for guests. I wouldn’t want to visit Epic Universe as it currently exists with 25k people in the park.
Finally, the really interesting wrinkle here is that there’s a big drop-off in ticket sales starting in July 2025.
To some degree, this is expected–more distant dates should have lower sales, and the summer media blitz and early word-of-mouth are still expected to drive future sales. But lower sales in July than May/June has been the case for months, long before the park even opened. Ticket sales started last October, so guests have been planning trips for a while now. At this point, it’s unlikely that a huge number of tourists are going to book summer trips right now for one month into the future. (October and beyond is a totally different story.)
As of right now, only four dates in July 2025 have sold more than 10,000 tickets (July 1-2, plus the first two Mondays of the month). Only one date after that has sold out over 10,000 tickets (September 8, 2025). Barring a major policy change, the second week of July could reflect a marked change for crowds at Epic Universe.
…Barring Major Policy Changes
The first part of that last sentence is operative: barring a major policy change. A minor change at this point would be moving more tickets to the single day bucket. Even so, I don’t think that would be sufficient to meaningfully change crowds, as 1-day tickets are not sold out for most of July and beyond.
Major changes would be selling Annual Passes or a Florida resident ticket deal that includes Epic Universe. My guess is that Universal Orlando wants to hold off on selling APs as long as possible, with sometime in 2026 being the target. That the strong preference would be to capture as many high-revenue ticket sales as possible, “force” locals to purchase single-day tickets, and give Epic Universe time to find its operational footing.
However, the wildcard here is that Universal Orlando is just one business unit in the Comcast empire. The corporate overlords may be demanding higher numbers and faster ROI on their $7 billion investment without fully understanding or appreciating those ramifications.
If attendance is “too low” for too long, Universal’s hand might be forced–or they might get spooked and decide to pull the Annual Pass lever. I could see a scenario where a few weeks of low attendance once school goes back into session in August causes that lever to be pulled…right before Fall Break through New Year’s Eve, typically the busiest stretch of the year for theme parks.
While I’d selfishly like to buy an AP that includes Epic Universe, I think this park is probably at least a year away from being able to support Annual Passes without damaging the normal guest experience. Universal should try to pull every lever possible before resorting to the nuclear option of selling APs. If they can somehow hold off until August 2026, that would be optimal for tourists.
Attendance Doesn’t Equal Wait Times
As noted above, there hasn’t been a single day when Epic Universe ticket sales have exceeded half of the 45,000 guest theoretical capacity. Some days have been closer to one-third. As a result, you might intuitively think that this means crowd levels of 3/10 to 5/10, right? Wrong.
Since the start of June, there have been 8 days with average wait times of 60 minutes or more. Almost every single day has been above 50 minutes. The busiest day had an average wait time of 70 minutes, and there have been a handful of 67-68 minute dates. That’s just June. As noted above, May 28 is the park’s busiest day ever, hitting an average wait time of 73 minutes.
These are almost all 8/10 to 10/10 crowd levels, which is a somewhat meaningless metric because it’s relative to Epic Universe’s past wait times (so basically, during previews when attendance was throttled significantly). It’s entirely possible that 73 minute record will be shattered during the holiday season, and recent crowd levels will be adjusted downward due to more dates with higher averages.
On the topic of crowd levels being relative, it’s also worth noting that Walt Disney World’s two busiest days since 2019 have been 71 and 70 minute waits–both came during the weeks of New Year’s (early 2020 and late 2023). On the same dates this summer, Walt Disney World’s average wait time has been less than half of Epic Universe and that’s despite (presumably) higher daily attendance. The same goes for Universal Orlando’s other parks, which are seeing averages of around 25 minutes.
This should underscore a few things. First, averages are across all attractions, and the other parks have a healthier mix of headliners with high waits and lower-demand rides that seldom have long lines (at the risk of stating the obvious, the latter reduce averages). Second, crowd levels are not absolute–Epic Universe has its own scale, and it’ll end up skewing higher than Magic Kingdom or Universal Studios Florida (just as DHS skews higher than MK).
Finally, because of the headliner-heavy nature of Epic Universe’s ride roster, it is going to have some ridiculously high average wait times once the park is actually running close to full capacity. Days with triple-digit averages are likely on the horizon at some point. In other words, right now might seem bad…but it can and will get worse!
Lower Summer Attendance, Higher Fall & Beyond
I’ll be honest, I was feeling really confident about this prediction back around Memorial Day weekend. Much less so now. Nevertheless, it’s what we saw play out at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland with Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, as well as Fantasy Springs at Tokyo DisneySea. In all three cases, crowds materialized starting around October after slower summers.
Walt Disney World and Disneyland went from being dead to slammed, and that didn’t change until the parks closed in March 2020 due to COVID. In the case of Walt Disney World, seasonality comes into play. The land debuted during the off-season there, and Disney (incorrectly) bet that the lure of the land would be enough to overcome normal attendance patterns. It was not.
Hard as it might be to believe given the wait times the park is already posting, but it’s probably going to be a somewhat similar dynamic with Epic Universe. Summer is no longer peak season for Florida theme parks, and hasn’t been for a while. It’s not off-season, either (that’s August through mid-to-late September), though. While there’s the initial new park fanfare, there are also plenty of people postponing visits for that very same reason.
Epic Universe should enjoy a similar tailwind from October through December 2025. That’s a popular time for tourists traveling to Central Florida, and Epic Universe will undoubtedly “capture” visitors making their annual pilgrimages to Walt Disney World. On top of that, there are Universal Orlando’s own dedicated fans who visit for the heart of Halloween Horror Nights season. Erroneously expecting lower crowds, plus better weather (hopefully) and more seasonal offerings, those guests will likely wait until their normal fall and holiday season trips.
I’d take this a step further and predict that attendance will be higher from January 2026 through Easter 2026, too. Ticket policies change in 2026, with restrictions for regular tickets being removed. This will allow guests with multi-day tickets to spend a disproportionate amount of time at Epic Universe, and we’d expect exactly that to happen.
On top of that, there will be guests who waited out the initial rush visiting. Others will have waited for better weather (that’s us!) after learning about Epic Universe’s lack of shade and issues handling heat and Florida weather. Winter is becoming an increasingly popular of time for tourists, especially frequent visitors to Orlando, and we could see the first few months of the year being “surprisingly” busy at Epic Universe as a result.
The biggest wildcard is if word of mouth about Epic Universe is actually negative. There have been a lot of complaints about the days with significant downtime due to downpours and ride breakdowns, but I’m not sure how much this is “breaking containment” and reaching audiences beyond theme park fans. The general public might only be seeing the rave reviews of the excellent Epic Universe ride roster and making plans to visit “after the opening rush” in October or beyond. Guess we shall see!
When to Visit Epic Universe?
If you’re looking for recommendations to minimize the likelihood of encountering 70+ minute average wait times, we have a few.
For those with flexible travel dates, target the off-season after school goes back into session but before Halloween Horror Nights kicks into high gear. I’m personally looking at the last couple weeks of August, coinciding with One of 2025’s Best Weeks to Visit Walt Disney World. Same idea applies to Epic Universe.
Obviously, one way that’s not among the best times to visit Central Florida is in terms of weather. It’s one of the hottest stretches of the year, and Epic Universe lacks shade–so that’s something to consider. More importantly, it’s the heart of storm season and Epic Universe has a lot of outdoor attractions that go down in rain. The majority of rides, in fact.
This alone introduces tremendous variability to crowd levels, as ~7 rides going down causes higher wait times at the remaining attractions–and longer lines for those rides once they’re back online. Between storms and breakdowns, there have been a few occasions when Epic Universe only had a single ride or two open. That’s a problem!
Accordingly, even if my travel dates weren’t flexible, I’d make sure my day to visit Epic Universe was. If I had multi-day tickets, I’d target Saturday or Sunday, and then choose one based on the weather forecast. Even though it’s had the highest average wait times, I’d pick a clear Monday over a Sunday with torrential downpours in the forecast.
This is more or less exactly what I plan on doing. I’ve yet to purchase tickets for my August visit, and won’t until my travel dates roll around and there’s a high-confidence weather forecast. Honestly, I also want to take a wait and see approach to assess how Epic Universe continues to ‘evolve’ over the next couple of months. It’s been a veritable roller coaster ride already, and I have only low-confidence in some of these predictions.
Suffice to say, if heavy rain is in the forecast every single day of my potential visit window or single-day tickets somehow sell out, I’m fine with simply not going. I would rather visit a different theme park than drop $169+ per day to do Epic Universe with 60+ minute average wait times amidst downtime. That’s not my idea of a good time. Perhaps your calculus is different for a once-in-a-lifetime or infrequent vacation, though. In which case, hopefully some of the rough guidelines here can help you target the potentially best days to visit.
Looking further into the future, if planning a late 2025 or 2026 trip, I’d target all of the same dates on our Best & Worst Weeks to Visit Walt Disney World in 2025 & 2026. That’s a mix of quantitative and qualitative, and I’d argue that the latter matters more at Epic Universe than Walt Disney World.
Timeframes to target include the week after Thanksgiving, mid-January, before winter break, early spring, and post-Easter 2026 are all appealing. Basically, the dates with the highest likelihood of lowest attendance and best weather. While I’m planning my own solo research trips to Epic Universe in August (and perhaps in late July if things are already looking better), our big family vacation will happen in the first quarter of 2026. Weather is the big deciding factor for us–but my big concern with dates deeper into next year is the increased likelihood of Annual Passes or Florida resident ticket deals, which would throw a definite monkey wrench into all of this!
Need trip planning tips and comprehensive advice for your visit to Central Florida? Make sure to read our Universal Orlando Planning Guide for everything about Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios Florida. Also check out our Walt Disney World Vacation Planning Guide for everything about those parks, resorts, restaurants, and so much more. For regular updates, news & rumors, a heads up when discounts are released, and much more, sign up for our FREE email newsletter!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you visited Epic Universe since the start of Summer 2025? What did you think of wait times and crowds? Experience any operational meltdowns due to breakdowns or weather? Is it possible or probable that Epic Universe actually has even higher attendance from October through December 2025, or throughout 2026? Will you visit Epic Universe in Summer 2025, or will you wait for crowds to settle down (in theory)? Agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions? We love hearing from readers, so please share any other thoughts or questions you have in the comments below!
We visited on Friday 6/6. I appreciate your recommendation of changing to two rooms at Stella Nova instead of our one Helios room. We saved $400 on our two nights and really enjoyed ourselves. The walk was easy and the food offerings there were what my family wanted/needed.
On our 13 hour day we rode 5 headliners and watched the circus show. Mario (10ish min ride breakdown while in line), Stardust (30 min ride breakdown while in line), Ministry (our longest line at almost exactly two hours – the rest were over an hour), Monsters and Donkey Kong.
We lost 45ish minutes to rain and couldn’t even watch the other show as it was at capacity significantly before showtime. Agree there isn’t enough to do when it rains.
You could say we wasted 2 hours at Toadstool Cafe waiting for a seat and waiting for food but it was the hottest part of the day and we enjoyed the break and food.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on the break from the heat and colorful and neon photo ops after dark. Leaving the park at 9:15pm after our last ride was ridiculous this time of year.
This Disney person and family had all admitted to having tons of fun but we aren’t racing to go over and try it again until probably a couple years from now. We just think it needs 5-10 more attractions or shows. Thirteen just was just not enough to spread everyone out.
Thanks for sharing your experience, and glad the advice about Stella Nova over Helios suited your family!
Ouch about Toadstool Cafe. For what I’ve seen and heard, it’s perpetually slammed now. It’s a neat restaurant, but I don’t know that it’s THAT neat. Think I’ll stick to Pizza Moon!
The wild thing about the attraction lineup is that, on paper, it’s actually really robust! Better than Animal Kingdom and about on par with DHS. But it doesn’t really feel that way in person when the park is busy or rainy, does it?
I should note the 2 hours was from starting in line to finishing our food. One of my sons has several food allergies and I was impressed with how these were handled there and how knowledgeable the manager was regarding ingredients and what could and couldn’t be done. This was a test for us used to Disney’s allergy protocol and Toadstool passed with flying colors. So kinda worth it – I think.
We are a family of 4 on a long week of Disney and US , and we have Epic for one day on June 19th, then two days in US. Staying at the Royal Pacific so using the early entry – I’ll bookmark and reply what the day is like if two weeks of Hershey, Disney and Universal doesn’t wipe me out by then –
Awesome, thanks for sharing (if you’re able) and hope you enjoy your visit!
Hey Tom,
We are visiting Epic on a Friday and Saturday at the end of September! Any chance you’ll end up posting a 1 or 2 day itinerary for Epic? Would love your tips and tricks!
Thanks!
I’ll absolutely be posting a 1-day itinerary within the next 2 weeks. Probably won’t do a 2-day itinerary, as I think the single day plan can probably be adapted for multiple days.
We are slated to do Epic on November 29, so technically your fav week after Thanksgiving but also still the weekend everyone is still “off”. But also a Saturday. But also the Saturday numbers could change by then. But also maybe rides will be down less by then. But also…
We like to be as expectation light as possible and just enjoy what we do get to do. And we head to Disney for your favorite week, so excited by that.
I shall do my best to report back on November as a less than here fan but more than normie.
Thanks for all you do.
Tom, do you feel that the best days according to Trill-Data (Sat, Sun, Fri) will hold true for the first week of August. We are set to attend the 4th-8th but we are flexible. Would it be a better game plan to shift from weekdays to that weekend?
In my view, the only reasons it would change are the following:
1) Holiday weekends
2) Annual Passes
3) Florida resident ticket deals including EU
August 4-8 isn’t #1, so you really just need to watch for #2 or #3.
Any idea when they will start selling tickets for January 2026? We’re trying to plan a trip for Christmas break. Thanks for any thoughts!
I can confirm that if you are booking vacation packages, they have multi-day tickets available for 2026 already as that is what I’ve currently booked. If you are looking for just tickets without a hotel stay, those don’t seem to be out yet for any of the parks; my uneducated guess would be those would become available in early fall.
We’re waiting for packages that include 2 or more days at Epic along with a couple of days at the other parks to purchase. I’m guessing others are doing likewise. I wonder how sales would go if they released those packages.
Same. I already booked the hotel in the fall but I’m holding off on the tickets to see if they will do a 3 park ticket with 2 days at EU (we would do 4 days total)
If you are looking to go in 2026, they have packages available with multi-day tickets available for use at any park, including multiple days at Epic. But they are *not* park to park tickets, so whatever park you enter first is it for the day (and no Hogwarts Express between Islands and Universal Studios).
everyone believes their data, for a park that hasn’t been open for a full unrestricted month, is correct until the data comes out.
Hey Tom, thanks for the advice! We read up on all of your items before going to Epic June 5-7 (Thur-Sat). We got lucky with no rain but it was so hot/humid. We seem to be in the minority of people who actually bought 3 days at Epic, knowing the downtime that was likely going to plague our trip. That did happen, but we noticed that Saturday was the absolute best day to be in the park. Very little down time vs the other two days. I believe the Saturday before was similar so it made us think that they are front loading staff to ensure that Saturdays run smoothly. On Thursday, we spent 2 hours waiting for Ministry to open. (Helios outdoor queue at 8:20 am, followed the crowd to the subway queue at 9 am and was in our spot in line by 9:20 inside the ministry. At 10, it didn’t open (park open), but by 11 it started moving. By 11:20, we got to the ride vehicles but some of the mechanics didn’t work and the ride actually stopped for about 30 seconds during our ride and none of it made sense to us). We spent the rest of the day hanging out in Paris. We had a great day, it was so cold in the ministry and the queue is so cool that we didn’t mind it. But on Saturday, we saw that the queue was 60 minutes by 7 pm, so we had to choose that over meeting Toothless. We got into the Ministry queue at 8 pm, and were through the ride and back out into Paris by the time of the fountain show (9 pm). We couldn’t believe it! Although, the ride did make me sick, it was a much better story than the first time.
Last tidbit: not sure if it’s a “secret” thing, but all three days we were there, the Celestial Park rides were open for an extra hour after park close. They even kept the EP lines open, so we saved ours until then so we could experience the rides at night each night and not have to rush to get those done in the 15 minutes of dark before park close. Of course, the theme to our trip was inconsistency so who knows how long that will last.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I had heard that about Celestial Park, but was waiting until it became consistent enough before reporting on it–not sure it’s at that point, as planning around that is still risky.
Just want to make another plug for NOT rope dropping BatM. It just isn’t a reliable #1 pick: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/epic-universe-morning-strategy-best-worst-attractions-universal/
I appreciate your honest and fair feedback regarding Epic Universe operations and crowd issues (admittedly I thought you were a bit bias at first, but I’ll eat crow admit I was mistaken). I’m going in early September with the family and bought three 1 day tickets to Epic Universe along with the military annual pass for the rest of the Universal Parks. What I’ve noticed, or maybe I’m wrong, is that the Express Pass may not be worth it, as it only cuts the wait time by half. If you or anyone else in the comments has noticed this, I’d appreciate any experiences with the Epic Universe Express Pass.
I’ve tried to thread the needle between overhyping Epic Universe, as I feel some Universal fans did that–the the detriment of casual guests and the park itself. On the other hand, Disney fans have been dismissive of Epic Universe, and should be seeing already how wrong they were. Although I think some will hang their hats on the operational woes, which won’t exist forever.
I do think some perplexing and indefensible decisions were made with menu planning for Epic Universe, but I also think some absolutely brilliant choices were made. Big swings that Disney wouldn’t have made. In fandoms like this, it’s tempting to ignore whichever one suits your biases or narrative. I try to be as objective as possible, but like everyone else, I do have biases!
(Sorry–I can’t answer your question, but I’ll be curious to hear what others have to say. I think the biggest limiting factor of Express Pass is the exclusion of Mine-Cart Madness and Battle at the Ministry. If I had three days in Epic Universe, I wouldn’t buy it, but YMMV.)
Hey BT,
Chiming in with our Express Pass experience. We visited on Friday 6/6 and made the decision to get the EPs based on reliability concerns and the fact that the trip was a one day add on to a Disney trip. We tried to prioritize things without EP first (and just kept an eye on BatMoM – I had decided anything below 90 minutes we would go get in line). Our morning plans went awry when we tried to go to Mine-Cart Madness during Early Park Entry and it was delayed – so we pivoted and left Super Nintendo World totally because chaos (side note, had a very confusing exit that early in the day) and hilariously ended up riding the carousel first; I wasn’t mad, I love carousels but it does not need prioritization – team members did want to confirm our on-site hotel status, but I got the feeling they were going to be a bit lenient given the lack of line. Next we waited ~25 minutes outside the portal for Berk to open (pro-tip with iced coffee and sun umbrella), meeting toothless was a high priority and by heading there first we barely had to wait in line ~10 mins? After that we did Dragon Racer’s Rally and managed it before the line was too long. Next was our first EP with Hiccup’s Wing Gliders – this was very quick, we walked quickly though the EP queue maybe 1 minute before putting our bags in the lockers and then waited another max of 5 (posted wait was something like 45 I think). Fyre Drill was down all day. We used EP for the untrainable dragon show but it was too close to showtime so it made no difference. Next Stardust Racers, maybe 15 minutes wait? It did feel long post-merge and we did have a slight wait before the lockers. Mine Cart Madness went down briefly while we were in that EP queue – this was the longest of our EP waits and felt it. I didn’t time it but at least 20 minutes probably more, hard to tease apart how much was delay- related. Yoshi was basically no wait with EP, (insert a long wait in BatMoM because it went down to 100 minutes, which was very accurate, one animatronic was having a rough day and I suppose the drops are just gone now (this is what people in front of us said)). Monsters Unchained was also barely a minute wait via EP before we were in the first preshow room despite having a longer than what I have seen as average wait (I think because of other downtimes). When we got out of that there was a weather delay on all the outdoor rides due to lightening so no Curse of the Werewolf for us. We shopped a little, but ultimately decided not to wait out to see if things reopened before the 9 pm close at about 7:45 because as many have said it is HOT in that park and we were tired (the rides did come back up). All in – if you are on a tighter budget, I would not say it was strictly speaking “worth it”, however I’d estimate with delays the day we were there we were able to do maybe 2 more rides than we would have been with out EP?
We had just one day at Epic Universe (6/9) and I totally would recommend the Express Pass if it’s in your budget. We did Mine Cart Madness and Yoshi during early park admission so we didn’t use EP there. But then we used it for Mario Kart, Hiccup’s Gliders, Fyre Drill, Monsters Unchained and Curse of the Werewolf. We also waited 2 hrs and 10 minutes for Battle at the Ministry. We arrived at 7:30am and left at 6:30pm when the rides were all on weather delay and there was nothing else we wanted to do. All those lines we did with EP were 45 minutes or more on the standby line and we wouldn’t have been able to do them all if we’d had to wait in line. With the heat and humidity we did not want to wait in line after line, it’s exhausting! If you have multiple days at Epic you might not need the EP, but it’s a matter of how many rides are you willing to wait in long lines for. At one point mid morning even Yoshi had a 60 minute wait! (Definitely don’t do that)
Great analysis as always. Thanks!
How much of an impact might be just general lack of knowledge by the general public. As fans of theme parks we all are VERY aware of all the changes going on in parks particularly Universal and Disney. Might it also take some time for a more general public to have greater awareness to drive attendance?
“Might it also take some time for a more general public to have greater awareness to drive attendance?”
Yes, absolutely.
The general public is just starting to become aware of the fact that Epic Universe even exists in the first place. If heavy crowds continue (assuming they do), it’ll take even longer for that word of mouth to spread and planners to start avoiding EU as a result.
We went on Sunday, June 8th (Thrill Data said that was #3 of 83 days they have ranked ). We stayed on site to get the extra hour of touring. We experienced multiple ride breakdowns (not weather related) in the first half of the day. Including the Untrainable Dragon fully breaking down in the first number (we did get an express pass out of that at least). Without that express pass we would have ridden one ride from 9am-11am in spite utilizing good touring strategy and having a “bonus” park hour. Minecart Madness didn’t open for the day until around 2pm. The day eventually improved, with the exception of trying out the single rider line at Harry Potter (-10 out of 10, absolutely do not recommend). It took the same amount of time listed on the regular wait, but we would sit in one place for 10+ minutes at a time and it felt like being imprisoned in a lightly themed hallway. They were loading the single riders all together, so I don’t really know what the point of that line is. It seems like it would be best if Universal just 86’d that option.
The heat didn’t seem that bad to me (but I do live in the south). The food was amazing and the rides were (mostly) great. I thought the theming of the park was beautiful. The quick service restaurants blew me away (they had full table service at all the ones we went to). I had a great time, but would have trouble recommending it to someone else. I’m a theme park person and pretty chill. I think if you are not someone who frequents theme parks and have a normal level of patience, that day would turn you off of theme parks for quite a while. Things I missed out on were the Untrainable Dragon (when we returned at 5pm, it was no longer running), the carousel, Fyre Drill and meeting Toothless (the wait was at 60 minutes+ all day).
Thank you for all your posts!
Thanks for sharing your experience–that sounds rough, especially the Single Rider part. I’ve been in a situation like that with Single Rider before, and know just how excruciating it is. (The worst is when you can see the load area, spotting the empty seats!)
The advice given here looks sound. I had one thing to add solely based on personal experience (though it could be anecdotal). I went on a Saturday in early June where it was very rainy in the morning, but cleared up late morning for the rest of the day. The park felt extremely uncrowded; many walk-ons throughout the day. For example, we looped Hiccups with no wait 3-4 times. We were able to walk around an almost barren Nintendo World in panchos and enjoy the power band activities. My theory is that this is because of people with the multi-day ticket packages with 1 day in Epic. They will avoid “wasting” their Epic day on less-than-optimal weather. If the weather forecast has rain for a specific day and the surrounding days look better, then you might be better off crowd-wise going on the rainy day. The caveat there is that it shouldn’t be a torrential downpour type of day, since that will knock out rides for many hours. Advice would also only be for people who are ok with panchos/ getting wet.
This is excellent insight–exactly the type of ‘zig when they zag’ thinking we appreciate!
Now I’m going to pay even closer to the weather to see what the “optimal” amount of rain is from a wait times and crowds perspective. Thanks for sharing this–I really think you’re on to something.
After stalking Helios rates for the last few months, today a Hospitality suite randomly popped up as its cheapest-priced offering. Still more than I wanted to spend, but who can say no to 1,200 sqft overlooking the park? Somehow $200 less than the going rate on a park view 2 queen and $300 for the park view king. Make it make sense.
Thanks for this update! We have a trip scheduled for June 25th to the 30th. The first 3 nights at Royal Pacific with Thursday and Friday at UO/IOA, and 2 nights at Grand Helios (checking in on the 28th and checking out on the 30th) with 2 days at Epic Universe on Saturday and Sunday. I was really concerned that I made a mistake getting tickets to Epic for Saturday and Sunday but hopefully the weekend will be better than midweek. After we return I’ll come back to this post and add follow up comments.
“After we return I’ll come back to this post and add follow up comments.”
That would be greatly appreciated!
I’m always curious to hear how people perceive crowds versus the wait times data (and now, versus the attendance data). The hard numbers only tell part of the story, and I feel like that’s already doubly true with Epic Universe.
Wanted to give a quick update regarding weekend crowds. We checked into Helios Saturday June 28th and went directly into the park around 10:00. Like the post mentions it didn’t feel crowded at all and wait times didn’t really seem that long. The only land that felt crowded was Super Nintendo World, but I’m chalking that up to the design of the land. It felt a bit claustrophobic especially at the top. Sunday felt a bit more crowded but I think that was because there was a greater chance of rain in the afternoon. We rope dropped Battle at the Ministry (In line at 8:30 at Helios park entrance, gate opened around 8:50, stood in the queue starting at 9:05, and was on the ride at 9:40). Again Super Nintendo World was the only land that felt crowded.
I have a tentative Epic trip booked for mid-January based on your repeated advice that timeframe is a good mix of low crowds/cool weather for WDW. I’m also going midweek so the potential introduction of annual passes hopefully won’t affect our trip one way or the other.
My biggest prediction for the future of Epic Universe is that the next *several* rides/expansions added will be indoors to help counteract the current weather issues, which seems to be the #1 complaint I’m hearing from anyone who has actually been to Epic. Hindsight is 20/20, but it’s really surprising to me that a park in Central Florida, home of the afternoon thunderstorm, got designed in such a way that it basically has to shut down during rain.
Mid-January is most like when our family vacation to Epic Universe will occur. For us, the weather is the more overriding factor. Obviously, I’d prefer low crowds and wait times, but I’m willing to gamble on those over the August wait time/weather combo.
I fully agree with your prediction. I just wonder how quickly those expansions occur. Does Comcast double-down on Universal Orlando by fast-tracking expansion, or do they get cold feet? I could see either scenario playing out. They have the cash flow, but they also just dropped $7 billion on a park that has a ‘comfortable’ capacity of around half its theoretical capacity. I’d imagine there are some executives who aren’t too happy about that!
Thanks for keeping us updated on Epic. We visit on a Mon and Wed in mid September and will just see how it goes. We have the 2 days in case of rain, which seems to shut most of it down, or crowds. Noticeably, September isn’t called out in the article so I think it’s a bit of flux due to unpredictable weather and seasonality. We are flexible and take what we get, no expectations given the recent reviews we’ve seen.
“Noticeably, September isn’t called out in the article so I think it’s a bit of flux due to unpredictable weather and seasonality.”
Seeing some of the September ticket sales gave me pause. Universal Orlando is also a bit of a different beast than Disney due to Halloween Horror Nights, so I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. I feel like it’s going to be an up and down month–not as good as August but not as bad as October.
mind spinning info u give here !!! My olde brain is trying to keep up with info….so we have Fr. Qtr booked for 1st week Dec as always and im sure as always will be a mass insanity…..BUT being a new ELDER we are happy to sit on Skyline and visit hotels plus squeeze Epcot in……A day is set aside to go to Universal but NOT the EPIC……good ol Harry Potter and a few Butterbeers to wash down will make us happy….As always thanks for your updates !!!!!
It sounds like you’re an older guest who (sorry for being presumptuous) probably doesn’t do a lot of the rides at Universal due to their intensity?
If so, Epic Universe is actually the park that I’d recommend to you of the three. It has a Harry Potter land with Butterbeer, exceptional atmosphere in several of the lands, and great food throughout the park. No need to worry about wait times and downtime if you’re not doing many of the rides, anyway!
Hey Tom sounds good to this Oldester who came from days of Osborne Lights and Streets of America ..NY & San Francisco at Hollywood st !!!!! My go to days were usually Christmas so will take u up this Dec at EPIC with my ButterBeer and watching rest of u all stand on lines while i munch away!!!!!
the nightmare I expected…. NO THANKS!
Interesting , I’m tempted to slice a day off of DW in August but probably this would be easier to visit next summer.
FWIW I spoke with someone at Universal who says they anticipate 2026 tickets going on sale with new pricing around the time of their Halloween season. I don’t know why they’re waiting until then. Disney tickets for those dates are available now. Perhaps Universal does not have enough demand for their Christmas holiday season yet?