Epic Universe is Not Dead Anymore.
Party’s over, folks. The last 3 days have been the busiest ever at Epic Universe, with 10/10 crowd levels and average wait times of over an hour. This provides an update on attendance, following up on “Epic Universe is Dead” from opening weekend.
Let’s start there, as the last 3-4 days have been quite the contrast to the first 3-5 days of the newest park at Universal Orlando. 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.
Over the holiday, Epic Universe had lower average wait times than Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios Florida, as well as all four parks at Walt Disney World. Crowd levels were 1/10 at worst, with most attractions being walk-ons or having minimal waits regardless of their posted times.
Our post about Epic Universe being empty was made to offer a “huge kudos to Universal Orlando for choosing to have low crowds for the opening weekend of Epic Universe.” We lauded that decision, and rebutted the criticism among Walt Disney World fans that it “proved” Epic Universe was unpopular or a flop.
As we said at the time, the easier move would’ve been to sell many more tickets, take short-term profits, endure heavier crowds and whatever else came with that. The word-of-mouth wouldn’t have been as positive, so it would’ve come with a tradeoff. But it was nevertheless a choice–and not due to lack of demand, unpopularity, or the result of Epic Universe being a flop.
Well, perhaps we spoke too soon with our praise based on the last few days! Let’s start with a look at attraction-by-attraction averages for Epic Universe on its busiest day thus far, courtesy of Thrill-Data.com:
The highest average wait time was Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry (227 minutes), followed by Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge (151 minutes), and Donkey Kong Mine Cart Madness (95 minutes).
Another 5 attractions had average wait times over an hour; even Yoshi’s Adventure was 58 minutes. All of these were walk-ons only a few days earlier. All told, the average park-wide wait time was 73 minutes.
Although May 28 was the busiest day in Epic Universe history (so far), it’s not an anomaly. Here are park-wide averages since the grand opening:
- May 22, 2025: 20 minutes
- May 23, 2025: 25 minutes
- May 24, 2025: 25 minutes
- May 25, 2025: 38 minutes
- May 26, 2025: 31 minutes
- May 27, 2025: 52 minutes
- May 28, 2025: 73 minutes
- May 29, 2025: 65 minutes
- May 30, 2025: 61 minutes (so far)
The last three days have been 10/10 crowd levels. Keep in mind that this is based on Epic Universe’s brief history, largely consisting of paid previews when capacity was capped. The park has yet to operate without an artificial limit on ticket sales, but that cannot last forever.
Speaking of which, just as with the paid previews, Universal Orlando has still been significantly limiting attendance. Based on leaked ticket data (which was pulled directly from Universal’s ticket sales engine), it’s our understanding that current limits are roughly one-third of total park capacity.
What’s interesting here is that, at least based on the leaks, nothing has materially changed in terms of capacity caps. The numbers are slightly different from opening weekend, but not materially so. Depending upon the day, capacity is roughly 12,000 to 15,000 guests. As we pointed out previously, ticket sales were throttled during paid previews to similar levels and there were some days that had significantly higher wait times.
Accordingly, we attributed the difference in open weekend to ride reliability. Epic Universe enjoyed its best uptime stretch ever over Memorial Day weekend. It didn’t look like a brand-new park, but one that had found its operational groove and been running smoothly for years.
It now appears that this was not the difference-maker. At least, not the primary driver. We’ve now heard from multiple Team Members who have indicated that actual ticket sales were throttled far below that 12,000 to 15,000 number, with fewer than 6,000 tickets being sold for opening day and around 8,000 for subsequent days.
To be perfectly honest with you, I have no way of assessing the veracity of this rumor. It’s somewhat surprising to me that this would be communicated to Team Members, but I admittedly don’t know how this works at Universal Orlando. It’s entirely possible managers have this data, mentioned it to frontline TMs, and that’s how it’s gotten out. It could be a bad game of telephone, but it’s coming from multiple sources.
This nevertheless passes the smell test for me because I’ve also talked to people who have confirmed that the ticket data is legitimate, and there’s really no other way to reconcile the roller coaster wait times. It does seem like ticket sales were throttled Memorial Day weekend, and the numbers during previews and in the last few days are more accurate (until July 1, 2025 when the cap increases.) Regardless, take all of this with a grain of salt.
During previews, there were some really rough days. Between breakdowns and weather delays (which close 7 of 11 rides), there were occasions when only 1-2 rides were operational. This had a cascading effect on crowds, and even on days attendance was heavily capped.
A couple of days were so bad that Universal Orlando actually issued refunds. It was for this reason that we warned about being in Epic Universe the first time when there was an operational meltdown at higher capacity. It’s going to be a nightmare. Keep in mind that this still hasn’t happened. There have been meltdowns, but not at higher capacity.
As we explained in Why You Should Skip Epic Universe, ride reliability and breakdowns have been big and persistent issues–and not just with Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry. Pretty much every single one of the park’s marquee attractions has levels of downtime higher than what guests would consider reasonable. This is precisely why “Unpredictable Attendance & Crowds” was one of the reasons for waiting. As we’re now seeing one week after the grand opening, that assessment was accurate!
Watching from afar, the last few days have had a couple of days that have looked like repeats of those really rough late previews. There have been breakdowns, weather delays, dumped queues, and reports of long lines for refunds or guest recovery on at least two of those three days.
This is fascinating to me, and makes me wonder if Universal’s approach to opening weekend (in fairness, an approach that we praised!) has already backfired. That locals saw photos of the park as a ghost town and everything but Battle at the Ministry as a veritable walk-on, bought tickets as a result, and now feel like this is a bait-and-switch.
It could also be high-knowledge theme park diehards who have had tickets for a while and believe their experience is the outlier and the opening weekend is or should be the norm. I could see a scenario where some fans specifically targeted the week after opening weekend, thinking that would be the trick to avoiding crowds, and now feel like they’re getting a raw deal.
Obviously, breakdowns and a majority of the park closing due to weather is one thing. If I got dumped from multiple queues or couldn’t do anything, I might seek guest recovery, too.
But some of what we’ve observed just looks like frustration about hour-plus waits, as there have been photos of long lines for refunds on days that were operationally-efficient for the most part. Frankly, long lines kind of come with the territory of a brand-new theme park, as does a little bit of unreliability and unpredictability.
(To be abundantly clear: I’m watching this from afar via wait times, social media, and reports from a couple of friends on the ground. So this could be an erroneous assessment; I’m also not excusing Universal for their ham-fisted operations, much of which has been quite guest-unfriendly since the start of paid previews. During that, I maintained that the ‘technical rehearsal’ excuse goes out the window as soon as you start charging full price. All of that sentiment still stands. It’s guests being upset about regular ‘ole high wait times for a brand-new park that I find troubling.)
Anyway, all of this sort of underscores our original advice about waiting to visit Epic Universe until 2026. I still plan on publishing ‘when to visit’ advice (intended on having that up today, but the last few days give me pause), but the roller coaster crowds of the last week should give anyone pause about relying too much on crowd calendars for this new park or going in with any sort of expectations whatsoever.
The bad news is that none of this is going away in the short or medium-term. Hard as it might be to believe given the above wait times, capacity is still being capped at a very low level. As we’ve written elsewhere, Epic Universe will have a capacity comparable to Disney’s Hollywood Studios when operating at full tilt (efficiency, reliability, ticket sales, etc.).
Despite that, we believe Epic Universe has not been designed in such a manner to absorb crowds. Its layout is not conducive to crowd flow, there are certain areas that will be slammed (Super Nintendo World) while others feel empty (Celestial Park), and there simply isn’t enough that’s sheltered. There are baked-in issues that will presumably necessitate expansion or changes sooner rather than later.
While there will be further improvements as the park finds its operational footing and improves efficiency, what we’ve seen some of the last few days isn’t that far off from a regular operational environment. It’s not like Universal can improve the weather, or make it so outdoor rides don’t close during storms. Complex attractions are still going to have downtime, even years from now.
It’s also worth reiterating that crowd levels are relative, not absolute. Meaning that the 10/10 crowd levels of the last few days probably won’t be 10/10s once Universal stops capping capacity for Epic Universe and organic demand rises. The current 65-73 minute waits might end up looking downright blissful once Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve roll around.
Today’s 10/10 crowd levels could be readjusted to 7/10 or below. There’s a very real possibility that Epic Universe takes the crown of most-crowded theme park in the world come 2026–a title based on average wait times and not raw attendance, which definitely will not even be top 10 globally.
Or perhaps wait times won’t rise that much, as demand self-regulates. Just as quickly as word of mouth spread about how awesome the opening weekend experience was at Epic Universe, so too can it spread about much worse it’s gotten. It’ll be really fascinating to watch how this continues to unfold, as something tells me the roller coaster ride of 1/10 to 10/10 crowds at Epic Universe is only just getting started.
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
What do you think of Epic Universe’s insanely low wait times for opening weekend followed by 10/10 crowd levels the last few days? Do you expect this roller coaster attendance to continue throughout the summer? Think Universal Orlando has bungled the launch of Epic Universe, or is this just the practical reality of debuting a brand-new, envelope-pushing theme park in 2025? Did that dissuade you from attending this summer or year? Agree or disagree with our analysis? Any questions? We love hearing from readers, so please share any other thoughts or questions you have in the comments below!
We were in Epic on May 28th. the park is beautiful. the experience was terrible. The park is built hot…so people need to be prepared. But our disappointment came from the rides being down constantly. Frankenstein and Ministry never ran until mid afternoon followed by a 3 and 5 hour wait. 4 other rides broke down while we were in line. Crowds and lines we expected at a new park. I read about the technical issues during preview. I thought after grand opening they would be operational but they are not ready and it is skyrocketing wait times. The Ministry ride was 5 hours the rest of the day after it opened. By the end, we managed to get on 5 rides the whole day.
Guest Services desks were swamped and a lot of people were mad. If they increase ticket sales with current operations, they will create a worse disaster.
If the capacity for the stadium for Fantasmic is about 7,000 people, and you were to spread that crowd across the queues for each of the rides, fill the theaters and restaurants, you would still have a lot of people in each queue to get through. If all is open and operating at 100%, it might be reasonable. Any downtime or delays and it will cascade badly.
The park needs to open earlier (9am for non hotel guests) so they can spread the people across the day.
Good to know about the potential increase in capacity July 1. We’ll monitor and reconsider our late summer trip based on ride times. For us, April 17 preview visit was amazing, while May 5 was awful… downtime and rain are not this park’s friend. I think Epic needs to add more to absorb crowds before increasing capacity.
As I mentioned on FB, I have a friend that headed to Epic two days after your hopeful post about low waits. Unfortunately, he wasn’t so lucky. He managed to avoid the day with the worst weather, but ended up there the day Monsters Unchained was down all morning. On the plus side, he and his friends had been prepared for longs waits originally and using your advice for starting in Isle of Berk gave them a reasonably efficient day given the circumstances. I’m hoping to get more details from him soon.
Thanks for sharing! Having that people-eater down all morning would be rough, as it definitely soaks up crowds. Look forward to hearing anything else he/you are able to share.
Do you know the capacities for the other 2 universal parks and 4 WDW parks?
It is fascinating following this from afar. Living in Spokane, WA, we’re infrequent theme park visitors (primarily Disneyland every 2 years). Still, I read this blog religiously and generally follow Disney/Universal news pretty closely. I find it hard to fathom why a new theme park would not be built with many reliable people eaters from the get go, ala Pirates (not to mention the obvious lack-of-shade issue in a new Florida park). It’s rare for us to willingly get in a queue with a wait beyond 45 minutes or so. I can’t imagine a whole day of hour-long queues. It does seem like a stretch to think they can operate this park at full capacity and not have thousands of disgruntled guests on the daily. Hopefully they can expand quickly because the overall quality of the park looks appealing.
You also need to include that southern schools finish memorial day and most colleges, so an influx of people starting summer vacation!!!
If organic demand were the limiting factor, that could be a plausible explanation. But in this case, the capacity caps are the limiting factor. That’s why opening weekend was so slow–they could’ve sold the park out ten times over if it were just a question of unrestricted demand.
well I live in Southern Florida and the schools just ended last week here in Palm Beach county and that’s what they were waiting for get out of school for the summer and go to epic universe ,and that is why I know when and not to go to Orlando I watch the calendar. so you are absolutely right.
What I’m saying is that single day tickets were sold out for opening day and have been sold out since. I fully believe that demand will increase (and even already has increased!) as more schools get out of session, but if tickets are sold out, demand becomes irrelevant. (Or in this case, less relevant since single-day tickets aren’t the only consideration–just the primary one.)
As far as whether front line TMs would have ticket sales numbers, I absolutely believe it. When i was a CM in Epcot in 2011, we used to get expected numbers as part of the opening meeting every day. I almost never opened, so I almost never went, but I absolutely remember at part of every meeting “We’re expecting 33,000 guests today”. I think 30,000 was about average for F&W weekdays, but I might be misremembering.
As another interesting anecdote, I was often working at Stormstruck in Innoventions and the stormstruck theater was where our closing meeting was every day. We couldn’t leave until after the meeting and we couldn’t start the meeting until the attraction was fully closed and cleaned, so we would do everything we could to make sure no guests wanted to get in line for the last show of the day at 6:59pm. What was normally “A high action adventure where you get to live through a hurricane!” turned into “A 3D film about storm safety” around 6:30 every evening.
That’s a hilarious anecdote about Stormstruck, especially that phrasing. Who wouldn’t want to watch a film about storm safety–especially in 3D?!
Tom,
Do you know if Thrill data now showing Universal is opening up tickets to the full capacity of the park is accurate? I just saw that on a post in a social media group.
I was about to write, “no this is incorrect” and give you actual numbers, but I went and refreshed the page (that I already had pulled up) and watched the numbers all skyrocket. Wow. This is a massive change as of only a few hours ago.
Cannot believe they did that given the circumstances. Guess I have something else to write up–thanks for the heads up!
Welcome. Thank you for confirming. We don’t go until the end of July. I’ve been following along so we can manage expectations for when we go. I’m still trying to decide if we should keep our Express Pass or turn it back in and do a second day.
Yes, it sounds like the theoretical cap might be off and needs to be adjusted downward if wait times are already this bad. As for me, when I go 10 days from now, I’ll just be there to admire the design of the park and trying as many of the counter service offerings as I can…rides, next time.
I also have been concerned with the recent trend in theme park fan circles of people who seem to expect to be able to ride the newest, most popular rides with no wait; that’s just not a realistic expectation. I don’t like waiting in hour-plus lines either but it comes with the territory when visiting popular tourist destinations.
Agreed.
I do think there’s a real challenge at discussing Epic Universe with nuance. So many fans/critics want to paint the park as above reproach on the one hand, or awful on the other. It’s an unsurprising extension of the normal Disney vs. Universal theme park dynamic, but feels much more pronounced and shuts down a lot of otherwise worthwhile discourse.
Two things can be true: 1) Universal has made a lot of unforced errors with the launch, and continues to make mistakes and guest unfriendly decisions (a good example of this, in my view, is not dumping queues once it’s patently obvious that a ride is going to be broken down for an extended period–they’re doing this purposefully, to avoid issuing recovery).
2) It’s a brand-new, envelope-pushing theme park and ‘early-adopter’ guests need to go in with that understanding and grant some grace. People expecting perfection or anything close to it should absolutely not be visiting until 2026.
It really seems like this park doesn’t really have enough people eaters aside from Monsters and Stardust. I can’t imagine how bad it’s gonna be wait time wise when capacity is lifted.
I feel like virtual queues to enter Super Nintendo World and Ministry of Magic are an inevitability this holiday season. Really hope to be wrong about that.
I was at Epic on Wednesday and Thursday, first visit. I was definitely one of the described people who thought the week after opening weekend might be better.
Wednesday was rough. Monsters and Ministry of Magic were down most of the morning (as best I could tell, the Ministry line was dumped somewhere in the 9am hour). I jumped in the Ministry line around 2pm, not long after it reopened, posted wait was 180 minutes, actual wait 4.5 hours. I’ve never done anything like that before and hope to never again. To add insult to injury, once I was finally on, the screens went blank during a couple of scenes.
Thursday seemed much better operationally, albeit lines were still long. Took a chance on Ministry of Magic again early afternoon, wait was posted at 180 minutes but I could see they were not using any queue beyond the floos, actual wait only two hours! And this time a clean ridethrough.
Overall love the parks, even with the headaches. I had a great time.
“…not long after it reopened, posted wait was 180 minutes, actual wait 4.5 hours. I’ve never done anything like that before and hope to never again. To add insult to injury, once I was finally on, the screens went blank during a couple of scenes.”
Ouch! Gotta say, you’re more patient than me.
Also, your last line is a testament to the quality of Epic Universe that, even despite your issues, you still love it and had a great time. I mean, I agree wholeheartedly, but I’ve also had mostly great experiences, pretty much across the board.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
I thought we had a generally successful May preview day but absolutely nothing was a walk-on, several rides posting an hr+ all day, etc….then to see the opening weekend times, it just didn’t make any sense to me if the crowd levels were the same during my preview vs. opening weekend (which the ticket data seemed to indicate). Some of it I chalked up to Battle at the Ministry moving from VQ to standby but the math just didn’t math. I enjoyed every minute we had in Epic but I honestly cannot imagine how this place will be at max capacity.
“Some of it I chalked up to Battle at the Ministry moving from VQ to standby but the math just didn’t math.”
I thought it was a matter of this and improved ride reliability. My preview days in April had comparable uptime and were still not quite that good. Even so, I took the ticket data as the gospel, and have since been disabused of that notion. The first three days (opening day in particular) were way lower than any before or since.
It’ll be really interesting to see how July and beyond plays out.
This all makes me wonder about the profitability of Epic. If they are having these issues at throttled capacity and they have to lower their theoretical cap significantly, can the ROI from Epic still hit their projections for the first couple of years.
Yeah, I really wonder how Epic Universe is viewed internally at Comcast. They need to pivot to theme parks in the long-term and I doubt this changes that calculus, but they also can’t be thrilled about spending $7 billion on a park with this low of capacity.
I’ll be listening to the upcoming earnings calls with curiosity. I don’t expect them to be totally transparent about how the park is (or isn’t) meeting expectations, but they have been somewhat forthcoming about this stuff in the past.
Yeah, we almost pulled the trigger for a day at epic this august but it seems like we would spend quite a bit for 4 of us snd potentially not even ride half the rides- that is absurd.
Waiting at least till next summer to try epic
Yup. Teaser opening day waits. Oversold with 305 edits MOM, 160 Mario, 120 for many others unless delayed which happens daily especially rain weather at night
What else can I say…. Best to wait.
The problem is that the park is absolutely *not* oversold. I mean, I get what you’re saying, but the current capacity caps are between one-third and one-half of the park’s theoretical capacity! We already know the limit is increasing on July 1, 2025, and it’s my understanding they want to increase it again later in the year. If it’s oversold right now, just imagine what October could be like.
Something tells me that theoretical cap might need to be adjusted downwards unless something else changes for the better…