Universal Epic Universe Single Day Tickets Now on Sale!
Following five months of selling only multi-day tickets and vacation packages to the general public, single day tickets are finally available for the new Epic Universe theme park at Universal Orlando. Here are the details about the new types of 1-day and 2-day tickets anyone can now purchase, followed by our commentary.
Prior to today, Epic Universe tickets were only available to purchase as part of multi-day bundles and vacation packages with hotel reservations for the general public that emphasized days at Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure. In this case, emphasized means that these multi-day tickets all offered only a single day at Epic Universe, regardless of duration. You could buy a 14-day and still only get one visit to Epic Universe. (The most extreme example, for guests from the United Kingdom.)
The only single day tickets previously available were sold to Annual Passholders, which also went on sale shortly after the multi-day tickets and vacation packages for the general public. These proved quite popular, and days around Memorial Day weekend and into early June quickly sold out. Although, for what it’s worth, we have seen dates become available again after opening weekend from time to time. So it is worth keeping an eye on the ticketing page if you’re still hunting for availability in the first week or so.
That brings us to today (March 13, 2025), when Universal Orlando released a new wave of ticket options. Most notably, this latest release includes 1-day tickets that allow guests to visit Universal Epic Universe on a single day. There’s also a new 2-day option that allows guests to visit Universal Epic Universe on one day, and then another at either Islands of Adventure or Universal Studios.
Single day tickets are currently available for dates starting June 1, 2025. Universal Epic Universe opens on May 22, meaning that the first 10 days are unavailable to purchase via the 1-day tickets. Here’s a look at the pricing & availability calendar:
However, there are still Epic Universe vacation packages available for all of these dates, suggesting that Universal Orlando has simply blocked out the first 10 days to have inventory to sell to hotel guests. If those rooms don’t sell out, we’d expect the inventory to shift over to single-day tickets at some point. So keep an eye out if you really want tickets for late May!
Every single date on the calendar from June through December 2025 is available. Ticket prices in the first full month that Epic Universe is open are either $174 or $179 every single day, with weekends and later in the month being more expensive. Prices increase to $184/$189 for the Independence Day long weekend, which is also the high water mark for Summer 2025.
After that, prices begin decreasing throughout August, dropping as low as $164 on weekdays in the second half of the month. They spike again for Labor Day weekend, costing $179 to $189, before plummeting on the Tuesday after to the 2025 low of $139. There are weekdays throughout the month that cost $139 to $149. Unsurprising, since September tends to be the slowest month in Central Florida.
October signals another shift, with prices increasing to $164 to start the month, and hitting $189 again over the fall break period. This is pretty much the story of the final three months of the year, typically the busiest and most expensive at both Universal Orlando and Walt Disney World.
Pretty much every school break during the holiday season hits at least $184, and even weekdays are elevated. Then there are the peak season dates between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Ticket prices peak at $199 on December 24, and stay at that level through the end of 2025.
Our Commentary
Universal Orlando announced the opening date of Epic Universe, started selling multi-day tickets, vacation packages, Helios Grand Hotel reservations, and single day tickets for Annual Passholders all within quick succession in late October of last year. All of this–from announcement to release–occurred in the span of a single week.
Five months later, Universal Orlando is finally now selling 1-day Epic Universe tickets to the general public, only a couple weeks after starting multi-day ticket sales to Florida residents. If you asked me back in late October when more multi-day and single-day tickets would be released, I would’ve guessed long before now.
The fact that Epic Universe vacation packages, hotel reservations, multi-day ticket bundles, and Annual Passholder tickets have all had plenty of availability throughout the summer–including in late May after opening weekend–all called into question Universal’s decision to withhold single day tickets for so long.
As we’ve suggested previously, it appeared that Universal was playing a high-stakes game of chicken. That Comcast has dumped tons of money into the building of Epic Universe, including billions more than budgeted. That the parent company wants or needs Epic Universe to be a huge hit right out of the gate, especially as its legacy businesses struggle. That the goal is to capture as much revenue as possible, as quickly as possible to start recouping that massive investment–especially after a slow year for its parks.
In theory, this wasn’t a bad approach to increase Universal Orlando’s average length of stay, make guests more likely to book on-site hotels, prevent attendance cannibalization from Universal’s existing gates, and getting people to spend their park days at Universal Orlando rather than Walt Disney World, and also doing hotel stays at UOR as opposed to WDW.
We’ve also suggested for a while that all of this is in theory, and could backfire. Families plan their summer vacations during the holiday season and towards the start of the new year, and single-day tickets were not available during that window. While some theme park super fans might jump at the opportunity to experience Epic Universe as early as possible and jump over whatever hurdles Universal throws their way, they’re not the norm. Others may worry about opening season crowds, initial hiccups, or balk at all hoops they have to jump through.
Universal Orlando already has lost at least some of these potential guests for the opening summer of Epic Universe. Not everyone is refreshing the Universal Orlando website on a daily or weekly basis, waiting for the next round of tickets to go on sale. Some check once, see options not to their liking, and book elsewhere.
I have zero doubts whatsoever that Epic Universe will be busy during its opening weekend. It’s a brand new theme park, of course it will! Tickets to Annual Passholders sold out fast and vacation packages do not use date-based tickets, meaning that everyone staying in a hotel over opening weekend has multiple days of admission…but probably wants to visit Epic Universe on May 22. I wouldn’t be surprised if the park hits a phased closure those first few days. I’d also expect virtual queues to be the norm for certain lands, and that will have a cascading effect on crowds elsewhere.
All of this is to say that Epic Universe will definitely not be “dead” or a “ghost town” during those first couple weeks, or even throughout the opening summer. That definitely won’t be the case. But it’s still possible for the park to be busy and feel overcrowded to guests while falling short of Universal’s internal projections. It’s also plausible for attendance to be lower from June through September than the final three months of the year. This is what I suspect will happen. More on crowd predictions very soon, especially now that we have a full calendar of date-based prices.
Ultimately, it’s understandable that Comcast wants to capture as much revenue as possible during the opening season of Epic Universe, filling up its overbuilt hotel inventory and not cannibalizing attendance at its existing gates. It’s hard to fault this approach considering how much money has been spent on Epic Universe. There’s a lot riding on it. The third theme park must turn Universal Orlando into a bona fide destination resort that can hold its own with Walt Disney World.
But it’s also silly to pretend that there isn’t downside risk to Universal’s strategy, and I’m honestly surprised they didn’t start selling single-day tickets three months ago. At the very least, Universal should’ve launch them before Walt Disney World started running its 2025 resident specials. They could’ve blocked out dates and limited inventory to have enough for pricier vacation packages–just like they’re doing today, anyway!
Epic Universe will be a smash success for Universal Orlando in the long-term, but I’m skeptical that its opening season approach is going to yield the expected dividends. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if, after the initial fanfare the first couple weeks, there’s a summer lull as a result of this backfiring. We’ve been saying all along that they should’ve tried to lock-in visits as quickly as possible or else risk missing out on them–and with the recent rise in economic uncertainty and drops in consumer confidence, this perspective has seemingly been further vindicated. We shall see, though–perhaps this is all wrong, Epic Universe will be packed all summer, and exceed Comcast’s projections to investors.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you purchased single-day tickets for Epic Universe now that they’re available? Or are you waiting a bit longer, planning to visit after the initial fanfare and opening summer? Is it possible pushing vacation packages and multi-day bundles will backfire? Will ordinary tourists who aren’t hardcore theme parks people sit out opening summer to avoid all of this? Thoughts on UOR’s approach to ticketing for Epic Universe? 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.
I can’t buy the 1-day tickets from the UK so far. The authorised retailed Attraction Tickets had a placeholder for them but its since been removed. UOR own site detects the IP address and sends you to their UK site with standard tickets and using VPN results in a site unavailable page. Just seems slightly odd. UOR are definitely trying to avoid the 7hr wait headlines that they got for Diagon Alley and its thin line to tread as Disney found out with SWGE. We there at the end of August/Sept of 2 weeks so hoping I can refund and re-buy via the Attraction Tickets site when the 1/2 day EPIC tickets are released.
To book a ticket outside the US, you must change the time slot on your phone and switch to a time slot like New York by deactivating the location of course.
We had the same problem and bought our 1-day tickets through Undercover Tourist. No problem whatsoever!!
Just made the decision to fly in the night before and add a day at epic universe on to the Disney long weekend we had planned for my birthday in early June! Truly was only waiting for the single day ticket to come out. Since we already had our resort booked for Disney, we also decided to do one night at Stella Nova since we will get in late and want to get a jump on things to hopefully maximize the day given that we have really no idea how much will be possible to achieve at this point. Tentatively very excited!
I booked 3 nights at the Grand Helios when rooms became available for booking. I booked Deluxe Park View for $690 per night in hopes of visiting Epic Universe for 2 days. Now that I see pricing for single day tickets, I am debating even going. I am thinking I may just buy one day tickets and cancel the hotel because if I shorten my hotel stay by one night, Universal will charge me the current rate of almost $1000 per night. No thanks.
I booked 4 nights at Helios for early November, when crowds will be lower and bugs worked out. However I tried to buy the single day Epic passes last night and today and they are no longer on the site. Anyone else experience this?
Staying basically “at the park”, it’d be silly to not want daily access to Epic. Ideal tix would be 3 days for Epic and a 2 day park hopper for ALL parks, all for a 5 day, 4 night stay.
I know that Universal doesn’t NEED to, but offering a multi day discount for several Rpic days would be nice for people really opening their wallets to stay at Helios.
If we want to go more than one day to epic, Im assuming we can purchase different 1day tickets on back to back dates? Any guesses for Epic Express Pass (If and when they will be available?)?
On a side note, we love visiting the United States, Canada, and Europe. Not sure why some people feel the need to get too political in a Disney blog comments section.
Unfortunately, they lost my family for this summer. As you mentioned in your article, we planned our summer Florida trip a few months ago and decided not to include Epic Universe this year because of the multi-day ticket situation. At this point, we’re locked into the rest of our FL trip with DVC points, Disney ticket budgets, flights, etc., so it’s a little late to change course. If they hadn’t gone ahead with their multi-day ticket approach, we would have sacrificed a Disney night or two for a Universal side trip.
I’m excited about the single day tickets. I’ve finally been able to promote Epic and add them to client packages. so far the tough sell for epic hasn’t been the drawn to the theme park because everyone I know wants to go. but no one I know wants to make the effort to go down there for only one day. We all know you will not get it all done in one day. Everyone wants to go for more than one days and now that that’s possible. I think they’ll start seeing a lot more movement on bookings. Like you said they did too many people have already put deposits down for other things for 2025 like cruises, trips to Europe, national parks, and Disney World. Epic wasn’t really a booking option back when people were making all these decisions. I’ll travel agents know that wave season is January and February. That’s when you release all your big best stuff for sale. Personally our family booked two days at epic for August before school starts. I also have a vacation package booked for all the parks for early December and 2 days at epic (not that it’s out) but it’s so so expensive then that if we enjoy epic, but don’t need to go back right away, I could see us canceling the package. I’ve been hearing from a lot of other agents that trips that clients took to Universal last year. They want to go back this year and overall the price for the same multi day package this year that they did last year, is thousands of dollars more. So I think the pricing has been a shock. All that said, I think the park will be a smash hit and I’m crazy excited to check it out. Even in the heat, ha. I think it’ll be a success but the ticket sales were certainly flubbed.
Universal has already made up the money they spent on Epic just like the sells of butterbeer did for the WWOHP in the first couple of days. This is why they will be dumping a lot of money into upgrade projects for IOA and USF sooner than they originally forecasted.
Maybe Universal Orlando is just cursed to plan theme park openings when the economy and crowds are healthy and have those crater when it’s actually time to open.
(Okay, technically Islands was hampered by the Escape branding, but fixing that took Universal until about 2002.)
I think we’re a bunch of theme park nerds, but the vast majority of people still say, “Honey, let’s take the kids to Disney World.”
I don’t think it’s assumed that many busy parents for whom theme parks aren’t a huge hobby even know what Epic Universe is or that this is being built at all.
I wonder if they’ve maybe overplayed their hand by thinking this project has more brand awareness than it actually does.
Does your random office coworker know about Epic Universe? Likely not.
Do you think they will offer multi-day packages that include more than one day at Epic this year? I’m pricing out 4 days (including 1 Epic) + 1 extra day at Epic. It’s so expensive. I can actually get 4 days just at Epic for about the same as 4 days with just 2 at Epic. That doesn’t make sense!
I suspect Universal will only offer as much Epic Universe access as they market dictates. Which is to say that they will want to “force” guests to visit IoA and USF to avoid cannibalization, but only to the point that they aren’t losing out on overall ticket sales.
Where that balance lies, I don’t know. They’ve been really restrictive thus far, but I could see the pendulum swinging back in the other direction if ticket sales are slow. I still think it’d be smart (for them) to not loosen up prematurely–October through December will be busy, even with restrictive policies.
Have been waiting an hour to get in and I can only buy tickets for the month of June, although our hotel stay is in July. Terrible.
I just went online and bought one day tickets to Epic for July, so there is definitely still availability. Would love to see an Express Pass, though. We’re doing a Disney Cruise with my grandkids so this is a surprise for them pre cruise. We spend several days at Universal last summer, so we didn’t need to go back, but they were totally excited about seeing the models etc in City Walk- so I know they will be excited.
The value proposition for little kids at this park is not going to be very high, given the extremely high child ticket prices vs. the amount of attractions geared towards ages 3 through 9 (and likelihood that Super Nintendo World will be overrun by kids/families, with entrance to that land heavily throttled).
Gonna be a lot of frustrated/frazzled parents waiting for line in hours for mini games that their little kids “fail” with the only option to get back in line and hope to God you can soothe your crying kid by winning some coins for them. Sounds like a good use of around $170-180 dollars per child.
Wait, I forgot to add the $42+ per person for a Power Up band!
Ehh, this sounds very similar to kids “casting spells” in Diagon Alley, which is also in a park with just a handful of rides geared toward the 3-9 set. As a dad who was just there practicing deep breathing while my daughter tried and failed to cast Harry Potter spells with her expensive new wand, I “can’t wait” for Super Mario land but know there will be other kid-friendly things to do in How to Train Your Dragon land.
In addition to Super Nintendo World, the whole How to Train Your Dragon land is specifically geared toward children. The center hub, Celestial Park, will also have a carousel and a splash play area geared toward young children. 3 out of the 5 lands/hubs will have things for children, if not completely (HTTYD).
I know HTTYD is popular but the franchise is geared toward around age 7 and up (and the “E-ticket” ride in that land has a 48 inch height requirement). And while a lot of kids love HTTYD, it’s not nearly as universally popular as the big Disney/Pixar franchises or Nintendo (beyond the games, just looking at the Super Mario Bros movie, it grossed as much as all three HTTYD movies combined!). I’m not arguing that there’s NOTHING to do with children younger than 4th/5th grade but the pickings are pretty slim when compared with the overall scope of the park and the exorbitant cost of bringing younger kids to Epic Universe.
I’m not bashing Universal, this is just the reality. It’s equally valid to say WDW can be very limited in its appeal to thrill-seeking older teens and young adults. But at least those demographics have a choice of what they want to experience, whereas little kids are specifically excluded from a lot of what Universal is offering.
While theme park enthusiasts do have reasons to be excited, I would bet money that Epic Universe (and Universal Orlando in general) is not going to take the world/country by storm with this new park. Partly due to demographics but especially due to the expectations they’re building up and the predictable guest satisfaction issues we’ll be seeing in the next 9-12 months. And with “influencers” I think it’ll be more slightly more trendy to criticize the park than to celebrate it (though not at the extreme ratio of something like Galactic Starcruiser).
You had me until the very end, Pete.
1) Except among the most diehard of Disney fans (and those mostly are not influencers), everything Universal does is graded on a curve.
2) Most influencers don’t have kids, and therefore will not notice the issues–very real ones evident from USH and USJ–in SNW.
3) Lots of fans are eager to see Disney taken down a notch, so they’ll willfully ignore any of Epic Universe’s faults.
About the only exception I could see to this is if things really are a trainwreck in terms of downtime/reliability or if crowds are so low that headlines about low attendance are unavoidable. Even so, plenty of people will blame externalities (the economy) or claim this is what Universal planned all along to ensure a great guest experience. Kinda like some Disney fans did with SWGE a few years back.
Fair and good points, Tom. Unlike me, you definitely have your finger on that influencer pulse. Still very interested to see the the narrative that develops about this park in the next year or two.
Most of the rides in epic are geared to kids of that age group. Well maybe not 3 year olds but unless you are a local who takes 3 year olds to theme parks anyway? How to train your dragon is all for the little kids. The harry potter ride is reportedly very tame and aimed at little kids. The carousel is aimed at little kids and the shows are aimed at little kids. This is actually more a kids park then anything else. As someome with an 8 and 11 year old Im worried most of the rides will be too tame for them.
I’m thinking you’re probably right about single day availability popping up in the first week. We sre going to cancel our package since we couldn’t get 2 additional Epic days for the week. We’ll just pick another week & most likely just do Epic for 3 days. I’m not sure this will be a plus gain for Universal overall.
Saw these today but there are no discounts for a longer stay with more days worth of tickets. Going in November and would like to see a rate for something like 3 days at EPIC and 2 days at the other parks. I assume that would be less than buying the 1 and 2 day passes currently available for 5 days worth of time, but maybe I’m assuming incorrectly?
Thanks for the update! Any idea when Express passes may be available for Epic Universe? Thank you!
Universal said Express Pass will be available for Epic beginning on May 23rd.
Laura,
May 23? Is that confirmed anywhere? So, not opening day, but day after opening day they will go on sale?
Unless something has changed since last I saw, it was on the Universal website. It makes sense that they would not offer it on opening day.
Thanks. I haven’t seen any date anywhere, only the words “before the park opens.” And since yesterday, “soon.”
I also want to point out that the political climate is going to weigh heavily on Universal and even Disney. While Canadians were the first to begin cancelling visits south, Europeans will also begin to reconsider and they usually plan much further out.
That would be fantastic! We’ve canceled our plans to U.K. and Ireland, given the U.K.’s increased level of travel advisory, and because of both of their anti-populist positions, and eagerness to lock people up that simply disagree with them, and having a difference of opinion. It’s crazy scary how easy it is to control, manipulate, and get people to get in lock-step with their country with almost zero push-back. Reminds me of a country that is north of South Korea.
At least in the U.S., you won’t be jailed for posting a picture of Trump in a diaper. Have a great day!
Brad, what on earth are you going on about? Regarding Trump in a diaper we literally flew a Trump diaper baby balloon in the sky when Trump last visited and Trump was the one who was complaining that it was allowed to happen. I remember him saying bad things about the Mayor or London as didn’t stop it from happening.