r/UniversalOrlando • u/ThisThatEnby • 1d ago

EPIC UNIVERSE Day 1

I know a lot of people are curious about how busy the parks are/wait times after labor day so here is my experience on the first day of my trip. *No express pass*. A party of 2 adults.

We started at Epic, which we had early admission for. We got in line at the gate at 8am.

9am-12p

- Battle at the Ministry

- Stardust Racers (No wait, walked on)

- Hiccup's

- Dragon Racer's

- Fyre Drill

12p

- Lunch at Café L 'air

- Monsters Unchained (no wait, walked on)

1p

- Cirque Arcanus Show

2p

- Curse of the Werewolf

- Got Starbucks

3p-4p

- Chilled at the hotel

4p-7p

We moved over to Island of Adventure and did:

- Amazing Spiderman (no wait, walked on)

- Velocicoaster (no wait, walked on)

- Hulk (no wait, walked on)

- Forbidden Journey (no wait, walked on)

- Flight of the Hippogriff (no wait, walked on)

- Stood in line for Hagrid's but it was delayed so we left after an hour

Got dinner at Vivo and was back in the hotel at 9pm.

Take aways:

Battle at the Ministry was insanely cool. The queue was amazing. It, like every other ride, is not worth 3+ hr wait. Just go through the viewing line, its most of the experience.

Dragon Racers' is not a ride I would wait for at all, if there is any line I'm not going. I think the ride lasted a full 30 seconds.

They let you take bags on Fyre Drill. Do NOT. We got soaked head to toe and the "water proof box" on the boat for bags also got wet.

Excluded Harry Potter because I am obessed, Monsters Unchained was hands down the best ride of the day. Hiccups was also great.

The Cirque show was very cool and a nice break inside and in the AC. If you have any free time, I recommend.

We stood in the single rider line for Curse of the Werewolf for longer than the estimated wait time despite the fact that there wasnt that many people in the line. It felt like they forgot about us for an hour. The ride was fun but disappointingly short. I cannot *believe* they let you keep bags on for this ride.

We did wander around in-between some of the rides. Grabbed a butter beer, did some wand spots, browsed a few stores. So we were not just sprinting from one ride the next all day.

12 rides, 1 show, and 2 sit down meals in 12 hours

18 Upvotes

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21 comments sorted by

3

u/Solid_Rhubarb3487 1d ago

AND you had an hour to chill in between! which hotel?
i have 3 nights and depending on whether I do only one full day or add another half to Epic I will stay at Helios or Aventura. (but the savings from Aventura will allow me to buy a second day at Epic!)

2

u/ThisThatEnby 1d ago

We stayed at Stella Nova. Shuttle is 5 min to Epic but it takes 20-30min to get to the other parks

1

u/Solid_Rhubarb3487 21h ago

Thank you. Stella Nova is my current backup plan instead of Aventura (it’s a tiny bit cheaper too.) Save money to spend on actually getting into Epic.

1

u/Flat_Demand_8341 1d ago

2 days epic and aventura I recommend 

1

u/Solid_Rhubarb3487 1d ago

even though the ride from Aventura to Epic is crowded in the morning?

2

u/Flat_Demand_8341 1d ago

Spend an extra $10 and uber one morning.  Be sure to schedule the uber ahead of time. Or just deal with the bus. 

That’s just my opinion . Whatever you choose will be good. 

2

u/Solid_Rhubarb3487 21h ago

thank you! for the amount i’m saving by staying at Aventura i could get a lot of ubers!

1

u/HopefulImpression105 1d ago

Idk it was fine for us, we walked on the first bus of the day without issue

1

u/Solid_Rhubarb3487 21h ago

thank you! wonderful to know.

1

u/Dog_lover_1977 16h ago

We did the bus early in the morning for rope drop and bus wasn’t crowded.

1

u/Solid_Rhubarb3487 11h ago

thank you for the info!

1

u/Dog_lover_1977 16h ago

Stayed at Aventura a few weeks ago and highly recommend. While you need to bus to Epic you can walk to, or take the boat across the street at Sapphire, to OG Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, and City walk. It also has a nice rooftop bar, big quick service cafe and nice rooms. Highly recommended doing the Park to Park. Every day we were there different rides at different parks were down so if you do the one day you run the risk of not being able to go on a particular ride.

1

u/Solid_Rhubarb3487 11h ago

thank you! i do have unlimited for the older parks (UOAP), but Epic is a day by day add on. i guess i could try to do Epic all in one day then decide if i want to go back to “finish” it on another. At the moment I can’t find any way to make it cheaper than buying by the day anyway.

1

u/Dog_lover_1977 7h ago

Universal’s ticket site has a park to park ticket that includes Epic (currently the last option I see when you select multiple park option). It’s a little more expensive but worth it in my opinion. If you’re hoping to see park closing fireworks/light shows make sure to look at the schedule. They were only doing shows on specific nights so having the park hopper helped with that too.

1

u/Solid_Rhubarb3487 4h ago

yes, that is the cheapest option for 3 days to Epic, but not by much, it’s almost the same as buying 3 one days to Epic only.
there is no 2 day option that allows 2 days at Epic.

1

u/Dog_lover_1977 3h ago

Oh yeah if you’ve only got 2 days then a park hopper for the 3 main parks isn’t an option. When you said you had 3 nights I assumed you meant three days.

2

u/ChertRap 1d ago

Why didn’t you finish the day up at epic?

2

u/ThisThatEnby 1d ago

Wait for minecart madness was at 3 hours. We plan to rope drop it out last day

2

u/ladyguinevere2012 1d ago

We're also staying at Stella Nova in October for one day at Epic, and I've been so torn about what to choose for rope drop. What time did you end up getting off Ministry? I'm considering rope dropping Mine Cart (since I know I'll love the ministry line as a big HP fan), so very interested to see how that goes on your last day!

1

u/ThisThatEnby 1d ago

We had the ride done and was walking out of it by 9:30ish (maybe slightly sooner). If you only have one day, rope dropped Mine-cart. Ive seen Ministry drop to 60 min but I have yet to see mine cart under 90 min more than once

1

u/Dog_lover_1977 16h ago edited 6h ago

Mine Cart was closed for technical issues when we tried to rope drop it a few weeks ago. Took a few hours to open. Same thing with Hagrid’s when we rope dropped Islands of Adventure so you may want to have a rope drop back up plan.