If you haven’t been to Universal’s new Epic Universe yet, or if you’re someone who visits theme parks casually every few years, it might be best to hold off for now. This park is not built for beginners or the uninitiated. Unless you’re the kind of person who regularly keeps up with theme park news, understands crowd patterns, and knows how to make the most of a packed schedule, Epic Universe can quickly turn from exciting to exhausting.
As someone who spends a lot of time at the Disney Parks, I thought I was ready for anything Universal could throw at me. But Epic Universe is a whole new level of logistical challenge. The park’s capacity issues start with its attractions themselves. Many of the rides simply don’t move guests through fast enough. The result is long, sometimes unbearable waits that eat up huge portions of your day. To make the most of a visit, you have to plan like a strategist, deciding in advance which rides are essential, which ones you’re willing to skip, and when it’s best to move on.
This is not a theme park where you can stroll in, follow your curiosity, and see where the day takes you. You need a solid plan and the flexibility to pivot quickly when things change. And they will. Orlando’s weather is notoriously unpredictable, especially during the summer months, and Epic Universe has several outdoor attractions that shut down at the first sign of lightning or heavy rain. When that happens, thousands of guests flood into whatever indoor queues remain open, ballooning wait times even further.
Unlike Disney, where you can fill time with continuously loading attractions like the PeopleMover or Gran Fiesta Tour, or even hop on lower-demand rides like The High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride! in the other Universal parks, Epic Universe doesn’t have many fallback options. Once your plan gets derailed, there aren’t a lot of easy ways to recover without losing hours.
The park itself is impressive, visually stunning, ambitious, and packed with groundbreaking technology, but it’s also deeply flawed from an operational standpoint. The word that comes to mind is “expert-level.” This is a park for people who study ride capacities, follow crowd calendars, and know how to adapt when things go wrong.
During my visit, I heard countless stories of guests waiting four hours for the Ministry of Magic or two and a half hours for Donkey Kong. As much as those rides are technical marvels, they shouldn’t consume a quarter, or even half, of your entire day. While Disney and Universal’s existing parks certainly have long waits too, they also offer far more to do in between. At Epic Universe, there’s not much to fill the gaps beyond the headliner attractions. The one exception seems to be Monsters Unchained, which typically posts a more reasonable wait thanks to its higher ride capacity.
Epic Universe has tremendous potential and delivers some truly thrilling experiences, but for now, it feels like a park designed for seasoned theme park veterans who know how to game the system. If you’re not that kind of visitor, if you just want to relax, explore, and have a smooth day, your time might be better spent at Disney World or at Universal’s other two parks. Until Universal works out its operational growing pains, Epic Universe remains a park best reserved for the experts.
