I have heard some amazing things from some people, and many valid critiques from others. Recently I saw a tiktok of a girl criticizing the park for many things, and many people in the comments flocked to say they were just a Disney adult and shouldn’t compare it to Disney.

However to me, her criticisms seemed valid. She received a lot of hate for this, so I was just curious what your alls genuine thoughts on epic universe is and how it compares to other theme parks across the globe and the other Universal/Disney parks in Orlando!

Went today for the second time, did all the rides. Had a blast, such an amazing theme park. All the worlds are truly awesome, so much thought and detail have been put in them.
Definitely get the powerup bands for Nintendo land, adds a lot more fun and I was surprised with all the games they had for it. Also the play area for kids in Isle of Berk is super nice, very big and a lot of things for kids. Here are some of my thoughts on the rides.

Curse of the Werewolf: 8/10 Super fun small coaster, it’s pretty unique from anything universal has.

Dragon Racer's Rally: 4/10 kind of like a fair ride. A bit of fun but ends wayyyy too quick.

Fyre Drill: 7/10 cool ride, especially if you have kids. Didn’t get soaked but fairly wet. You have a water gun and you get to hit targets. My daughter got to go on it but was too young to actually use the water gun.

The Battle at the Ministry: 10/10 ride isn’t open but did the queue which is BREATHTAKING!! Your jaw will legit drop, all I gotta say.

Hiccup's Wing Gliders: 10/10 really loved this ride, similar to Hagrids.

Mario Kart: Bowsers Challenge: 8/10 the VR is a bit weird but overall a good ride.

Mine-Cart Madness: 10/10 was amazing !! Super unique, loved the details.

Monsters Unchained: 9/10 the queue is crazy. The ride details and atmosphere is next level. It’s not as fun as forbidden journey in terms of movement though.

Stardust Racers: 10/10 truly epic, it’s pretty intense and has quite a few moments of airtime. During the end of the ride the other coaster goes right above your head, it’s an amazing sight.

Yoshi's Adventure: 7/10 very slow and chill ride. You get to see the whole of Nintendo land from it and the view is great.

Also we ate at Das Stakehaus and the food was great

Unfortunately didn’t get to do the two shows but people say they are great.

Were you lucky enough to check out Epic Universe before it officially opens? Want to tell everyone about your experience? Use this thread. All other threads that are review based will be removed and asked to be posted here.

Looking for recent reviews? Be sure to sort this thread by latest.

I have now been to the park several times and have managed to get on all rides, some of them multiple times. I like the park a lot but it doesn't quite live up to the influencer hype.

Here is my breakdown of attractions in my order of preference:

Startdust Racers - Great ride! Night time rides were amazing. Not sure I'd put it above Velocicoaster but it's close and still stands on its own. I'm still a little shocked that Duelding Dragons closed yet this was created because this two cars seem to collide closer than Dragons ever did.

Monsters Unchained - Well done attraction! Not quite as amazing as some have made it out to be, as more movie screens than I expected, but by far the stand-out dark ride at this park. Cars are exactly the same as FJ but I prefered this to FJ as it didn't make me as queasy.

3.Hiccup's Wing Gliders - What a fun coaster! Not getting a lot of attention but I feel like it should.

4. Donkey Kong - It's bouncier than it should have been but still fun. Really cool looking at night.

5. Mario Kart - I wish this was a fast moving roller coaster ride like Test Track. It is still pretty good. Took me a while to learn how to play the game. I would probably put it over Monsters but I had ridden the Hollywood version so it wasn't new to me and while that shouldn't factor in to my ranking it still does.

6. Yoshi's Adventure - I feel like I'm starting to run out of rides here, which is another issue with this park, so I'll just put this one next because it's cute and I like Nintendo.

7. Curse of the Werewolf - My least favorite of all the roller coasters. It was lame and it seemed the most Six Flags of all the rides there. This should have gone to Sea World.

8. Dragon Racer's Rally - I've ridden this ride at Mall of America and it spinned like crazy. I've ridden both sides, twice each now, couldn't get the thing to flip once.

9. Fyre Drill - Rode it once. It's cute but lame.

10. Constellation Carousel - I forgot about the carousel because that's the impact it left on me.

11. (Hot Take) Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry - Worst ride in the park. It made me so sick. I never want to ride it again. The line was amazing. But when you have a ride where the line is 10x better than the ride, that's a problem. I saw all the hype from the influencers and I waited nearly 3 hours to ride it and never again. It just wasn't that great of an experience overall. I prefer the other movie based potter rides and even Spider-Man and Transformers are better rides.

Other takeaways:

There isn't enough to do at this park.

Nintendo area is too small. Gets way too crowded and this is during previews.

Ministry area looks really nice, but it is my least favorite of the three Wizarding Worlds.

Both the How To Train Your Dragon and Ministry shows were enjoyable but forgettable. I like the pre-show to the Ministry show better than both of the actual shows.

How to Train Your Dragon land looks great. Probably my favorite land but only because I had seen the Nintendo land before. There just isn't that much to do in this land tho. Kind of a problem with the whole park imo.

Toothless is just sitting there in the open and you watch everyone go through the same show. Why wasn't this in a building where you couldn't see what was happening?

Celestial Gardens area is nice but if we are comparing gardens the new Epcot area looks more impressive than this.

Monsters area looks really nice. The castle reveal was strange though. Was expecting it to be right out of the portal but it isn't.

The park is very nice, a great addition to the variety of Orlando parks, but it is no way the best park in Orlando, not even the best Universal park. I still prefer Islands of Adventure.

I’ve been gone from the theme park community for the better part of a year so I’ve been a bit out of the loop.

My wife and I were lucky enough to do 2 Epic Universe previews, stay at both Stella Nova and Terra Luna, and explore Helios Grand while also going to Bar Helios. This is going to be long, but here’s my review of everything I did and what happened throughout the days. I’ll go into details of everything and explain truthfully what’s amazing, what’s underhyped, what’s overhyped, and what is concerning. Spoiler alert and if you don’t want to read the rest: Epic is amazing and there’s no doubt about it, but going to the park after the preview is yet to be seen on what it is going to provide.

HOTELS:

I’ll start with the hotels. We’ve stayed now at both Terra Luna and Stella Nova. Maybe we got lucky, maybe they’ve fixed everything but I can easily say these hotels are WAY underhyped. The rooms are clean, extremely spacious, and on the cheaper side (IF you have an AP. Can’t speak for what the regular prices are like). My wife and I walk basically everywhere so when we heard there was a walking path to Epic from Stella we expected like a 20-30 minute walk similar to Cabana Bay to the parks. We were wrong. If you don’t miss the light for the crosswalk, we made it to Epic in under 8 minutes from Stella. Easy walk and we never felt the need to take a bus or uber. After a long park day, would Helios be a better choice if you wanna save like, a couple minutes to get back to your room? Absolutely. But if you don’t mind walking just a little extra, Stella’s price compared to Helios is pretty spectacular. For Stella, everything at the hotel was working during our trip, elevators were great, lights in the room were fine, everything appeared to be finished, etc. For Terra, it was the same thing, everything was working and fine, but I wouldn’t stay there over Stella unless I had no plans to visit Epic (that walking path makes the few extra bucks at Stella WAY worth it). I can’t speak for Helios’ rooms, but I did go to bar Helios directly from the park yesterday evening. First, the team members everywhere have been amazing across the board, and that’s no different at Helios. The bar itself was also amazing (and the drinks were pretty big). My wife got sliders and a cocktail, and I didn’t try any, I just got a beer. I had looked at getting us a room at Helios before the visit, but you’re looking at $450-600ish (very dependent on park view) if not more a night for what is a great view (if you get park view) for the room and a couple minutes off your walking time compared to Stella. If hotels and views are your thing, this is definitely your hotel, but I personally was fine with saving over $300 a night and adding just a few minutes to our walk with a room that could potentially be just as nice, especially for just two people. I would personally rather take the money from the hotel and spend it on food and merch throughout the park (which oh man, we did) but it’s really up to personal preference. The negative for Helios is that we had to go back to Stella after our late night trip to Bar Helios and the only way to get back is to 1. Uber or 2. Take a bus to CityWalk and then BACK to Stella when Stella is only a few minutes away from Helios. This has to be fixed SOON because the trying to get back from two Universal properties that are definitely within walking distance should not take you 30 minutes plus on a bus. This honestly wouldn’t be an issue if there was a walking path (EVEN if it took 30+ minutes). I’ve heard rumors of a sidewalk that can be walked but just as a heads up, we were told last night you could NOT walk from Helios to Stella, even a long walk. This would be even less of an issue IF Uber of Lyft worked. For some reason, Uber drivers will not put the address into google or Waze, even after asking them to in a private message (perhaps it’s policy) and Uber and Lyft have not updated their maps yet with the hotel address. So we were left at the front of the hotel for 20+ minutes waiting on an uber that eventually canceled because he kept going in circles after repeatedly telling him it’s a new hotel and he needs to put the address into Google or Waze instead. I can say if you’re staying at Helios, Bar Helios is amazing and WELL worth going to (great drinks and food, amazing views, amazing bar) HOWEVER, if you are staying at another Universal property it is NOT worth visiting until they fix the transportation. I will also say that I’ve heard people from the park say they had issues getting into Helios after leaving Epic. We did not personally experience this and were able to walk straight into Helios from the park without any complications, questions, etc. They literally just let us, and everyone else going in, straight in.

EPIC UNIVERSE PREVIEW:

Now let’s talk about the preview. I can’t begin to speak highly enough for what exactly the previews are. We got 2 days back to back, one of them being a Sunday, at what appeared to be EXTREMELY limited capacity. We’re talking lines said 35 but waited 10 minutes capacity. Never waited in ANY line for food, drinks, merch for more than all of 5 minutes. We got to witness things appear dead that will likely never be that way again. We walked through Frankenstein Manor and the Burning Blade with all of 2-3 other couples, if that, able to take as many pictures as we wanted. Some parts of the park seemed “slightly” more crowded than others but I don’t think they were, I think it was just a space thing. For example, Super Nintendo World always felt more crowded, but that’s just because there are so many props there and it makes it feel more crowded. I never brushed up against someone accidentally to get by, never felt like I could have gotten a better view of something, was able to get on certain rides back to back for repeated ride throughs, etc. 

WITH that all being said it comes at a caveat. Things are going down or delayed frequently. Because lines are so short, this doesn’t make it bad at all. As a matter of fact we never had issues with rides being delayed and it causing us not to be able to do it during the day. Monsters was delayed for a huge portion if not the majority of the day yesterday. It opened up and was somewhere at 105 minutes to wait (supposedly) but then quickly dropped to 40. We got in-line at 40 fully expecting it to be 40 minutes and, it wasn’t, it was 15 minutes. Huge tip… if the signs during preview say anything under an hour DON’T trust it. It’s likely 15-30 if even that from our experience. Werewolf almost always said 25 when we went over there and we never waited more than 10. Stardust was a similar story, it would say 15-25 and was always a direct walk on (to the point that we didn’t even have anyone else on the train with us other than people directly on the front, which only would’ve been a wait of 2 parties in front of us. 

The delays are wildly obnoxious at first however, until you figure out how to navigate around them and plan other things you want to do during the delays. You absolutely (during previews, I want to make that clear) can navigate around it unless something is unexpectedly closed for the day. However what I will say is that we got into Darkmoor right as it opened. We were the first in-line, literally, as in we were the first guests to step into Dark Universe for the day. We got in line for Monsters and were about to board when it got delayed for what was over an hour. As the first thing of the day, it definitely scared my wife and I because we thought the whole day was about to be waiting in line for hours for delayed rides and then unable to do them because they close for the day. We talked to a TM during the ride who updated us and said they weren’t sure how long it would be down for but however they do expect it to come up pretty shortly and that it wasn’t closing down for an extended delay. That was amazing info, and all the TMs are incredible, my only thing is that I wish there was a way for the TMs to communicate with everyone in line to let them know rather they expect the experience to be down permanently or for a delay that could result in us being kicked out of line OR if it is excepted to come back up. The same thing happened with Toothless’ Meet and Greet and the TM DID announce to us that he was expected to be “feeling better” shortly, they just didn’t know how long it would take and we were more than welcome to stick around. 

I’ll put this shortly though. I can easily say (I’ll get more into detail about specific lands too, later on) that this is the best themepark on the planet, with the only comparison and honestly a very similar park, being Tokyo Disney Sea.

CONCERNS ABOUT OPENING DAY:

I have nothing but good things to say about our experience if this is how it was going to be forever. If crowds were this limited and this low during the rest of the year HOWEVER, things were delayed, not everything was working, etc. I think charging full priced tickets for the preview is perfect. It was an amazing experience. So amazing that we woke up this morning extremely sad that we were leaving, and we come to the parks often enough that we are almost never sad to leave, because we know that we’ll come back and have a good time. I don’t think it’s possible to have as good of a time as we had, and we have tickets for early September with express for Epic.

Here’s the big issue. Things are going to delay. And it…. doesn’t appear to be getting any better. Things just kind of appear to staying steady. I heard about the worst day during TM previews where basically everything was delayed during the same time…. But even though it hasn’t done that again for APs, there is just no possible way this park is ready to open to a large crowd. If they opened to the same crowds as previews I think everyone would have an amazing time. But, if they open up the park and are having the same issues with Potter, Monsters, etc. that they are currently having, I can’t see it being a great time for guests (without express) when the park opens and you won’t be able to go on what you want and when the rides do open they are 90-100 minutes each, but then delay again and you have to get out of line. With monsters, Potter, and Mario, we got delayed ON ride on all 3, with not all effects in those rides even working properly. For the previews, I assure you, this changes nothing…. But for opening and throughout the rest of the year when you’re shoulder to shoulder with other guests, this would be upsetting. I understand this is a technical rehearsal, but with how things are going, I can’t see any of this being fixed in the near future. 

THE PORTALS/LANDS:

I’ll save my favorite land for last, but let’s chat a bit about each land. These are in no particular order other than the fact that the last is indeed my favorite (doesn’t mean it’s the best, just my favorite. As a matter of fact, I think the quality of 4 are equal but 1 definitely feels off).

ISLE OF BERK: my wife is a huge How to Train Your Dragon fan, and I really enjoy the franchise. This land is truly massive. Someone said that when you walk into a portal, you forget what universe you were just in or what land you were in, and I fully agree. Each land’s theming and detailing is over the top and absolutely incredible. There are tons of free (you’ll understand why I’m saying this later) interactive elements throughout the land, the walk around characters are SPOT on, the attractions are ALL great, the food was excellent, the music and theming was perfect, it was beautiful, there was so much “movement” around the area with animatronics everywhere, and it actually made my wife emotional to get onto the rides because of how much they nailed HTTYD.

Super Nintendo World: I am not a huge Nintendo fan, its alright, but my wife and I both were stunned by how amazing this land is. Everything there is so fun and colorful, and LOUD. It definitely feels like you’re in an actual video game. Again, lots of movement in the areas, lots of things to look at, tons of little animatronics, beautiful lighting, attractions are “mixed”, and I can’t comment on the food.

Celestial Park: This specifically doesn’t feel like a theme park land (and that’s not a bad thing). It feels like a weird combination of video game theming similar to BioShock Infinite and The Outer Worlds, but throw in Disney Springs. When you first walk in, it is MASSIVE. Where at other parks you kind of know what you’re getting into and everything feels like it just kinda “morphs” into the land you’re going into, this actually felt like you were in some sort of hub with portals leading to other universes. And once you go into the portal, there’s no trace of where you came from. The attractions in Celestial I’ll get into, but they were both great as well. The best thing about it is that it just feels like a large shopping and dining district with two very spread out attractions, and not a singular area to “take pictures” of like a park icon (other than the opening portal which is very cool of course). It feels like you could take beautiful photos anywhere in that area. There are all different sorts of cool souvenirs there as well, along with really cool restaurants with amazing theming. Kinda wish Universal would close all the rides in the area at 9, like they did, but leave celestial open until 11 for dining, drinking, and relaxing while looking at the amazing lighting they have done for the land.

Wizarding world Paris: Let me start off by saying this land is amazing to look at and the windows are very fun to interact with (if you have a wand). The food, candy, and drinks there are also very good. The ministry is very very mixed for me, and I’ll get into that later. The circus show was actually really cool though, and was a ton of fun. That’s about where my positives end for this land though. It’s pretty, and it looks like what it’s meant to, and the land itself is very cool to “look” at. However, there’s not much to do. It feels very VERY empty. The walk around characters are fine I guess, but because they are just random students, a detective, and the owner of the wand shop, there’s no attachment to them from a story perspective or familiarity perspective (from my wife and I at least). I’m not saying they should have actors and walk around characters here of the Fantastic Beast Characters, but what I am saying is that the ones they do have just don’t hold the same weight in our opinion as the characters in Monsters, Isle of Berk, or even Mario… heck throw the walk around entertainment in at Celestial too because the living statue looked AMAZING.

Dark Universe: I could speak about this land for hours. I still can’t believe I was able to experience this land already. It’s the smallest land in the park but we spent the MOST time here. I still haven’t fully gathered my thoughts on this land, but just know that every bit of hype you’re seeing and hearing about this land is true. I actually think the size of the land leads it to be more intimate than the other lands and in some cases, easier to hang out in and have a drink because you can find a central spot to see just about every major landmark in the land. I am biased, I create professional theatrical costumes and props that are generally horror or horror adjacent, and I am a horror/Halloween junkie. Our house is filled with monster props, figures, statues, paintings, etc. and I usually use my PTO to go down to HHN for 2-3 weeks in a row. Our honeymoon was at Cabana Bay where we did Horror Nights for 3 weeks straight. Everything in this land is themed incredibly. There are little things you miss upon visiting for the first time that you end up realizing the next time you go in. For example, the first time we went in, I didn’t even notice that the creature in the cage on the left was a Moleman, a more lesser known Universal Monster, and there is definitely what appears to be the head of a Metaluna Mutant in the Burning Blade. My wife noticed that the chimneys are stuffed with spikes to prevent Monsters from going down them. This land also did something I didn’t think was possible and somehow combined a horror atmosphere with a very fun and somewhat lighthearted feeling story, WITHOUT making it overly goofy like the Haunted Mansion (although I love the haunted mansion), and still very much PG-13 without reaching that R rated gore that HHN provides. The result is a Tim Burton feeling classic Universal Monsters world, complete with a Danny Elfman soundtrack.The characters here are also so fun and were amazing. Although the monster hunter is similar to what I said about the students and detective at Wizarding world, he somehow was so funny and interactive while we were eating that I almost completely forgot he was a character and just wanted to hear more about the absolutely insane and hilarious monsters he had come across. Our experience with the Bride and the Monster was also amazing (AND caught all on video) and they were two of the most fun characters I have ever had the pleasure to meet. Igor was hilarious as well and was a lot of fun to interact with. The invisible man walked straight up to me (I was wearing a shirt with him on it) and he absolutely got in my face and was super uncomfortable (in the BEST way possible. Absolute props to the actor because he NAILED it). Food was great, lots to say later, attractions were amazing (yes, even curse of the werewolf) but Monsters is 100% the GOAT of all attractions period, and this is coming from someone who very much thought that was Rise of the Resistance for the longest time (it’s now 2^nd best). This is the land where all that money we were going to spend on Helios went.

ATTRACTIONS:

Some of these will be shorter than others, and I will say If they are overhyped, just right, or underhyped:

Dragon Racer’s Rally: Unexpected and very fun attraction. Wouldn’t wait more than a solid 15 minutes for it, but it’s not a thrill ride. Needs some music, but I’d say it’s underhyped. There isn’t a lot of capacity on this so the line seems to take a while.

Fyre Drill: Underhyped, it’s actually a lot of fun. Again, not worth waiting more than like 15 minutes to do, but I really think it’s fun. Props are super cool, you get pretty wet, and shooting the little water cannons is fun. Nice on a hot day.

Hiccups Wing Gliders: WAY underhyped. I think this is an almost Hagrid’s level attraction (but not quite). It’s not a simple roller coaster, more of a story coaster with animatronics. Super smooth, fast, and a ton of fun.

Toothless and Hiccup meet n greet: Just right for hype. It’s exactly what you think and it’s awesome. Toothless is so fun to meet specifically and he definitely felt different to pet than what you expected. He isn’t necessarily rubbery like expected, kinda has a scaly feeling, and he actually makes a “purring” feeling while you’re petting him. Line is very hot though and directly in the sun.

Mario Kart Bowser’s Challenge: Overhyped, other than the queue. The queue is amazing, great atmosphere and props. BUT, the ride itself is just alright. Slow, and the goggles are kinda distracting. I wish there was animatronics and props on it instead of the virtual goggles and it would be cool being just a little faster.

Donkey Kong: Just right, but wouldn’t wait more than 30 minutes for it. Unexpectedly a lot of fun. VERY rough and shakes you around (on purpose) but tons of animatronics and things to see. Overall very fun. Queue is alright.

Stardust Racers: Underhyped. There’s a lot of hype for this, but it’s not what I expected. It’s better. I don’t personally believe that Velocicoaster is less intense, it’s definitely more, but this is just so much smoother and faster than that. Not as many upside down spots as velocicoaster which I thought made it more fun.

Constellation Carousel: Underhyped, it’s so pleasant to get on this at night and look at all the lights. Music and ride path changes as well.

Ministry of Magic: NOW I’m going to start going into more detail. Virtual Line for this is terrible. The capacity for this and the fact that it breaks down so frequently is also really causing this ride to suffer. This is extremely overhyped, as it is even without the terrible virtual line and capacity issues. I’ve heard people say it was better than Monsters and so I was expecting a mind-blowing attraction. Just so we’re clear, we are huge Potter fans. The Queue was in no doubt amazing, and in my opinion, that’s the best part of the attraction. It’s screen heavy, don’t let anyone tell you differently. There ARE animatronics (not much) and sets but there are only 2 animatronics in it that are really super cool (the Erumpent is SO cool and the death eater moves and looks like an actual person in a costume). The other animatronics are just alright, kinda reminded me of the Frozen animatronics at Epcot. The screens are clear, absolutely, and the ride system itself is pretty neat. But, to give you an understanding of how I feel, if the screens in Forbidden Journey were updated to look like these screens, Forbidden Journey would be a better attraction than this one. Kinda thrilling, similar to Forbidden Journey, and I did REALLY enjoy the story. But again, this isn’t even close to the best dark ride of all time, which this park already has, and it isn’t even close to Rise of the Resistance.

Cirque De Arcanus: Unexpected show with some unexpected things that happen. Underhyped, and really fun. I’m glad they don’t allow filming or pictures because it was fun to not know what to expect. 

Curse of the Werewolf: Underhyped, no one is talking about this ride in a great light and I honestly had a blast on it. Very smooth, the spinning is fun, and the props are cool even if you only see them briefly. It’s a very short ride is the only thing, but the theming, coaster, and music are all really fun. Queue is actually really neat too.

Monsters Unchained The Frankenstein Experiment: Aight…. Every bit of hype you’ve heard about this doesn’t begin to touch how amazing this ride actually is. The queue is wildly good with crazy props, fun things to watch, and beautiful lighting. I could actually live in the manor and wish I owned all the props inside of it. The animatronics may fool you on camera as being about the size of a person… don’t make any mistake, they’re massive. Frankenstein’s monster is HUGE, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s close to 8-9 feet tall. Same with literally all the other characters too other than Victoria and Igor who both are about 6’ tall or so If I were to guess. What I will say is that the ride does have two halves that I think are really interesting. Neither is better than another, but the atmosphere changes drastically from the first half which has a much scarier and eerie feeling to it, and then it becomes very action packed with Monsters fighting and lots of cool scenes to look at. The only thing I will say is that there is definitely one single part of the ride that might actually be unfinished. I’m hoping it is because right after Dracula escapes, there is this large curtain with chains over it, and it’s so obviously a curtain and stands out against the rest of the ride. The rest of the ride is very clearly complete and the curtain just makes no sense with the rest of the attraction. It’s either that there is a set with screens behind the curtain that are still being completed OR it’s an evac route, can’t say for sure. However, the audio suggests during the ride there is SOMETHING you’re supposed to be looking at as Dracula mentions letting the “nightmares” loose and then you hear cages opening. The animatronics also go down pretty often and I’m hoping they get them all running for opening day and beyond. When we rode the first time, Frankenstein’s monster fighting a Dracula bride, the mummy, and the last Dracula that flies out at you were all not working. Our second ride through, the Phantom, the Mummy, and the last Dracula were still not working. It definitely doesn’t ruin the experience but it sure would be great if the Mummy and Phantom at the very least worked consistently because those are easily (in my opinion) the two coolest animatronics in the attraction. Right now, I do believe it is my favorite and the greatest dark ride of all time. However, if you could get it to run smoothly with all animatronics working, this would be untouchable as the greatest dark ride attraction of all time for many years to come.

FOOD:

Berk:

Mac and Cheese Cones: We tried the PB and J and the Hot Chicken cones. The hype is real for both, and just right. I couldn’t try the PB and J due to my allergy, but I had the Hot Chicken (which is amazing). I didn’t expect it to be pulled chicken instead of fried and that was something I was super happy to learn. On top of that, the bread cone itself is incredible and tastes like a really good crispy garlic bread, but with everything bagel seeds.

Gobber the Belch Wings: Underhyped, these were my second favorite thing I tried at the park. HUGE turkey wings with an insanely good BBQ sauce and delicious veggies. If you like wings and BBQ you’re going to be very happy with this.

Celestial Park:

Vegan Vanilla Ice-cream (Frosty Moon): Underhyped, my wife got this and she had no idea they even had a vegan ice cream. She got cake pieces which were really well sized and tasted good according to her over the vanilla ice cream, and the marshmallows were delicious. Very reasonably priced as well.

Paris/Ministry of Magic:

Au Currant Saison (beer): I had this and really enjoyed it, hadn’t heard anything about it so I would say underhyped. I’m more of an ale, IPA, or wheat beer kind of guy and had never had a Saison. The only reason I wouldn’t get this again is purely because there is a much better beverage down the line. It had a bit of a sour taste to it as well which I honestly enjoyed.

Lavender Lemonade: Great, hyped just right! Not too sweet, not too sour, perfect blend of lavender. REALLY nice on a hot day.

Dirigible Plum Juice Mocktail: Very sweet but it’s underhyped, really unique flavor that I thought was a ton of fun and also great on a hot day. Hard to describe the flavor but It’s well worth getting. 

Dark Universe:

Blood Orange Chicken Sandwich:  Overhyped, but not bad. Heard great things about this and probably made the mistake of having it after an item down on the list. It’s good for sure, but there are better items in Dark Universe. I would absolutely get it again but the bread was a little tough on the bottom of the bun. Sauce was delicious, and the chicken was too.

Bird on a Stake: Hyped about right, chicken is good but a bit dry. Could’ve used a sauce for sure, maybe even the blood orange sauce, but still good.

Labocotocotta: REALLY unexpectedly good dessert at a reasonable price. Amazing dessert and the theming on it is incredibly well done. Hard to describe the taste but almost a sweet cold vanilla custard with a white chocolate coating on the bottom, pop rocks, and some sort of berry sauce.  Underhyped and delicious.

Monocane (mocktail): Hyped just right, but this is my favorite non-alcoholic drink we had. It’s a cool presentation and all glittery and looks like a potion and BRIGHT green. Tastes like a fun Halloween drink you’d make for a party. It’s supposed to be a citrus taste but I don’t think it necessarily has that, it almost is more apple flavored, although there’s no apple in it.

Burning Blade Burger: Way underhyped…. This is it, this is the best food item you can get at this park. It’s one of two things I had both days I was there. Let me just say, I love a good burger, and we love the burgers specifically at Cowfish. This one rivals any burger I’ve ever had at any high end restaurant or anywhere else. I’d argue it’s the best burger not only on property, but in Orlando in general. You gotta try this if you can. 

Hunter’s Garlic Stake: Hyped just right, but it’s better without the dipping sauce. If you like a theme park pretzel, this is not that, but if you really like an actual soft pretzel and you’re a big fan of garlic, this is for you.

Warm Hearted Cinnamon Bites: Hyped just right and the cream cheese sauce on these is magnificent. Ours were a little cold but if these were fresh and hot I could see this being as good as the Labocotocotta.

Darkthorne Mead: We drink Mead at home, and this is my favorite Mead I’ve had. Way underhyped and if you like a red wine or a dark berry flavored Mead, you should try it. I love a red wine and I don’t like overly sweet alcoholic drinks and I thought this was perfect. We had it in Das which I think is the way to do it as even though it’s very cold, it’s heavy. So walking around in the florida heat with it might be a little much. However if you get it either in the evening as you are relaxing before dinner or sit down and have it with lunch I think it is well worth it.

Reaper’s Reserve: Underhyped. This is my favorite ale I’ve had in a while. Taste’s like Halloween, possibly more than a pumpkin ale. A perfect combination of cinnamon and nutmeg, giving it a really interesting flavor that is hard to pinpoint as being a “flavored” ale, but more like just a really good “fall” tasting beer that can be had throughout the year since it is so light and crisp. I wish I could buy this stuff for my house, but that would also take away from how special it is to get in the park. I had this twice along with the burger. 

TL;DR This is the best park I’ve ever visited and going to any other theme park will make you wish you were at Epic Universe. If you can get a preview ticket, I highly suggest doing so. The park is actually underhyped in total, even if some things in it are overhyped.

Well today at the park. both ministry of magic down and monsters unleashed. Say what you want about a new park opening. There is no excuse. We walked through the gated tears in eyes at being one of the first and now hours later not a single ride ride. More broke than running. Thousands of miles traveled no excuse. Very disappointing. To the tune of refund time. We hate those that complain to simply complain. But an unfinished product at premium prices. Is what they call fraud. Very daily day in universal world.