Today it was time for the newest park at Universal Resort Orlando, the Epic Universe. Early entry opened at 9, so not that early morning, but I got there at 8:25 to have some margins. It started with a queue, which would be the theme of today.
At about 8:40, they opened the gates so we could pass through security and scan our tickets. However, didn’t come far before a rope stopped us (as in the other parks). After another ten minutes, they dropped the rope, and we moved on until we reached the gate to The Dark Universe, where we were held up again. At nine, they told us that not only where Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment closed for today (that was announced on screens at the park entrance), but the other attraction in that zone, Curse of the Werewolf, had technical difficulties and an unclear start time. If they had said that at the entrance, we could have gone to another zone. Now we lost the advantage of being early to the park. This day didn’t start off too well.
I decided to stay in the zone anyway, hoping the technical issues would be resolved quickly. I took a lap and took some photos, and then sat down on a bench at the ride entrance, starting to read news from back home. At 9:30, they started to run empty carts, which was hopeful, and I joined the queue. Ten minutes later, they opened to everyone’s cheer. I got on the third ride, but almost didn’t get to go. I couldn’t push down the safety bar as far as they liked. It’s hard to push the bar down on your lap since you don’t get that much power. I asked if he could press, but he said no (probably some rules prohibiting it). I got asked to stand up, cross my legs, and, while sitting down, push down the bar. Apparently, it got far enough down cause he gave the thumbs up, and we were on our way. It was quite a fun ride! Just the right amount of rollercoaster for my taste. I would have gone for a second round if it weren’t for the tight fit in the cart.
I headed over to The Wizarding World of Harry to start queuing for Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry. But when I arrived, there was a line that went through almost the whole zone, and when I checked the app, it said it was closed for the moment. So I moved on to How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk to check the attractions there. I had looked into Hiccup’s Wing Gliders, but when I saw it in action, I got discouraged and skipped it. I found Fyre Drill instead, which I had disregarded during my research, cause it said you would get soaked! But when I saw it, it didn’t look that bad, and with no queue, I went for it. You go on a boat, shooting at targets with water cannons. If you hit the wrong targets, you get punished, but did well, I only got wet from sitting on the bench that wasn’t dry 😛
Walked on through Celestial Park and entered Super Nintendo World. This was really crowded; it seems like they built it too small to begin with. I went for the main attraction first, Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge. Very nice scenery to queue in, but it’s still queuing. The only positive thing about stairs in the queue is that you can easily sit in them, which the woman in front of me did as soon as she could. Had about 20 minutes in the single rider queue before getting to the front. Just for the ride to have some issues, so they had to unload everyone. Just took a few minutes before they were up and running again. While waiting, I noticed that most of the staff have headsets, and they look just like the ones you have at the drive-in at McDonald’s.
The ride had some pretty cool augmented reality where you put on a pair of goggles that projected the other cars, shells, and such. You kept shooting at the others, but not really sure if you could aim or if turning the steering wheel had any effect. The cart itself bounced around a bit, but didn’t warrant any major safety measures. When I was about to exit the cart, I had a hard time getting out. It turned out that I fitted the seat so perfectly that I created a seal and got sucked into the chair. 😀
I don’t really know why, but I joined the queue for Yoshi’s Adventure, even though the expected wait time was 75 minutes. It ended up at about 65, a really slow ride with very tight seats and a safety bar, which I didn’t really understand why. There was one “drop”, like 50 cm over a distance of five meters. Not worth the wait, I spent the time taking a few pictures from the elevated position in the zone.
I had gotten hungry, so I went for some lunch. I read someone recommending Toadstool Cafe, and since I was “in the zone”, I placed an order for Super Mushroom Pizza Bowl and some soda on the app. However, I needed a table number, so I had to get in line. It took 25 minutes before I had passed through the queue, gotten picked up by the waitress, and been shown to a table. Or, she pointed, “sit down at the table over there”. I thought we were a total of four sitting together, but they took another table and I got alone at a four-seater.
Nice with the space, their loss that they didn’t give better instructions. After pushing in the table number, I had the food just minutes later. The food was cute, tasted pretty good, but was less than I expected. After half an hour, I felt compelled to move on so the other in the queue could get a table.
I moved further into Donkey Kong Country and started queuing for Mine-Cart Madness. Just as I was about to enter the single rider queue (standard entrance had an estimated 175 minutes), they closed it, but she let me in. Not sure if she did me a favour though. It took me about 70 minutes to get to the front. The guy behind me (who entered after they opened it again) waited just about 20 minutes. During the whole time I was in the queue, they played the same 30-second soundtrack containing two different lines (one sentence each) and some music. Anyone queuing spent at least 30-60 minutes in this, couldn’t they have produced something more varied?
The ride? Really nice! More intense than I had expected, some nice features with tracks “disappearing”, going backwards, and such.
Disney vs Universal
I didn’t see anything like this at Disney, but at Universal, they have something called child swap. If your child is too small or unwilling to do the ride, both adults (and the child) can queue for the ride, and when you are almost there, one adult can wait with the child in a family room while the other does the ride. When they return, the other adult can do the ride and won’t have to queue from the start. Smart!
I wanted to do the Battle at the Ministry, and I had seen a sign saying that it would close early, so I headed over to get in line. I was uncertain if I should go for single rider since the estimated wait time was 210 minutes. On the other hand, in Escape from Gringotts, you miss out on a couple of things if you do single rider. In the end, it didn’t matter because the single rider was closed. I entered the queue at 15:10. After 100 minutes, I reached the first checkpoint, “traveling by floo powder”, and entered the lobby of the “Ministry of Magic”.
I asked a staff member about how long it was left and he said 90 minutes. Someone else got four rooms and a stairwell, so we thought he was joking. The lobby was marvelous, but I didn’t want to look at it for 1 ½ hours. I had stood more than I do during a hockey game, including overtime. People were stepping out to find somewhere to sit while their partner held their spot. Since we moved every now and then, sitting on the floor wasn’t really an option.
The staff member didn’t joke; it took almost 90 minutes before we merged with the folks having express pass, and then another ten minutes before we got seated in the cabins. Five minutes later, we stepped out again.
The ride was great. Both cinematics, animatronics, and the cabins’ movements, fantastic! But not worth just over three hours in line. The only positive thing about the queue was the family of four with twins, with whom I talked to a bunch during our time together. We speculated on how much time was left, what happened around the next corner, why there wasn’t any information about progress, and so on. Very nice people.
I had gotten hungry and was looking for some dinner, but realized that Le Cirque Arcanus would start in half an hour, and I wanted to see that one. I found a store that sold some candy and then got in line for the show. While waiting for the doors to open, I sat down on the floor; my feet needed the rest. When we got in, to my disappointment, there were no chairs. But, a few minutes into the show, we moved into a theatre and there were benches! It was a great show, and I’m happy I saw it.
Now, when it was dark outside, I went to The Burning Blade Tavern to see its windmill burst into flames, which it did regularly. Just had to wait a few minutes.
I once again looked for some dinner, but Das Stakehaus had closed and Atlantic would have me wait 30 minutes, so I left the park instead and took the bus back at around 20:15.
This has probably been the most boring day (except for traveling). Of the almost twelve hours I’ve been in the park, I spent about 8,5 hours in a queue or waiting for something. I got a bit shocked when I summarized it. I don’t think I ever waited in line for three hours for something that only lasted five minutes. If I compare to the days at Disney, I had around the same amount of hours in the parks, but today I had 13k steps, at Disney that number was 23k.
Tomorrow I’ll see if I go to the parks or just hang by the pool. Planning on doing some laundry at least, since I’m leaving on Friday.
The night ended with some drama at the neighboring hotel, with the Orlando Fire Department visiting with lights and sirens. Didn’t see any smoke or flames, and they left after a while, so I suspect some automatic alarm that went off.
