Universal's Epic Universe

Visited: September 19, 2026

Attending: Brian, Buzzed Bars Coaster Club

If you're gonna call your park Epic, you'd better deliver. Fortunately, it does.

Buzzed Bars had planned an outing at Epic Universe, which I hadn’t been to yet. However, my employer’s annual all-company offsite was the following week in Palm Springs. In chatting with my co-workers, several park-related plans got thrown around, and at one point I was going to do Disney and Universal in Orlando, fly to Palm Springs, and then do Disney and Universal in California. Fortunately (?), that insanity didn’t work out, but I still found myself flying to Florida to attend Epic Universe on Saturday.

First, some thoughts about Epic. This park isn’t actually all that big (yet). Most of the lands have one or two rides each, with the rest focused on theming. But wow, does it do the theming well. I love the portals. Even though they defy traditional theme-park architecture by creating a bunch of dead ends, I think it’s the right call from an immersion point of view. Each portal provides a separate “oh, wow” moment as the immersion kicks in, and they’re all perfect. It makes you just want to hang out in your favorite area all day. Which you might end up doing, because there aren’t a ton of rides.

Fortunately, Buzzed Bars had a group rate at Stella Nova (terrible name, but that’s a different story), which came with early admission to the park. Further, we had some veterans with us who knew how to make the most of that extra hour.

Hogwarts: Battle at the Ministry

Can't really get on-ride photos of dark rides, but when the queue is this impressive, who cares?

Yeah, this isn’t a coaster. It’s my journal; you’ll have to deal. This is also the ride we made a beeline for at rope-drop. The queue for this thing is massive, bigger even than Forbidden Journey or Escape from Gringotts, and it’s all inside and air-conditioned. That makes this a popular attraction pretty much all day, really. Much like those other rides, though, the queue is immersive, impressive…and very long. The Ministry sections look almost exactly like the original sets I saw in the London studio tour. Which isn’t really surprising, but Universal took a lot of care on the details with this ride.

As for the ride itself, it struck me as an upgraded version of Forbidden Journey. Instead of a four-person bench, you’ve got a 14-person elevator car, not unlike the Tower of Terror. Whether this car is on a KUKA arm or not, I couldn’t say; it felt like it. The range of motion was less extreme, which was good, because there was only a seatbelt. The difference was in the effects. Forbidden Journey has some rooms with animatronics and some that are just screens, and sometimes you can’t tell the difference, which is great. This ride combines both in the same scenes, sometimes with characters moving from animatronic straight onto the screen, an impressive illusion. As for the plot, well, Dolores Umbridge is finally going to stand trial for everything she did in the books, and the entire Wizarding World turns out to see it. A Death Eater breaks her out before the trial, and she wreaks havoc in the Ministry, eventually wrecking the room of Time Turners in an attempt to return to the Age of Voldemort. I appreciate that the chaos is caused by Dolores assuming she knows how everything works and being very, very wrong. However, I expected the plot to somehow tie in to the French Magical Creatures setting, if time travel is involved. If that happened, I missed it. There were a bunch of effects, and then it was over. I’ll certainly ride it again, but I wasn’t super impressed by the story. Judging by the reactions of my (all younger) companions, seeing Dolores get what she deserved carried a visceral thrill that enhanced the enjoyment.

Stardust Racers

This thing is so pretty, I could just watch it all day.

We quickly exited the Wizarding World, intending to get some other long-queue rides if we could. However, our path took us directly past Stardust Racers, which proved to be a walk-on, so we called an audible and got in line. Stardust doesn’t have as much of an impressive queue as other rides, but the building is nice, and the boarding platform looks fantastic. As it was my first time, my companions agreed I should get the front row, yellow side. I was pretty deliberately spoiler-free for this coaster, so I just took their word for it.

I knew it was a launched coaster. What I didn’t know was that the first launch occurs in a tunnel, immediately followed by a second launch that really gets things going, so that was a surprise. In fact, every time I rode it today, that second launch feels like a punch in the back that lets you know this coaster is serious. The first top hat was nice, with a little bit of air, although from the front, and early in the morning, it was mostly notable for the hang time as the rest of the train caught up. I admit I didn’t focus on the exact elements during my first ride, but once the second half kicked in, and the trains started interacting more, I really enjoyed that aspect.

After the first ride, I was impressed, but not blown away, so everyone decided to go around again, on the green train this time. By group consensus, I was given the back row this time, and there’s a definite difference. It’s a more powerful beast from the back, with more airtime and more surprises. I enjoyed the double-up next to the station, and the rollover above the other train. I came out feeling much more impressed than I had before. I’m still pretty convinced that the dueling factor makes this coaster; I’m not sure either side would be as much fun on their own. But I was definitely looking forward to a night ride.

Curse of the Werewolf

You can see the track from various places in the park, but it's not interesting, and looks odd in bright sunlight.

Having accomplished Stardust, we went to visit one of the minor credits in the park. I knew absolutely nothing about any of the rides in the Dark Universe section. Although my sister and her family enjoy that property immensely, horror holds very little appeal for me. I don’t care much for scares, which is why I didn’t do Hollywood Horror Nights with the crew the night before. So I didn’t even know there was a coaster in this part of the park. And I didn’t know it was a Mack spinner until I actually sat down. Which meant I had no idea that there’s a swing launch in the middle of the ride, but that’s about the most interesting thing I can say about it. I’m OK with the spinning gimmick, and I like Mack spinners better than others, but this is just kind of plain. I imagine it’s better at night, but in plain daylight, it was mostly dull.

Monsters Unchained

This part of the park isn't shown to great effect in daylight, but after a rain, it's kinda spooky.

From there, we went to Monsters Unchained, as the ride most likely to benefit from our early admission. Which proved correct; we didn’t wait in the queue very long. It was, once again, very atmospheric, but I didn’t get much out of the queue. The plot is that Dr. Frankenstein’s great-great-granddaughter is picking up where he left off. She’s reanimated the Monster (who seems pretty friendly), she’s got her own Igor, and she’s got tech that allows her to control all the other classic monsters. So she’s going for the big one with Dracula. Why the riders are involved, I don’t know, but it’s got the same ride vehicle as Forbidden Journey, four seats on a KUKA arm. Unlike Forbidden Journey, though, there’s no attempt to hide the arm behind part of the lore. It’s also more violent than Forbidden Journey; I felt like we spent an inordinate amount of time on our backs. That said, it’s comfortable, and I didn’t suffer any head-banging at all. Unlike Battle at the Ministry, some of the animatronics weren’t functioning, which took away from the immersion somewhat. But other than that, none of the monsters get particularly close. The scariest thing that happened was that we got rather close to a flame effect early on. Unlike the other rides, this one actually felt a bit long for its plot. It seemed strange that Universal tried to cram in the Mummy, the Werewolf, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon all into one ride. And it ends in a stalemate, with Sexy Shoeless Dracula driven off, but Dr. Frankenstein survives to continue her experiments. Definitely a ride worth doing, even if the theme doesn’t appeal to me.

The Untrainable Dragon

We spent a while at Celestiki, where I had a mocktail that was heavier and less refreshing than I thought it would be, but allowed me to participate in the good cheer. After that, we headed over to the Isle of Berk. Personally, I saw the first How to Train Your Dragon and enjoyed it, but that’s all I know about the IP. I find Toothless to be fairly adorable, especially his big black-cat eyes, but I don’t have a strong love for the property. Some of my companions, though, were very much the target audience. I have to admit that Berk looks just as immersive, in its cartoonish way, as the other two lands. Although we nominally went there to get some of the famous mac-n-cheese cones, we all felt they wouldn’t mesh too well with the hot, humid environment, especially after the rather large tiki drinks. So we took in a show instead, which allowed us to sit down in the air conditioning. I don’t have a lot of frame of reference for amusement park shows, but I gather they’re generally pretty short. The acting and dancing was fine, and the songs were pretty unimpressive, from a Broadway perspective. But the production value, and the three dragons, were technically very impressive. A life-sized Toothless flies over the audience, with the actor playing Hiccup actually riding him some of the time, which was pretty cool. The rest of the show seemed to be a “greatest hits” reel of movies I haven’t seen, so that was kind of lost on me. But it was air-conditioned.

Hiccup's Wing Gliders

It's a family coaster, so it doesn't go very high, but it wouldn't be an Intamin without some fun directional changes.

At this point, we were past noon, the park was filling up, and the heat was becoming oppressive. We knew there was basically no other option but to stand in line for whatever we wanted to ride, so we went with Wing gliders. The line was too long, but the ride itself was decent fun. It’s a family launched coaster, and it does pretty much exactly what you’d expect. It’s mostly low to the ground, or the water, about half the time, and it does some decent swooping. It reminded me a lot of Manta at SeaWorld San Diego. Except I didn’t have to wait very long at all for Manta. It’s fun, it goes around and about, there’s a tunnel, and even a moment where Intamin forgot who the audience was and included a helix with some pretty strong positives. I’d be happy to ride it again on a less crowded day.

Mario Kart

There's not much of the actual ride to see, but it's in the big castle in the back.

Having spent a while in Berk, we went over to Nintendo World as the only land we hadn’t visited yet. Once again, I found the land itself completely immersive, but for an IP I don’t know a lot about. I mean, I played Donkey Kong in the arcade and on my CollecoVision, but this is much more in the Super Mario Brothers vein. That said, I did have a very strong urge to smack the various [?] boxes scattered around the land, which is apparently encouraged. I know even less about Mario Kart than I do about the rest of the lore, although obviously it’s a racing game. The ride is notoriously crowded, so we used the single-rider line, and still waited a very long time. The game itself has augmented reality goggles that paint bad guys on your field of vision as you ride, over top of the practical effects. Personally, I would’ve preferred to go without the AR, as I wasn’t interested in the shooting game. The track goes through an awful lot of environments, which I imagine is authentic to the game, but I didn’t get the references. And since I ended up riding with strangers, I was just underwhelmed on the whole.

After that, I was separated from my group, which was OK by me, as I decided it was time for some food. It had also apparently rained while we were on the Mario ride, so that’s a win, I guess. Didn’t thin out the crowd any, though. I headed back over to Berk and had a sit-down meal that took far longer than I intended, but it was inside and cool. It also apparently rained while I was doing that. After, I tried just wandering around and taking photos, but it was far too humid, and I eventually went back to the hotel for a rest.

Stardust Racers, again

After resting for a while, I got back to the park with barely enough time to try for a ride on the Donkey Kong Mine Cart ride, but evidently it’s always slammed, and even the single-rider line was closed, so I gave up and went back to Stardust for a group ride.

I thought we’d end up with a dusk ride, but night falls pretty quickly here, and it was fully dark by the time we got to the station. We had about 30 people present, and we tried to split between the two trains so we’d have a dueling experience. Which worked out perfectly. As I hoped, the ride is amazing at night, and the interactions with the other train are phenomenal. I went green side first, and during the flip over the other track, I looked all the way up toward the other train, a fantastic view that made me dizzy. Although it was getting close to close, I went around again on the yellow track, and got the back car, which was probably my favorite experience yet with this ride. I think I like the extra hills on the yellow side better than the double-up on green, and from the back they provided some reasonably intense ejector airtime. Once again, racing friends in the other train was the highlight, but the whole thing was lit up like comets soaring through the dark, a wonderful feeling. These night rides were definitely a highlight of the trip.