Epic Universe is the third and newest theme park to open at Universal Orlando. The park features five-themed areas:

• Celestial Park
• Super Nintendo World
• Dark Universe
• The Wizarding World of Harry Potter™ – Ministry of Magic
• How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk

Each themed area has several rides, with the headliners being Mine-Cart Madness in Super Nintendo World, Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry™ in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter™ – Ministry of Magic, and Monsters Unchained in Dark Universe.

Since Epic Universe just opened last year, the lines for their headliner rides are, as expected, quite long. If you can get the Express Pass, I would highly recommend it. We kept track of all the wait times for the major rides in Epic Universe during the day and you usually get on the ride in about ¼ of the standby wait time.

If you’re going to buy an Express Pass, you should also pre-buy the Express Pass before your visit, because it does sell out as you get closer and it can also sell out at the beginning of the day as well. Every time I have been to any Universal Park, the Express Pass has always sold out either before the day started or during the early morning of the day.

Since Universal recently added Mine-Cart Madness and Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry™ to Express Pass, there are only essentially two things in the entire park that are not applicable for EP: Dragon Racer’s Rally and Meet Toothless and Friends in How to Train a Dragon – Isle of Berk. Isle of Berk is also one of two areas that are not applicable for early entry to Universal Orlando Resort hotel guests (the other being The Wizarding World of Harry Potter™ – Ministry of Magic). This means that anything in Isle of Berk is prime for rope-dropping, without anyone else already in there when the park officially opens to the public.

So, based on those facts, we arrived around 8:30AM for a 9:00AM park opening. By 8:50AM we were let into Isle of Berk, where we beelined over to meet Toothless. We did have to take a small mechanical break that lasted about 15 minutes, but all in all, it only took about 30 minutes to meet Toothless and his friends. After that we did Hiccup’s Wing Gliders, grabbed a snack, and then proceeded to the other areas of the park.

We started in Super Nintendo World, as we wanted to knock Mine-Cart Madness and Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge out first. The wait times for these rides are long and remain long for the entire day, so we wanted to make sure we did them. If you’re into Dole Whip, make sure you try the DK Crush Float at The Bubbly Barrel. Featuring banana pineapple soft serve in Fanta pineapple soda, it’s a super refreshing treat.

They were closing Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry™ early that night, so we went to that next. The wait times ended up lowering to about 60 minutes in the last 2 hours of the night, so if you’re not doing the Express Pass, maybe hit it later in the night. We also saw the show inside the Ministry of Magic while we were there – Le Cirque Arcanus. And of course, we have to stop for a Butterbeer!

After finishing up HP Land, we headed over to Dark Universe, where we did the two rides there. Monsters Unchained was our absolute favorite ride of the entire park, hands down. The animatronics on that ride were absolutely fantastic and it felt like such a thrilling and cool ride. I would definitely prioritize this ride if you can! Make sure you grab a snack at the Burning Blade Tavern. The Burning Cheddar Bites are fantastic.

To round up the lands, we ended up in Celestial Park last, to ride the Constellation Carousel and Stardust Racers. Both have a relatively short wait time near the end of the day, so we didn’t have any issues getting on.

We then looped back to Isle of Berk to catch the 6:02PM show of The Untamable Dragon. This show is so amazing and the animatronic work is absolutely excellent. I highly recommend that you try to make it to at least one showing of this cool show.

After dinner at Cafe L’air De la Sirene, we finished the night by exploring all the lands in the dark. They look so cool – especially the Ministry of Magic with all its lights and Super Nintendo World, which is so empty at the end of the night.

With a total of about 12 hours in the park, we managed to hit every single attraction, show, and food item that we had wanted. We ended up skipping both Dragon Racer’s Rally and Fyre Drill, since we didn’t have any interest in those two rides. But if we had wanted to fit those in, I think we definitely could’ve, as we took several breaks during the day for drinks, snacks, and shopping.

We had a great time at Epic Universe. It’s a really cool park with excellent theming and new rides. The worlds feel very real and immersive, with unique details in each one. If you’re a fan of any of these IPs, then you’ll have a great time.