Universal's Epic Universe General News & Discussion

[fryoj]

I agree with this, especially since you can advertise it as a perk (and also for hotel guests perk).

You might be able to extend it to anyone with a ticket(or maybe just park hopper) for that day to any of the parks. I'd say most day guests were probably doing EU during their trip anyway or have AP's so it's not adding a whole lot of extra bodies. Just have to be careful with the wording so there is no confusion that you aren't getting access to all of EU.

 

[Evan]

Not at all comparable. Parking fees would stop that. Disney Springs is much more of a destination on its own than Celestial Park is also. Besides, the parking lot would eventually just reach capacity far before the sort of numbers that happened for that drone show.

Not a possibility that people bus over from North Campus if EU puts out a really amazing nighttime spectacular?

If the vibes and show are good, the people will come.

 

[Jake S]

I think it's less the idea of having more guests in Celestial Park and more the inconvenience of having to wait to scan your face to enter portals.

Yeah, the experience using Express stunk when we went. They couldn't decide if they just wanted to scan our face, just wanted to look at our tickets or do both — and none of these options were quick. I would hate having to go through that process to get into every portal unless it's been significantly improved.

I also think opening up Celestial Park is a pretty lousy solution if the problem is "guests are leaving our brand-new theme park before dinner," but alas, here are.

 

[dlmusic]

Not a possibility that people bus over from North Campus if EU puts out a really amazing nighttime spectacular?

If the vibes and show are good, the people will come.

If you are talking like Fantasmic or Epcot lagoon level, sure. But who is to say it would be offered on those nights. Universal has never had year round night spectaculars and I don't think that is the current plan with Epic.

If you restricted it to only resort guests also that would be a negligible amount of people.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

Capacity issues aside, if you want to have a consistent nighttime crowd:

• A great nighttime show to convince people to stay (with consistent showtimes)
• Consistent late park hours
• Dining opportunities (more for locals)
• Annual Passholder base to fill in the gap from those leaving earlier in the day
• Enough experiences to not burn people out earlier in the day (MK benefits from having both a nighttime fireworks show and enough experiences to sustain a full day's worth of experiences without long waits.)

They are in a tough position until they can open up the floodgates after capacity relief comes in.

 

[Clive]

Yeah, the experience using Express stunk when we went. They couldn't decide if they just wanted to scan our face, just wanted to look at our tickets or do both — and none of these options were quick. I would hate having to go through that process to get into every portal unless it's been significantly improved.

I also think opening up Celestial Park is a pretty lousy solution if the problem is "guests are leaving our brand-new theme park before dinner," but alas, here are.

I had the same experience when using Express. They could never decide what they needed/wanted, and it led to backlogs even when there were only a handful of people waiting to scan in.

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

If the new building near the front has something significant, they allow the carousel to be open, and a top tier Orlando nighttime show, on top of the dining, they’ll be able to get solid crowds.

 

[Mad Dog]

Not at all comparable. Parking fees would stop that. Disney Springs is much more of a destination on its own than Celestial Park is also. Besides, the parking lot would eventually just reach capacity far before the sort of numbers that happened for that drone show.

Plus, there's very little at Celestial compared to what's at Disney Springs. Pure apples and oranges comparisons overall.

 

[SeventyOne]

It could make fireworks a bit quirky. I'll grant you that. But who is to say they would offer it all the time or do nightly fireworks.

Just a rando on the internet, but I'm saying they're doing nightly fireworks this Summer.

That said, it's potential issue but not necessarily a deal-breaker. As you mentioned later, the limited parking will help. I imagine it's a largely 360 show, so they can use the whole land. And after the first night, I'm not sure the show will be that much of a draw to APs that it would fill the area. Then again, I've underestimated crowds before.

It may just be that Universal is desperate enough they're willing to risk it. Is "the fireworks show was really crowded" really more damaging word-of-mouth than "we waited 90 minutes for a 3-minute Yoshi ride"? When you're the lowest rated theme park in Orlando, can't do any worse.

I also think opening up Celestial Park is a pretty lousy solution if the problem is "guests are leaving our brand-new theme park before dinner," but alas, here are.

Not ideal, and I'm still not convinced it's happening. But it's an easy make-good with APs--who knows how well double-priced passes and reservations went over in their oft-leaked survey? It should also drive revenue--Pizza Moon will have a 2-hour wait, the other restaurants should draw a bit of a crowd, and I bet quite a few APs get 3 drinks in and suddenly decide $29.99 is a steal to go ride Monsters Unchained for an hour. You can't rush a couple new E-tickets, but this is probably the cheapest, quickest alternative.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Capacity issues aside, if you want to have a consistent nighttime crowd:

• A great nighttime show to convince people to stay (with consistent showtimes)
• Consistent late park hours
• Dining opportunities (more for locals)
• Annual Passholder base to fill in the gap from those leaving earlier in the day
• Enough experiences to not burn people out earlier in the day (MK benefits from having both a nighttime fireworks show and enough experiences to sustain a full day's worth of experiences without long waits.)

They are in a tough position until they can open up the floodgates after capacity relief comes in.

You nail a lot of the big points. I’d add a few thoughts:

Celestial needs more sit-down options but it may also need to reconsider those it has already. Right now the sit down options are seafood and Asian. I suspect a significant number of guests aren’t seafood fans (Lombards doesn’t really pack them in) and that cheap, high quality Asian takeout is so ubiquitous that folks are reluctant to spend a lot on a fancy meal.

To avoid guest burnout Celestial NEEDS more shade.

The park needs more things guests can do without long lines, particularly walk-up live entertainment with first-come seating. To my surprise I think the park could also use another big indoor show, ideally one with some rewatchability - the Beasts show is fun, but with the long lines and standing preshow it’s not relaxing. I thought removing the monsters show was a good idea (although I always thought the coaster replacement was a big mistake) but now I think I was wrong.

The park needs a LOT more unique shopping. Obviously this is less of an issue with Potter, but even that area needs more retail to match up to Diagon. Mario and PARTICULARLY Monsters need a variety of uniquely themed stores to offer guests an air-conditioned alternative to queues. Most of all, Universal needs to find a way to build a lot more, diversely themed retail in Celestial if they have any hope of it functioning as a stand-alone attraction. That’s a tricky problem because the area doesn’t necessarily lend itself to that.

Between the odd ticket options Uni is tinkering with and their potential plans for Celestial, Universal seems bent on making Epic as separate from and alien to the original resort as possible, something repeating guests visit every three or four trips. I’m no big time entertainment exec, but that seems like the opposite of what they should be doing.