The Ultimate Strategy When Visiting Epic Universe

So if you are one of the adventurous souls who has decided to brave the crowds and be one of the first to experience this new, glorious theme park in 2025, then we need to talk strategy!

To determine where you need to start inside the park, you first need to decide what the most important thing is for you or your group to accomplish. What’s the one thing you MUST DO for this to be a successful trip? I’ve taken what appear to be the most anticipated experiences in each world, according to social media hype and sheer wait times at the preview events, and developed a strategy for each one to make sure you get to check the most important item off your list!

Universal has finally brought back a dueling coaster! If you like speed, to the point of feeling out of control at times, mixed with intense crossing between tracks and feeling like you could reach up and touch the person in the other coaster car, you won’t want to miss this ride! From the initial launch, which is the most intense I’ve ever experienced, to the massive hill topping, the incredible crisscrossing of the dual tracks, and the full minute and a half ride time, this coaster gives Velocicoaster and Hulk at Islands of Adventure a run for their money.

Stardust Racers is one of the few rides that does open early as part of Early Park Admission, so if this ride is a must on your list, you need to either stay at a Universal Orlando Resort hotel so you can get in an hour ahead of the public, OR you need to buy your park tickets from a U-Preferred travel agent (like myself) so you can still make use of EPA beginning May 23, 2025. Once you are in early, go straight to Stardust Racers and ride it. As the word gets out about this ride, the line time consistently gets longer throughout the day, so don’t wait! You should be able to ride it once and then head to SUPER NINTENDO WORLD, which also opens an hour early, or get in line for one of the other portals and wait for them to open to the public.

*Pro Tip: Stardust Racers is INCREDIBLE at night. There are no lights on the track, only lights on the cars, so from a distance it looks like two asteroids racing around the park. If you can ride at night, DO IT! It’s worth the wait!

If you are an old school video game player, you need to see SUPER NINTENDO WORLD. If you even remotely like Mario and Luigi, you need to see SUPER NINTENDO WORLD. Or if you’ve ever heard of Donkey Kong, you need to see SUPER NINTENDO WORLD. It will absolutely blow your mind. And if this world is your #1 priority, you’re going to need to get there before the gates open to the public. It’s a must.

While Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge popular, the most anticipated ride in this world is Donkey Kong Mine-Cart Madness. It makes you feel like your cart is jumping a broken track, and while pretty bumpy, it’s an absolute blast. It also has been averaging about 80 to 90 minute wait times all day long, and that’s during previews with limited capacity!

If this ride is a must-do for you, then you MUST stay at a Universal Orlando Resort hotel that allows you Early Park Admission an hour before the general public, OR buy your park tickets from a U-Preferred travel agent (again, its-a me!) so you can make use of EPA beginning May 23, 2025. Better yet, stay at the Universal Helios Grand Hotel, the newest hotel which is actually inside Epic Universe! It has an entrance into the park, and staff sometimes let hotel guests in sooner than the hour allotted.

*Pro Tip: Buy your Power Up band BEFORE you enter the SUPER NINTENDO WORLD portal. You’ll want to link it to your Universal Orlando Resort app so that as soon as you enter the world you can begin earning points. The points help your team (which is basically all the people currently at the park who have the same character Power Up band) PLUS the more points you earn, the more visuals you unlock on Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge! AND you can earn points on your Power Up band as an amiibo by linking it to your Nintendo Switch!

One of the most anticipated worlds coming to Epic Universe is Dark Universe, a tribute to the classic Universal monsters. The pinnacle ride in this world is Monsters Unchained, which brings all those monsters to life with an impressive mix of life-like animatronics and masterful digital screens.

First of all, this ride has the most impressive queue line I’ve ever seen. It perfectly sets up the storyline of the ride, and the entire walk is filled with perfectly creepy details and fantastic lighting and laser effects. The ride car itself is the same claw-style car that is used in Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey over at Islands of Adventure. Take note- if you get motion sickness, there’s a strong possibility this ride might mess with your tum tum a bit. Every person I know who has any level of motion sickness has gotten nausicious on the Harry Potter ride. Monsters Unchained does not use the same kind of movements that make you feel like your flying on a broomstick, but it does incorporate some similar movement and screen combos, so I suggest taking a pill or putting on a patch before you get in line.

Because of its popularity and how often it closes, you’ll need to ride this first if it’s your must-do. The best way to do that is to stay at the Universal Helios Grand Hotel. The new hotel has a dedicated park entrance that places you mere steps away from the Dark Universe portal. You also get Early Park Admission, so you can get into Celestial Park and SUPER NINTENDO WORLD an hour before the public if you’d like, but I would be in line near the portal at least 30 minutes before the park opens.

Walk into the portal, take in all the creepiness, and walk straight back to Monsters Unchained. If you’re one of the first to get there, I also suggest walking through the regular line and not the single rider line. There are things you don’t see in the single rider line that you won’t want to miss!

*Pro Tip: Go back to Dark Universe at night! You can see a lot of the details during the day, but the pure ambiance of this place at night when it’s even darker, there’s more spooky smoke and effects, even more characters walking around and interacting with you and with each other… it’s incredible!

Believe it or not, getting a meet-and-greet with everyone’s favorite Night Fury is the longest line in the park. No matter the weather. Or the time of day. No matter how full or not full the park is. No matter if every other ride is working fine. This line jumps to a two-hour wait right after opening, and stays that way until nearly closing time.

For good reason! Toothless looks so real! You can talk to Hiccup or Astrid (whichever is standing with him at that point in time) about him. You can touch his nose! Kids love him. Teens act like they are too cool but still want to pet him. Even grown adults walk away with tear-filled eyes from the experience! It’s well worth it, and one of the best meet-and-greet experiences I’ve seen. But a two hour wait is draining for anyone, ESPECIALLY in the middle of Central Florida summer.

If you want to meet Toothless without sacrificing your sanity, you MUST do it first. Isle of Berk is close to the front entrance, but be in line at least 45 minutes before park opening. You can wander around Celestial Park and the shops for a bit, but don’t wait long to get in line for rope drop.

Once you enter Isle of Berk, take it in, but try to keep moving. The meet-and-greet line isn’t easy to see, so the ride lines usually fill first. But don’t move too slowly. When you enter you’ll go off to your right, and the meet-and-greet line begins right before the Untrainable Dragon show area. Once people realize what the line is for it explodes, so at least put one person from your group in line while the rest of you grab pictures of the absolutely stunning scenery and decor.

There are LOTS of dragons to see here, and they are so fun to interact with. I spent the most time in Isle of Berk just taking it all in. So be sure to leave plenty of time in this particular world.

*Pro Tip: Don’t skip the Untrainable Dragon show! Not only is a way to escape the heat in a comfortable, cool setting, but if the show is working properly, it has one of the most incredible moments I’ve ever seen in a theme park show! It’s only 20 minutes long, so I strongly suggest taking it in!

There is so much hype surrounding this ride, which has many a review written about it already. The best Universal ride ever, some say. Not ready for opening day, others mumble. I wasn’t able to ride due to it not opening until nearly closing time, then the virtual queue crashing constantly.

If this ride is your must-do, the best advice I can give you is this – pack your patient panties.

It’s still unclear if the ride will use virtual queue when the park opens to the public. If so, there won’t be a single rider option. And we already know you can’t use Express Pass. The virtual queue is said to open three times per day based on when the park opens. You can find those times on a sign outside the ride, and also inside the attraction listing on the Universal Orlando Resort app. The times go in literal seconds, so have the app open well before the drop time is scheduled.

First things first – make sure you have the app on your phone! Second, make sure you’ve uploaded your tickets into the wallet on your app. This is the only way you’ll get into the virtual queue to begin with. Third, make sure you are inside or very near Epic Universe or else you can’t get into the virtual queue.

While it is easy to get into the virtual queue, from there it’s a total crap shoot. You must change the number of people in your party if you have more than one, which is the default. Then you hope that ride time potentials populate. Most of the time, they don’t. But don’t give up! Keep changing the number of guests in your party back and forth until ride times appear. For example, when I was there I had two people in my party. So I would toggle back and forth between one guest and two guests until ride times appeared.

Once you see a ride time, you click it. More than likely you’ll get a message that says it’s no longer available, so you back out and try to select a new time. JUST KEEP TRYING! Just because a time says it’s unavailable doesn’t mean it really is, so keep clicking until they all disappear. If you are one of the chosen muggles deemed worthy enough, you’ll see a QR code confirmation pop up that says your ride time is reserved. It’s a 30 minute window, and you CANNOT be late for it or you lose your spot. You also have to have the exact number of people on the reservation. So don’t think you can reserve for one and bring two or three. They won’t let you in.

Now there are a LOT of theories on how to get the virtual queue to work… There’s the “click-clack” method. Putting in a group of seven then finding people to ride with you. Using data instead of the Universal Wi-Fi. But in my experience, this is a system that you have very little control over. So it does require patience and a don’t-give-up attitude. Which is tough to maintain after a while…

The other unpredictable thing is that nearly every day there are random virtual queue drop times that open up. I follow the thrill-data website, which tracks ride wait times, virtual queue drop times, park capacity and more. This website shows each day what time virtual queue times drop, and there are a LOT that are unscheduled. They show up at random times throughout the day, more so in the later evenings once the ride is caught up and there are more chances to ride before park closing.

The best strategy if this is a can’t-miss for you is to have the attraction page open on your app all day and watch for the virtual queue to open up. And when I say all day, I mean quite literally All. Day. Long. Wait for the virtual queue to turn blue (which means it’s open), click on it, and try for a spot. Yes, it will drain your battery. It will make it difficult to take pictures in the park. Yes, it will probably annoy your family and friends. But this gives you the best chance of catching a random drop time and thus, being the hero to your group and the envy of everyone else in the park. Plus me.

*Pro Tip: Even if you don’t secure a return time for the ride, you can still experience entering through the Metrofloo! Just tell the worker at the outside entrance that you want to take pictures or video, and they’ll let your group in. You can go through the Metrofloo, which is only the coolest entry ever, and see the lobby of the Ministry of Magic. Believe we when I tell you, it will change your life!

During the last week of previews, the ride switched to using a standard queue line. I keep monitoring the wait time, and it continues to hover around the three hour mark. Keep in mind, that’s at a limited capacity. When the park actually opens to the public at full capacity, a six to eight hour wait time shouldn’t be a surprise. (Again, remember back to Hagrid’s opening week when the queue line averaged eight to 10 hours each day!)

If the standard queue is used, there will be a possibility of the single rider line being open. Always check that first if you’re willing to split up your party. It won’t be used all day since once it gets full they close the single rider lane. But it is worth checking. This ride will not accept Express Pass.

Simply put, you’re going to have to wait in some sort of line if this is your must-do attraction. So if the standard queue is in use, you MUST go to this ride first. To do that, I strongly suggest staying at the Universal Helios Grand Hotel, which has a private entrance right next to the Wizarding World. First, you’ll get into the park early to grab a coffee and snap a few photos of Celestial Park. More importantly, though, you can get in line to get into the Wizarding World before the general public has access to the park. And you’ll need to…

You’ll want to be in line outside of the portal at least 45 minutes before the park opens to the public. There’s just no way around it. Get in line early, and when the portal opens, go directly to the ride. You’ll want to “ooh” and “aah” and take pictures, but fight the urge! Go straight to the back of the Wizarding World, get into the Metrofloo and get in line. That’s the only way to prevent that sick, anxious feeling when you see this:

What are you most excited to experience at Epic Universe? Be sure to comment below what you can’t wait to try, and any other strategy ideas you have!

When you’re ready to put together YOUR perfect strategy for Epic Universe, email me here! We’ll make it the best adventure you’ve had yet!

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