Hope all is well with everyone. Today, I would like to share my thoughts on something Epic coming up in Orlando, Florida. I’m sure you have heard about a new Universal theme park opening next year called “Epic Universe”. First announced in 2019, this park will open its gates sometime in 2025 and immerse guests into the worlds of Nintendo, How to Train Your Dragon, Classic Monsters, and (for a third time in Orlando) Harry Potter. In addition to these lands, Epic Universe will have a Celestial Park center area of the park full of trees, fountains, Space-themed attractions, and some good-looking eateries. Everything about this park looks incredible (epic even) and I am excited to go to it once it opens. When it officially opens to everyone, I think that the theme park landscape in Orlando will change forever in Universal’s favor. Now I have a couple of reasons why I think that this will be the case. Let’s dive into them right now.
The first reason why I think that the theme park landscape will change in Universal’s favor after Epic Universe opens is because Universal did not make the same mistake that they did when Islands of Adventure opened in 1999. Back then, Universal made the decision to market the whole resort property as “Universal Studios Escape”. This confused a lot of people, leading to Islands of Adventure welcoming a bit under 4 million visitors in its first year. Had they advertised it as “Universal Orlando Resort” with the fact that Islands of Adventure was a new theme park and not an additional part of the original Studios park, then more people would have showed up in IOA’s first year. They did fix that in 2000, so at least there was that. Fast forward to 2019, and Universal learned from their past mistake by advertising Epic Universe as an entirely new park, which is located south of their current property. Thanks to this, people aren’t confused about what this park is supposed to be. They will be excited to experience Epic Universe in addition to still going to the existing two Universal theme parks (Studios and IOA) and water park (Volcano Bay).
My next reason for my opinion is because once Epic Universe opens, people from around the world will start focusing the majority of their Orlando vacation on the Universal parks. Like I said earlier, Epic Universe will be located south of the current Universal Orlando campus. However, they planned for this by making sure that there are dedicated bus lanes that will transport guests from the existing campus to the new park, and vice versa. In addition to this, there will be new hotels that will be completed in 2025: Stella Nova, Terra Luna, and The Helios Grand Hotel (which is located inside of Epic Universe). These hotels will also have bus service to Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, and Citywalk. Even for the people that are staying at the hotels near the current parks, they will be able to take a bus to Epic Universe and back to their hotel. My point for this reason is that it will be super convenient for guests to focus their trips on the Universal parks, especially if they are staying on property. With the different hotel price tiers available for anyone’s budget, there should be little to no problem for everyone to do this.
My final reason for why I think that the theme park landscape will change forever in Universal’s favor is because once people will want to come back to Universal after experiencing Epic Universe for the first time. The new park is full of immersive experiences that can take more than one day to take in, depending on how much time they want to spend in a particular area of the park. It might be necessary for people to spend at least two days in Epic Universe to take it all in, from the rides to the immersive environments in each land of the park. Those people would then want to spend some time at the existing parks (Studios, IOA, and Volcano Bay) and experience the rides and attractions at these parks. And like I said before, it will be convenient to do so thanks to the dedicated bus lanes that take you to the existing property and vice versa. After they are done with their trip and go back home, they’ll plan their next trip to Universal as soon as they are able to afford it. More and more, people will vote with their wallets and choose to go to Universal Orlando more than anything else Central Florida has to offer (if they haven’t done that already).
In conclusion, I think that Universal will be the top player in the theme park industry once Epic Universe opens in 2025. To summarize my reasoning for this, people will not be confused about what the park is, it will be super convenient to go from the new park to the existing Universal Orlando property (especially if you’re staying on site), and everyone will be wanting to go to Universal again and again to have more Epic experiences, as long as they can afford to do so. I definitely have a feeling that everyone who will pay to experience all that Universal has to offer will not regret a single thing, provided that they do their research and plan their trip ahead of time. I am excited for the future of Universal Orlando Resort. The people at Universal Creative should be applauded for making Epic Universe possible. I have no doubt that next year will be the start of a “Universal Decade”, which will include more new stuff for everyone to experience and give people an incentive to enjoy Universal for years to come. Have a Epic Day, everyone.
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