The world-famous theme park, Universal Studios, is expected to grow dramatically with a fourth park, Epic Universe. Ten years in the making, this project has faced many construction challenges but the highly anticipated park will make its epic opening sometime in 2025. According to the tourist website Orlando Informer fourth theme park at Universal Orlando has been a bumpy ride: announced in August 2019, put on hold in July 2020, and reactivated in March 2021. Currently, construction is slowly ramping back up to pre-pandemic levels, and its opening date is still set for sometime in 2025.
“These plans were started years and years ago, but we’re kind of down to our last final parts of planning,” Software Development Manager at Universal Studios Chris Crumbaker said.
With these plans completed, officials released the map for the new park and announced the new lands. According to Crumbaker, the different lands are Super Nintendo World, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Ministry of Magic, How to Train Your Drag-
on: Isle of Berk and Dark Universe.
“A big draw is going to be the Super Nintendo World,” Crumbaker said. “They have that in Hollywood right now, and that was a big draw there. This one’s going to be a lot bigger than Hollywood.”
Supposed to be the best ride in Super Nintendo World, Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge is a way for people to be in a real race, like
Mario Kart. Not only is this new park going to have different lands, but also a hotel that will be overlooking the park.
“[The hotel] is going to be amazing,” Vice President of Resort Development for Placemaking Ricardo Galbis said. “It’s kind of the first time, at least in local history, where you will have a hotel directly in the park and the views are spectacular.” The hotel will be something that many theme parks have not seen before. The new lands and hotel will attract lots of crowds, and Universal has
been preparing for this.
“This new park is going to double the size of Universal Orlando,” Crumbaker said. “Currently we have Universal Studios Florida, Islands of Adventure and Volcano Bay. If you take the capacity of those three parks, the new park is going to equal the capacity of Epic Universe. It’s huge, and it’s Universal’s largest park.”
With a new park, crowds will ramp up, but Universal has found a way to ensure the old parks are still visited the same amount as the new park.
“When the new park opens, they’re doing what is called a gated ticket way of selling tickets,” Crumbaker said.“If you want to go to the new park you’re going to have to buy tickets to the old park too.”
This method will maintain the status of the old parks and control the large crowds at Epic Universe. A new technology of face ID will also be introduced to both parks. When you enter the park instead of using your fingerprint, there will be a camera that sees if your face matches your ticket. Creators are hoping the new park will cause more people to stay at hotels and parks longer.
“Their idea with this park is to make Universal the week-long destination,” Crumbaker said.
Instead of people just visiting Islands of Adventure and Universal which usually only takes one to two days, with the new park there is much more to do.
“They’re expecting 200,000 tickets just on the first day of ticket sales for the new park,” Crumbaker said.
With each land taking about a day to go through, the park has many stops. The new park will intrigue many new guests and the changes to Universal are said to be the biggest investments they have ever made and will completely change the experience. With
many new rides that are like no other, the highly anticipated ride Harry Potter and the Battle of Ministry is said to be one of the
darkest rides that bring the magic of Harry Potter alive. With new rides like these, Epic Universe will gain attraction rapidly.
“The park is really going to be spectacular, it’s going to be a park like no other,” Galbis said.
