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Universal’s Epic Universe
Orlando, FL
NBC Universal / Comcast
Opening 2025
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ----
(8/23/2025) Danny Elfman's Dark Universe Soundtrack Now Available
(8/19/2025) Special About the Making of Epic Universe To Air Wednesday
(8/3/2025) New Construction Happening at Universal Epic Universe
(7/30/2025) Universal's Special About The Making Of Epic Universe To Air Next Month
(7/19/2025) Universal Epic Universe Is Getting Praise For The Food
Ride Rehabs - These dates are not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as refurbishments are subject to change.
Nothing is known to be planned at this time…
 Universal Epic Universe is now open! If you would like more details about how you can book a trip to experience all that Universal Orlando has to offer this year, please feel free to reach out to Kerry Hart at Joyous Adventures who can assist you with all your needs!
Screamscape Reviews UNIVERSAL EPIC UNIVERSE!
(4/10/2025) The Rise of Epic Universe - Part 1
(4/13/2025) The Rise of Epic Universe - Part 2 - Welcome to Celestial Park
(4/17/2025) The Rise of Epic Universe - Part 3 - All These Worlds Lie Before You
 Park News - (8/23/2025) It’s about time… but as you may recall Universal briefly released a vinyl only version of Danny Elfman’s soundtrack for the Dark Universe music recorded for Epic Universe during park previews, and I believe released more of the limited edition vinyl as the park opened. (Or at least that was the plan…)
Of course, personally, I despise the vinyl trend and view it as a senseless money grab. A lot of that has to do with the era I grew up in, the 70’s and 80’s, where vinyl was sold left and right along with cassettes and the dreaded 8-Tracks. Www… ok, those last ones are best forgotten to the history books, but I deeply recall the shame of being a young adult in the late 80s to mid 90’s allowed to drive my Mom’s 1978 Corvette from time to time, but was unable to jam to appropriate music because it only had an 8-Track deck. Oh… the shame…
Ahem… anyway… for those needing a history lesson, this era also featured the birth of the Compact Disc (CD) as the ultimate and finally a true digital music playback system. In the vernacular of the time… it was both Awesome and Da Bomb! And we couldn’t wait as all the music we previously had only available on vinyl was remastered onto CD, and we happily smashed those old scratchy sounding vinyl records to bits every time we got a new CD.
So why the music lesson? While there isn’t a CD of it yet… (come on Universal, I remember playing my Islands of Adventure music CDs forever!) they have released the 16-track Danny Elfman’s Dark Universe soundtrack into the streaming world, where it can now be found on your favorite streaming service (Pandora, Spotify and Apple Music are confirmed).
On a related note, rumor has it Universal may be working on a second soundtrack album of tracks for Celestial Park music to be released sometime in 2026, likely around the 1-year anniversary of the park in May. A bit of a teaser to this upcoming album has already been posted to the same streaming services as a 3-track album under the title “Celestial Park: Sun, Moon, and Stars” if you search for it, which does also feature the daytime on-board music from the Stardust Racers roller coaster!
(8/19/2025) Just a reminder, but the new Inside the Worlds of Universal Epic Universe theme park special will begin airing on August 20 at 9pm EST on NBC, and then be available to stream on Peacock the following day.
(8/3/2025) A ton of new green steel beams and other construction materials have now been staged along the edge of the Epic Universe expansion pad at the backside of the Stardust Racers roller coaster. The general thought is that Universal was preparing to set up a giant green barrier wall along the property line, very similar to the one that sit behind the Hagrid’s coaster in Islands of Adventure that was set up shortly after the park opened, blocking off the view and sound of Dueling Dragons from the outside world.
In this case however, in addition to visually blocking off the property, it is also thought that the wall may be going in as a way to divert any of the foul smells from the Water Reclamation plant located right across the street from there.
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(7/30/2025) Universal has revealed that the anticipated special about the making of the new Epic Universe theme park will now premier first on NBC at 9pm on August 20th, and will be available for streaming on Peacock the following day. The hour-long special, “Inside the Worlds of Epic Universe” will be hosted by Joe Manganiello. “Theme park fans and entertainment lovers of all generations will be given a front-row seat on this epic ride as they step directly inside the stories of the five breathtaking worlds, experiencing unprecedented access to the jaw-dropping rides, state-of-the-art attractions, cutting-edge technology and environmental experiences that bring the park’s next-level storytelling and incredible characters to life in a way no theme park has ever done before.”
Keep your eyes peeled later this year for a second special called “Epic Ride: The Story of Universal Theme Parks” that will air exclusively on Peacock as a 3-part docuseries that “celebrates the history and legacy of Universal Destinations & Experiences. Through unprecedented access, rare archival and intimate interviews with directors, producers, executives and A-list celebrities, the series will explore Universal’s iconic film and theme park history as well as provide an exclusive behind-the-scenes countdown to the opening of its groundbreaking new theme park, Universal Epic Universe.”
(7/19/2025) Screamscape readers may recall in my own review of the Preview Tour I received of Epic Universe, I noted just how good the food was. While this could have just been a one off… or special food for the VIP Preview Tours at the time, everything I had heard following that about food around the park at the other venues was also extremely positive. Like to the point that most of the comments kept focusing on the strange fact that the new ‘theme park food’ at Epic Universe was on the level of what you would get at a nice sit-down restaurant meal outside of a theme park in both terms of quality and consistency.
Now that the park has finally opened to the public it seems that even other non-theme park media has taken notice of the dining options at Epic Universe, as Bon Appetit has now published a deep dive on it, claiming that “Epic Universe takes theme park food to a whole new level.” Clearly Universal Orlando is doing something very right!
(7/5/2025) Your experience may vary of course, but Screamscape has been hearing that the latest improvements to Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry ride at Epic Universe has greatly improved wait times, offering more stability and likely increased capacity. I know when the ride first opened to guests during previews they were very limited in how many cars could run at any one time, causing low capacity issues, which was the primary reason for the long lines (along with break-downs).
I don’t have any exact numbers, but it was noticed that this is a rather dramatic improvement over how it was running last month, so let's hope things hold out.
(5/23/2025) A quick congratulations to the entire Universal team, both Creative (current and past) as well as all the Team Members that succesfully launched the new Epic Universe theme park yesterday. I know it’s cliche to say that they really built something “Epic”, but in this case it couldn’t be more true. Universal Orlando started out with the creation of what may be the ultimate “Studios” themes park in 1990, and then branched out to levels unheard of with the opening of Islands of Adventure in 1999. And now we have portals to all new never-before seen “Worlds” to discover... so “Epic Universe” is the perfect name for this park.
You’re going to be seeing a lot more of it over the summer, I’m sure, but in the meantime, if you want to see a great ground-eye view of the “Epic” nighttime fountain and light show at Universal Epic Universe, our friends at Orlando Experience were on hand to capture the new spectacular.
(5/17/2025) There are tons of fans around the world of the Coca-Cola Freestyle machines, who have been designed to allow for the creation of countless custom drink combinations. However, the Freestyle machines also have the ability to create and dispense custom beverage creations for various companies as needed, either through the custom formulation of existing flavors or via the addition of some new special flavors into the specific machines at a given location. For example I know before the pandemic there was a custom cream soda flavor that existed only at special Fuddruckers restaurants, and you could often find special limited time flavors offered up as a tie-in with specific movie experiences when visiting AMC Theater locations in the past.
As part of this ongoing tradition, would you believe that there are now three new unique beverage flavors now being offered in specific locations only within the new Universal Epic Universe theme park?
According to AllRecipes, the new flavors are: Celestial Spritz, Dragon Splash and Screaming Berry. They say that these specific flavors were created in a collaboration between Coca-Cola and Universal Orlando chefs to be inspired by specific worlds within the park.
As you mind expect, Celestial Spritz can only be found at specific locations within Celestial Park, and is described as Seagram’s ginger-ale with added cherry and orange flavors, plus a secret tart ingredient that has given some orlando-theme park veterans a “Beverly” flash-back… for better or worse.
Dragon Splash is obviously found only within the Isle of Berk and is said to be created as a three-way mixture between Minute Maid Lime, Fanta Lime and Mellow Yellow.
You’ll find Screaming Berry hidden within Dark Universe with a unique flavor that is said to be popular with fan’s of Dr. Pepper Blackberry, made as a unique mixture of Fanta fruit flavors (Cherry, Fruit Punch, Grape) with Vanilla.
All three new flavors come in both full flavor and “Zero Sugar” options.
(4/27/2025) Danny Elfman has made a post on social media showing off the Dark Universe soundtrack vinyl album featuring the music he composed for the world within Universal Epic Universe. A first wave of the album was released during park previews and sold out immediately apparently, but it has been said that Universal has been holding off selling any more of these until the park actually opens.
Now with that out of the way… what do we have to do to get a CD or digital version of this?
(4/6/2025) So where have I been the past couple of days? If you missed my social media posts, Screamscape was invited to a special media advanced preview of Universal Epic Universe. There was too much seen and done to report it all at just yet, because I’ve got a lot of writing to do, but the groups I was in were also the first guests approved to take pictures, videos and report live content from the park and Grand Helios Hotel during our tours.
While we were not allowed to video while riding on the attractions, we did get to see and do almost everything, including being the first riders to experience Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry attraction! Trust me when I say that it is completely mind-blowing and should definitely exceed everyone’s expectations. In fact, that’s a fairly accurate description of virtually every attraction, show, restaurant and world you will visit in this park.
Dark Universe? You are going to love it, so much detail, so much lore built into every nook and dark crevasse… so dark and beautiful, live a living world of monsters. The thing that pains me the most is that we were not able to see Dark Universe come “alive!” after dark. As for Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment, I feel comfortable saying that I think that was the best themed ride I’ve ever experienced… at least it was until we entered the Battle at the Ministry… so now I’ve got a huge “tie” in my head, because I can’t make up my mind about which I liked better.
So in the meantime, to whet your appetite, please make the jump over to the official ScreamscapeNews Instagram channel (and follow/subscribe) to devour the many photos and video reels that I’ve been able to post so far, but there is so much more I haven't posted yet to come. I also made a more focused photo drop of the Isle of Berk on FB as well, which I’ll embed below.
And for everyone who has questions, please do send them in and I’ll do my best to answer all the questions that I can in a future Q&A update post!
(3/14/2025) Universal has launched all new ticket options for advanced sale for the new Epic Universe park, including the long awaited release of 1-day Tickets to Epic Universe both for regular guests as well as special offers for current annual passholders. Right now the cost of an adult ticket starts at $139, but depending on the day you want to visit, those prices can skyrocket as high as $199 per person.
June, July and August are pretty busy, so expect high prices that seem to be in the $174 - $179 range on most days, and your best bet to get a $139 - $149 ticket range looks to be for weekdays in September.
Speaking of Epic Universe, a came across an amazing nighttime drone flyover around the perimeter of the park that shows off just how incredible it all looks after dark. Check it out below and enjoy!
(3/9/2025) Universal has posted a fantastic teaser peek inside the dark Frankenstein mansion at Epic Universe this week (see below) as part of a behind the scenes look at the Universal Creative staff going about their day. In this case, we tag along with Brooke during a day at work within Dark Universe, with a lot of peeks inside the Monsters Unchained attraction.
While we're talking about Dark Universe... would you believe it will be home to one of the park's exclusive new special treats?
If you’ve ever visited Dollywood or Silver Dollar City, then you are already aware of what the fuss about their Cinnamon Bread is all about. Experiencing the warm yummy-gooey taste of Cinnamon Bread at Dollywood during your visit is about as mandatory as getting a mug of Butterbeer to sip on at the Universal parks… it’s just that good.
According to Southern Living, Epic Universe will introduce their very own take on Cinnanmon Bread when the park opens. Deep inside Dark Universe look for De Lacey’s Cottage to find some to-die-for “Warm Hearted Cinnamon Bites”, but topped with a cream cheese icing and cinnamon streusel. I’m not sure what other fun snacks will be offered at the De Lacey’s Cottage, but they do mention a proprietary beer (a spiced brown ale) will be offered here and I’ve seen mention of Pretzel Bites as well.
While each of the portals in Epic Universe are sure to have their own unique treats and beverages to tickle your tastebuds, the article does mention that the Wizarding World here will also feature Butterbeer flavored Crepes!
(2/15/2025) We’ve see far off video footage of a flying dragon animatronic / drone circling over Universal’s new Epic Universe theme park, but now we’ve got a glimpse of another crazy dragon animatronic figure. A local news chopper caught a glimpse of a young Night Light hybrid dragon named Dart (her blue eyes sort of give that away). The Night Lights (offspring of a Night Fury and Light Fury) were introduced in How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.
And yes… this is probably one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen, as Dart appears to be a fully autonomous robot wearing a custom skin to look like Dart, complete with animated facial expressions and the ability to move her tail. Now, chances are that Dart is actually being controlled in part by a human somewhere with a remote control for some of the major body movements and to queue certain posture animations, while having some autonomous programing to control the finer aspects that make her appear to be alive, such as some mouth and eye movements, tail twitches and such.
The one extra thing that caught my eye was how the legs move when she turns around. I think I recognized that robotic gait as featuring the same basic walking movements as the Boston Dynamics Spot (Dog) robot. In fact, about 9 months ago Boston Dynamics posted a video showing off Spot meeting another robot dog (another Spot wearing a fuzzy Dog skin) named Sparkles. The video really showcases how the robotic creation can mimic the more entertainment movement styles of what a human might expect to see from a large animated dog character.
(10/6/2024) Universal Orlando has released some new details about the Epic Universe attractions opening in 2025 on the official park website. This includes the official height requirements for each of the park’s main attractions.
Celestial Park: Stardust Racers (48”), Constellation Carousel (none but under 48’ must be with ‘Supervising Companion, but no hand-held infants)
Wizarding World: Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry (40”)
Super Nintendo World: MarioKart (40”, but under 48” must have a supervising companion), Mine-Cart Madness (36”, but under 48” must have a supervising companion), Yoshi’s Adventure (34”, but under 48” must have a supervising companion).
Isle of Berk: Hiccup’s Wing Gliders (40” but under 48” must have a supervising companion), Dragon Racer’s Rally (48”), Fyre Drill (none but under 48” must have a supervising companion).
Dark Universe: Monsters Unchained (48”), Curse of the Werewolf (40’).
2026 - New Celestial Park Restaurant - Confirmed - (6/15/2025) Universal has confirmed what we kind of already knew… but were asked not to point it out just yet. When taking a preview tour of Universal Epic Universe back in April I was told that I was free to take pictures of and post anything we wanted about the park, except for this one empty building that was being finished up in Celestial Park. If you enter the park and take the right-side path past a series of connected venues and gift-shops you’ll notice a large empty building sitting there on the right side of the path just before you arrive at the
Portal to the Isle of Berk. If you’ve visited, you may have noticed this as well, as the building is quite sizable and yet unmarked by any signage to indicate what it was going to be.
Of course, being Screamscape, I discreetly asked our tour guide for clarification on exactly what I was not supposed to be pointing out, so I don’t… you know… accidentally do it. They obliged and pointed towards the empty venue and quietly whispered, “It’s for another new restaurant, they just haven’t announced what it is going to be yet.”
Well that time is now over as this week Universal has finally put some discrete signage on the closed doors to the venue, “Travelers - Pardon Our Stardust As We Ignite A Galaxy of Flavors and Culinary Delights. Coming 2026”
Now that the cat is out of the bag, I do have to say that I had heard about several concepts planned for the park at least a year before it opened. During the tour, I did recognize the majority of the restaurants there as being all the things I had heard about, checking off those boxes one-by-one. Unfortunately, at the moment, I can’t quite remember exactly all the options I had heard about that were still missing to know for sure what this new restaurant will be.
I mean most of the major dining concepts have already been covered of course with seafood at the Atlantic, fine asian dining at the Blue Dragon, your carnivore cravings at Das Stakehaus, BBQ at the Oak & Star, Pizza at the Pizza Moon, and the oddities you would expect inside Isle of Berk and Super Nintendo World. So what’s missing? At first I was maybe thinking something like a more casual American food (burgers, hot dogs, etc) with a fun space / celestial theme, but then I remember hearing that much of that can already be found over at the Meteor Astropub on the other side of Celestial Park by Stardust Racers.
Stretching my brain, I do seem to recall in the back of my mind something about a possible Italian dining option (other than Pizza) that might be offered. I also believe I had heard something about a possible Mexican dining option as well. Time will tell if they opt to go with either of those concepts, or if they pushed the pause button until 2026 in order to come up with something entirely new.
2026-2028 - Phase 2 Attractions / Expansion - Rumor - (11/11/2023) Not long ago I mentioned that Universal had a couple of irons in the fire early to develop some Phase 2 additions to Epic Universe. At the time we had heard about the Luigi Mansion concept for Super Nintendo World and only that the park’s Wizarding World section was the site of the second project. Now we know a little more about the plan for the Wizarding World addition, and from what I’m told, this may actually be the return of a concept once pitched for the park and then cut.
I’m still a little fuzzy on all the details, but the addition they are looking to bring back to Epic Universe would be to create a “Great Hall” themed dining experience in the park. For those not in the know, The Great Hall was the dining room area within Hogwarts that was shown in many different scenes throughout the film-series that featured four very long tables (one for each Hogwarts “house” I assume) and had all those floating candles in the air.
Beyond this, I’m not sure of much else, but it does seem incredibly strange that while the entire outdoor section of the Wizarding World in Epic Universe will be themed to Paris, the attractions will all need some kind of story element to transport you back to the UK’s corner of the Wizarding World. Be it a trip to Hogwarts to dine in the Great Hall or to the Ministry Of Magic for the trial of Dolores Umbridge, it does make me wonder why they are bothering with the French theming at all.
(10/28/2023) While we still have about 18 months left until Epic Universe is ready to open, would you believe that Universal is already working on the first couple of expansion projects for this mega-park? If you’ve seen the site, you know certain areas are being left undeveloped for future expansion for either new future lands, or to add new attractions to the existing lands.
In this case I’m being told that the first two projects likely to be added to the park will be the later… additional attractions to add better capacity to existing lands where they think the crowds are going to be a little overwhelming. It shouldn’t take you too long to guess which lands will be plussed first.
 Expanding the Wizarding World area will be a priority of course, as the land will really open with just the main main attraction and will be in dire need of additional things for guests to do to keep them in there. This also goes hand-in-hand with the fact that in the original concepts for the land, there was always meant to be a second major attraction of some kind, and in those very early days (pre-COVID) the idea was to create an attraction where guests could ride a flying broomstick through the use of VR-Headgear. This same attraction concept was then going to be fast-tracked and switched over to be built at Universal Studios Florida for a time, taking over the spot of the now closed Fear Factor show venue, next to Diagon Alley as a follow up to 2023’s Villain-Con attraction. This never happened however, and it sounds like this was good news after all, because the early word was that during development management became less and less impressed by what they were seeing was possible. In other words… while the vision seemed like a good idea, the actual realization of what was possible was just falling far short of the vision, so the project was scrapped. I also think that the introduction of a near identical VR broomstick ride experience that was rushed into operation at the Harry Potter New York retail store that opened in 2021 also soured them on the concept. Universal didn’t want to be seen as copying what the retail store had done, and based on the fact that after only running the two VR attractions in New York (Wizards Take Flight and Chaos at Hogwarts) for a short 18-month time span, both VR attractions were then retired for good in New York. What exactly they might add to the Wizarding World in Epic Universe remains to be seen. I’ve heard a few rumblings about various concepts, but with the land itself being themed to the Wizarding World of Paris instead of the UK or USA, we might get something a little more unusual.
Based on the monster crowds Universal has seen swamping the Super Nintendo World lands in Japan and Hollywood, obviously they are now very well aware that they need to be working to add more to the version coming to Florida. While the deal with Nintendo will allow Universal to build attractions based on some of Nintendo’s other IPs like Zelda, Metroid or Pokemon, in this case the idea is to stick to the core Mario Bros. universe world, and I think you might be very happy with the direction Universal Creative is headed. With Mario being the main hero of the Mario-Kart ride, Donkey Kong has a coaster, and there is the cute Yoshi themed family ride, it is only fair that Luigi finally gets to have his own attraction, right? So how would you feel about a ride based on the Luigi’s Mansion game series that sends Mario’s brother on his own epic journey into a dark Haunted House with a flashlight?
 The early description sent to Screamscape sort of sounds like Universal’s Villain-Con and The Secret Life of Pets attraction in Hollywood had a very twisted offspring. Guests would ride in an omni-mover style vehicle system through dark Luigi’s Mansion, but be given a special hand-held flashlight that uses modified Villain-Con blaster tech to bring some ghosts to life when you point at them. I’m not quite sure if your car will feature its own Poltergust ghost-vacuum or if you are just lighting up the ghosts for Luigi to come along with suck them up. To be honest, it’s about time that another park in Orlando had their own haunted “mansion” experience to offer, and I can’t wait to see how this one turns out.
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