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Universal’s Epic Universe
Orlando, FL
NBC Universal / Comcast
New Park Opened 2025
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ----
(10/10/2026) Stardust Racers Under Fire From New Lawsuit
(9/13/2026) Dark Universe Construction Update
(8/29/2026) Clearing Begins Behind Dark Universe
(7/25/2026) New Building Construction Update
(7/21/2026) Epic Universe To Close Untrainable Dragon Show For Brief Refurbishment This Fall
Ride Rehabs - These dates are not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as refurbishments are subject to change.
Fyre Drill - Jan. 25, 2027 through Feb. 4, 2027
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 - (10/10/2026) Here we go again… with the media focus over lawsuits and claims of guest injuries coming to a close with the confirmed closure of X2 on the west coast at Six Flags Magic Mountain, we now have a report about a new guest lawsuit against Universal Orlando over the Stardust Racers roller coaster at Epic Universe.
In this case a mother from Georgia is saying that his 9-year old son was hurt during a ride on Stardust Racers and that Universal and Mack Rides have not added or improved the safety features of the ride following the well reported death of a rider (Rodriguez Zavala) last year. Her son rode Stardust almost one year ago on Oct. 13th, 2025 and the suit claims he lost consciousness and then was thrown forward and back in his seat, causing injuries to face, neck, head and spine. If this sounds familiar, this is essentially what had happened with Zavala, but in that case Zavala had been suffering from a spinal condition from birth that confined him to a wheelchair along with an assortment of other injuries and medical issues to the point that he really should not have been riding the coaster at all.
This new case features an on-ride photo they obtained of the 9-year old passed out in his seat mid-ride, and claims that the ride’s current restraint isn’t enough to prevent injury if a rider loses consciousness. They are seeing over $75,000 in damages to pay for the child’s past and current ongoing medical treatment, along with suffering for “disability, disfigurement … loss of capacity for the enjoyment of life in the past and future … and loss of the ability to earn money in the future.”
In response to the mother’s lawsuit, Universal has taken a rather strong stance in this case, claiming instead that it is the mother who is “negligent in failing to use reasonable care for her son’s safety ”, responding in court that she had knowingly and voluntarily assumed the risks associated with her son riding a thrill ride, ignoring the various and freshly updated warnings and instructions for riders seeking to ride the Stardust Racers attraction. Details were also not released publicly, but Universal’s defense team is also claiming that these injuries were caused in whole or in part by pre-existing or unrelated medical conditions.
I’m not a doctor of course, but according to Google passing out on a roller coaster or other thrill ride “is generally not considered normal”. That said, I know we’ve all seen various viral videos online showing off riders going through a series of passing out on a ride like a coaster or a sling-shot, only to wake up mid-ride screaming only to pass-out again. According to searches, these kind of episodes can be triggered by various physical and medical conditions (dehydration, heat stress, low blood sugar, and fatigue) as well as issues where fear or intense levels of excitement can trigger a sudden drop of blood pressure, along with the increased G-forces, which can push blood away from the brain and into the lower body, causing a temporary lack of oxygen to the brain causing a temporary “grey-out” or “G-LOC”. Those known to suffer from such issues however probably also know that they should likely avoid pushing themselves on intense thrill rides going forward… hence the well known warning signs you see at the entrance of every major thrill ride. I believe the sign below is the current one guests see at Stardust Racers.
(7/25/2026) The new “multi-purpose” building going up at Epic Universe between the park entrance and show building for MarioKart can be seen in the latest aerial video from Bioreconstruct.
2027?? - New Celestial Park Restaurant - Confirmed / On Hold - (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.
 2027-2029 - Phase 2 Attractions / Expansion - Rumor - (9/13/2026) A great aerial video from Bioreconstruct shows off the ongoing clearing of the site at Dark Universe behind Monsters Unchained for what is expected to be the land’s next new attraction.
(8/29/2026) Clearing of some trees by the Monsters Unchained outdoor rear overflow queue is now said to have started on the expansion plot in Dark Universe for an expected new attraction that will fit behind and to the left of the Monsters Unchained building and going towards the Burning Blade Tavern building structure.
(6/17/2026) New work permit paperwork has been filed from Universal Orlando to create something quite large at Epic Universe. According to the few details that are mentioned, this is linked to that last filing that placing this project inside Dark Universe and now mentions the creation of a 71,000 sqft building, which would be perfect for a medium sized dark ride experience. For comparison's sake, the Monsters Unchained structure that houses the attraction and queue is over 100,000 sqft.
(5/26/2026) According to new permits discovered and posted online refer to an Area 680 and the creation of a future Building 1570. According to previous plan images leaked since the park was developed, all of the buildings within Dark Universe were given 1500-series numbers, with Monsters Unchained being Building 1501. I believe the numbers began from the order they were created with the Dark Universe Portal actually being 1500, Monsters Unchained, being the anchor attraction gets 1501, Burning Blade Tavern is 1540 and Werewolf having been the last attraction added to the land after everything else was already designed taking #1560. So with that in mind, it makes sense for the next attraction to be given the #1570.
(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.
???? - Wizarding World Expansion / New Attraction - (12/22/2025) An new aerial clip shot over Epic Universe shows off the current look of the empty expansion pad behind The Wizarding World portal.
(11/9/2025) Behind the Thrills has posted some leaked permit plans that show Universal may be prepping to finish off the expansion of the Parisian version of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter inside Epic Universe. The currently empty plot had a couple of other previous attraction plans at one time or another that were scrapped for the final build out. This includes the pre-COVID plans to build a VR Broomstick ride based attraction, which was at one point temporarily fast-tracked to be moved to Universal Studios Florida and replace the former Fear Factor stadium. As the project developed, it seems Universal Creative felt that the VR based experience just wasn’t up to their quality standards, especially as it might be compared to another VR Broomstick riding attraction that was built at the Harry Potter: New York themed retail store, only to close down within the first year due to poor guest response.
Later on, I was told that the site was being looked at to possible build a highly themed dining experience… one that might even attempt to re-create the look of dining inside the great hall at Hogwarts. How that would fit into the Paris themed version of the Wizarding World established in Epic Universe is anyone’s guess in order to transport guests to Hogwarts for Dinner, but then again, they did create the whole Floo Network gag for the queue to allow guests to find themselves back in England for the Battle at the Ministry attraction. So with that in mind, you never know what they might have been thinking.
So with all that in mind, Behind the Thrills says they have a new permit showing a 150,000 sqft addition that will fill up that same empty plot. For a quick size comparison, your average Costco warehouse store is said to be 146,000 sqft, though they do have others that are even larger. But this gives you a good idea of the size building we are talking about that could easily hold another large attraction, or two medium sized ones.
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