Universal Orlando’s new Epic Universe theme park is opening even sooner than most people, myself included, were guessing. Getting tickets to Epic Universe right now requires jumping through some hoops, but If you want to be among the first to visit the park, you still can. However, if you want to experience other new elements of the resort, you’re going to need to wait a bit longer.
Everything we know about Epic Universe indicates the park is going to be something truly revolutionary. Tickets to Epic Universe for when the park opens in May 2025 can currently only be purchased as part of multi-day ticket packages, with only one day at Epic Universe per package available. However, if you’re interested in staying at the Grand Helios Resort, the hotel attached to Epic Universe, you’re out of luck for about the first month.
The Grand Helios Resort Is Booked Out For Weeks After Epic Universe Opens
Alongside the Epic Universe theme park, Universal Orlando Resort will open a new flagship hotel, the Grand Helios Resort, which is attached to the park with a dedicated entrance to the park for hotel guests. Reservations for the hotel went on sale alongside the Epic Universe ticket packages. The hotel has filled up quickly. As of this writing, the first night that is currently available to book is June 14, 2024, about three and a half weeks after the theme park opens.
As a big fan of theme park resort hotels, this is the news that has me bummed out because honestly, I’m just as excited to experience the Grand Helios as I am to visit Epic Universe. Theme park resorts are a lot of fun, and Universal hotels are as good or better than Disney in many ways. And with this hotel being attached to Epic Universe it promises to have some views that are unlike what’s available at most theme park hotels.
More Grand Helios Rooms Might Be Available Later
While you can’t book rooms at Grand Helios for almost the first month of Epic Universe being open right now, not every room in the hotel may be actually sold out. It’s a strange situation, as the first day that you can book right now seems to have availability for every single room type, but all nights before it have nothing at all.
One wouldn’t normally expect such a stark difference in availability, so the reason you currently can't make a reservation before mid-June may be that rooms are actually being held back. Single day tickets to Epic Universe are not available for the general public yet, but that will certainly happen at some point between now and opening day. I’m wondering if we might see some Grand Helios rooms released alongside those tickets.
Whatever happens, it seems already clear that there’s a lot of excitement surrounding Epic Universe. When it opens next summer we can be sure a lot of people will be there, even if they can’t all stay at the same hotel.
