We still don’t know exactly when Universal Orlando Resort’s Epic Universe will open to the public. We know the debut is coming in the summer of 2025, which puts it just about a year away at this point. While Epic Universe has revealed a lot of information about what’s in the park, fans want to know when they might be able to actually experience it, and when some of those details leaked, a lot of people weren’t happy.
Some details have come out regarding travel packages that are being offered to Universal Orlando Resort that include access to Epic Universe. While the most interesting question – when these packages will be valid – is still unknown, what has fans freaking out is that the packages reportedly offer only a single day at the brand new theme park, with multi-day tickets requiring guests to also visit the other two Universal Orlando locations. But people need to calm down.
The First Information On Epic Universe Tickets Has Fans Losing Their Minds
The idea that in order to see Epic Universe guests might need to buy multiple days of tickets, including tickets to other theme parks they might not even want to visit, got the expected reaction from theme park fans on social media – that being an absolute and total freak out of Epic (Universe) proportions. But everybody needs to calm the F down because things are not that dire.
The packages being reported on are specifically being offered to third-party ticket sellers, including travel agents. These are the people that you go to if you are planning a vacation, not simply visiting a theme park. While some vacationers might want to plan a trip to Universal Orlando specifically to visit Epic Universe, most are still going to want to do other things and, of course, Universal wants them to visit the other parks.
Most people on vacation are going to be heading to Universal Orlando for several days. Epic Universe, as much as people are going to want to experience all of it and enjoy every detail, isn’t going to be a place anybody needs to spend a week in just to ride every single ride, and nobody except the obsessives actually worries about riding every single ride.
These are tickets for specific types of people who are planning specific types of trips. The idea that these will be the only tickets available for days, weeks, or months, is completely ridiculous. The fact these are the first tickets we're hearing about means nothing.
Epic Universe Tickets Will Be Available Before The Park Opens
Epic Universe’s exact opening date is unknown, but if it’s less than a year away right now, it’s just barely so. As of this article's publication, you can only buy tickets to visit Universal Orlando through April 2025. It’s going to be at least a couple of months before tickets are available for June, the first month of summer, and if Epic Universe doesn’t open until August, or even early September, which is still the end of summer, it will be two more months on top of that.
Standard tickets will be available for Epic Universe. The idea that you won’t be able to buy a ticket to the new theme park and visit the new theme park is crazy. For locals looking to just spend a day or two in the new park, or vacationers looking to build their own experience, those options will certainly be there, there’s just no reason to release that information to travel agents because nobody is going to buy a one-day single park ticket through a travel agent.
There Will Probably Be Some Restrictions Early On, But That’s To Be Expected
That’s not to say there likely won’t be some unfortunate and annoying restrictions attached to the early months of Epic Universe. Based on what we know, tickets that allow guests to jump between parks likely won’t include Epic Universe. Existing UOR Annual Passes likely won’t include access to Epic Universe, and new passes probably won’t include the new park for some time.
Epic Universe tickets will probably be date-specific. This will likely rear its end as the dreaded “theme park reservations” that Walt Disney World still does for Annual Pass holders and Disneyland still does for everybody. While those parks absolutely shouldn’t be doing that year after a pandemic, Epic Universe is going to want to manage daily crowds as well as possible – at least until it sees what a “normal” crowd looks like in the brand new park.
This will be done strictly to manage crowds and make sure that the people who do buy specific tickets for Epic Universe don’t get crowded out of a good experience. Visiting Epic Universe may require a bit of extra work and extra money on the part of many guests to get in the gate, however, getting in the gate is something Universal Orlando wants people to do, so they’re going to make buying tickets as easy as possible.
It’s Far Too Early To Get Too Excited About Epic Universe
It’s understandable why so many latched on to this ticket information. Theme park fans really want to go to Epic Universe. A new attraction or a new theme park land is something that fans get every once in a while, but it’s far from normal to get entirely new theme parks. Universal’s Islands of Adventure, the last major Orlando theme park to open, turned 25 years old this year. It's been that long.
Major theme park organizations have been focusing on overseas markets, including the Middle East when it comes to new parks. We just don’t get entirely new parks in the U.S. that often, so we’re quite excited.
And Epic Universe looks incredible. All the details we have about the new Dark Universe land and the Celestial Gardens, not to mention How To Train Yor Dragon - Isle of Berk, appears worth getting excited about. The only land that hasn’t been fully unveiled yet is the Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Ministry of Magic, and it should be just as fun as the other Wizarding World lands and attractions.
I can’t promise that the process of getting inside Epic Universe is going to be simple or cheap. But you’re far more likely to have trouble buying tickets because there aren’t any available than you are because individual tickets are not for sale.
