Okay . . . yesterday I went to Universal's new theme park in Orlando, Epic Universe.
I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm gonna go land by land to share what I thought about my experience.
Celestial Park
In the advertising, this area is supposed to put the "park" back in "theme park," and it really shows. There's huge fountains, beautiful landscapes, nice patches of grass to sit on, and renaissance-styled statues. The main coaster in the park, Stardust Racers, was a really fun dueling coaster! I also had lunch at the Oak and Star Tavern, which specializes in barbeque foods, and dinner at the Blue Dragon, the pan-Asian restaurant. Both were really good!
Super Nintendo World
I bought myself the power-up band (specifically the Donkey Kong one) that allows you to play minigames featured throughout the land. Those were a lot of fun! It felt like I was playing minigames from Mario Party in real life! The Mario Kart ride was fun too. The Yoshi Adventure ride was one of the few things that my mom could do with me (she hates drops on rides and overly thrilling stuff). I couldn't do the Donkey Kong roller coaster, but I'm sure that I will when I come back.
How to Train Your Dragon Isle of Berk
I couldn't do the roller coaster because it was down for a little bit. I didn't want to do the Fyre Drill boat ride because I didn't want to get soaked, and the Dragon Racers Rally flat ride didn't interest me much at the time. The stage show wasn't really my priority either. However, I waited an hour to meet Toothless, and IT WAS WORTH IT!!!!!!!!!
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter - Ministry of Magic
This land took what worked with Diagon Alley and really turned it up. You enter through Wizarding Paris from the Fantastic Beasts films. To get to the main ride, Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry, you enter the British Ministry of Magic through the floo powder network to get to the ride. Umbridge is on trial for her crimes, but the Death Eaters break her out so she can try to steal a broken time turner. The effects and animatronics were PHENOMENAL, and when it all came together it was ASTOUNDING!!!!! And funny story: this was the first ride I did that day, and it broke down in the middle of the ride. They had us ride through with the effects off, and when we got off, they let us get on again right away and start the whole thing over from scratch!
Dark Universe
MY FAVORITE PART, HANDS DOWN!!!!! The village of Darkmoor is very reminiscent of the setting from Universal's original Frankenstein movie. The main ride, Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment, was SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!! I ended up riding it twice! The Curse of the Werewolf roller coaster wasn't my favorite, but it was fun despite being a little too short. This land also has my favorite characters to interact with. Frankenstein's Monster and the Bride were fun to talk to. The Invisible Man is allowed to be rude, and that makes him so much fun to interact with. Ygor was my favorite character to interact with overall. He's just so morbid and funny! I like to lean into the bit when I interact with characters in parks because I like character improv comedy, so I told him that I blacked out on the Monsters Ride and woke up with stitches, suspecting that my kidney and spleen had swapped places. He then got a big silly grin on his face. I asked him, "Was that you? Did you knock me out?" He just said, ". . . Maybe." Hilarious!
