Epic

The brand new theme park from Universal. It was started just 5 years ago (?) and finished this year on 22nd May. To say this build has been watched via the internet with great trepidation and excitement would be an understatement. Every update has promised something spectacular. We were truly exited especially when we had booked for Florida and would be there when this park would be open, fresh and new. Yes, we were fully aware that the queue times would be horrific and with just one bite of the cherry to experience the park we did our research quite well. When I say one bite of the cherry, unlike every other park when you get multiple entry days, with Epic you get just one chance.

Epic is built around `lands` of which there are 5. Harry Potter. How to Train Your Dragon. Nintendo. Dark Universe. Celestial.

I will start by saying that the whole park was a challenge. Not overly big but with a huge amount of detail, much of which I have to say went way over our heads. Never been a Nintendo fan myself, I have heard of Mario, but I couldn`t tell you what the characters were. So mushroom heads etc went way over my head. Dark Universe. Frankenstein? personally I feel this is such a dated character. The theming is excellent if you like black and dark, How to Train your Dragon. We found our best rides here, but again without knowing the films it was a nice area with little to no understanding of what we were actually seeing. Celestial Park, how this can be described as an `area` is beyond me, as it consists of a Carousel and not a great deal else. Harry Potter Ministry of Magic. This was the area I was most looking forward to seeing, the ride (more about that later was utterly amazing) but the area?? What exactly does Parisian decor have to do with Harry Potter? Beautiful granted, but anti climatic? very. All aspects of the park are without doubt stunning and superb, but very odd in some places. Take the Nintendo area, we could quite easily have missed our best ride of the day simply because we didn`t see it. It was only by chance that by wanting to walk a different route we came across it. Naturally if I had glued my eyes to my phone app and wandered about everywhere phone in hand, I may have found it, but I do not spend my life nose glued to a phone.

Writing my blog a few weeks after our return from Epic, I am actually struggling to recall anything particularly wow about Epic. 3 hour queues, broken down rides, excessive crowds, poor options for eating and drinking without some horrific wait times all served to dampen the experience. Take the Harry Potter. We ran to that knowing it had the worst wait times, and got on within an hour. I wont regale you with the queue details, except to say that it is jaw dropping and worth the wait. I found the ride once we actually got there a bit odd, bit too much VR for me, but the visuals are undeniably second to none. The M.O.M is simply stunning, but then you emerge from this unbelievably amazing set, to Paris. And it gave me the exact same feeling you get when you leave Disney (Universal) and hit reality. Paris?? really?? Not even as though the shops had anything interesting about them, lest of all anything truly magically Harry Potterish. The show offered started with great promise, but even that rapidly lost our interest. Dark Universe, no idea. I remember it being black, with yet more rides that were consistently `down`. How to Train Your Dragon, another 3 hour queue, due to multiple down times, you wait, shuffle, ride breaks, you sit. rinse and repeat. Yes, the actual ride was one of the best, but could we ride it a second time? Nope, why? Broken down of course! Donkey Kong, another 2 hour wait, awesome ride, great effects, but little B riding in the back of the mine cart was completely unaware of any of the track `defects` the bits where you think the track is missing or broken but isn`t, gives you a huge amount of laughs and makes the whole ride fun. She missed all that due to the poor design of the cart. Little B had no idea that the track itself was part of the ride. Could we ride it again? Nope, 3 guesses why! Star Dust Racers. Two winding, twisting, super fast racing rollercoasters that are just plain crazy. the ride itself was as the park name suggests `epic`, but both bunnies were groaning just wishing it would end. I may have given the second track a go at the very end of the day when my headache had subsided, because with the `one bite of the cherry` ticket what other chance would I get? but hey guess why we didn`t........ Incidentally we could only choose one of the two racing rollercoasters at the start of the day as, yes, you have guessed, the second was `down` Tragedy would strike this particular ride just a couple of weeks after our return when a guest with mobility problems rode this lap belt only ride and would pay for the rides crazy speeds and turns with his life. My sincerest and deepest heartfelt condolences go out to the family of this young gentleman. I truly hope, with hand on heart, that your desire to ride that day allowed you to soar with the angels .

We watched the How to Train Your Dragon show, for something so well advertised and hyped, we were looking forward to this. Of course when the show starts with `Toothless will not be appearing due to technical difficulties` the feeling of here we go again somewhat overshadowed our experience and opinion. Epic, your park has been open barely 3 months, and your down time is just appalling.

Eating and drinking. Where? when all you want is a quick drink, having to walk quite some distances to find anywhere that just sold drinks without a queue was crazy. We were there in the high heat of August, the crowds, expected, were phenomenal, yet they couldn`t cater for anyone just wanting a drink? We tried to eat at the Nintendo cafe, I forget the name, we waited 20 minutes outdoors, no shade (a frequent recurring them for all online complaints about Epic) to then enter the building...and join yet another queue, this time for a further 40 minutes!! No thanks. We walked away hot, cross and disgruntled. With yet another long wait elsewhere we did eventually have a fairly decent meal at the isle of Berk area.

Epic is and could be awesome. But until they iron out all the downtime, have rides that work consistently, provide shade seating, quick service drink stands, and simply accept that they have to make extra, even if only temporary, arrangements for the extra guests there simply because its new, I for one will be staying away.