And more hot, humid, and probably rainy weather. The overcast was nice, and the rain held off until evening, and then cleared out pretty quickly. The forecast calls for pretty much the same today.
Epic Universal is a new park. It’s only been open to the public for about a week, with soft open for friends and family before that. There are a lot of “tweaks” being made, as you’d expect. There are a lot of unfinished things too. Masking tape still in place, missing electrical covers, building supplies or trash out where they can be seen… The funniest was the rain water dripping out of ceiling mounted smoke detectors in the Carousel attraction. There must be a big leak in that roof, and probably more than one based on the number of places there were drips.
There were a lot of broken things too. 10% of the Carousel was tagged out. I suspect the lap belt system is at fault, based on what I saw them trying to fix. Mandatory lap belts for a carousel, even for adults! Several places already had significant wear, or intentional damage. There were a lot of props and stage dressings that were too close to audience or guests. That stuff will vanish quickly. Sound levels throughout the park were off, mainly too loud, but still unintelligible.
On the other hand, the level of design and detailing was very high. I was using google translate on the signs and waybills in the France area, and they all translated and most were funny as well as being ‘in world’.
I wouldn’t recommend Epic at this time. Let them work out operational issues and do the shake down cruise fixes. Let them figure out how to get wait times down. Nothing there is worth the waits that we saw yesterday.
Today we’re on another Universal property, although I’m not sure what and when. Should be fun if the waits aren’t as bad as Epic. If it rains, all bets are off, as all the outdoor rides shut down. Then the indoor ride wait times skyrocket. It’s always something.
Flexibility and patience will be key- as they are with prepping. Stack stuff, work on flexibility and patience.
nick