A Truly Epic Experience (My thoughts on Epic Universe!)

    Hey friends, it has been quite a while since I last wrote on here, but now my semester has ended and I'll do my best over the summer to catch up a bit on some topics I'd love to talk about! First of all, about a month ago, I took a trip with my family down to Orlando, and during that time, my brother and I went to Universal's newest park, Epic Universe. It has been a really long time coming, and I was excited for this park when I saw the first trailer when they put it out several years ago, so I hope you'll join me today as I talk a little bit about the day that I had at Epic Universe. 

The Chronos, welcoming us into the world of Epic Universe!

So Many Worlds to Choose From!

    You enter the park through the Chronos, a portal that leads you into Celestial park, the point of convergence between the four main areas that make up this part, but to just introduce it as an entrance does it a bit of a disservice, to be honest. Celestial Park was the one area that I expected very little from, but the whole place is laid out really well, with cool visuals basically anywhere you look, and buildings and landscapes that wouldn't look out of place in a fantasy world, which certainly seems like what they were going for. Within Celestial Park, there are two rides: the Constellation Carousel and Stardust Racers. I didn't go on Stardust Racers, but it looked like a cool ride, a bit more scary than I was looking for, as someone who would not consider himself a big roller coaster guy. The Constellation Carousel was one I didn't really think about, since I sort of assumed that it was just a carousel, but we rode it and I was wrong. That was a ride that wasn't even on my radar upon entering the park that morning, but it was one of the biggest surprises of the day. Genuinely it's a pretty cool experience. Everyone gets on their own animal (or you can have two people on one), and then they're all moving in a different pattern, not simply going up and down around a central point, and it goes much higher than I thought it would. It's a really cool ride, I don't want to hype it too much, because at the end of the day, it is just a carousel, but it's much cooler than any carousel I've ridden before. Celestial Park is beautiful, and usually has a big fountain out in front of the hotel that is also in the park (very cool touch, and I would love to stay there some day, but I'm also sure it's ludicrously expensive since it's actually inside the park), but it was out of commission on the day that we went to visit. The fountains around the carousel were still really cool, but I'll get back to those as I talk about the end of the night. The concept of Celestial Park is also really interesting in a mythological sense, because as soon as you enter the park, you're met with a giant statue of Luna, a goddess of the Moon, and on the opposite side of the park, right in front of the aptly named the Helios Grand hotel, is a statue of Helios, a god of the Sun from Greek Mythology. These gods watch over the park, and it's their blessing that has invited us, as visitors to go into these different worlds. Celestial Park is by far the biggest area out of the five, but mainly just operates as a beautiful park that sits between the realms. Let's step into those worlds now, shall we?
    We, my friends, have dragons! That's what it says on the portal that leads you into the Isle of Berk, the How to Train Your Dragon area of the park, and you feel it from the moment that you step inside. The land itself looks so impressive, with really cool statues guarding the bay, really taking your breath away as the landscape is maybe one of the most impressive in the whole park. It's beautiful, and very alive. You see all of the different contraptions that Hiccup has set up around the land, presumably to keep we, the visitors, safe from any potential attacks, and it's just really cool. I have to imagine any die-hard fans of the series are going to be very happy with this area. I would certainly consider myself a fan of the franchise as a whole, but I haven't seen all of the movies, so I'm not the biggest fan, clearly. There are a few rides in this area, mostly coasters, but one water ride as well. This seemed like the area with the most rides and attractions, with 3 rides, a playground for younger guests, and one show. The show was really the only thing that I can vouch for, because the rides for the most part were a bit too big for me to handle, though I may try them on another trip at some point. The show was called the Untrainable Dragon, and honestly the plot was kind of silly, but the show as a whole was pretty impressive, with some cool dragon puppets and an impressive concept blending the actors with some cool projections being shown behind them. Most impressive I think was the Toothless animatronic or puppet, which Hiccup actually rode on top of over the audience, he then landed on the stage, and took off again. It was a really cool show, and again, fans of the franchise will love it, I'm sure.
    Moving through these areas, next up we have the Harry Potter area, which is themed after the second Fantastic Beasts movie. This movie takes place in Paris, and as such, the area was themed like Paris from the past, and it looks really cool! I have never seen the second Fantastic Beasts movie, so I personally wasn't able to get much out of it, but I did think it was a well constructed area. This area only has one show and one ride, I didn't see either of them, but my brother saw the show and was able to tell me some about it. It sounded interestingly high concept, though maybe not entirely thought out. The show began in a room where everyone was standing, as if listening to an interaction between different people on the street, and in the course of that, you hear that a mysterious briefcase was stolen and they're going to use it to make the circus better or something, and then you go to the circus for what I assume is the main show. He said it's a pretty impressive setup, considering the tent that you enter into is not very big, and is pretty clearly using the backdrop of Paris that has been set up to hide the full theater utilized for this show. I won't give away the full concept here, as I haven't even seen it myself, but my brother said that it was really impressive with some of the special effects used in it, though the plot was pretty confusing and he couldn't really explain what he had just seen, despite the fact that I saw him right after he saw it. As for the ride, Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry (which I think is the only reason that this area is called "Ministries of Magic"), I wasn't able to ride it, but I talked to several families throughout the course of the day and heard that it was really impressive, and if I visit again, I hope to give it a try.
    Continuing on to the next portal counterclockwise, we come to Dark Universe. This is an area inspired by the classic Universal monster movies of the 1930's or so, such as Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf-man, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, etc. There are two rides here, Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment, and Curse of the Werewolf. One of these two is a roller coaster, and one is a motion simulator ride, so guess which one I rode? Monsters Unchained was a really cool ride, though I really wasn't sure what to expect from it. I had seen a ride through of it, but I really wasn't prepared just because of the ride vehicle. This uses what I think is the same ride vehicle from Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey over in Universal Orlando, where you're sitting in seats that are lifted off the ground to give the illusion that you're flying, though in the case of this ride, you're in a seat being controlled by Igor, Dr. Victoria Frankenstein's assistant, as she shows you her impressive new discoveries from the monster world. Due to the power that Frankenstein's Monster can channel, she has created a prison for monsters, including the prize of her collection, Dracula. This lasts for about five seconds, and she's showing Dracula off, but then he escapes and summons his vampire brides who attack Igor, and then you're taken through a whole tour of the different monsters on display, with the car jerking you around like crazy. Be warned, I would say don't have anything in your pockets for this ride, because I had my phone in my pocket and I felt it slide out into the seat after a pretty nasty bump, so I was death gripping it for the rest of the ride, and I would not recommend that experience since you're probably about 15 feet off the ground or so. It was really cool, but even though the ride doesn't go fast, I would call it a high intensity experience. I'm glad that I tried it, and I should be fine to do it again, but I'll be sure to leave my phone with someone else or put it in a locker or something next time. Curse of the Werewolf I didn't try, but it looked like a cool concept for a coaster, the ride vehicles spun in addition to moving like a standard roller coaster track, so I'm not sure exactly how that works, but it seemed to be pretty popular.

The portal to Super Nintendo World, complete with a Warp Pipe!

    Now we come to the crown jewel of my experience at least, Super Nintendo World. I have been so excited about this, ever since the first teaser trailer of the area opening in Japan, I have been wanting to visit Super Nintendo World, and I am so glad that I finally got to experience it. You enter the Portal into this world and are immediately sent through a warp pipe via an escalator which takes you into Princess Peach's castle. It's immediately so amazing, there are pictures on the sides of the room that you emerge into that change into Bob-omb Battlefield and a few other pictures from Super Mario 64 that you would jump into to get to different levels. Once you step outside, however, it's a little overwhelming to take everything in. On top of the hills all around you, you see Goombas, Koopas, Thwomps, Yoshis, coins, and more, all moving around and guarding whatever treasures may be awaiting you in this area inspired by Mt. Beanpole from Super Mario 3D World. Major points of interest that you can see upon exiting Peach's Castle, Bowser's castle is just across the way, which is where the Mario Kart ride is, Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge, and down below, you can see the entrance to Yoshi's Adventure, along with the Toadstool Cafe, the restaurant that they have in this area of the park. There are three attractions in this section of the park, two of them here, and the third in the Donkey Kong Country section, which is Mine-Cart Madness. 
    To start off, Mario Kart is one of the coolest ideas that I've seen in any park. It's a very slow ride, but because of the screens and the Augmented Reality (or AR) goggles that you have on, it feels like there are other racers from the games all around you. The gameplay element is a little confusing at first, for sure, but once you understand the concept of turning and firing shells at opponents, which give you coins as you drive, it all feels really impressive. It was overwhelming, but so cool to go through all the different tracks in that way, with a mixture of AR and with the different wind effects and other things, it's a really unique attraction that I think would be even more enjoyable on subsequent ride throughs. Yoshi's Adventure on the other hand is a very simple ride. You ride on Yoshi to search for three eggs in order to find Captain Toad, you go through one scene where you see Baby Mario riding on Yoshi's back while it plays the music from the beginning of Yoshi's Island, and the ride is over in about 3 or 4 minutes it felt like. It's still a great time, and gives you a chance to look over Super Nintendo World, but if there's a 40 minute wait, I would say that's a bit too long to wait for this one. I loved seeing all the different enemies up close, and especially seeing Captain Toad was a big plus, as well as the baby Yoshis, but there isn't a whole lot going on with this ride that you can't see from the outside. Mine Cart Madness is a roller coaster, and as I've said, I don't typically like those, but I had to do this one since it was Donkey Kong themed. If you know anything about Donkey Kong Country, the series is pretty well known for mine cart levels, where you have to jump over gaps in the track that are missing, or enemies that try to get in your way, and this coaster does its best to emulate that experience. The actual ride vehicle that you're in is being held up by an arm which allows it to "jump" over the gaps, jump to other railings, and even completely fall at one part where the track is taken out from under you. It's a really cool effect and honestly thematically way more interesting than other coasters that I've ridden before. I could talk all day about Super Nintendo World, and honestly, I probably will in the future, but I need to close this post by talking about something extremely important.
    This park is really pretty during the day, they did such a great job with theming all of the different areas, to the point where it almost feels like visiting completely different parks at times. The Harry Potter section really didn't seem out of place in a park like Epcot. It feels like it could potentially be a whole area based on Paris, giving a similar feel to the France Pavilion, and Isle of Berk feels like a massive setpiece that could rival the likes of the World of Pandora over at Disney's Animal Kingdom. I say that the park is pretty during the day, because at night, it's a completely different story. The lands are just incredibly beautiful at night, with Dark Universe being a stand out area, being very appropriately named. Celestial Park uses some pretty amazing lighting features out in the nighttime as well, emphasizing Luna's power over this land, as I brought up earlier. Stardust Racers shines so bright that I thought there was some sort of light show happening over to the side, but got closer and saw that it was the same roller coaster I had seen earlier in the day. My brother and I quickly booked it to as many of the different areas as we could before the park closed at 9 so we could see them all at night, and we hadn't seen anything about a night time show of any kind, but right at 9, there was an announcement from Brie Larson, the voice of Rosalina in the Super Mario Galaxy movie, that the closing celebration would begin in just a few minutes, and begin it did.
    There were no fireworks involved in this show, and the best way that I can describe it is that the park itself was dancing from all of the different energy that had come through that day. There was a sequence for each of the four areas, and while the music was playing for each individual section, only that portal was lit up until they all came together in the end. It was a really cool presentation for there to only be fountains and lights that contributed to it. It should also be said that, again, the big fountain wasn't operational on the day that we went, so the only fountains that worked were around the Carousel, but I was wowed even by this lesser offering. The whole day was pretty fantastic, and I honestly left thinking that Disney needs to start stepping their game up. Universal has the advantage of making an entirely new park in 2025, which is something that Walt Disney World can't do, but there is some stuff there that really blew me away. I love Disney World, I don't want this to be seen as a slight against any Disney park, but I would love to see what the imagineers could do with a brand new park. Epic Universe made my theme park loving self really happy, and I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to go there, as well as Magic Kingdom and Epcot pretty recently.
    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends. It has been a while since I last posted anything here, but I needed to cover some stuff that has been going on recently. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I hope to keep up a fairly good schedule during the summer, and I'd love to talk to you all about my thoughts on so many things releasing soon, as well as things that have released in the recent past. I hope you're all doing well, and I hope you'll keep on dreaming along with me. Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed theme park enthusiast, and I'll talk to you again soon!