I was thinking, “I hope someone posts a trip report of one like our upcoming.” Then I realized there likely won’t be one since our tickets start the day after the first possible. Although the British seem to generally able to get long tickets, so maybe one of their trips will be close.
So this is what I’ve done so far:
Bought 4-park Universal tickets for 14 days with free access to Epic. So, I’m thinking of naming this trip “Wallow in Epic” or “Epic Epic”. Open to suggestions.
Got a cheap airBnb. I’d had vague plans of staying at Portofino next visit, since that is the only premier we hadn’t done. But for a two week trip, we need three rooms and two bathrooms for the three of us. We need to be able to go to our own space. Got an apartment 2+ miles away from USF for a tish over $100/day.
Put the 2026 Unofficial Universal book on pre-order. If Epic weren’t so new I’d have bought the 2025.
Eliminated Discovery Cove as a sideline for this trip. Conclusion is that idea was a little nuts.
A sideline to Disney World isn’t of interest to us. I know that makes us weird in this group. It was a nice trip, but I think of being awake and alert at 7am to get genie passes and I’m still a little bitter.
We are driving, we prefer it.
I’ll be gathering sideline ideas. Like isn’t there a pirate dinner? Probably will add Universal’s putt-putt to the list. Will be gathering interesting restaurant ideas too.
I like Epic Epic. Or maybe " My Epic Adventure: Where’s Star Wars Land (or the World Showcase)
After doing this a few times I got pretty bitter. But it’s so much better now. You don’t have to visit WDW just because you’re in the vicinity. If I have a US focused trip I’d probably do side trips to Sea World or a day trip to Busch Gardens. There’s a lot to see in FL. The springs are fantastic also!
I thought of something else I know. We’ll be arriving sometime on the morning of Jan 2nd. But we can’t check-in until 2 pm. So, the plan is to hang out at Epic until then. Not sure what we’ll do. I envision lots of “oooh” and “ahhh” noises. I’ll be watching for reports on what regular entry at Epic is like. For example, it would be nice to buy our freestyle cup while waiting for the official release. (eta: I meant the official release of people that came in for regular entry. I am assuming there will be someplace to buy a day for our existing freestyle cup.)
There is a good chance we’ll be in the parking lot early for regular entry.
Once I get the car packed, I want to leave and we end up at our destination early. One trip we arrived a full day early because I wanted to leave earlier than planned and we skipped the over-night crash hotel.
Adding this here because I can’t find the other thread which was a trip report and it included a photo of the Men’s room in How To Train Your Dragon. This is the Women’s.
I am keeping my eye out for these to be extended into 2026. For 2025, they wouldn’t be interesting since you can’t hop from Epic to the Legacy parks. They are one-use express passes for all three dry parks. For 2026, the entrance tickets are for all parks, and if the express passes are for all three dry parks, then I think we could start at Epic and do all the EP worthy rides, then go to USF to do all the EP worthy rides and then take the train and do the EP worthy rides there. We might not even get through all the EP-worthy rides in a day.
The tickets are only being offered for 2025 now. Picking a random non-peak day to model middle of Jan 2026,
Nov 10, 5-day EP is $431. 3-day is $367. At those prices might as well go for 5-day. The 5-day tickets are for a 8-day window.
On one hand, I am wondering (once again) if I am nuts. We have 14-day tickets. Maybe by the second week (when I’d want to use EP’s) we’d be tired of Universal. On the other hand, our first visit was just to USF and IOA, and we were there for a little over a week and weren’t bored. And now we have Epic to explore! For DW, we had 10-day tickets on a two-week trip, and that was a good length. So, we’ll probably be still gung-ho for rides on the 14th day?
I know us. Once we experience the EP lines, we don’t want to do the non-EP line for the same ride. We are easily spoiled. So that is why I’m thinking the end of the trip.
Our eating will be different this trip. We always had the Dining Pass before. As a TP’er, I’d figured out to maximize the value on that. So, any place that didn’t use the pass, unless we really really wanted to eat there, we didn’t go. I understand why they don’t offer those passes anymore since they lost a ton of money on us.
Last weekend I was watching a Youtube on Universal and they were talking about some food at Epic. Daughter asked if we would be eating there. I said, “We’ll be eating every place within the parks at least once.” She nodded.
I think we still have some of the Mardi Gras food sample passes. When we went with our friends they had to go home early because my friend’s mom died. So they gave us their passes. I believe those are still usable for snacks?
I have been watching SO MANY VIDEOS but from what I can tell, non-EE eligible guests can get through the main gate and queue up for some of the lands. I do think you should be able to buy the cup.
As an on-site guest, I’m not a fan of this, but I think it will be good for the off-site folks!
Thanks for that.
I actively avoided watching the videos until we had a trip on the book. Now I am catching up.
It makes sense to get people through the choke point of ticket scanning before the Running_Of_The_Bulls starts. I just wasn’t sure if there would be a drink place in the holding area. Not a big deal regardless.z
And minor correction. Looks like our previous cups will still work so we’ll just have to add days to them. We have a deep drawer in the kitchen for park cups. Not sure why.
This wasn’t worthy of its own thread, so I thought I’d throw this on mine.
Someone on Youtube mentioned that as locals when they’d bring people to Universal they’d rent a big locker and everyone would share it. Now that the lockers use facial recognition, they can’t do that. He said something like, “But you can use a barcode, so you can scan your ticket and share that” That seemed very inconvenient to be passing your ticket/AP around within the parks. If people wanted to share a locker, they could print off several copies of a barcode and pass that out beforehand. Could even tape the barcode to the other side of their ticket card.
Well, to unlock the locker it would either have to be the same face or the same barcode. So, for people that stay together, it wouldn’t be a problem.
For the free ride lockers, we usually got more than one for our group. During Covid restrictions, when they only allowed one member of a group in the locker area, we liked that. DH, aka Sherpa, would handle the lockers, and he’d have everyone’s AP’s on a lanyard and would use them to get a couple of lockers. We’ll probably stick with that plan since we do stay together.
This happens in my family too. We are planning to bring a large backpack with a change of clothes and shoes and leave it in a large paid locker at the front. But I would like the option for either DH or I to run back to the locker at any time. Is that possible if we get a barcode instead of using facial recognition? If not I guess DH will be the Sherpa literally!
If you guys mostly stick together, then just use a barcode. Whoever is running to the locker can just take whatever it is that has the code.
The youtube guy mentioned that there was another set of paid lockers in a better location in Epic. I don’t remember where that was though.
One thing we used in the past for a barcode is a photopass card. We’d gotten an annual photopass at the black friday sale, so that served double-duty. I bet people could take a screenshot photo of a barcode and use that.
When we first started going to parks I mandated the rule that “We will leave when someone gets cranky. Probably me.” So, DH carries the backpack. It was nice when DD was little and it would be the two of us at the local Six Flags. She’d want to be carried (and keep going). I’d say, “Well, we might as well leave then since I’ll get exhausted and cranky carrying you and then we’ll have to leave anyway.”
Supposedly it says there are lockers at multiple guest services locations but I think I would like to get rid of the bag ASAP before we go to Mario Kart and definitely before we go to Berk. We will have a second smaller bag with water and stuff so hopefully wouldn’t need the big bag until afternoon if it rains.
I generally have this rule but this is a single day do or die Epic day so I am hoping we can turn it around to last 9am-10pm. If we have to do a mid-day break, I can make that happen though.
The freecycle machine will give you water. Although you’ll want your own cup. You have to navigate to the water before putting your random cup/bottle on otherwise it locks up with the wrong cup warning. But, your bag will need cup(s).
I asked AttractionTickets to tell me when they add more dates for multi-day express passes. I mostly expected to be told, “Just keep checking back.” But, no, they took my contact information and said they’d tell me.
Speculation. I wonder if there will be less interest in Epic Express Passes once it switches from day-of entrance tickets?
It makes sense for people to say, “I only have one day at Epic, so I’m buying Express Passes.” But when multi-day tickets include any-day entrance into Epic, people might prefer to add another day.
Do we have any indication of when this will be? I would even be happy with a multi day ticket that includes 2 Epic days instead of the current 1. If I’m buying a 4+ day P2P ticket, it should include more than 1 Epic day, or a way to add a second one at a reasonable rate.
If we have to do a mid-day break, I can make that happen though.