Question for those who have gone to Epic: How big does the park feel? Will I get tired backtracking through lands? Or should I try to tour each land sequentially and avoid crisscrossing the park?
I have EP so I’m trying to figure out the smartest way to approach this.
It feels very small. Like each portal is like an Epcot country. (Maybe a little bigger.) But we went back and forth to multiple portals especially at the end of a long day and it never really felt far. It was refreshing to just exit one and be basically at the entrance of another.
It is really easy and relatively quick to walk between portals. I think it definitely helps that you can walk across Celestial Park (rather than around in a circle) to get to other portals.
It will not feel like walking from Galaxy’s Edge to Fantasmic or anything like that.
Agree with the others. Very small park.
This got me thinking – I compared to Epcot, and the entire park is basically the size of Future World if you overlay it. (Google Maps satellite view still has Epic under construction so this overlay is the best I could do.)
This is my draft plan that I finally put together.
60 days out. I will have one-time-per-ride EP each day. Still trying to decide what to do for meals on Wednesday.
People seem to love Mead Hall
Ooh that’s a good idea. Is it like Three Broomsticks type food?
It may be a little more adventurous, but a nice variety. And the setting looks great.
I see FJ on your itinerary
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For the kids, of course! I’ll just check out the queue. ![]()
Thanks for sharing, I’m taking notes - we’ll be there just a couple of weeks after you!
Are you planning on doing the Toothless M&G? My family is not normally into M&Gs, but this one looks particularly cute (and we all like HTTYD) - so since we have Express Pass it seemed like something we could potentially knock out at rope drop?
We are planning to eat at both of the Paris restaurants (Cafe L’Air de la Sirene and Le Gobelet Noir) - they seem to get pretty high marks from people, especially the Cafe. Are you considering these for dining?
Also very curious to hear about the rope drop from Helios v front of the park, I haven’t been able to find many first-hand reports on this. Someone in the UOR chat said this week that the latest RD protocols seem to give Helios guests an advantage for Darkmoor and Paris/HP, but front-of-the-park might have an advantage for Berk and Nintendo World? I am still toying with the idea of a split stay that would include Helios, so a rope drop advantage there may tilt the balance
I’ve also made Bar Helios reservations on Resy to coincide with the fountain show on our last night, but may depend on feedback regarding the current state of the fountains (I gather the large ones are currently being refurbished and the show may be less impressive than before?)
Mammoth Club has a nice vlog from this week about the shorter lines at Epic in the evenings, Molly managed to ride four headliners (Hiccups, Monsters, BatM, and MK) in just over 3hrs, without Express Pass.
Ah that’s helpful! I was thinking maybe you could actually measure distance. Mine Cart Madness is “deep” in Nintendo but otherwise everything else is right there. Berk also feels a little “deeper” but Paris felt really shallow like you are never far from the entrance.
We really liked Mead hall! I know I got roasted vegetables which are hard to come by in a theme park!
First, don’t say I didn’t warn you that Yoshi isn’t worth the effort to climb the stairs to get to the loading platform. It’s literally uncomfortable.
Second, you will get drenched on Fyre drill. Especially if your kids have any sort of aim. I wouldn’t do the heavily air conditioned show immediately afterwards
But definitely don’t miss the show! Maybe just flip flop the order.
The comparison with Future World is apt as far as scale goes. But to me the layout of the FW lands seems more random and the paths more meandering, so walking feels less direct and efficient there.
The entrance to Darkmoor is very close to Helios so I definitely agree that the Helios entrance gives an advantage to the two portals that are at the back of the park, and it’s definitely a longer walk to get to the other portals at the front of the park. When we stayed there last August, we were at the front of the rope drop line from Helios and walked fast, but the front entrance crowd did beat us in getting to the Nintendo portal entrance.
I haven’t done it, but a vlogger I like lamented how bad it was. I watched the entire ride video and it does looks so dull - to be polite.
I do understand doing it once just to have the informed opinion. That’s probably what I’ll be doing someday! ![]()
It’s basically for babies. Like there is a color matching game but it doesn’t allow you to choose the wrong color lol. And babies can’t even ride it!
It genuinely looks awful! I will only be doing it to
it off my list!
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