Am I missing something? Trying to plan for a trip to Epic Universe next week and projected ride waits are about what I expected except for Mine Cart Madness. It has 120+ minute wait at almost every time of the day - even at 8am. This has to be a mistake, right?
2 Likes
I forgot to list the date I’m planning for. Friday, Feb 13.
1 Like
This is fairly accurate. It definitely has one of the longest, if not the longest wait each day and still goes down a lot during each day. Pack your patience for this one!
It’s a really fun ride and a very slow loader so everyone wants to ride it.
4 Likes
If you are among the first in line you should wait less than this. You’d need to truly rope drop to be ahead of the pack.
3 Likes
It might not be open for early park admission. Yesterday was the beginning of the new procedure, and they are not guaranteeing which rides will be open, only that some rides in all lands except Darkmoor will be open. Yeaterday was rough because of the cold, the only options at the start of early entry were the HP ride and Mario Kart. I assume it will be better when it’s not so cold.
4 Likes
Good point. Also tough to recommend burning morning hours at a ride that is so unreliable. This is why I bought EP for my upcoming trip. 
4 Likes
I went straight to Battle of the Ministry yesterday and that worked out well. I waited in standby (I didn’t have express and single rider was not open yet). Took about 35 minutes and I got to see the queue as previous ride was with express. I had no idea that by the end of the night it would be a walkon but it was. I rode it 3 times yesterday. Same with Hiccups and Mine Cart. It was an excellant day to not have express, but not sure I would risk it on a regular day.
6 Likes
Thanks everyone. I believed this had to be a mistake on the part of TP since absolutely no other ride including the headliners had any wait times over an hour at anytime throughout the day, but maybe not. I guess time will tell.
I did think about it not opening until later in the morning but changing my time didn’t change the two hour wait. Not planning on getting EP since I font have any waits longer than 30 minutes throughout the day. Fingers crossed.
2 Likes
Welcome to the Forum!
I would recommend treating Epic predicted wait times with a bit of caution - since the park hasn’t been open for a whole year yet, there is limited wait time data for predictions. You can read some recent discussion on this issue here and here. Len has provided some useful info on available data in the second thread.
Fingers crossed February ends up with low crowds for you.
2 Likes
I don’t know that this is true. I have been there 5 different days now (over the last month) and the lines are pretty crazy. TP does not have enough info yet to predict. Express will make your life a whole lot easier. Epic is tough without it, unless you get a day like Sunday when it was 30 degrees at open, 45 as a high and back in the 30’s in the evening which kept away many people. It was kind of tough some of the days with express to be honest. We have had long waits with it.
3 Likes
Unfortunately, as everyone mentioned above it’s pretty accurate. We had a lot of unfortunate circumstances that resulted in us having a 112-minute wait in line.
We had planned to do Mario Kart at early entry. It was delayed but Minecart Madness was available, so we did that first instead.
At regular opening we were positioned at the Mario Kart entrance for it to hopefully open. And then waited another 60 minutes past opening (taking in the immediate sights of SNW & playing with some of the coin boxes with the power bands our 2 younger kids had). We gave up and then went to eat at Toadstool Cafe.
As we were finishing up eating about 40 minutes later, we saw that Mario Kart had opened and had a 60-minute posted wait. It went down to a 50 min posted wait as we walked over from the Toadstool Cafe, but I figured we’d have at least 75-90 min wait.
After we’d walked and walked into the depths of the line and been in a stopping point for the line, an announcement came on saying that those just getting line had a 90-minute wait. So I was assuming those just barely starting their walk were going to get that and figured we’d be just under that which was about what I’d figured.
But a couple of things we noticed in the line that made it so long:
- At the merge point (as you get your visor) just before the little pre-show, they kept holding the regular line even when no bodies were in Express was there to fill space in the pre-show holding room. They’d wait until more Express would trickle in and be let right through the merge point. This would go on until they had filled the next room to almost its full capacity, and then they’d let in 2 or 3 parties from regular line. This was a good 30-40 minutes of our wait, just watching this process go on right at the very end of our line. I expect some of that when there’s a skip the line pass, and even more so when there’s been a delay, but we’ve never seen it to that degree, even when a ride has had a delay. It was a very (frustratingly so) effective commercial for Express Pass.
- The TMs loading were having difficulty moving people efficiently to fill up cars to capacity. So it slowed down the throughput.
So pack your patience pants if you don’t get Express Pass and do end up with a day that it has any kind of delay.
The queue is amazing and has so many fun Easter Eggs so were absolutely happy to wait and were good for the point up until the merge point.
3 Likes
TP works on data. And it doesn’t have enough with EPIC yet. The 120 sounds defaulted if it’s always that. We were there on Labor Day. It was pretty much 180+ all day (when it worked) and we never did ride it. But people did say the times hugely exaggerated, especially in the evenings. IGNORE ALL internet crowd calendars and wait time data for EPIC its just guess work or based on IOA/US which are entirely different pattens.
2 Likes
Back again…We had a great time btw. Despite the breakdowns. It was brilliant. I was hugely disappointed with Nintendo - it’s an assault on the senses and very crowded. The rest? Top drawer! Berk is fantastic. You’’ love it.
4 Likes