We are coming up to our trip in a couple of weeks. We have two back-to-back days planned at EPIC (a Monday, and a Tuesday). This is a trip with a largish group (ages: 54, 52, 29, 27, 26, 26, 24, 16, 2, and 1).
Anyhow, there have been posts about how the plans created in TP might not be terribly reflective of truth since it hasn’t been even open a year, and now recent changes with them opening up multi-park tickets to include EPIC.
So, my question is: have folks found using TP to plan a day at EPIC to be good enough? Or is it really kind of hit or miss? What would be a most ideal plan (high level), considering we are staying off site and will probably end up showing up to the park closer to noon, and not right at opening. (This is just being realistic with the fact that SOME of our party is not known for actually being “on-time”, complicated further with needing to adjust for having toddlers in the mix.) But we have seen that, in general, wait times seem to be at their lowest toward the end of the day, anyhow. Plus we don’t have early entry, anyhow.
I haven’t been to Epic, but I’ve read trip reports where two or more rides have broken down simultaneously. That, in and of itself lends to the TPs being off.
Another consideration is that UO is changing which EU portals are open for Early Park Admission between now and when you’re going. I realize you won’t be there for EPA, but the changes could and likely will affect when those who are there for EPA do things during the day. I imagine that will make it even harder to accurately forecast wait times at certain times during the day. And that will make the touring plans even less useful.
Is this your guess or your past experience? When I had 1/2 year olds, this is literally the last time I would be showing up anywhere. Showing up at the park just in time for lunch/nap sounds like a nightmare.
Neither. It is the PLAN right now. We are just stating up front that we will eat lunch and THEN head into the park so that we don’t have the stress of it all. But, we also know that the line lengths first thing in the morning are VERY high (unless you have early entry, perhaps), with many rides not opening at park open, so we’re just going with that. (There is the slight possibility that a small subset of us will go earlier, since we have multiple vehicles, but not planning around that.)
Honestly I don’t think it’s a bad idea to arrive in the afternoon if you plan to stay the rest of the day. The morning seems like more of a zoo than the evening. This is all contingent on the sleeping patterns of the children.
Also, I from the reports we’ve had this year so far, I haven’t noticed that pattern changing, even though there are people with hopper tickets (someone correct me if I’m wrong), which was a concern of mine.
This is correct. We actually bought said hopper tickets ourselves, but really not planning to hop. It was just a way to get 2 days at Epic when buying a single 3-day ticket.
Both grandkids have late morning naps, and usually late afternoon. We are hoping they will sleep in the stroller or something in the late afternoon. We shall see!
I think that sounds fine. You guys will probably spend lots of time just gaping open-mouthed at the theming.
If I were going with a group that had a stroller, in Nintendo land I’d skip the escalator/stairs entrance and go in the side entrance that stays on the ground level. When leaving, you can find that exit by looking for the Exit signs.
One thing I appreciated that I’ve never seen mentioned is how handy for navigating the portal entrances are. Since the park and land entries are very tall, you just look around until you find which one you want to use.