EPIC UNIVERSE First Look: Complete Passholder Preview Experience w/ TimeStamps!

Here is our Epic Universe Annual Passholder Preview experience complete with timestamps to give you a full understanding of wait times and challenges we had throughout the day. Park hours were 11am - 9pm and we arrived at the park at 9:55am and left at 9:30pm.

My family and I attended the 2nd day of Universal Annual Passholder Previews on Friday, April 18, 2025. We purchased our tickets the day they went on sale on April 8th, however, we surprised our son Rider the day before.

We drove up on Thursday, April 17, 2025 and stayed at the new Universal Terra Luna Resort. I will have a separate video about the resort later, however, if you are looking for an affordable accommodation that is close to Epic Universe, Terra Luna and Stella Nova are literally across the street. However, while Stella Nova does have a walking path to the theme park, Terra Luna does not.

There is a shuttle that will take you to Epic Universe, as well as City Walk. However, the morning of the preview, the line wrapped around the building at 9:15am. After waiting 10 minutes with no bus arriving, we decided to call an Uber. This ended up being a HUGE mistake. We walked out of line when we saw the Uber arriving. However, because the resort is new, the driver must have gotten confused and then left. We cancel and booked another and the same thing happened. It wasn't until the FOURTH try, did the driver actually make it, however, he didn't come to the Ride App Pickup spot and waited at the lobby and we had to run to the lobby before he left. Next time, I will just wait.

We did get an all-day locker at the front of the park with a change of clothes in case we got soaked on Frye Drill. This ended up being a waste because the ride was down most of the day and we never went back to the lockers. The all-day lockers are really out of the way. So only get one if you really think you will use it.

We started our day at SUPER NINTENDO WORLD™ which is the only land open for Early Entry. Stardust Racers was also down, which made the wait times for the Nintendo rides extremely long. Next time, we will use the early entry to enter one of the other lands and get in line for one of those attractions before the park opens.

We entered the day with no expectations. Our goal was to do as much as possible, but with the understanding that things will go down and to just go with the flow. That attitude was much needed this day. The app was rarely accurate with wait times or if an attraction was even open. So there was a lot of walking across the park to a land, only to find the attraction closed or delayed. So we wasted A LOT of time just walking back and forth across the park. We also spent 80 minutes in line for the Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry™ attraction, only for it to go down.

All in all, we had a great day and did almost everything.

The only attractions we did not ride were:

🌟Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment (down most of the day)

🌟Fyre Drill (down most of the day)

🌟Constellation Carousel (ran out of time)

Here is everything we did in order throughout the day:

🌟Yoshi's Adventure™

🌟Dragon Racer's Rally

🌟Hiccup's Wing Gliders

🌟Lunch at The Oak & Star Tavern

🌟Curse of the Werewolf

🌟Mine-Cart Madness™

🌟Lunch at Pizza Moon

🌟Mario Kart™: Bowser’s Challenge

🌟Stardust Racers (Yellow)

🌟Hiccup's Wing Gliders

🌟Toothless (w/Hiccup) Meet & Greet

🌟The Untrainable Dragon Show

🌟Stardust Racers (Green)

🌟Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry™

In addition to this, my son had an absolute blast doing a lot of the Challenges and Interactive Activities at SUPER NINTENDO WORLD™ with his Power-Up Band™.

We are going back at the beginning of June and have 2 days planned for Epic Universe. I am very glad we went to this preview, because 1. it takes a lot of the pressure off that trip & 2. I can now plan better on how to approach all of the attractions.

Watch here on YouTube