First Epic Adventure at Universal’s Epic Universe 

Imagine stepping through a portal into a universe where every path leads to a new world, every corner hides a story, and every detail feels alive. That’s what Universal’s Epic Universe is designed to do. This park truly brings guests beyond reality and into the land. It’s not just a park. You will truly live and breathe adventure. 

We went for the first time on August 28, 2025 and truly had an Epic time. The pictures and videos we’ve seen did not even begin to cover what we experienced when we walked through the portals. We only did 3 of the portals – skipping Celestial Park and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Ministry of Magic due to lack of time. This truly is a multi-day park in my opinion due to the amount of detail.

Let’s break down the portals that we did go through in the order we did them. 

How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk

• This was the first portal we went through. We did rewatch all of the movies before going to the park, so the details were pretty fresh in our mind, and it truly felt like you were transported onto Isle of Berk. They do indeed have dragons! 
• What we did
  • Played at Viking Training Camp
  • Met Toothless (waited 65 min)
  • Snacked on the Mac and cheese cones from Spit Fyre Grill
  • Walked through the stores and had macrons 
  • Went on Fyre Drill (kid friendly) and got SOAKED

Celestial Park

• Celestial Park serves as the entrance to the other themed worlds within Epic Universe. It’s peaceful with the fountains and fairly easy to navigate. 
• Got a quick(ish) snack at Pizza Moon. You do have to be sat at a table before utilizing the Mobile Order. The line for a table did move fairly quickly and sitting inside with the air conditioning was a nice break. 

Super Nintendo World

• There are 2 ways to get into this portal, the one up the escalator and one with an elevator. Both you do go through the Warp Pipe, which is really cool because I wasn’t sure if taking the elevator you would miss out on that. There is a video on my TikTok either both entrances featured. 
• What we did
  • Walked around and looked at the detail
  • Yoshi’s Adventure (34” min, went on twice)
  • Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge (40” min). I do typically get motion sickness and I was fine on this. 
  • Walked over to Donkey Kong Country
  • Got the DK Crush Float with Mug Tropical Banana Flavor from The Bubbly Barrel
  • Bought a Power-Up Band and spent the next 30 minutes playing the mini-games (wish we had gotten this at the very beginning)
• Recommendations
  • Get the Power-Up Band at the kiosk in Celestial Park, it’s 100% worth it. It also works at the Orlando, Hollywood and Japan parks which is cool. You’re competing against other guests when you link it to your universal app! It really does bring you in and make you feel like you’re a part of a video game.  
  • It does get loud here, so if you’re someone who gets overstimulated or has a noise sensitivity, plan to bring headphones to help with that or take breaks. Celestial Park is quieter so stepping back through the portal might help too. 

Dark Universe 

• “Dark Universe” is a shadowy world bringing the Universal Classic Monsters to life with the themed “Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment” ride and the “Curse of the Werewolf” spinning coaster. With the dark clouds rolling in as we entered, it made the experience even more immersive. 
• What we did
  • Walked around and looked at the detail
  • Das Stakehaus, we did end up leaving without eating anything because Miles hadn’t napped that day and was beyond ready to go. But it was a nice place to cool down and was really cool inside. It did take over 30 minutes from when I placed the order to when I finally asked someone what was taking so long. They did refund us for the order. 
  • Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment (48” min, motion simulation) 

Things to note – the weather was a paid actor for sure on our trip. We did end up leaving at the perfect time as it began to downpour, and it wasn’t just a typical late afternoon Florida storm. I wish we tried more of the food as a lot of it looked really good, but we just ran out of time and by the end of our day we were ready to head home. 

Universal does child swap really well. Miles got to go through the queue with us until we were almost at the ride. Him and one of us waited in the “family room” while the other went on the ride. 

Overall, if you have the opportunity to experience Universal’s Epic Universe, do it!