Harry Potter brought us to Epic Universe, but our family left talking about much more than the Ministry of Magic. Here is what we loved, what surprised us and what to check before planning your own visit.
Watch our original Epic Universe review on YouTube
I wanted to talk to you about Epic Universe at Universal Orlando Resort, even though we live in Europe and it’s a long flight over to Florida. We are so absolutely addicted to Florida. Chris wants to actually buy a house, but … don’t tell anyone! But I don’t think it’s gonna happen anytime soon. Because we really do love living in Europe. In case you didn’t know, we are expats in Europe going on four yearsand we have a whole blog about it too!
However, we still make our way to Florida at least once a year, if not twice. We’re huge Disney fans, but I’m also gonna let you know another little secret, I think we’re actually going to be bigger Universal fans after visiting Epic Universe with our kids!
We have visited every Disney park in the world, I’m a huge Disney fanatic, but Universal had started the game on. I will say at this exact moment I do think they’re doing better than Disney (sorry to all my Disney friends).
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Our family’s Epic Universe review · Full film (16 min 27 sec)
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Our earlier family review combines Leslie’s retrospective narration with some park footage. It reflects our own October visit, not current ticket, access, queue, food or locker rules. Read the current corrections immediately below and check official requirements for your trip. YouTube may show provider branding, ads or related content.
Current corrections to our older film: Epic-only tickets are available, and Epic has five worlds including Celestial Park. The Harry Potter world combines 1920s Paris with the British Ministry attraction. Locker requirements depend on the ride, bag, and locker type; bringing a bag does not automatically mean a paid all-day locker. Check the official ticket, safety, food, and locker links below rather than treating the film’s old planning remarks as current rules.
One of the biggest reasons why we love Universal and why we kept going over all these years is, of course, because of Harry Potter. I didn’t care if I saw anything else in Universal Park as long as I got to see the Harry Potter world!
I almost died the first time I went to Diagon Alley. I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen, and now there’s the new park. When I first saw the new park, I knew we had to go! I almost immediately booked a flight, but I thought, let’s go with all the kids, it’s way more fun with kids.
Obviously, we love to travel with kids, that’s what this entire blog is about, for this reason I don’t mind bringing all the kids. In fact, I think it’s way more fun! We waited for a time we could take all the kids, which happened to be Halloween, and we actually went to the Disney Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. I’m gonna do another blog post about it, but let’s focus on Universal.
We split our time a little bit Disney, a little bit Universal and guess what… we already booked our next trip back with two of our boys! We do annual birthday trips once our kids turn 10, and we’re gonna combine two of them and go as a foursome, and pretend we have only two kids for a few days because life is a lot easier that way.
Let’s get down to it! The new Harry Potter world is what drew me to Epic, and I couldn’t wait. Ticket offerings have changed since the restrictions described in our older account: Universal offers one-day Epic Universe tickets as well as other ticket products. Check the official options for your dates and which parks and days are included; you do not universally have to buy admission to the other parks to visit Epic.
And guess what? We drove all the way to the normal entrance only to find out it’s a completely different entrance! Universal Studios Park and Islands of Adventure, the other two parks linked by the Hogwarts Express, share a parking complex (a Park-to-Park ticket is required to ride that train), whereas Epic is something completely different.
Make sure to add Epic Universe to your map and save yourself the trouble. We’re definitely not the only people who have done that! They have a nice, clear path on how to get over to the parking lot, but it’s like a whole separate world at Universal.
The other two are kind of connected; this one’s not. Also, we’ve never visited Volcano Bay because we don’t go in the summer. It sounds like torture to be in the hot, hot Florida sun in the summer months, and I’ve never braved it.
We went on a weekday in October near Halloween, and it was actually really low crowds. It was great! It ended up pouring rain while we were there, which kind of dampened the experience a little bit. But we had our Harry Potter robes on, we just put our hoods up, and we made the best of it.
However, it limited a little bit what we could see in Nintendo World. But I still felt like we got a really good visit, and thankfully, before it started raining, we visited the Harry Potter park.
Universal Epic Universe has five worlds. Celestial Park is the central world, with portals leading to the four worlds we discuss below:
Leslie is recalling our own visit; this is not a current queue, price, attraction-eligibility or included-service promise.
Our surprise Auror encounter · Scene from our film (30 sec)
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The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Ministry of Magic combines 1920s wizarding Paris, inspired by Fantastic Beasts, with the 1990s British Ministry of Magic in the attraction. It is not a visit to a Ministry of Magic in Paris. We love Fantastic Beasts, so the setting was a huge draw for us.
We love Fantastic Beasts, that’s why it was very, very cool to see 1920s Paris Harry Potter style! There’s a great cafe right in the middle that has hundreds of mosaics. Very cool! There’s tons of new shops and there’s a new version of a wand: it’s the second generation wand.
If you’ve already, like us, purchased the first generation one (which is a large investment for a family of seven), you probably don’t need the new one, but it does have some cool features: It interacts with an app and you can do dueling, which we thought was the coolest part, but none of us ended up buying it because none of us wanted to make that investment. We already have ones that work and ours work really well. There are still plenty of places to do magic in this new Harry Potter Park!
Anyway, there’s very cool magic, by the way. One of them, you’re making spells, you’re moving ingredients into a cauldron. And we were super lucky while we were there, I think because we were dressed in our full Harry Potter attire (all the robes, all embroidered, all the scarves and the headbands and everything), we actually interacted with a lot of staff members.
I don’t know if they just did that because it was kind of new or it was a slow day, but we talked to a lot of cast members! And we got to do a really cool experience just randomly with an Auror: he came out of the telephone booth in the middle of the park and took my kids on a challenge! And we went and found all the symbols of the Deathly Hallows in the pub and it was just very cool. He like knighted them and made them ours. It was completely random, totally free, and it was fun!
Extra magical. So cool!
Leslie is recalling our own visit; this is not a current queue, price, attraction-eligibility or included-service promise.
Inside the Ministry queue: our family’s impressions · Scene from our film (40 sec)
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Of course, you have some of your standard shops. You have the sweet shop, the wand shop, and the souvenirs. I didn’t feel like the souvenirs were above and beyond the other two parks, but they were very cool. Everything is cool to me.
The ride, the Ministry of Magic ride, is awesome: top-notch! They have done an excellent job. If you’ve ever been to the Harry Potter studio tour in London, which we’ve done a few times, they have a little part of the Ministry of Magic with the green tile. But in Epic, this is that times like a hundred: it’s massive. It’s a huge room patterned after the movie … very hard to describe. Just know, it’s very cool.
There’s a huge focus on Dolores Umbridge: you could go through her office as part of the line, which is just so enjoyable even though she’s such a hated character (she drives me crazy). And you see an elf talking to you! Like, there’s very cool stuff.
The ride itself is a mixture of animatronics and video and kind of bounces back between that digital universal style and animatronics. I don’t love the strict digital style of, for example, the Spider-Man or the Transformers ride. So, I appreciated that it wasn’t just that.
It’s still, though, very much that sort of epic, that universal style of ride. We loved it, but motion sensitivity and other ride restrictions matter. Check the posted warnings and Universal’s current safety guide before deciding whether to ride. Also, at the beginning, you go through the floo network to get inside. Everything is over the top, super fun!
This is Leslie’s review of the show and our own wait, not footage of the performance or a promise about current waits or Express access.
Leslie recalls Le Cirque Arcanus · Scene from our film (23 sec)
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Of course, you need to have some butter beer. And the other big thing to do there is a circus show also centered around fantastic beasts and also very highly recommended.
You do need to get in line. We used Universal Express passes for the first time. I’ve never done the fast pass at Universal ever cause it’s so darn expensive but we were only going two days, and I said fine, let’s just see and see if it’s worth it.
We used the fast pass for the circus show. Still had to wait in line probably about 40 minutes. That roughly 40-minute wait was our experience on a lighter day, not a prediction of the standby wait or a guaranteed Express time saving. Check the current pass terms and participating attractions. But it is worth it, as it was spectacular! We sat very close to the front and you’re not allowed to film at all once you’re inside. So, we don’t have any footage to share with you of that, but very, very cool.
Leslie is recalling our own visit; this is not a current queue, price, attraction-eligibility or included-service promise.
Our rainy Nintendo visit and band decision · Scene from our film (54 sec)
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Nintendo’s like entering the video game itself. It is super fun. The optional Power-Up Bands add interactive activities in SUPER NINTENDO WORLD. They are a different product from Disney’s MagicBands, not something interchangeable with them; you do not need a Power-Up Band just to enter the world.
Bowser’s ride is very cool and has some 3D action, which for me wasn’t like the best but it was very creative. The roller coaster within Nintendo World is very fun. It does look a little bit like you’re going off the tracks and that’s a little freaky. Obviously don’t, but it is very fun.
Leslie is recalling our own visit; this is not a current queue, price, attraction-eligibility or included-service promise.
Our family’s How to Train Your Dragon review · Scene from our film (52 sec)
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That is spectacular if you’re into the movies. Just the theming and the music, just walking through is spectacular. The rides were great. The show was fantastic. Highly recommend the show.
It is a little cheesy, but I do think it’s important to take advantage of this spectacular entertainment company right after you’ve paid for an entrance to this park. They put on spectacular shows.
Leslie is recalling our own visit; this is not a current queue, price, attraction-eligibility or included-service promise.
Why Stardust Racers became a family favorite · Scene from our film (52 sec)
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Probably our favorite ride of all in Epic was not actually Harry Potter … it is the big roller coaster, Stardust Racers, that is like a star theme roller coaster! Let me say, wow! Probably the best roller coaster we’ve ever been on in Florida. It’s very intense.
This was super fun and by far my teenagers favorite part of the day. They absolutely loved this roller coaster.
This was our own trip routine and historical spending. Check Universal’s current food, drink and bag policies before packing.
Our Airbnb breakfast and packed-food routine · Scene from our film (1 min 1 sec)
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I hate spending $200 a meal for junk food when I am taking all seven of us … Therefore, one of my tips that we did this time is we rented an Airbnb, which I loved. We rented a car, so we didn’t have any issues going to both parks, and we packed food on our visit. Before copying our packing routine, check Universal’s current outside-food and bag policy; do not assume any backpack meal is permitted.
Also, we took a very large backpack, packed everyone’s snacks in there, which is basically equivalent to a meal, right? We made breakfast in the Airbnb, then we had that either for lunch or dinner and then one big meal in the park. That big meal for our family of seven was between $200 and $300 during our visit. Still super expensive!
We chose an all-day locker for our large backpack. That is different from an attraction’s loose-article storage rules: Universal lists paid all-day lockers and standard-sized lockers free while riding selected Epic attractions. Check size, availability, charges, and each ride’s rules rather than assuming every bag means a paid all-day rental.
So we bit the budget, took a huge backpack, rented a locker near customer service, and ended up winning some extra passes! That was a surprise on our visit, not a benefit you should expect for renting a locker.
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Seeing all three Harry Potter parks is 100% worth it if you’re a big Harry Potter fan like we are. Just mind-blowing! I think that Universal has stepped up its game and Disney is going to have to catch up, if I’m being totally honest. And for now, our money is actually going to go more towards Universal!
I recommend not going when it’s super hot. Actually, Halloween time was perfect.
At the end of the day, these memories are the things that you’re going to remember when this life comes to an end or when your family dynamic changes for whatever reason … This is why, I always say it’s 100% worth it.
Check out our other stuff, we’ve got hundreds of articles, as we’ve traveled to almost 55 countries! We’re doing it all with five kids in tow. So, I promise you can do it and have a blast.
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