Epic Universe has faced some operational challenges in its first few months of operation, and it appears these challenges are leading some guests to leave less-than-perfect reviews of the park on major ranking pages.
Epic Universe
Epic Universe is the newest theme park added to the Orlando roster. The park officially opened on May 22, 2025, though it hosted several weeks of previews for Team Members and selected media. Now that the park has been open for just over three months, it has settled into what would largely be considered usual daily operations.
It is no secret that the park has its challenges: technical issues with a slew of brand new attractions (to be expected), a mostly outdoor ride roster that is rendered inoperable for hours on most summer days in Orlando by nearby lightning, and honestly, a lower park capacity for guests than most major U.S. theme parks due to its limited opening day attraction lineup.
Epic Universe Ranking
It now appears that some of the operational challenges at Epic Universe have had an averse effect on the park’s ranking, as posted on multiple websites for tourist destinations. Beginning with Google, Epic Universe has an average star rating of 3.8 out of a total 2,588 reviews. For comparison, Fun Spot America in Orlando has an average ranking of 4.5 from a total of over 16,000 reviews. Additional Google ratings include 4.6 for Magic Kingdom, 4.4 for SeaWorld Orlando, and 4.4 for Legoland Florida Resort.
However, the low ratings for Epic Universe are not only present on Google. Popular travel review websites such as Yelp and Tripadvisor also have the park ranked lower than most of its competition. Yelp has Epic Universe at a star rating of 3.1 out of five, while Tripadvisor has a rating of 2.2 out of five.
Epic Universe is also ranked significantly lower than the other parks at Universal Orlando Resort. Islands of Adventure has a Google rating of 4.7, Yelp rating of 4.0, and Tripadvisor rating of 4.6. Meanwhile, Universal Studios Florida has a similar rating of Google 4.7, Yelp 3.5, and Tripadvisor 4.3.
For comparison, Yelp has Magic Kingdom rated at 3.9, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios at 3.7, which is the lowest rating for the four main Walt Disney World parks. Tripadvisor has Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios tied for the lowest Walt Disney World rating at 4.3.
Reasons for Low Scores
With Epic Universe getting consistently lower scores than most other theme parks in Orlando, many of said reviews have common factors for their rating. When digging into the reviews on Tripadvisor, one of the “Popular Mentions” keywords for the park is “long wait.”
I was able to get on the Harry Potter Ride, which took about 2 hours in a queue. The park is still going through growing pains and there were numerous delays as there were issues with the ride.
Overall, I thought this was a good themed amusement park. I hope it gets better over time by reducing delays and hopefully fewer guests over time to reduce wait times.
Suor K via Yelp
Digging further into reviews that rank the park as a three or below, many guest express frustration with spending multiple hours in line for a single attraction.
I was genuinely excited to visit Epic Universe on August 13, 2025, but unfortunately, the experience was incredibly disappointing.
Arrived right at opening but immediately ran into extreme wait times and frequent ride closures quickly turned the day into a frustrating one. Within the first hour, the shortest ride wait was already over 60 minutes — that jumped to 120 minutes while we were in line for 5 min, so we left. The line times are not accurate and underestimate actual wait.
After three hours, we had only managed one ride–Yoshi’s Adventure–which felt underwhelming. By the end of the day, I had only experienced two attractions. None of the big-ticket rides (Mario Kart, How to Train Your Dragon, Forbidden Journey) were available due to closures or delays.
J K. via Yelp
Likewise, multiple reviews on Yelp mention that they only had a single day to spend at Epic Universe as part of a longer vacation, but they were barely able to ride half of the attractions in the park.
A common theme in the reviews is that guests should not expect to ride all 11 attractions (not including the two stage shows) in the park without paying for Universal Express Pass or returning for multiple days.
Awful. It’s a scam, you will only ride 1-2 rides at most without an express pass. Complete waste of time and money. In the other parks there is a balance on the lines between express pass holders and normal ticket holders. At epic you must have an express to experience more than 2 rides. So they are making double on those who chose to buy the express tickets inside the park. Will not return.
Adam M via Tripadvisor
One other major issue that appears repeatedly in lower-ranked reviews is mechanical issues, technical difficulties, and inconsistent ride operations. Guests report many experiences with select rides going down in the middle of the day and not opening back up for several hours, or even staying closed for the rest of the day.
As UK citizens we only had 1 day at Epic Universe, so really wanted to make the most of it. We booked the Grand Helios to get early entry to get onto Battle for the Ministry without a long wait. All was going well, we were near the front of the queue when a announcement was made that the ride was down. Optimistically we decided to stay but another announcement said the ride would not be open for at least 2 hours! What a disappointment. I know teething problems happen at any new park but we’d wasted our early entry.
Ruth C via Tripadvisor
Similarly, some rides fail to open at the beginning of the day, which can be particularly frustrating for guests partaking in early entry. A few rides have also failed to open for a whole day, meaning guests who only have one Epic Universe ticket do not have the chance to experience them.
One of the rides I tried — Hiccup’s Wing [Gliders] — was having issues. People were coming off saying the same thing: “It had problems.” And it wasn’t the only one. Several rides were either closed or operating poorly. I had only 4 hours left before closing, and I already knew I wouldn’t even get through half the park.
And on top of that, I’m not from Orlando. I’m flying back to Austin, Texas tomorrow. I can’t just come back another day. This was a waste of time and money for me.
Aldo T. via Yelp
Overall, it seems many guests are disappointed due to the continued operational issues taking place at Epic Universe, causing it to have significantly lower scores than many of its competitors. Time will tell if the park will be able to reverse this downward trajectory in the future as some of these issues are addressed.
You can also watch the first part of our Epic Universe honest review series below:
For more Universal Studios news from around the world, follow Universal Parks News Today on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. For Disney Parks news, visit WDWNT.