Universal is building a brand new theme park at its resort in Orlando. Universal’s Epic Universe will join Universal Studios Florida and Universal’s Islands of Adventure as the third theme park at Universal Orlando Resort, and the first brand new theme park in Orlando in more than 20 years.
In a press conference announcing the park last week, Tom Williams, chairman and chief executive officer for Universal Parks & Resorts, said Epic Universe will be “the most immersive and innovative theme park we have ever created.” It’s a tall order for the company that brought J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World to life.
Epic Universe will be located on a 750-acre site a few miles southeast of Universal’s existing resort property, nearly doubling the size of the company’s footprint in Orlando. In addition to the theme park, the site will contain a hotel, entertainment center, restaurants, and shops. Concept art released by Universal depicts four distinct lands within the park, with shops toward the center hub—like a small-scale CityWalk, Universal’s dining and entertainment complex that connects its other theme parks—and a hotel at the far end of the site.
While Universal has been pretty tight-lipped on the details, including an opening date and the characters or intellectual property that will be represented in this new park, it’s a safe bet that Nintendo will be featured prominently. Universal announced a partnership with the video game giant in 2015 and is currently building the first Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, set to open next year.
Other rumored inclusions are How to Train Your Dragon, Universal Classic Monsters (think Dracula, Bride of Frankenstein, and Creature from the Black Lagoon), and an expansion of the Wizarding World with the Fantastic Beasts franchise, according to Alicia Stella, who has been tracking news about the park for her site, Orlando ParkStop.
“I think with a couple of these areas they’re going to appeal to younger kids more than they probably usually do,” Stella says. “Especially with How to Train Your Dragon and Nintendo, it looks like there's going to be a lot more offerings for younger children.”
Development plans filed with Orange County, Florida, show that each of the four lands is self-contained, with the only entrance or exit at the main hub—a departure from typical theme park design in the United States, with the exception of Diagon Alley at Universal Studios Florida.
“Every land, you have to go in and out through a portal,” Stella says. “You're very immersed when you're in the land.”
The inclusion of a hotel on the resort property also sets Epic Universe apart from other Orlando parks. While Universal Orlando and Walt Disney World both have hotels within walking distance to their theme parks, none are directly connected.
Universal has more than doubled its number of on-site resort hotels in the past five years, with an eighth hotel scheduled to open in spring of 2020. This latest announcement makes them even more competitive against Disney World for hotels bookings, according to Tom Bricker, who runs Disney Tourist Blog.
“Hotels are Disney’s core business at this point, so that’s going to be a potentially big blow,” he says. “I think this will mark some degree of a shift with that where people will take a harder look at the hotels. I'm expecting that there will be an increased curiosity about Universal's offerings and people wanting to do more research into that.”
Competition not only raises the bar for both companies, but it also gives visitors more options when it comes to both hotels and theme park offerings, Stella adds.
“The more there is to do, the more reason people have to come back into Orlando and the better everyone's going to be,” she says. “The more Disney feels they have to compete, the more theme park fans will be happy.”
