When Epic Universe opened officially last month, wait times were short or nonexistent, as Universal Orlando limited ticket sales. That generated some positive buzz for the park among fans who understand capacity rather than simply thinking "queue time = popularity."
But when Universal found a solution to keep Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry up consistently, the ticket limitations went away. Then, even as more fans were entering the park, Universal reduced the capacity, such as running Hiccup with reduced train numbers. Universal also added to the number of attractions available for resort hotel guests during Early Park Admission, which meant fewer empty queues for regular guests at rope drop.
The result has been long wait times throughout Epic Universe all month. A park where Universal Express looked like it would be unnecessary now looks like one where Express is a must for anyone not wanting to roast in long queues all day.
Granted, Epic is the same park as it was before - offering multiple world-class attractions, despite the waits. How are you feeling about the value in visiting Epic Universe right now.
I can't speak on the operations, but from a common sense perspective I feel like people should expect the park to be packed. They just spent a decade and $7 billion, of course they are going to want to cash in on their investment, its a totally unrealistic expectation to think they are going to limit the capacity at a low level.
.... and surprisingly, Sundays have consistently been the quietest day. Go figure.
If you want to see what the tourists think of this new park, look at the Epic Universe page on TripAdvisor. The reviews aren't kind. The park has numerous design and operational flaws including that 8 of the 11 rides shut down whenever it rains. And when it's sunny, there's little to no shade.
It is normal for the other Universal parks in Florida to have 1.5-2 hour waits for top attractions during busier times, so anyone who thought the 30-45 minute queues at Epic Universe would be long lived fell for judging based on an incomplete data set. Based on what I've heard, other the Ministry the lines for top Epic attractions have still generally been shorter than those at the other parks provided everything is operating, which is probably a function of the ticketing structure discouraging most casual visitors from spending more than one day at the park. Universal also never sold tickets to Epic under the promise of short wait times, so no...there's no bait and switch going on here.
Sometimes, I like to check the website to see the wait times at any given moment and get an idea of what the lines look like. When it's raining, which during summers is incredibly often, Mariokart goes as high as 200 minutes and Ministry isn't much better. This park does not fare well during the rain. I'll see this place during winter.
I think this is all a function of the shakedown period for a brand new theme park with a design never before attempted (central park with individual "dead end" lands). Universal is still optimizing this park amid an environment that is completely different than any theme park has ever attempted to open during before. They are literally reports and posts EVERY SINGLE day on various social media channels giving constant updates on what's happening on the ground, leading to a highly fluctuating guest expectation. You could look at reports from Monday and think the park is empty and you should show up immediately to enjoy the short lines, but then you look at posts from Wednesday and they report packed pathways, immense waits, broken rides, and utter disappointment, making you want to wait a few months for the park to work out the issues. It's like trying to figure out the quality of a hotel from TripAdvisor ratings, which is to say, 50% of the reviews might be accurate, but there's no way to tell which ones are legit and which ones are AI or "paid for" by the operators.
It is truly maddening, and now it appears to be entering the "battle phase" where individual influencers are trying to do what they do, influence opinions based on their preferences (Disney influencers claiming Epic is terrible while Universal influencers saying Epic is the greatest). Even if you take each review with a grain of salt, you still can't get a great read on what's going on with the park. Throw in the summer heat and overall crowds this time of year, and I'm pretty glad that we took a "wait and see" approach with Epic.