Ride It Out!
Married Universal Orlando enthusiasts Jess and Tyler take you on a low-stakes adventure through the wild, wacky, and sometimes even thrilling world of themed entertainment.
Ride It Out!
RIO 3: Dragons, Wizards, and Butterbeer Crepes - Our Epic Adventure
We take listeners through our experience at the Annual Passholder Preview for Epic Universe, Universal Orlando's third theme park, sharing our impressions, favorite rides, and a few disappointments from our visit before the official opening.
• Epic Universe features a hub-and-spoke design with Celestial Park at the center connecting to four immersive worlds
• The park's standout feature is kinetic energy - everything moves, from animatronic dragons to interactive Nintendo elements
• Stardust Racers in Celestial Park offers a uniquely smooth coaster experience with "ejector airtime" that feels like floating
• Isle of Berk (How to Train Your Dragon world) impressed us with its elaborate animatronics and family-friendly attractions
• Super Nintendo World successfully transports visitors into the video games with interactive Power-Up Bands and moving elements
• Dark Universe brings classic Universal monsters into a year-round spooky (but not scary) environment
• Ministry of Magic features beautiful 1920s Paris theming but lacks the kinetic energy of other lands
• Food quality throughout Epic Universe represents a significant upgrade from other Universal parks
• The standout treat is the butterbeer crepe at Café la Sirène in the Ministry of Magic area
• Technical rehearsals meant some attractions had limited capacity, particularly the in-demand Ministry of Magic ride
If you have thoughts to share with the show, you can text us using the link in the show notes or email us at rideitoutpod@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you and might respond on a future episode!
All right, here we go Do you want to hear the intro.
Speaker 2:Do we get to have that?
Speaker 1:I dumped all the files off that, so I have to reset them back up Okay.
Speaker 2:Can you hum it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, here you go. Welcome back to the Ride it Out podcast, the podcast where we ride all the rides and you get out. I'm Tyler.
Speaker 2:I'm Jess.
Speaker 1:And it's been a minute.
Speaker 2:Yes, so we have a little explaining to do.
Speaker 1:Not even.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, so we are fully committed to doing this regularly.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we're sort of figuring it out as we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we're parents.
Speaker 1:Look, we're busy people.
Speaker 2:Life happens, yeah, some notable things. Look, we're busy people. Life happens, yeah, some notable things. One we had almost completely finished recording a beautiful episode for you when our equipment ran out of battery.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we were only we had exceeded the time limit we wanted to do. Pretty sure Autumn was waking up and then, but we hadn't gotten through the content we wanted to do. Pretty sure autumn was waking up and then. But we had, it was a whole thing we hadn't gotten through the content we wanted to, so we're gonna save that meaty episode for you later.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be great. It was a different topic than the one you're about to hear yes, yes, that's, that's for another time yeah uh, but we also in that episode had teased that we had gotten preview tickets to Epic Universe.
Speaker 1:Yes, so we were talking all and we were so excited and so a lot of the front half of that episode was us being extremely hyped and just talking about all the things we wanted to do but you're in for a treat today hopefully wanted to do. But you're in for a treat today, hopefully, because since that time, uh, we went to fucking epic universe we did, so that's.
Speaker 2:That's what we're gonna spend this whole episode talking about. Um, another caveat that happened in between. Uh, our, our last episode in this one is I'm okay, but I was in a school shooting, yeah, so I had other priorities to think about.
Speaker 1:Right, so uh, yeah, I mean, Jess was not immediately directly involved, but she was in other ways and is fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I was providing counseling to other people who were involved, so it was a busy couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:So time has passed, everybody's okay, we're all doing good. We've come back to this refreshed and renewed and ready to share with you our excitement about the trip that we had going to the annual pass holder preview dates for epic universe. Do you remember what date we went? Shoot um it would have been a few weeks ago at this point yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2:You're right, I think we went six, 16th oh shoot I.
Speaker 1:I need to double check the calendar, because I was about to say the 19th, but that's wrong, because that would have been. I could look at my email, but you know the state of my email, so I'm not sure that that would be super helpful.
Speaker 2:No, it was. It was the 19th yeah.
Speaker 1:April 19th.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:Time means nothing, truly so this is not going to help opening up these annual passholder preview events for Epic Universe, the third park at the Universal Orlando Resort. It's incredible, extremely exciting. Lots of new stuff.
Speaker 2:And I think those aren't just open to pass holders at this point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're opening them up to the general public for like a soft opening.
Speaker 2:Right. So the idea behind a soft opening is think about it as if you were going to see a play during their technical rehearsal week. So they're still working out the kinks. The actors are still learning their lines. You know everyone is running as if the show is previewing to a full audience, but it's not.
Speaker 1:Right, but sometimes pausing and having to be like, okay, let's reset this, because we had a lighting issue or a sound effect didn't go off properly or a prop wasn't in place in time. So they're still figuring out the process for how to run the entire park, and the other thing about that is that it's operating at a really reduced capacity.
Speaker 2:Yes, so that's the main perk is that you get to see a brand new theme park before the vast majority of people. It's actually not super duper crowded, which I'm excited for when we see it after the park officially opens Such a treat. I know we're ridiculous, but because it'll be fun to compare. Like I'm guessing the crowds are going to be way crazier in June when we go again. Have to be.
Speaker 1:Even in the summer heat in Florida, people Well, I mean, it's been a thing for 20 plus years at this point know to come to Florida to engage in the tourism and to take enjoyment in coming to the theme parks hanging out. It's hot, but even though it's the hottest time of the year, a lot of people are bringing their kids, and so that's the time of year when they're out of school, right, they have the most freedom to move around and to go do these large scale trips, um, that a lot of people only get to do like once a year.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah, so it was definitely a privilege for us to be able to go at the time that we did, and I think it was well worth it to go to this park when there's, you know, so few crowds, um, but it also meant we got to do a lot more things, I think. Um, I'd be curious to see, uh again, how, how long wait times compare, but comparatively, what was the longest line that you waited in?
Speaker 1:Well, so the longest line that I waited in maybe is not a great judgment of what the lines are like during these preview days, Because the longest one I waited in I got in line like half an hour before the park closed and it was the.
Speaker 1:And so did everybody else who was still in the park, exactly it was the Mario Kart Bowser's Challenge ride, so I knew that was going to be a long one. So I was like holding off getting into the line and it took me like an hour and a half to get through that line but it was a whole thing for a popular ride at a brand new park.
Speaker 1:An hour and a half is not the worst, totally, if that was a hagrid over at islands yeah like I would be happy to be only waiting an hour and a half right now, um, so it's all about perspective, uh, but we're going to dive into all of the particulars about our trip. This is all subjective. Also, like we mentioned before, they're in technical rehearsals. Things are up and down, uh, things are not exactly operating in the way that they will be when everything is up and running fully, uh, and even over the next few months, over the next few years, they're going to be adjusting things and making little tweaks about how things work.
Speaker 1:So this is all take it with a grain of salt, but, uh, if you couldn't tell by now, we are so excited that we got to go do this and we are, overall, genuinely, extremely. We are such universal fan boys at this point. But even beyond that, we have a lot of criticisms about some things that we encountered. I feel like or at least I do so we're going to give you an honest opinion. We're not being paid by universal. We would love to be paid by universal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, we will retract any negative feedback if y'all want to pay us.
Speaker 1:I'll cut it right, the fuck back. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, but because you're not, we get to say whatever we want, exactly.
Speaker 1:So we're we're going to give you our genuine, honest opinions.
Speaker 2:We are both enthusiasts and tend to love things, but uh, there were some things that were not so great. Well, there's some things that again, they're tweaking and working on things. So all this, a lot of this, could be different by the time the park actually opens.
Speaker 1:We don't know we don't know yeah before we get into things.
Speaker 2:So I mentioned the longest wait time. What was the shortest wait time you?
Speaker 1:had. Ooh, I did a walk-on to Hang on Again. This is not a plug, although hit me up if you're into it. I use an app called LogRide when I'm at theme parks and, sorry, our cat is trying to jump onto Jess's lap.
Speaker 2:Desperately wants to be in my multiple times. Poor boy.
Speaker 1:Maybe he'll come back yeah, so let me look at my trip log book. Uh, basically it's an app where you can log when you got onto certain rides. You can log the seats that you rode on those rides, make some notes about your experience or whatever. I just use it to, at the end of the day, be like, wow, I walked that many miles and I rode that many rides. Hey, good day, you know great time. Um, so let me look at my log book here. Um, we're going to go back into April 19th.
Speaker 2:And I want to say there were several that were 15 minutes.
Speaker 1:Oh, I can tell you right now the shortest wait that I had for any of the rides I was shocked by and we will circle back to this ride to talk about it a little later on. My vision for this is that I would go through our day as we did it and talk about the things we did, like in the order that we did them in. My shortest wait was for monsters, unchained, which is insane because that's one of the premier in the theme park industry. We call these e-ticket rides. This is comes from a Disney term Cause back in the day they would sell different classifications of tickets that would allow you to get on certain rides and not others interesting so there's like a, b, c, d, e.
Speaker 1:E was the top level, you can get on anything and an e-ticket ride is like the things that draw people to the park. Your rise of the resistances, your hagrid, your um, uh, what's like another huge insert your favorite ride insert your favorite ride or the biggest budget ride basically that you can think of yeah um, that's called an e-ticket attraction, okay.
Speaker 1:um, monsters unchained is regularly, even during previews, in the 60 plus minute range. Uh, cause, it's massive, it's ambitious. It does things that no other dark ride has really done before. It's got a collection of like animatronics that are incredible.
Speaker 2:We'll. We'll explain more depth, we'll get into it, yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, but I walked onto that ride as a single rider.
Speaker 2:I was on the ride in two and a half minutes wow because nobody was doing single rider yeah, and it was down right before I got in too, so that was another thing right because I I went on right after you and also in single rider because you were like, oh, I got right on like it go, go, go, and then the ride was down. So I did get stuck in in the single rider Cause you were like, oh, I got right on like get, go, go, go, and then the ride was down, so I did get stuck in in the single rider. Um, but even so it still wasn't as much as the advertised 85 minute wait, you were in there like what?
Speaker 1:20 minutes, maybe 25.
Speaker 2:I think it felt longer because I was standing in place and nothing was happening but it was air conditioned, so it was a great place to hang out Super sick yeah. Yeah, we both missed the queues on a lot of these bigger rides, which is a shame.
Speaker 1:That's kind of the trade-off with riding single rider, but anyway. So this is your queue now. Thank you for hanging out with us this far. If you don't want to know the specifics about all of these individual rides, maybe come back later or maybe, uh, come back to another episode, when, when we're not talking about that.
Speaker 2:Can we do like overall impression?
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's do that first.
Speaker 2:Before don't leave yet. Wait, come back. Hey, hey, uh, okay, yeah, hey, wait, right, okay. Overall impression of the park as a whole.
Speaker 1:Park as a whole, absolutely. This is so hard for me to talk about. I consume a lot of theme park content so I have been very plugged into what these things are going to be like and I've been following like the construction updates over time. So, like the hype is unattainable at this point, at least for the people who are following that kind of stuff. That being said, epic Universe is unique in the Universal Orlando resort space for a lot of different reasons, but the first reason is just the feel when you first walk into this place is like possibility.
Speaker 1:When you first walk into the gate, you are looking around at this beautifully manicured first area and it's different than studios and then islands, because you can kind of choose your path.
Speaker 1:You're not locked into a big loop and so you kind of have to make a decision, right when you first walk in, about well, where is this going to take me? And no matter where it is taking you, it's all new and it's all exciting. Where it is taking you, it's all new and it's all exciting. And, yes, that's a product of it being a brand new theme park, which is a really rare thing, you know, in the modern era. But it also just leads to this like anticipation and this like excitement and in the way that none of us have felt from the other two parks. I get excited every time I go to a theme park. Really, in general, it can be a tiny little theme park, it can be an amusement park even, and I'm like, wow, what rides they got you know cool, what food they have, neat, what can I look at? But yeah, this one is something special and I will now pass this to you to talk less specifically about things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I would agree that it's just exciting to be in a new park in general, new park in general, um, but I I think everything is designed very intentionally and thoughtfully and it's just very beautiful and new and the consideration is insane yeah, it seems like it's built for theme park enthusiasts. So I I feel like when you walk in studios and islands feel old, like this just feels very, very modern and you know those are still great Not in a bad way.
Speaker 1:We love those parks.
Speaker 2:Right, right, but it's very exciting and, like, each of the lands that you go in is just incredible. It's like a space that you want to spend a lot of time in and feels fully immersive. Um, you can't see the other areas of the park when you're in each section, so it just totally feels like you've just dived right in yeah, and the times when you can like get a little peek of something.
Speaker 1:It almost feels like it's like they have stood in the spot, that you're standing and looked at that and been like how can we make that kind of just sort of look like it's something in the background?
Speaker 2:Yeah, how do we blend it in? Yeah, yeah, so very impressive. It's a beautiful park. I had a great time. I can't wait to go back. It was awesome.
Speaker 1:It's kind of all I've been wanting to do since we got back from here.
Speaker 2:I know same.
Speaker 1:We unfortunately had a pretty rough time at the end of our trip for that. That has kind of colored my perception of that trip a little bit.
Speaker 2:So you had a rough time and, folks, the moral of the story is drink a lot of water, drink so much water, just drink a lot of water, drink so much water, just drink a lot of water.
Speaker 1:If there is one thing I can impart to you, it is don't let yourself get dehydrated from going way too hard at the theme parks over a weekend. Just have the water, have the Powerade, have the Gatorade, whatever you need.
Speaker 2:Stay hydrated, just very important, so that's not Epic's fault.
Speaker 1:At all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Uh, yeah. So I and and the other kind of nice thing about the preview week is that, because it's technical rehearsals, some rides may not be running or might be, you know, paused or or whatever. Um, the tickets are slightly cheaper right now, before it opens on May 22nd. Not a huge difference, but like maybe like 20, 30 bucks a pop, but that's you know, that's a. It adds up if you're taking a large group of people.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's like you know, a soda.
Speaker 2:Right, right, because they said a pop. Yeah, I was just making a joke that sodas are 30 dollars uh uh, tariffs, yeah, truly um so theme parks oh, bye griffin, he doesn't want me anymore our cat is left yeah, um, so it's I. It's a beautiful park, I I would love to go back. I'm sitting here like, oh, I don't know, maybe we could sneak in one more weekend.
Speaker 2:I've been thinking about that every week and you know that's a little ridiculous because we have season passes so we can go to the other parks as often as we want.
Speaker 1:But it's not the brand new shiny one.
Speaker 2:No, we want to go to the shiny one.
Speaker 1:Okay, so now I think we can get into spoilies? Yeah, alright. So okay, officially, we love you so much. If you don't want to hear specifically what the parks are like, park, then fucking bye. Okay, but uh, come back to us after you've seen it and then let us know your, your thoughts and yeah if you are able to uh, get to the point where you want to hear this, or you have any questions about the park cause, we are definitely going to go back to Epic Um we're actually going back on next month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, june 14th we have, we're actually going back on next month.
Speaker 1:Yeah, June 14th we have. We have plans to go for a father's day trip.
Speaker 2:Well, that was we. We had bought those tickets initially, and then they opened up the previous, who were like Ooh.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, uh, happy father's day to me and between now and then. So that's the uh sixth. The 17th, I think, is when we're going right.
Speaker 2:Uh, june the 17th, I think, is when we're going right.
Speaker 1:Uh, June 14th, 14th yeah.
Speaker 2:You're saying this like you asked the wrong day off work which is making me a little nervous.
Speaker 1:I'm wondering whether or not I did. I took the 16th off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is a Monday, the Monday, okay, so we're going the 14th, which is the Saturday, which is Saturday Okay, great, okay, so we're going to 14th, which is the Saturday, which is Saturday.
Speaker 1:Okay, great, I'll cut all that out, okay, and then we'll say we're going back on June 14th, and if any time between now and then you have any questions about anything, feel free to text us using the link in the show notes. Get in touch with us via email, ask your questions, give your feedback and we will talk about it, cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, didn't we have someone text us something? We did? Yeah, we did. Do you have?
Speaker 1:that I do. I know who this person is.
Speaker 2:I mean obviously, but I mean, you know, it's like every piece of feedback helps for sure.
Speaker 1:I mean obviously, but I mean, you know, it's like every piece of feedback helps for sure. So our first piece of fan mail was from someone in Tallahassee, go figure, and I know that this person would be okay with me reading this. I'm just gonna go ahead and say this I am not a theme park sicko or Jess's mom, but enjoyed the show, love your energy and humor. 10 out of 10 would subscribe and have in a parenthetical. So thank you so much. Random Tallahassee in, uh, who's not so random. We love you and if you would like your messages read on the show or not, if you just have any questions, uh, feel free to send that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're happy to talk. So where do we start now? Do we start at the beginning of the day? Yes, how did you feel when we got up that morning in the hotel? Okay, we were also staying in a substandard hotel. For what we want it was not on site.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we decided, okay, we're're gonna try and save a little money, not stay on site. And I don't know you and I like are not like bougie hotel people like we're fine staying in roach motels and whatever because you know you're not spending a whole lot of time in the hotel.
Speaker 1:But things have changed a little bit recently. Well, we've.
Speaker 2:We have gotten a bit spoiled because we've stayed on site at different universal hotels before and so this one was pretty close to the parks but just kind of shady like uh, the keys kept not working, so like you came back from the park after midnight and you couldn't get in the room, and you know like that, that kind of stuff, the whole thing.
Speaker 1:It's worked out for us well in the past, but now that we have our daughter, yeah, we have to kind of just have to increase our standards slightly. Yeah, slightly safer accommodations, um so I will say, we got up that morning and we we went to islands first.
Speaker 2:We did, and so the reason for that is because, during preview week, the park opened at 11.
Speaker 1:Yeah, during our specific one.
Speaker 2:Yes, so that could be different at other times, but the hours were what? 11 to 9? Yeah, okay, and I think it's going to be different once it actually opens on the 22nd. But because you know, we got a kid, we're up at the crack of dawn anyway.
Speaker 1:We're like, well, we might as well go to the other parks and because of our annual passes we get early park admission, so we could get into islands at eight rather than having to wait till nine. So it made sense to go over there for a couple hours first.
Speaker 2:Right right, I was pretty tired because I closed down the parks the night before.
Speaker 1:I was so excited about this for you because you have never had a chance to like be in the parks at night.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Or at least not in the last 10-15 years.
Speaker 2:Not in recent memory, I think. Usually I will take Autumn back to the hotel and put her down and you'll stay at the park because you love me so much, I do. I do and I I'd like to give you that extra time, Uh, but we've been talking about how we want to swap, uh doing that, so we did this time, uh, so I closed down studios and islands, um, so that you could close down Epic, um, I know which was such a gift.
Speaker 2:So you, you get a little um more to to talk about with, with.
Speaker 1:Epic, yeah. But I mean, like, what was your, what was that experience like being in the, in islands and studios at night for you?
Speaker 2:Oh, it was fun. I mean it's it's fun being just a individual person on your own, because I could just look up, yeah like, oh, the wait time for, uh, what did I do? I did et and mummy, and then I did the um cine-sational show at studios, at studios now, yeah and then I booked it over. After that closed, I booked it over to islands and did velocicoaster, um, but it was oh, and I got myself some butterbeer treats because yeah, um so it was nice to just be like okay, this is the wait time for here, I gotta run over here.
Speaker 2:Then I'm gonna go over here and like be efficient in doing all that, because usually if you're with a bigger group, you got to consider other people's needs. Um, you know, tyler, but other people may not know that I am uh, I'm not a runner, but I feel like I could train to become an olympic power walker yeah, dude, you book it yeah and that's very freeing, to just be on my own and be booking it carving through.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm like here I go, I just so, yeah, so I I like going at my own pace and just making a beeline for where I want to go. Um, so yeah, that was a great time. I did stay up too late so I was a little sleepy, uh, but the excitement of the day, so you know, by the time Autumn and I went home and left Epic, um, I would have stayed later and I would have happy to stay later, but it was also kind of nice being able to have a an early night Plus, you could, you know, rest and gain your strength for the day to come.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, which I needed to take care of you. Jeez Aw, um, yes, so that was great care of you. Geez Aw, yes, so that was great. We went to. Where did we go to studios?
Speaker 1:First thing in the morning I can tell you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because we did some Minion stuff which is over in studios.
Speaker 1:Oh, the night before, that was the night before, okay, yeah. So before we Parted ways, yeah, before Autumn, and I left, I was like, hey, what's a thing that we can get all three of us on? And I was like, oh, you know what Jess has never done? Villaincon, minion Blast. It's not really my cup of tea, but it's fine. It's like a conveyor belt thing. You have a gun, you're like shooting a bunch of stuff. We get on this ride and it shuts down for what feels like because we have an under two year old on the ride with us who just wants to be doing something.
Speaker 2:And she can't sit still and she can't.
Speaker 1:And she's like falling on the ground and they're telling us like, oh, we all have to be standing for the ride to get back in motion and you have to stay standing in the same spot. So we're there for what feels like 45 minutes, but I know it's probably like 10, 10, 15. But, even that was just too long to be standing in the exact same place.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So utter failure. Never doing that right again Doesn't do anything for me the ride kind of sucked, if I want to get on a thing like that, where I can shoot stuff. I'll get a men in black.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. Uh. Basically, it felt like going in an arcade and playing fruit Ninja. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But for you're trapped 30 minutes, forever. The conveyor belt is very slow, not yeah. Yeah, and none of it works.
Speaker 2:The aim doesn't work properly, yeah.
Speaker 1:The screens are all running at like 15 frames a second, which, if you play video games, you understand how acceptable that is. Um, the minimum I will accept is 24, uh for film, and it did not look like film. Um, not to disparage anybody that worked on that ride but it's a bad ride um.
Speaker 2:I don't know how old it is I mean, maybe it just needs four years three that's not that old. That's not that old.
Speaker 1:No, they could have done a better job. It looks like it's using microsoft connect technology, because when you go, when you're like conveyed into the next, there are these sensor bars and you can't shoot anything in the room until you're into the room and the sensor bar can pick you up. So like if you're looking down the hallway and trying to shoot something on the screen it won't see you until you're fully in the room.
Speaker 2:Wow, you were ready to go. I was observant. I was going to say you were more locked in. I was half-heartedly shooting at things while trying to wrangle our child.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was mostly just wrangling the child, so not recommended. If you're curious, if you're a Minions friend, friend, fan, friend or fan, if you're a Minions friend, go on like Minion Mayhem, sit down, watch a movie or go eat something at minions cafe. Like you'll have a better time doing that probably than you would doing that. Yeah, the queue was really fun was the problem. So anyway, we did that, um the so that was friday night, we got in and did that and then, uh, my daughter and I left and left you to go to your own devices and sounds like you had a really good time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Looking at these pictures, I know you had a good time.
Speaker 2:I did, yeah, but then on Saturday morning we did islands, because that's the one you get the early park admission to. So you can get early park admission if you are a pass holder or if you stay on site in the hotel. So that's another perk to staying on site is the shuttles will take you everywhere, so you don't have to worry about parking.
Speaker 1:It's so nice.
Speaker 2:If you stay on site, if you buy anything, you can tell them to ship it to your room, so you don't have to carry it around all day, them to ship it to your room, so you don't have to carry it around all day.
Speaker 2:Um, and you, you get the early park admission, which, if you're wanting to do the two, what is it? E-ticket, e-ticket, the two e-ticket rides, uh, velocicoaster and hagrid over in islands. Uh, doing those during the early park admission is the best time to go, either that, maybe around noon, where, when everyone's trying to have lunch, like between noon one, two uh-huh or end of the day just saying all right, this is the last ride I'm gonna do, I'll sit in this line yeah, because they'll let you get on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as long as you get in before the park officially closes yeah, uh, you don't have to complete the ride before the park closes. Yeah, so pretty sure you did Velocicoaster.
Speaker 1:That morning. I can tell you right here I got log right open. Of course you do. I did Velocicoaster, I did Forbidden Journey because and that's the Hogwarts Castle ride.
Speaker 2:Oh, we all did that together, so Autumn actually went in the line.
Speaker 1:We were wanting to dip our toes in the water of doing child swap more, which we've talked about previously, but we did it several times on this trip.
Speaker 2:Because we wanted to try it out and get her a little used to it or at least see how she was going to react before we went into Epic, because typically you and I will just have one of us go and the other one hang out with Autumn, do something else, yeah, but we wanted to see, but it's more fun and puts less pressure on the person just watching the kid. Yeah.
Speaker 1:To be able to go all experience it together, as long as that would be a thing that everybody would be open to, and by everyone I mean me and my daughter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but she did pretty well. We tried to pick rides that already had short wait times.
Speaker 1:Or at least interesting things to look at.
Speaker 2:Yes, so Forbidden Journey was only like 15 minutes. We were moving pretty quickly and in fact we brought a little activity book for her, so she kind of just wanted to sit down and look at her activity book.
Speaker 1:So she was actually more upset with us that we had to keep telling her the line was moving faster than we expected. So we were having to like pick her back up and move her along.
Speaker 2:So I kept being like oh, look this thing from Harry Potter. And she's like yeah, I don't care, I have a dinosaur activity book that I want to look at. I don't even know harry potter, um, so that was cute.
Speaker 1:But but we did that and we did uh skull island yes uh, which you know was great, there was stuff to look at, but most of all they have like a child swap room yeah uh, to go sit in and whatever and look at stuff and she was not scared of any of the spooky stuff at all. Yeah, we, yeah, we're going to have such a spooky baby.
Speaker 2:I know I love it so much.
Speaker 1:So then from that point we went over, we had to pick up the shuttle because Huh, we did Spider-Man too. Oh, I don't have Spider-Man on.
Speaker 2:Really On that day, yeah, well.
Speaker 1:Unless I just oh, shoot. I think you did Spider-Man.
Speaker 2:Maybe we did that on Sunday then.
Speaker 1:That was Sunday.
Speaker 2:Maybe a lot of this is Sunday. We might've done Skull Island Sunday.
Speaker 1:Skull Island was on Saturday.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you logged this. Nobody cares about this, but us and we'll cut it out.
Speaker 1:But I wanted to get to the Epic stuff mostly. Yeah, um, so from that point we we had to pick up a shuttle, uh, because there is no uh like parking garage or lot uh that we could use at epic. So we were at city walk, um, we got on the shuttle, we took it over and then we got off and we were there and the first thing you see when you get off the shuttle and you are like walking around the path is this uh entrance gate that they call the Kronos, and it is this big tower with like a bunch of moving little discs in it and they all represent the four different worlds that are being tied together at Epic Universe. And it was so magical and I teared up and it was a very emotional thing to see for the first time in person a month before the park opens you know yeah.
Speaker 1:It was just.
Speaker 2:It's really, really exciting. It was a great thing.
Speaker 1:And it's got. You know, it was just it's really really exciting.
Speaker 2:It's got you know this beautiful entrance music and, yeah, it just hypes you right up. So it does very exciting um so that's the first like portal that you walk in. So each world has has a little portal that you go through that has like a little slogan or phrase over the top to kind of let you know what you're going into.
Speaker 1:There's a whole lore and story behind it, which I would love to get into at some point, but we're gonna have to kind of just get through some of these things because there's a lot to talk about. Um, yeah, you go in and the first main hub area is called celestial park. It's the one that ties everything together that all the other portals branch off of, but in Celestial Park. So the first thing I did that day was apparently an hour and 20 minutes after we got in the park, because I guess we were just walking around looking at stuff and doing things or whatever, or trying to get on, we had some lunch, yeah, we had to get some food, um, and then it was like rolling right up on our daughter's nap time.
Speaker 1:So we were like maybe we can just like eat and then like get her settled and maybe go do some things. Yeah, the first thing I did that day was a ride called Stardust Racers. And you guys, it is a roller coaster. That is a dueling roller coaster. So I'm sure some of you remember from back in the day dueling dragons over at Islands of Adventure. That got turned into Dragon Challenge. That eventually got torn down and in its place is hagrid. Stardust racers is just, like I almost said, middle of the road, but that's not I. That's not being generous enough to. It is my favorite like roller coaster, without any other modifiers on that at the moment.
Speaker 1:It is fast, it is extremely dynamic, and the interplay between these two different tracks that like roll over each other or race right next to each other and you can just look at the other people in the cart next to you as it's going at the same time. There is nothing else like it. I ended up writing both uh, the yellow and the green track for this one, and I think the green track is my favorite just because of the specific like maneuvers that are happening over a few parts but you can't go wrong and the wait times during previews. I waited like 30 minutes max I think the first time. The second time I basically walked right on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mine was like 15 minutes and it would have been faster if I did the yellow, but people had kept saying that green was better, so I waited just a little bit longer for green, but even so it was not that long, and it's such a smooth coaster. So like you're, you're, You're just very like comfortable. And I don't know, if I say leisurely then it doesn't sound thrilling, but it is.
Speaker 1:Leisurely in the way of like effortless yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You do feel like you're. You're just like shooting off on a star you know, it's, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:And, rather than it being like a bunch of dropping and like heart sinking moments, I feel like the majority of this roller coaster is what's called ejector airtime, where you feel like you're coming out of your seat, but it's like a floating rather than like a VelociCoaster flipping you over the water, feeling like you're going to drop into the ground. It's like you're being pushed out of your seat and you feel like you're flying, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. It was a great time.
Speaker 1:It was lovely.
Speaker 2:Um.
Speaker 1:I did ride. Um oh no, I didn't quite get to ride the green track at night. It was at six, 47. So that would have been just before sunset. You wanted to ride it, I wanted a night ride.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then there are too many other things calling your name by that point. Yeah, yeah, uh, the. The downside is that the queue is outdoors, so it will. It will be hot. It's a little hot In season.
Speaker 1:They have a ton of fans and a ton of covered areas, though, and, like canopies, domes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the queue is not otherwise exciting. There's not anything interesting to look at, no, theming.
Speaker 1:It's like Art Deco, vaguely kind of centennial sort of feel. But, other than that.
Speaker 2:In comparison to the rest of Celestial Park, which is gorgeous.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, the queue isn't super exciting and it does fit the theme of Celestial Park Right. Right. Yes, the ride itself super exciting. It does fit the theme of Celestial Park, right Right.
Speaker 1:Yes, the ride itself, yeah, but yeah, that one was phenomenal. Um, I cannot believe that the next ride I got on was monsters unchained yeah, I, and that was so funny because you were.
Speaker 2:you were saying, like, oh, what are the two rides that I really want to do? And we, we also wanted to do ministry, but, uh, we'll talk about that. I know, um, but I feel like the fact that you got to do two of the biggest rides you're most excited about back to back is pretty cool.
Speaker 1:And at the very beginning of the day.
Speaker 2:I think it's going to. I think we, we want to spend a little more time talking more in depth about everything. So I think, and as you can see, like we can really just dive into each little thing, cause we, like you, just teased about going to monsters and change, but we haven't even talked about all the celestial park. I know.
Speaker 1:I know, and that, honestly, each individual area, this thing could have its entire episode just by itself.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I feel like, based on our experience, with it, maybe it should, and maybe it should and yes, it will, and maybe it will maybe just some uh quick impressions, yeah um, so let's start with celestial park. What were your other impressions of this? Because mine are this is the best park, or this is the best land or world I think they're called worlds to hang out in, if you are not interested in going to ride the rides, yeah, if you have no care about that. If you're like being drug along with your family.
Speaker 2:Or you're pregnant, or whatever.
Speaker 1:Or for whatever reason you are not physically capable of getting on the rides. Go hang out in Celestial Park. I mean, go walk around the other lands if you want, but they have these water shows that happen constantly and it's so pleasant and just so relaxing to look at. The food is all really great.
Speaker 1:I didn't even go to any of the big restaurants. I went to mostly quick service stuff, but I did the um meteor astro pub. I got a burger there. It was awesome, yeah, um, I got several drinks from one of the uh meteor astro pub and then, like one other place that was right outside, it was all great.
Speaker 2:Um, we want to eat at pizza moon next time, because we just walked in pizza moon but we I mean we had autumn- there was like no way we could possibly do it. I think it was also like a weird time. It wasn't quite lunch or dinner. So we didn't want to eat like an entire pizza in the middle of the day, but they looked so good and the theme is so phenomenal.
Speaker 1:It looks like, um, what do they call those old texts from back in the day that had the illustrations Enlightened or illuminated something?
Speaker 2:I don't know, but I need a visual cue. You don't know this. Maybe figure this out.
Speaker 1:I thought the art history might know what I was talking about.
Speaker 2:You know that was a long time ago.
Speaker 1:Illuminated text is what I'm going to think that that is called, and Tyler from the future will cut in right here if I'm wrong. So I was either wrong or right. Put put a uh picture on our instagram. I will.
Speaker 2:I will, um, okay, so celestial park, great stardust racers, incredible ride the musicians, I think were one of the best parts of celestial park too, like there's a dedicated band area where, like, rotating bands will be playing and they're all, like, themed with costume.
Speaker 1:It's really cute like on a stage with a pavilion.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then there's also like just kind of roving musicians, like this woman was playing this electric violin.
Speaker 1:That like so cool the electric Transparent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I love those violins that it's like not fully there.
Speaker 1:The hollow.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I was like I don't, I can't think of the words, but she was so cool and so that it's just a really neat area. Lots of lighting on the ground and cued with the water.
Speaker 1:And something that Jess wouldn't have seen, but I mean she saw in the videos that I took all of the lighting in the entire world of Celestial Park is all synced up to the water show.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So as it gets to be nighttime, you'll see everything reacting to the music that is happening across the entire park.
Speaker 2:It's insane, um so it's a very gorgeous area and I expected it to be like the boring area that you just want to move through quickly to get to the other stuff, but it wasn't yeah, it was very fun. Um, I love stardust racers, but we also did the carousel with Autumn and it was gorgeous.
Speaker 1:The Constellation Carousel.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Uh. So, oh, man, I'm going to try to go so fast through all this stuff. Uh, we will be coming back to talk about this. Constellation Carousel was something that we did kind of in the middle-ish of the oh no, it might've been towards the end of the day. Oh, it was the last thing we did before you left. Actually, it was the last thing we did with Adam. Um, so at about six ish or so, uh, you guys headed out, um, but we got on and it is this. I mean, you've never seen a carousel like this before because there's there's it's not your typical like merry-go-round style, where it's just like rows and rows stacked up and they all kind of go around in a circle. Um, there are like these little turntables within the larger turntable of the entire thing, so you're like spinning independently of some of the other things, and all of the animals are themed to animals from constellations. We got to sit on a dragon with our daughter and she loved it.
Speaker 2:She was like a little dragon rider and she had learned to love dragons a lot earlier in the day yes, we spent a lot of time at isle of burke yeah, which is the how to train your dragon world yeah, and she, she discovered a love for dragons, and that's just all she wanted to talk about dragons, dragons it was great, oh man, she kept going yeah, yeah um, but yeah, no, that was an absolute blast and uh, so okay so the other worlds, we have isla burke
Speaker 2:which is the how to train your dragon incredible yeah like absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1:So much kinetic energy, uh, animatronics everywhere. It's, it's the best yes, and lots of.
Speaker 2:I think it's the largest, so I think there's the most rides in that area um very kid friendly um, but there's also great stuff there was a crazy playground there that autumn absolutely loved it was called the like the viking training training camp or something like that yeah, um, the food was really good. The got mead yeah which was fun yeah, the rides were were great, so um, so we'll do a deeper dive, but uh, what? Uh, what was your best? What was your favorite part of Isla Burke?
Speaker 1:My favorite part of Isla Burke was, uh, I didn't get to see it running quite a lot, um, but there was this one particular spot where, okay, do you remember the animatronics which, uh, and seriously, like I'm saying this right now, listener, you are not prepared for the amount of moving things that are in this land, uh, the likes of which I have not seen in any other universal park. But there was this one spot where the baby dragons are fighting over a fish.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, love that.
Speaker 1:But if you're standing right there and you're looking across the little lake that's there with the statues, occasionally you'll see the coaster train for Hiccup's wing gliders going around. You can also see the Dragon Racers Rally training little flat ride going. Racer's rally. Uh, like training a little flat ride going. Uh, you can see uh from that exact same spot. Uh, you can look at fire drill with like the boats going around. So just being able to see so much happening all at once was my favorite. And then the other second favorite thing, just because it was like the biggest oh, it actually wasn't the biggest animatronic we saw that day.
Speaker 1:There's an ice dragon and I don't remember his name but over near one of the food areas he is like just kind of has knocked out part of the roof of one of the buildings and you can walk up next to him and he's just doing his thing and not talking like words but like you know, whatever Autumn loved him, thought he was great.
Speaker 2:He was great. Yeah, I think that's what is so exciting. Is that from any one spot you can see so much of this land, so, um, similar to the super Nintendo world, like it. You just walk in and you're you're just like a kid and giddy and you're like, oh my God, I got to look at it all.
Speaker 1:You just immersed and overwhelmed. That was another world. That, uh, my daughter and I worked, or we worked there. Uh, I guess kind of we did Um. My daughter and I walked into that for the first time, I think without you cause you were on monsters maybe yeah.
Speaker 2:That sounds right. Yeah, and then I met up with y'all after, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean I can look over here. But yeah, we walked into that world and I was just like how does this exist? Yeah, it really does something to your mind to be looking at this immersive world of these games that I have played for a long time and I have never really looked at, uh, uh, like especially an old Mario game and been like I want to be in there, but like it just isn't. It's stuck in my head.
Speaker 1:You know, like I have that and can recall that very like easily, uh, and to be standing there and seeing it all happening and again, seeing it all in motion yes, and all the animatronics moving. It's so cool and all the coins spinning and all the shells moving around like on the cliff ledges and stuff. So cool uh favorite part of uh favorite part of that one is probably uh, I mean, the first thing that's coming to mind is the piranha plants- yeah they're huge, they're like they look like they're 20 feet tall and they're just like kind of reaching down and like snapping at you and stuff.
Speaker 1:Honestly, my favorite part of that land was getting the power up band and like hitting all the blocks and stuff. Yes, that's just a blast Autumn thought it was really funny too. Yes.
Speaker 2:So, for those who don't know, there's a lot of interactive elements in the Super Nintendo world.
Speaker 1:You can play it as a game.
Speaker 2:Yes. So kind of like if you have a wand and you're going to the like spell stops in the Harry Potter worlds, this you, it's just an elastic band you strap on and then you can be Mario and punch bricks and go blowing yeah, yeah, and it connects to an app that you can keep track all keep track of all the points that you're getting, so that's really cool and fun. I did not get the opportunity to ride any rides in Super Nintendo World. So, I can't review.
Speaker 1:I only did the one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:I know, because there's only two.
Speaker 2:Well, no, there was Yoshi.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the other one.
Speaker 2:Minecart.
Speaker 1:Oh, so yeah, that's the Donkey Kong Country area, which I didn't even see when I was there Right right, which is such a shame. We split up several times, trying to do the things that we wanted to do, and so some of us saw things that the other one didn't.
Speaker 2:Well, and it was, you know, just never enough time, that was also one of the ones that was like 115, 120 minutes regularly, so I'm like I'm not waiting two hours.
Speaker 1:There are two hours that I can be going to do other things in the parks.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes so.
Speaker 1:And, from what I've heard, not a two hour wait worthy ride. Well you know, but fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Fun and really incredibly themed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mostly, it was just so fun to be in that space I and I want to ride the rides are you familiar with, like the donkey kong stuff at all not super yeah, I didn't think so uh, I think we played together like once maybe so, but it's still fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because everything's moving. Yeah, it's all just like yeah no, it's very cool imagine if you were walking around jurassic park and you could just see dinosaurs like coming in and out of, like the, the bushes on the walk path, like, yeah, yeah, like you know, that would be awesome, yeah, yeah, yeah so yeah, so that was a blast.
Speaker 2:Um, so I will say uh, let's see which. Which one do you want to talk about next? Uh, briefly, dark, dark what is it?
Speaker 1:dark, dark universe, dark, more dark. You know it's called the town is dark more, but yeah, dark universe okay, um.
Speaker 2:So that is where all the universal classic monsters live. So, if you like, um. What does hHN stand for?
Speaker 1:Halloween Horror Nights.
Speaker 2:I was like haunted Haunted haunted night. I couldn't. Yeah, my brain isn't working anymore. So if you like Halloween, horror Nights and you're like why don't they just do this all year long? Now there's a specific place where you can be spooky all year long there is. And it's really cool.
Speaker 1:And you're not not gonna get like jump scared as you're walking around.
Speaker 2:No, I'm a total wimp and I was fine um. I was fine on um monsters unchanged. Yeah yeah and and wow.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll talk about that ride later that was part of that was also that you uh got stuck on that ride for a little bit a little bit, yeah, but you know, um yeah.
Speaker 2:So I mean that was obviously the best part, but I mean there's so much theming. That's really great there. There's a lot of um character actors that are out and musicians uh, igor's walking around.
Speaker 1:We saw in the invisible man.
Speaker 2:Yes, we were in there and he just wants to like roast young children. Yeah, dude, he's a one-man roastery yeah, like fully just burning people as they come up to meet with him yep, um, I must have looked really hot at one point because I was waiting for um. What's the uh restaurant that has the windmill that lights on fire?
Speaker 2:burning blade tavern yes, so I was. I was waiting there trying to see if the windmill would light on fire. It wasn't, but I was standing there for like 10 minutes. I'm like fanning myself. Pretty sure autumn's asleep at that point and one of the um, one of the team members, came up to me and he's like you know that the the steam fountain, it's, it's, you know, it'll cool you down, you can go over there like.
Speaker 1:He was like worried about me and I'm like, oh, thank you.
Speaker 2:So anyway, if you're really hot, go to the the steam fountain in the main square when you first walk in, because it'll, it's, it'll cool you down. It's a cooling mist yeah, yeah, it's not actual hot steam, um, but I thought I thought that was very funny, um. So, yeah, that area very spooky, very cool. All the food everywhere is just like it's a little more expensive, but I feel like what you get.
Speaker 1:The quality compared to the other two universal parks is, like I mean, at least 20, 30% better than any of the other universal parks right.
Speaker 2:So instead of I'm paying 12 for a shitty hot dog, it's, I'm paying 16 for a delicious meal for a really good hot dog right, no, no, it's not just hot dogs, it's like actual, like legit food, um, like yeah, the variety is also yes all over the place too, like they're really going in to try to experiment and like play with what. Yeah, it's not just thematic Right Right, not just regular theme park food. It's all really cool stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, so, yeah, so, uh, dark universe was really cool. Uh, we loved it. And last, uh, what is it just called Ministry or what the oh boy, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
Speaker 1:Ministry of Magic. Yes, which is odd because there are so many odd things about this land. Look we loved it.
Speaker 2:It's still great.
Speaker 1:It's really fun to be in.
Speaker 2:We are conflicted about our feelings about this world currently For reasons, for reasons, the main reason is that, unfortunately, there is a virtual queue for the ministry ride, which is the only ride in that world. So there's the Cirque show.
Speaker 1:Le Cirque Acunil.
Speaker 2:Yes, which I've heard is great. But if you go to Epic, you want to be sure to get to the shows a half hour before they start, because they will fill up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we kept missing all the shows, um I didn't see a single show while I was there, which is really unfortunate, because there were, you know, the.
Speaker 2:There's one in isla burke. That's supposed to be really cool, um, but anyway. So so we didn't actually get to do anything in.
Speaker 1:Well, we get to do one thing in the ministry world.
Speaker 2:Well, we got to eat.
Speaker 1:Which is eat and shop, and the eating was really good. The eating was really good Do you want to talk about what we've got?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'll get there.
Speaker 1:But, first.
Speaker 2:So the virtual queue for ministry. Right now that's what they're doing. I had a friend who managed to go there the weekend after us and she got her whole family with eight people in and they actually got two wait times. So they got to ride it on it twice in a row, which is really super cool.
Speaker 1:But Tyler and I completely missed all opportunities and I fully drained my phone battery because the entire day that I was there I was refreshing, looking for them because I had heard that they were dropping different like wait times throughout the day or queue times to be able to reserve, and then so you guys left and I'm doing that basically the entire rest of like the two hours or whatever that I'm there, and then eventually gave up at about nine because I was like I guess they're just not doing it anymore.
Speaker 1:Uh, but the I mean like, take taking into consideration that it is a technical rehearsal. They're operating at limited capacity already because the ride apparently is not running very well, so they're having to run like maybe a 10th, a 12th of what they would normally be wanting to do in terms of capacity to get people through, because it's going to be the most in-dem in the entire park.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, and it's still not functioning very well, like that makes me a little worried about what it's going to be like when it opens. And then, because the demand was extra high, because the capacity was extra reduced, things were like there were two points throughout the day where it allowed me to go in and look at the times for the virtual queue, because I just happened to get in there at the right time and then every single one I pressed no kidding, like 30 different slots for times. It would be like sorry, the slot's no longer available. Sorry, no longer available.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Over and over again. So we're both a little frustrated about that and hope that they're well. First, okay, a few different things. One hope the ride works, yeah, period. And then two, hope that they can come up with some other system to. What I hope they don't do is because of the insane demand. Make it like a lightning line thing where you have to buy like a $25 thing to reserve the time, but I mean, what else are they going to do at that?
Speaker 2:point. I mean I would pay for it, but that's the problem, Right and?
Speaker 1:then. So then everybody would pay for it yeah, and then that becomes the new standard right so I don't want that. I want to try to vote with my wallet in that way. About that? Yeah but I mean don't have a great alternative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, beautiful theming in the land, though it does feel mostly like you're just in epic. Uh like not epic, sorry, epcot Paris.
Speaker 1:And also there is no connection between Paris and London.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:The whole thing doesn't really make any sense narratively.
Speaker 2:Right, so you are, you walk into.
Speaker 1:Granted, we're not very familiar with Fantastic Beasts, which the land is based on Right, but still.
Speaker 2:You walk into 1920s Paris, which is one of the Fantastic Beasts movies. It's beautiful. It's very subtly magical. So I feel like you know, you got to like really look into things and kind of see that it's magical.
Speaker 1:And see the shop windows with like the brooms and stuff.
Speaker 2:At first glance, though, it just feels like Paris.
Speaker 1:The murals, once you get close, though, are like, so cool, and they all depict these like magical creatures, and they're yeah, it's, it's very detailed there's almost no. This is the other difference. Almost no kinetic energy in that land. Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, in comparison to the other ones that's.
Speaker 2:That's a good point. Yeah, there are some like interactive things that are neat. Um we'll, we'll talk about this more in the deep dive, yeah just a big contrast between that one and the rest. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a shame um, but we did get to eat at um one of the main restaurants, seren la cafe serena something like that like that mermaid, french mermaid cafe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, they got a butterbeer creep there's a butterbeer creep.
Speaker 2:You guys? Cafe Serena, something like that, something like that. Mermaid, french Mermaid Cafe, the mermaid guy. Yeah, they got a Butterbeer Creep. There's a Butterbeer. Creep, you guys, and it's so good, it's so fucking good, it's so good I've heard that it I think it is 100% my, because I, you know.
Speaker 1:I mean I like Butterbeer. I enjoy having butterbeer but I don't have it very often because it's kind of heavy and like I'm not much of a like fill myself up on sweets kind of guy, but the butterbeer crepe, I think, is my favorite butterbeer product. Yeah, that is sold on the property really, really good.
Speaker 2:I've heard that it can sell out quick, so if you are in the mood for a sweet treat, try to go a little earlier. You know it's huge, so you can split it between two or three people. Fine, so that was delicious, you know it was. It was pretty to go in there, but unfortunately if you couldn't get into either of the of the ride or the show of that world, then it's just like oh, I'm kind of looking around and I'm kind of interested in things Like trying to do magic with my wand and maybe it's not working super well.
Speaker 2:Well, if you have a wand, you know, so it the, and I don't. I can't remember how much the power-up band was, but I think that's a lot cheaper than an interactive wand, right? It's probably like 20 30 cheaper, yeah, right. So a lot more accessible for you to do the interactive elements over in super mario world. I have to fact check that yeah, yeah, do you remember how you?
Speaker 1:I don't yeah, well, anyway was just going to get it anyway.
Speaker 2:basically, you just had already budgeted for that, Um. So yeah, I, I feel like the I had expected the Harry Potter stuff to be the best, because I love Harry Potter so much, Um, and I think, in comparison usually for like studios and islands, I just want to be in the Harry Potter worlds and I could.
Speaker 1:I could just live there and be happy there.
Speaker 2:But over at Epic I would say I liked it, but I liked all the other worlds more, so I I would hang out there and I'm super excited to do ministry eventually. Um but, uh, and it is beautiful, um, um, but it just doesn't get me as excited and it maybe it's because I'm not as familiar of uh like an emotional attachment yes to that one, yes as I do to the other ones maybe if I watch the movies, then maybe I would, maybe but, from what I've heard, irrelevant, which sucks yeah because the ride and well, like I said, we're gonna do a part two where we go through all the individual rides and we'll talk about that then the ride I love, I very much identify with it.
Speaker 1:Didn't see it, didn't?
Speaker 2:see the queue right. So the the you walk into 1920s paris, but then you go to the flu network and you get transported through time and space to 1990s London, which is the Harry Potter that we all know and love yeah, where like a thing is happening with Umbridge, so so and like so that's what you know and what you're excited about, but the rest of it is different we had to get through all that to get to there.
Speaker 1:I know I don't know.
Speaker 2:Which I get why they did it because basically, the only other aspects of Harry Potter that you know are you know, we already did the Diagon Alley, we already did Hogsmeade, we've already got Muggle London, so that's it. They don't have anything else for you to be in you know what?
Speaker 1:I have a quick pitch right now that I just thought of. That would have made a better third world.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:The Forbidden Forest.
Speaker 2:Oh, shoot, yeah, oh, that would have been dope. You have the.
Speaker 1:Lomping Willow.
Speaker 2:You got the Shrieking Shack you can bump off to you got the whole Centaur fellowship or whatever you could have gone through if you had to get to the Forbidden Forest to get to the ministry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like whatever hideout that the, the marauders like had or whatever.
Speaker 2:Well, they were in the Whomping Willow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I and you could have done. Like the lake from the, they could have done an underwater thing with, like the mermaidsids, you know, and hey look, oh universal. Hey guys, get up with us for the, for the next one, for the fourth one, for the next one.
Speaker 1:Maybe we could just pretend like the third one didn't do do that.
Speaker 2:Uh, I think you know, okay, never mind, because your idea was great and I wish they did that. Um, but it so I I'm glad that they did something different, because if they just did another london backdrop, you've already seen it.
Speaker 1:I mean I can't think of any other london yeah, places that would have made any sense right so you've already seen that.
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess they could have done like oh, this is Privet Drive, but again, that's not interesting, I don't think so.
Speaker 1:So I think if they had fully committed to have the entire thing just be the ministry, yeah, like you walk through the portal, you're in the ministry. There could have been so many different. There could have been courtyards, even if that is the concern. Yeah Of being like cooped up the entire time.
Speaker 2:The whole place could have been the ministry and then just one section be the ministry ride. Yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you live and you learn or you don't.
Speaker 2:But I mean, you know it's, I would just go in, I think the whole. I had high expectations. I haven't dived in as much as you have, so it exceeded and neither of us got to do the ride right. But but I mean for for all of epic. Like I didn't know everything as much because I didn't want to be super duper spoiled, um, or have it be spoiled for me, um. But then I was like, actually I want to be kind of prepared so I started looking up stuff.
Speaker 2:So, um, I was very excited. I thought it exceeded my expectations overall for everything. I think that's just the the one caveat for the har, the Harry Potter stuff, is that I would have expected that to be amazing and it was good and I enjoyed it and I liked it, but it wasn't jaw dropping Fantastic.
Speaker 1:Which is what we all wanted. Yes, obviously yes.
Speaker 2:Um, but not not to knock it by any means Um. So the whole experience was great. We had a great time. I can't wait to go back.
Speaker 1:Um and we, we are going back, which is the other exciting thing. It's already in the books.
Speaker 2:And I don't know we might be. We're going to go back before. I don't know. I've got some time off for Memorial day.
Speaker 1:I don't know We'll who's look, who's to say. If you want to sponsor us going on another trip, yeah, Feel free to get in touch with us and send it to let me get my bank account information up here.
Speaker 2:One sec, yeah, that's 459.
Speaker 1:That's not any, that's not real.
Speaker 2:I feel like it was just a three digit number. You can find me at 459. Send it to 459. Done.
Speaker 1:But thank you for coming on this journey with us. I almost said coming on this ride with us, um, also would have been applicable. Uh, I love you all. I love you. Thanks, my wife, um, and if you want to get in touch with us, feel free to text us using using the link in the show notes or send us an email at ride it out. Pod pod P-O-D at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:Any other things you want to plug or talk about Not really Stay tuned, for we'll do another deep dive. Part two coming up yeah we got some other good content. I think we are likely going to be spacing this out as an every other week release.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that seems to work well for us.
Speaker 2:The weekly was a little ambitious. So, um, hopefully that means that, uh, you will get some really good content that we will have time for. Likely It'll be the same and we'll be just as tired.
Speaker 1:Probably the same but at least I'll have time to edit it. There we go, there we go. Um yeah, there we go.
Speaker 2:There we go. Yeah, and we'll be. Our next planned trip is going to be in June, that we'd be going down, but I'm sure we'll have some fun adventures planned in the future. And thanks for hanging out and, as always, no screens.
Speaker 1:No screens until we write a game. It's going to be one of those two for sure. Bye Bye screens until we write it down. It's gonna be one of those two for sure.
