More Changes to Early Park Admission at Epic Universe

Epic Universe has changed their Early Park Admission (EPA) process once again. We documented changes back in March (you can ready about that here) and our early morning testing yesterday uncovered a new procedure.

The Old Process

• October 2025 we detailed how to ride Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry during EPA without having Early Admission.
•  March 2026 Epic closed the Ministry loophole.
  • All General Admission guests were directed to the right side of the park no matter where they were headed when the park opened.

What’s New

We tested EPA on Tuesday, July 7 when general entry was 10:00am and EPA was 9:00am.

• 8:15am: security open for everyone
• 8:30am: ticket gates open for everyone
• 8:50am: Early Park Admission ticket holders allowed to enter the park and head to their chosen land. EPA is directed to one of two paths depending on their destination.
  • Left: Super Nintendo World, Dark Universe, or Constellation Carousel
  • Right: Wizarding World of Harry Potter & the Ministry of Magic, How to Train Your Dragon Isle of Berk, and Stardust Racers
• 9:50am: general admission ticket holders allowed to move to their chosen land

There are now two paths for regular entry / general admission.

1. The red star on the left of the image above shows where general admission guests were held after they scanned in to the park. These are folks that are headed to Super Nintendo World, Dark Universe, or Constellation Carousel.
2. The red star on the right represents where our tester waited. This is the path for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter & the Ministry of Magic, How to Train Your Dragon Isle of Berk, and Stardust Racers. There is a concierge location and an open Starbucks on this path. Remember to use your Annual Pass Discount at Starbucks – a perk Disney AP’s do not have.

This is just like the paths for EPA except general admission is held in the center Celestial Park.

Our tester decided to enter the Isle of Berk at 9:50am because most of the line on the right was headed to Ministry of Magic. As a reminder, Epic allows 60 minutes of Early Park Admission (Disney World has offers 30 minutes for resort guests) and lines build significantly during that time. Of course, the opening wait times can vary by season and day. You can read Len’s analysis of the best day to visit Epic Universe here.

When our tester entered Isle of Berk, the Universal app was showing that Hiccup’s Wing Glider was down. It was running and we had an actual wait of 10 minutes.

• 10:17am: The Toothless meet and greet posted wait: 60 minutes
• TouringPlans UOR Lines App Expected Wait: 35 minutes
• Actual Wait: 36 minutes

Stormfly came out around 10:25am and was only meeting for a few minutes because of the extreme temperature and humidity. Captain Cacao, pictured above, can be found in Celestial Park, and stays out to meet fans longer than his friend, Stormfly. (Do you think they know of each other? What does that timeline look like?) We included the picture of Captain Cacao to show the new, heavy duty air conditioner stationed behind him. It’s powerful and is the only reason he can linger longer than other characters.

We have more Epic Universe testing on our calendar, so check back for updates. Thanks for reading!