Theme Park Enjoyment Index for MARCH 2025 (Terra Luna Opens, Butterbeer Season, the return of EPOCT and more!))

Remember, all links in TPEI open up in a new browser window. So feel free to check stuff out, we’ll be here when you get back! Each photo opens up to a larger version as well, and with that out of the way let’s look back at what happened during the past month, starting with…

*Terra Luna Opens

It’s always a good month in Florida when Universal or Disney open a brand new hotel, and this past week Universal added it’s 10th “onsite” resort with Terra Luna. The sister resort to Stella Nova (which opened back in January,) Terra Luna is one of the value resort options for people looking to book trips to Epic Universe later this year.

We’ll be doing a full article on Terra Luna and Stella Nova in the near future, so we’ll just cover some brief highlights here. One thing worth noting is the food options at Terra Luna’s Omega Market & Café quick service are – pardon the expression – out of this world when it comes to value resort dining.

The refillable cup design is very similar to Stella Nova’s, with the hotel branding on top of the resort’s signature colorful tiles.

Here’s an overview of Terra Luna’s pool area.

There is an outdoor bar by the pool.

Where you can get your cocktail (or mocktail) served in a souvenir cup.

Yes, they have themed swivel sticks, so of course that means Terra Luna shoots straight up in our overall hotel rankings.

Like pretty much all value resorts, Terra Luna offers a game room…

…but, unlike some theme park value resorts, Terra Luna offers a gym to its guests.

A gym bathroom that also includes branded shampoo and conditioner bottles (we truly are #blessed.)

The hotel rooms themselves also offer branded soap!

Let’s take a peek inside one of the hotel rooms (which are all exactly the same at the resort.)

Of course, many people booking Terra Luna are going to be interested in the views outside the window.

One half of the resort faces Epic Universe, and if you have a good camera like our ol’ pal bioreconstruct, you can get some pretty great shots!

Check out this amazing video from bio showing the day and night comparisons of the Stardust Racers dueling coaster as seen from his Terra Luna room!

Other views in the resort will give you a look at things like ICON Park (soon to be the home to the upcoming Blue Man Group theater!)

The biggest difference between Stella Nova and Terra Luna is the former has a dedicated walking path straight to Epic Universe. The picture below shows both Terra Luna (left) and Stella Nova (right) along with the path guests would take if they were walking to the new park.

Again, we’ll be doing a dedicated article to Terra Luna and Stella Nova in the very near future and will get into all the specific details, but how can you not love stuff like this on a value resort?!!! (Also, for a great read on the unique lighting features throughout Terra Luna, be sure to check out THIS THREAD by Ethan Hershaft.)

TPEI Score: +3 One of the most interesting things for both Terra Luna and Stella Nova is that when each opened, their gift store offered items for Epic Universe that you couldn’t get anywhere else outside of the park. In Terra Luna’s case, among the new items there was the debut of Super Nintendo World items and the first opportunity to purchase WWoHP Ministry of Magic robes.

***QUICK HITS***

It was a whirlwind month of news and notes, so let’s take a look back at some of the bigger items including…

*Universal Mardi Gras

Uni’s Mardi Gras celebration goes from early February to the end of March. This year’s edition is wrapping up this weekend and, as usual, overall was good (but nothing spectacular.)

It’s always good to see the event expand outside of Universal Studios Florida and experience parts of it in CityWalk and the onsite resorts.

The transformation of the Red Coconut Club in CityWalk to the Cursed Coconut Club for Mardi Gras is always a welcome addition.

Haven’t seen a Zoltar machine since I sailed on Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Seas (let me tell you, that ship is straight up E-Ticket), but the Cursed Coconut version was even better…

…because the fortune cards the machine gave you were branded with Cursed Coconut Club. A great souvenir.

Here’s a look at some of the props outside the cursed coconut that were photographed shortly before the Mardi Gras celebration started…

…along with a more current look.

We know Universal wanted to prevent guests from throwing their Mardi Gras beads onto the “bead tree” on the way to the parking garages, so they should set up more gimmicks like this on the route from USF. Give people a target to aim for and most will surely try to toss their beads onto it.

In fact, inside the Cursed Coconut Club they had their own Bead Tree for guests to throw their beads onto.

Another great addition to CityWalk this year was the 600 Block “speakeasy” on the second floor Pat O’Briens. You had to give a password to get in,

600 Block featured live entertainment, outdoor seating with a great view of CityWalk, and its own food and drink menu. Let’s hope this gimmick returns for future events like the Red Coconut Club makeovers.

Okay, now inside USF, the annual Mardi Gras Tribute Store was themed to a museum and gift shop for the Legends of the Bayou. Very Chester & Hester’s Dinorama in terms of “if this store actually existed in the south, this is exactly the type of South of the Border-like schtick it would be filled with.”

For me personally, I loved all the references to King Gator.

Couple stapes of Mardi Gras I love every single year is the great snacks (like this King Cake…)

…along with the live entertainment that Universal brings into the park.

As always, the Mardi Gras parade is one of the most fun at any theme park. Just a wild atmosphere.

For both Universal and Disney, the big floats get the lion’s share of attention, but man do both companies put a lot of work into the characters that walk along in each parade unit. Each character themed to that float.

Reminder that you can actually book a spot throwing beads on a Universal Mardi Gras float. This is a true bucket list item for any theme park fan, so add it onto your To Do list for next year.

While my beloved Uni-Mini line of toys may be dead, it sort of made a small comeback with the release of this Prince Gator toy.

*Epic Universe Lets In First Guests

We are getting SO CLOSE to Epic Universe’s grand opening in May, and this month they began giving a preview to Team Members. Now, right before they let in the Team Members, they released photos of the amazing How To Train Your Dragon meet-and-greet that will be inside the park. It was clear from the photos Uni shared that this photo-op with Toothless is going to be a HUGE HIT with guests later this year.

The character was a big hit in the previews as well!

Toothless wasn’t the only one that people could meet, because over in the highly anticipated Dark Universe, we saw some other fantastic characters….

We also got a look at some AMAZING merchandise that – as of now – is only available inside the parks. One of my personal favorites was this chocolate egg gimmick that is going to be sold in Isle of Berk. This seems like a spiritual successor to the Wizarding World’s amazing Chocolate Frogs. Each chocolate egg is presented in this fantastic box…

…and it also comes with a random dragon training card! To me this checks off all the boxes for a perfect souvenir to bring back home to friends and family. You can’t get it anywhere else, looks fantastic, it’s relatively small, not that expensive, has a treat they can enjoy, and a collectible card. As a kid I would have flipped out if someone brought this home for me and begged my parents to take me to Epic Universe so I could get more cards for my collection.

Look at some of these items at Dark Universe! Attraction posters, wooden signage, and cut versions of our favorite Classic Monsters. I want them all.

A couple more items I had no idea were going to be available at the park were this ride vehicle kits. I’m of the belief that both Universal and Disney should be selling small scale versions of pretty much every single ride vehicle in every park, so this was a very nice surprise!

The biggest surprise coming out of the previews was people falling in love with Captain Cacao, the original character created for the Moonship Chocolates & Celestial Sweets candy shop. That’s right, an original character created just for a gift shop, and it’s adorable af.

In fact, Captain Cacao inspired many artists in the theme park community in a way that we haven’t seen since the debut of the VelociCoaster or a new HHN Icon is revealed.

This past week the biggest thing on social media was Marvel revealing the names of people who would be in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday movie. Millions of people watched as Marvel released one name every 15 minutes. They revealed these names by showing the chair the actors would be sitting in during the movie shoot. This led to a ton of memes being created having fun with the concept, including my favorite by the digital maestro Scott Walker…

*Butterbeer Season

For those unaware, at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Butterbeer Season is March 15th through April 30th. During this timeframe, Universal releases new versions of Butterbeer along with collectibles. Last year we saw the debut of the Butterbeer Ice Lolly.

This year we got Butterbeer cream puff, and it was fantastic.

We also got a new Butterbeer golden stein.

However, this year Butterbeer Season extended into the real world, as Butterbeer flavored Hershey Kisses were available at retailers like WalMart.

The smell of these kisses just from opening the bag was wonderful.

I saw Butterbeer Fudge Stripe Cookies at my local Publix. Because my store happens to be the most expensive Publix on planet Earth, I’m waiting for these to go BOGO before I pick them up.

However, I did grab a bag of the Butterbeer Goldfish and these immediately went into the Goldfish Flavor Hall of Fame (joining other all timers including Old Bay, Flavor Blasted Xplosive Pizza, and Elf.)

Go out of your way to get a bag of these.

If you haven’t been to the Goldfish aisle at your local supermarket lately, you’ve missed a lot of synergy with both Universal and Disney over the last couple years. Let’s hope there’s going to be some tied into the opening of Epic Universe, because I could use a bag or two themed to lands like Isle of Berk, Super Nintendo World, or Dark Universe.

*The Return of EPOCT!!

Imagine my surprise, when seeing the below ticket option for Disney. I thought my eyes deceived me, but NAY NAY, we got the long awaited return of the infamous EPOCT.

For those who don’t remember, back in 2017 Disney had the EPOCT sign and was a Theme Park Turkey of the Year nominee. The amount of people who would have had to sign off on this sign before it was even made must be a significant number, but this mistake also wasn’t caught by anyone before it was installed. Just amazing.

But not that amazing, because the exact same thing happened THE VERY NEXT YEAR with Disney’s Amimal Kingdom. After this, how could we not create the Disney Signage Hall of Shame?

*Say It Ain’t So, Bio!

If you had a theme park fan in your life wearing a black armband earlier this month, it’s probably because they saw the following tweet…

WHAT?!! Blogger-in-sky Bioreconstruct coming in for a landing? It couldn’t be true. But apparently when Bio said he was “winding down” he actually meant he was “ramping up” because after that tweet he was seemingly in the sky every single day (and night!) getting us updated shots of Epic Universe. For example, we got all the updates of the construction of a Blue Dragon…

I can only picture Bio saying to the helicopter pilot, “okay, got that shot. Now circle around so I can get the other side…”

“Why?” – pilot.

“I don’t understand the question.” – Bio, probably.

Like Captain Cacao, Bioreonstruct is another beloved character who inspires theme park fans. Take for example this STUNNING aerial of the Grand Helios Hotel.

Social media user Aahs n Oohs used Bio’s photo to show us that people using the gym at Helios would have a great view of the fountain show inside Epic Universe!

A Treadmill With A View – If you want a view of the show fountain in Celestial Park while working out, then you want the 2nd treadmill from the wall (green in photo.) The treadmill closest to the wall (red in photo) has a column obstructing the view of the center of the fountain.” – Aahs n Oohs

We then got a further breakdown of the viewpoint from the gym. But that was topped by…

Are you kidding me?!!!!

Let’s check in on some others who were inspired by Our Man Bio…

Maybe the most high profile people this month who were inspired by Bio was over at WonderCon, where his work was featured in a panel titled “The Science of Disneyland.” You know it’s going to be good when it starts off with a discussion of how forced perspective works at Disneyland and the example they show is from Walt Disney World.

Something about that photo seems familiar? Well, you’re not the only one who caught it.

You can also see that photo featured in our article The SATURDAY SIX Looks at the EMPTY theme parks at Univeral and WDW, however unlike Disney, we actually credited Bio.

*New Menu Items at Comic Strip Café

One of the most overlooked restaurants at Universal Orlando – and for good reason –  is Comic Strip Café in Toon Lagoon.

However, they recently added some new menu items, so we thought we’d head on over to check them out.

Is this eclectic or what? You have items from the Wimpy’s quick service (also located in Toon Lagoon) along with pizza and the new Asian Entrees (which include several vegan options.)

There is a lot of seating both inside and outside of Comic Strip Café.

Most of the theming in the restaurant will be unrecognizable to anyone under the age of 40. Actually some of these comic strips haven’t been relevant since World War II, so maybe Universal should just make another new menu to appeal to that demographic and offer items like Ensure, Quaker oatmeal and pea soup.

Turns out the new Asian items are delicious and it’s just bonkers they are in Comic Strip Café of all places.

Spring Roll is a 10/10. It is not heavy or greasy,  and is full of cabbage and veggies. There is a little spice in the dipping chili sauce, but the items alone have no spice at all.

*New Cinnabon Kiosk in CityWalk

The old Cinnabon venue in CityWalk was closed a while back to make room for some new additions coming to the shopping district (including a Nintendo store and a Butterbeer window.) Thankfully, a new Cinnabon kiosk was recently opened up closer to the water front.

Cinnabon is hands down one of the best snacks at Universal. So good.

Cinnasweeties are essential cinnamon sugar donut munchkins served with Cinnabon icing.

*Update to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin

In an announcement no one saw coming, Disney announced it is going to make some major additions to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin at the Magic Kingdom. A new character named Buddy will be introduced and gameplay will be improved.

The Permit Princess herself, Alicia Stella, was invited by Disney to test out the new blasters!

So for those keeping score at home…this month Alicia was invited by Disney to test out something new, was able to experience Epic Universe, and makes her FIRST EVER appearance in the famous TPEI graph you seen keeping track of our monthly score at the end of every article. If that isn’t the best month of someone’s life, I don’t know what is.

Here’s a video Alicia made going over all the upgrades coming to Space Ranger Spin:

*Cars Attraction in Frontierland

Early in March, Disney showed some concept art and behind-the-scenes work on the upcoming Cars attraction that will be replacing Rivers of America in Magic Kingdom’s Frontierland.

One of the things revealed was that the vehicles would be on a track, debunking the Rumors and Innuendo that suggested the attraction would be trackless.

Overall, I personally wasn’t that impressed by what Disney showed (I think they should have waited until they had some more “Wow!” elements to reveal.) However, the announcement once again sparked discussion one why this Cars attraction is going in Frontierland and why Disney didn’t try a way to keep the Rivers of America (which is something uniquely “Disney”  you won’t see in any other theme park.)

People in the theme park community, including former Disney Imagineer Eddie Sotto, pitched their versions of what Disney could do with that space that would serve both masters (getting a new attraction in the area, but also keep the things that are historic and special.)

It’s always fascinating to watch people much smarter than me Armchair Imagineer the parks. This is a skill I wish that I had.

Others went in a different, more light hearted, direction…

***Fun Stuff***

FIRST, go click on THIS LINK and watch the one minute video of a guy who created his own Disney Skyliner set up in his house. He legit has the Pop Century/AOA direct route to Disney Hollywood Studios. It’s fantastic!!

Now, one of the best things about theme park social media is to stumble onto things that are just fantastic and truly make your day. Love this story about how a piece of Disney was used in the filming of one of my favorite movies, Pulp Fiction. Have loved Disney and the movie for decades and had absolutely no idea they had anything to do with each other until the following tweet by Eddie Sotto appeared on my feed…

What’s also great about theme park social media is you’ll get reactions to stuff, like the tweet below by another former Disney Imagineer.

*Disneyland Getting the Cool Stuff, AGAIN

The Be Fair To Florida movement got another setback as Disneyland began its Disneyland After Dark: 90’s Nite event. How great is this? A special retro fanny pack for all guests at the party.

Special merchandise included shoes that had characters from the Disney Afternoon on them. If you remember the Brandon Starr Artist Spotlight feature earlier this year, you know how much I loved shows like DuckTales, TaleSpin and Rescue Rangers. Heck, I can still sing the Gummi Bears theme song from memory (the full version from the CD soundtrack, not just the shortened version for TV.)

For most guests at the event, the ability to meet rare characters from the Disney Afternoon series is the big draw to event. This includes an amazing story from one guest…

How wonderful is that? Well, it gets even better…

Ivonne Ramos, one of half of theme park’s Woodward & Bernstein investigation team, was on hand to report another croc victim at The Land Pavilion…

…while her intrepid partner, @fibellefi, was over at Fort Wilderness reporting that Disney is putting DVC preview cabins directly across from Pioneer Hall (home of Hoop De Doo.)

Here’s what I love about the theme park fan community, they give us the products we fans really want. Many of you may remember this piece of signage for a gift shop that used to operate for many years at Walt Disney World’s Ticket and Transportation Center. Seeing this sign is true nostalgia for people like me whose parents took them as kids.

There is no acknowledgement that this store ever existed at Walt Disney World, but the fine people over at the Radically Retro store made a fantastic pin featuring the logo! Is that sharp or what?!!

On the other end of the merchandise spectrum came this amazing find…

My reaction?

The hat did make me think of some of the amazing Disney hats I have seen over the years (which you can see more of in our Disney Merchandise Hall of Shame.)

I’m not saying you SHOULD slap anyone wearing this Rock N Roller Coaster hat, just that if you DO slap them, you shouldn’t get in trouble for it.

Our favorite Tiny Artist is back with an UNBELIEVABLE series of drawings featuring Country Bear Jamboree.

Jaime also got us a wonderful colorized version of her E-Ticket mashup of the Country Bears and Living with the Land. I hope one day Jaime is a featured artist at EPCOT’s Festival of the Arts, because her work is that awesome.

Speaking of unbelievably great mashups I’d never thought I’d see…

Speaking of art, when I was on a Disney bus recently I noticed this ad for Disney’s Solar Farm. I thought it looked pretty neat.

Here’s what the Solar Farm looks like from the above.

***So, about that AI stuff…

This past week there was a big update from one of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) slop houses. It allowed the ability for anyone to take a photograph and created a different piece of art using different styles stolen from actual human artists. One of these AI styles was based on the famous Studio Ghibli animated movies. We then got to see the AI gimmick applied to some photos taken in the parks.

Just the act of posting these photos became extremely controversial in the community, because some feel it will become the norm and accepted in commercial. I personally think – for the most part – stuff like this is a total fad and exposes how little there actually is with AI when it comes to creating art. The AI can only do its best to do a version of what a human already did a better version of (again, IMO.)

Putting aside the damage AI slop does to the environment, I can see the case of people playing around with these tools to have fun. It’s definitely a completely different story if someone else took these photographs, used AI to “animate” them, and then tried to sell their version (or even present it as their original creation.)

I completely understand the argument of “this is an outright theft of _____’s work” (in this case, Studio Ghibili) but I think for the average person it just confirms their love of that unique style and in a way is an advertisement for it. This past week’s discussion on Studio Ghibli surely led to more people discovering the true magic of art in works such as Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, and The Boy and the Heron.

I also think we get this type of discussion every single time an AI company shows it’s “value” to consumers. We saw it not long ago when Grok was introduced and people were using AI to write something in the style another person would. It sparks a quick fad, and like I said, it doesn’t take people long before they realize there is no there, there.

A good photographer like @somewareatdiz, Tom Bricker or Blog Mickey is always going to get you a better photo (because they understand concepts like composition) and a good artist like Brian Cooper, Sam Carter, or Rob Yeo is always going to give you a better drawing because their work comes from the heart, not an algorithm. As for writing? Well, let me know when AI can put out of an article Like This.

Last month’s Theme Park Enjoyment Index: 39
This month’s net change: +3
Current enjoyment level: 42

Writer Derek Burgan, when not cleaning Len Testa’s pool, can be found reading comic books, watching professional wrestling, organizing his various Tsum Tsums in alphabetical order, and taking his dog Bacini to Universal and Disney.. He will not, we repeat not, be found at a Disney Outlet Store. An official DisTwitter Influencer, you can interact with him @derekburgan

Digital Artist Scott Walker hails from Scotland and is the fifth most famous person from this country following Alexander Graham Bell, Ewan McGregor, Gerard Butler, and Groundskeeper Willie.