Epic Universe Orlando review: inside Universal’s most magical park yet
Under the spell of Universal’s newest theme park, the whole family can experience childlike joy.
Ed Grenby - 17 March 2026
It feels like they’ve just this minute taken the bubble-wrap off Universal Epic Universe. In fact Orlando’s latest uber-attraction has been open 10 months already, but it still comes over as brand-new in the way only theme parks really can: not just freshly painted, but freshly imagined. Everything gleams. Everything whirs. Everything smells faintly of popcorn and possibility. My two sons – 11 and 13, the exact demographic theme parks are designed by committees of psychologists to hypnotise – stand just inside the entrance staring around with the slightly dazed expression of people who have walked into the middle of a dream.
Which, in a sense, they have. Because although we’ve come mostly for the rides, the real draw of a week at Universal in 2026 is magic. And not metaphorical magic; actual magic. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the half-pint enchanter’s first foray into film – and nowhere on Earth celebrates the wizarding world quite as extravagantly as the chunk of Florida given over to Universal’s pleasure parks.
We’d allowed ourselves a full week, giving us time for the older theme parks – and some beach action – but also two or three days at that boxfresh Epic Universe. This turns out to be wise. Epic Universe is not the sort of place you can ‘do’ in a day unless you possess either supernatural stamina or a time-turner.
The park is arranged as a series of worlds radiating from a central hub like spokes from a wheel, each entered through a “portal” about which I try to be all British and adult and cynical, but which actually feels truly transporting. One moment you’re strolling through gardens and fountains; the next you’ve stepped into a gothic village peopled by freaks and monsters: the Dark Universe, all looming windmills, torchlit streets and B-movie atmosphere. Through another portal you find the bright, frantic mayhem of Super Nintendo World, where every surface seems to blink, bounce or make electronic noises like a console game that’s burst its casing. And then there’s How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk, a breezy Viking harbour of wooden towers and swooping rides that turns out to be unexpectedly lovely (as long as you have a high tolerance for cheerful people in horned helmets).
Some lands land better than others. Nintendo’s is a full-volume, primary-coloured migraine waiting to happen for mid-lifers like me; Dark Universe looks marvellous after dusk but a little less atmospheric under Florida’s blazing sub-tropical sun. Berk, meanwhile, is airy and cheerful and oddly relaxing for a theme park – the sort of place where you realise you’ve spent ten minutes happily watching a dragon-shaped coaster swoop over the lagoon.
By some way the most impressive, though, is the Harry Potter world. We’ve seen pictures, of course – the cobbled streets, crooked shopfronts and butterbeer moustaches are all over the kids’ Instagram feeds – but photos don’t convey the depth and detail with which designers have brought the Ministry of Magic and the 1920s Paris of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to walking, talking, squawking life. Pass through that portal and suddenly the music swells, the architecture tilts at improbable angles and shop windows twitch and clatter as if by actual witchcraft. The attention to minutiae borders on obsessive: spell books mutter, owl posts hoot, and every storefront looks as though it was designed by someone who read the novels with a ruler and a magnifying glass.
Naturally, there are shops and food outlets everywhere – gloriously themed ones, admittedly – and after a while you realise the place operates on the same principle as a casino: no clocks, no obvious exits and an endless stream of delightful temptations. Parents will need a will of steel to leave the place without having purchased a wand or two.
We’d bagged multi-park tickets (British Airways Holidays, the official launch partner for Epic Universe, can package up flights, hotels, car hire and park tickets; see their excellent guide at ba.com/universal), so across the week we roam Universal’s older parks as well, which remain packed with crowd-pleasers. Universal Islands of Adventure delivers the breathless Jurassic World VelociCoaster, which whips through raptor paddocks with thrilling recklessness; Universal Studios Florida has Revenge of the Mummy (part haunted house, part rollercoaster, all gleeful chaos); and Universal Volcano Bay might just be the world’s best water park.
By the end of the trip, as we compare highlights it becomes clear we’ve all got different ones: for the 13-year-old, it’s the sheer speed-thrill of Epic’s Stardust Racers rollercoaster; for his younger brother, it’s the gentler, jauntier Mine Cart Madness in Super Nintendo World; and for this nostalgic old fool, it’s the various homages to such classics as E. T., Jaws, The Blues Brothers, Scooby-Doo and (it has been 25 years) Harry Potter.
But a holiday that keeps us all happy like that? True wizardry.
It feels like they’ve just this minute taken the bubble-wrap off Universal Epic Universe. In fact Orlando’s latest uber-attraction has been open 10 months already, but it still comes over as brand-new in the way only theme parks really can: not just freshly painted, but freshly imagined. Everything gleams. Everything whirs. Everything smells faintly of popcorn and possibility. My two sons – 11 and 13, the exact demographic theme parks are designed by committees of psychologists to hypnotise – stand just inside the entrance staring around with the slightly dazed expression of people who have walked into the middle of a dream.
Which, in a sense, they have. Because although we’ve come mostly for the rides, the real draw of a week at Universal in 2026 is magic. And not metaphorical magic; actual magic. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the half-pint enchanter’s first foray into film – and nowhere on Earth celebrates the wizarding world quite as extravagantly as the chunk of Florida given over to Universal’s pleasure parks.
We’d allowed ourselves a full week, giving us time for the older theme parks – and some beach action – but also two or three days at that boxfresh Epic Universe. This turns out to be wise. Epic Universe is not the sort of place you can ‘do’ in a day unless you possess either supernatural stamina or a time-turner.
The park is arranged as a series of worlds radiating from a central hub like spokes from a wheel, each entered through a “portal” about which I try to be all British and adult and cynical, but which actually feels truly transporting. One moment you’re strolling through gardens and fountains; the next you’ve stepped into a gothic village peopled by freaks and monsters: the Dark Universe, all looming windmills, torchlit streets and B-movie atmosphere. Through another portal you find the bright, frantic mayhem of Super Nintendo World, where every surface seems to blink, bounce or make electronic noises like a console game that’s burst its casing. And then there’s How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk, a breezy Viking harbour of wooden towers and swooping rides that turns out to be unexpectedly lovely (as long as you have a high tolerance for cheerful people in horned helmets).
Some lands land better than others. Nintendo’s is a full-volume, primary-coloured migraine waiting to happen for mid-lifers like me; Dark Universe looks marvellous after dusk but a little less atmospheric under Florida’s blazing sub-tropical sun. Berk, meanwhile, is airy and cheerful and oddly relaxing for a theme park – the sort of place where you realise you’ve spent ten minutes happily watching a dragon-shaped coaster swoop over the lagoon.
By some way the most impressive, though, is the Harry Potter world. We’ve seen pictures, of course – the cobbled streets, crooked shopfronts and butterbeer moustaches are all over the kids’ Instagram feeds – but photos don’t convey the depth and detail with which designers have brought the Ministry of Magic and the 1920s Paris of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to walking, talking, squawking life. Pass through that portal and suddenly the music swells, the architecture tilts at improbable angles and shop windows twitch and clatter as if by actual witchcraft. The attention to minutiae borders on obsessive: spell books mutter, owl posts hoot, and every storefront looks as though it was designed by someone who read the novels with a ruler and a magnifying glass.
Naturally, there are shops and food outlets everywhere – gloriously themed ones, admittedly – and after a while you realise the place operates on the same principle as a casino: no clocks, no obvious exits and an endless stream of delightful temptations. Parents will need a will of steel to leave the place without having purchased a wand or two.
We’d bagged multi-park tickets (British Airways Holidays, the official launch partner for Epic Universe, can package up flights, hotels, car hire and park tickets; see their excellent guide at ba.com/universal), so across the week we roam Universal’s older parks as well, which remain packed with crowd-pleasers. Universal Islands of Adventure delivers the breathless Jurassic World VelociCoaster, which whips through raptor paddocks with thrilling recklessness; Universal Studios Florida has Revenge of the Mummy (part haunted house, part rollercoaster, all gleeful chaos); and Universal Volcano Bay might just be the world’s best water park.
By the end of the trip, as we compare highlights it becomes clear we’ve all got different ones: for the 13-year-old, it’s the sheer speed-thrill of Epic’s Stardust Racers rollercoaster; for his younger brother, it’s the gentler, jauntier Mine Cart Madness in Super Nintendo World; and for this nostalgic old fool, it’s the various homages to such classics as E. T., Jaws, The Blues Brothers, Scooby-Doo and (it has been 25 years) Harry Potter.
But a holiday that keeps us all happy like that? True wizardry.
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