Public previews for Epic Universe to begin April 17

"guests staying at any Universal Orlando hotel also may purchase tickets during the preview period."

That's CRAZY!!!! If you had planned a trip a year or more ago trying to pin the opening date of the park and missed it by a month, Universal is giving you a shot to visit Epic if you're staying onsite. I wonder how fast any remaining onsite reservations move for those 3 weeks - my guess is that they'll probably sell out by the end of the week.

FYI, while there have not been any reported dates that have sold out yet, there appear to be some issues with the website to buy Epic tickets, so bring your patience and be ready to complete the purchase quickly when the site cooperates.

They really are making it launch very smooth. I think ill go for the D23 combo + Universal/IOA/VB Season Pass. Stay on-site at Universal and just do a full day at Epic during that weekend and dibble and dabble at US/IOA/VB during the downtime. I could do a down and back day-trip but im the type to be pissed that not everything is open or i didnt experience.

Hence the need to time Test Track re-opening and rivers of America /tom sawyer closing (didnt know that closed at 5pm so i missed that on my last trip) so it looks like August makes sense.

That’s a high price to be a beta tester….

Secured mine for April 27!! Can't wait to finally visit this park I've been following for nearly a decade.

How do you book the preview tickets? When I go to the Epic Universe ticket site it only has May 22nd onward.

Also, apparently on-site guests at ANY Universal hotel get early entry at 10am on preview days

@jeremygary - Yes, that detail was not fully fleshed out in the initial press release. Universal on-site resort guests can purchase day-of tickets to Epic for the preview period at the main lobby of their resort on a first-come-first-served basis. Presumably the tickets would be sold at the concierge desk, and are probably being sold as same day tickets in person to prevent guests from booking resort stays to get access to the online portal, purchase tickets to Epic, and then cancelling their hotel stay. This ensures that you are a confirmed, paying guest of a Universal resort BEFORE you can get a ticket to Epic during the preview period.

@Kan - I'm not sure what your status is, but if you're an AP, Military pass, or Universal Visa holder, you should be able to log in to the account to reach the portal to purchase Epic tickets during the preview period. If you're not in one of those selected groups, you can only purchase same-day tickets if you're staying in a Universal resort, and must do that by physically going to the lobby to book those tickets. It's possible that Universal may open preview tickets to other groups, but as of right now, if you're not an AP, military, or credit card holder, you cannot purchase preview tickets online.

@Chad H - I don't know. I saw that price, and thought it was quite a bargain seeing that you're getting early access to a theme park only a very select group of people have had a chance to experience so far. Yeah, it's a bit expensive, but it's still cheaper than the standard daily admission for visiting Epic, which starts at $139/day. If you think about it, you are going to be a betta tester, but the expectation is that most attractions will be running, and crowds will likely be carefully controlled so it might be a better overall experience than trying to visit during the first few weeks of official operation. Considering how quickly news spread about these preview tickets, and how slammed the website was to purchase them, I don't think Universal will have any trouble finding enough betta testers to fill the park at this price point.

Also, Universal announced park hours for the preview period with the park expected to be open from 11 AM until 9 PM every day except for one (only open until 6 PM on April 25). So April 17 will likely be the first day guests can experience the new park in the dark.

Well, despite their slogan "We love our passholders" this just goes to show they don't give a crap about passholders.

Why not give us 3 exclusive weeks, similar to the TM previews, and then hotel guests etc etc after that.

I have my day booked, but with everyone and anyone allowed to go, I can see it being just a walk around before my 3 day stay in November.

@Makoride - IDK, it seems to me that they are being very deliberate in slowly ramping up the number of guests in the park during each stage of this pre-grand opening period. Universal needs to make sure they get enough guests in the park each day to fully test their systems and crowd control, so first dibs is going to APs, military, and credit card holders with any remaining capacity given to on-site resort guests. Maybe they modify the number of guests allowed in the park each day, which would dictate how many same-day tickets are offered to resort guests, based on daily operational conditions (if MoM just isn't running well for a few days in a row, perhaps they don't sell as many same-day tix).

I do think guests visiting during this period should know what they're getting into, and I think Universal is doing a good job of establishing expectations. The goal is to make sure everything in the park can handle the crowds on May 22 and onward, which unfortunately may mean guests visiting during these preview days may not have a "perfect" experience. Again, this is the first time a major destination theme park has debuted in the United States in nearly 20 years, so everyone involved is almost certainly doing this for the very first time and will need to work through some initial hiccups so the first official guests on May 22 are rewarded with a great experience, not the chaotic and haphazard scenes that have marked previous theme park debuts.

You only get one chance to make a first impression, and Universal wants to make sure that May 22 is a close to what they've envisioned as they can make it.

Russell .... I'm under no illusion of having a perfect day later this month. I'm treating it as a look-an-see before my staycation in November. Although i can still purchase day tickets for most days after the initial crazy first few weeks.

I think they let the TM previews go on a week or 2 more than they needed. AP's could have been allocated those weeks, and then let the hotel guests and whoever else have their time after.

Admittedly this is a brand new park ... but the passholder previews I've been to at all of the Orlando parks is just that; passholders.

Don't get me wrong, I'm appreciative of the opportunity, and v happy to be going. I'm certainly looking forward to stepping inside a brand new park, and hopefully being wowed by the experience.

@mako - I think the TM previews went on longer than expected because they're still trying to get all the attractions running reliably. It's one thing if there are a few hiccups here and there, even for APs, but when you're charging people to visit the park and one of the most anticipated attractions doesn't operate at all and one of the others is still not 100%, it looks bad, even to your biggest fans. I think Universal wanted to make sure MoM and Monsters Unchained were as reliable as they could be before letting anyone beyond TMs into the park. I wouldn't be surprised that Universal deliberately planned last weekend's media preview once they felt confident the biggest attractions were reliable enough to run for that selected group. Now Universal can continue to stress those ride systems with TMs to get everything running as smoothly as possible before opening for paying guests next week.