Morning is one of the best times at Epic Universe, and a great way to beat crowds at Universal Orlando’s newest and busiest park is at park opening. This strategy guide for rope drop shares tips & tricks for efficiently riding roller coasters and popular family-friendly attractions. It covers what time to arrive, where to start & where to avoid, step-by-step plans, and everything you can do.
Before we can discuss rope drop, we need to start with Early Park Admission (EPA). This is essentially Universal Orlando’s twist on Early Entry or Extra Magic Hours at Walt Disney World. Going forward, Early Park Admission will be offered at Epic Universe daily through at least December 31, 2025.
Early Park Admission is officially advertised as being “up to 1 hour prior to park opening.” Unofficially, we’ve already experienced it starting slightly earlier than an hour in advance, and expect this to continue to be the trend going forward at Epic Universe. The only lands open during EPA at Epic Universe are Super Nintendo World and Celestial Park. See our Early Park Admission at Epic Universe Strategy Guide: Beating Crowds in Super Nintendo World!
What is Rope Drop at Epic Universe?
If you’re a first-timer, you might be wondering what rope drop is. It’s simply park opening–when the portals officially open to all guests. “Rope drop” is a vestige of a simpler time when there was a literal rope blocking access to the lands, and it was dropped–starting a veritable running of the bulls pushing of the strollers to the first destination of the day.
Rope drop is the commonly-used name for official park opening among theme park fans. Epic Universe has portals with actual gates blocking access, so the term isn’t to be taken literally with Universal Orlando’s newest park.
Rope drop is more a colloquialism (and verb), so you’ll still hear fans say “we’re gonna rope drop DK” even though that’s not technically accurate–there’s no rope and the ride is actually called Mine-Cart Madness. But fellow fans, who speak in code and acronym, know exactly what it means. If you want to be one of the cool kids big-time dorks, you’ll likewise integrate rope drop into your vernacular.
When to Arrive at Epic Universe in the Morning?
It depends on your priorities and where you’re staying. If you’re staying on-site, we’re going to assume you’re doing Early Park Admission. Be at your hotel bus stop by around 60-75 minutes before EPA begins. It’s a surprisingly long drive from the main Universal Orlando campus to Epic Universe. Helios Grand Hotel, Terra Luna and Stella Nova Resorts all have it easier.
If you’re staying off-site, you’re aiming for an hour later for the start of regular rope drop. This strategy guide for regular rope drop is not particularly high stakes, allowing for a slightly more laid back approach. It’s a bit counterintuitive, in that we are not recommending that you start at any of Epic Universe’s top 5 highest wait times. As such, you don’t need to be at the very front of the pack.
From the jump, this might strike you as bad advice–after all, why not start at the most popular rides when the park first opens?! We promise there’s a method to the madness (the Moneyball Method™️). But in any case, the goal should be getting inside Epic Universe at least 30 minutes before park opening. This means you need to account for the time it’ll to park, through security, and through the turnstiles.
All of that takes longer than you might expect–easily another 30 minutes. You’re better off erring on the side of caution and building yourself a buffer since all of those times are highly variable. It’s better to be too early than too late–you can always spend the extra time wandering Celestial Park before camping out in front of one of the portals to the 4 main worlds of Epic Universe.
Now let’s turn to the hugely popular worlds at Epic Universe that we do NOT recommend rope dropping…
Why Not Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry?
Since it switched to standby, the most popular ride in all of Epic Universe–and by a rather wide margin–is Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry. Its average wait time has been approximately double that of the next closest rides, both of which are in Super Nintendo World. Since Ministry of Magic isn’t open for Early Park Admission, this might seem like a natural rope drop candidate, right?
Wrong. At least, wrong for now. Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry peaks early, with a wait time that declines from the second or third hour the ride is open. Battle at the Ministry has had 300-minute posted (and actual) wait times on multiple occasions at park opening, and we have heard from multiple experienced theme park visitors who were unable to beat the rope drop crowd.
Obviously, somebody has to be first, so it is possible to be at the front of the pack. But that means being there for Early Park Admission and forgoing that time in order to pre-queue. Maybe that’s an advisable EPA approach, but probably not given the opportunity cost of skipping SNW.
Another reason we do not recommend this approach for now is the possibility (read: high probability) that Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry has the dreaded delayed opening, meaning you spent all that time waiting for nothing. As long as the ride continues to struggle with reliability, this remains a big gamble (to that point, it has broken down within an hour of park opening on multiple occasions already). Save Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry for later in the day.
Why Not Super Nintendo World?
As noted above, Super Nintendo World has the #2 and #3 highest wait time rides in Epic Universe, Donkey Kong Mine-Cart Madness and Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge. Once the dust settles and all of the attractions are operating efficiently, our expectation is that these will become the #1 and #2 highest wait times in Epic Universe. Yoshi’s Adventure could be fairly high up by virtue of spillover, too.
The problem with Super Nintendo World is that it’s open during Early Park Admission and is the draw during that. This means arriving at regular rope drop puts you behind the entire pack of on-site guests and whoever else ends up being eligible for EPA. Universal Orlando has 11,000 hotel rooms, Epic Universe is the big draw right now, and neither Mario Kart nor Mine-Cart Madness can process that many guests that efficiently. It becomes a simple math problem.
Not only that, but Super Nintendo World is also the draw for most mainstream audiences, so many guests will rope drop this area regardless of the wisdom of such an approach. For this reason, the wait times in Super Nintendo World also peak early and gradually decrease over the course of the day.
Epic Universe Morning Strategy
When approaching mornings at Epic Universe, you want to optimize for your first several attractions of the day. You also want to ride the wave of the crowd. We’ve already ruled out Super Nintendo World, since that portal is open during Early Park Admission, and Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Ministry of Magic, since its marquee attraction is unreliable and high-demand.
Once you do that, the best starting point for park opening at Epic Universe becomes clear: How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk.
For average guests staying off-site and thus NOT taking advantage of Early Park Admission, we’d recommend the following step-by-step approach to How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk:
- Hiccup’s Wing Gliders (x2)
- Dragon Racer’s Rally
- Meet Toothless & Friends
- Hooligan’s Grog & Gruel
- Fyre Drill
- The Untrainable Dragon
For some of you, starting in How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk is going to be a tough sell, especially with it being home to 0 of the top 5 wait times in Epic Universe. From what I can gather, this is also the least anticipated of the four proper portals at Epic Universe. So here’s my pitch…
Hiccup’s Wing Gliders is a crowd-pleasing family coaster, like the little brother of Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure at Islands of Adventure. It’s smooth, satisfying, and offers breathtaking views of Berk. It’s bound to be a hit with a wide variety of demographics, which means high wait times later in the day.
Critically for a strong rope drop run, Hiccup’s Wing Gliders is also a relatively short attraction with no pre-show. It does have a long queue, so that alone might take you ~5 minutes to walk, but the ride itself is fairly brief. Meaning that it takes less time, from start to finish, than any other rope drop top contenders. It’s always a good idea to knock out shorter duration attractions first, and then turn your attention to the longer ones.
Hiccup’s Wing Gliders does require lockers, but it’s easy enough to loop the roller coaster for ride #2 and pick up your backpack afterwards. This will put you in a good position if you’re towards the front of the rope drop pack to beat later arriving guests for your second ride.
The next two stops come down to capacity. Dragon Racer’s Rally and the meet & greet are both going to be skipped by a lot of guests, but if you plan on doing either or both, now is a good time.
Trust me–you don’t want to wait over 30 minutes for Dragon Racer’s Rally. It’s the type of attraction that is much more ‘worth it’ as a modest wait, whereas you might have a “that’s it?” reaction if standing in line for an hour later in the day. So that’s the rationale for doing this second, as unsexy as that might sound.
It’s a similar story with Meet Toothless & Friends. This is an incredibly popular encounter and it’s an outdoor meet & greet with exceedingly low capacity. If you plan on doing this at all, knocking it out towards the beginning or end of the day is ideal. Honestly, the best approach is doing it first–and many guests will do precisely that.
I’m not a big fan of rope dropping meet & greets, even if average wait times seemingly dictate it. The low capacity needs to be part of your calculus, as it means that only a handful of guests can have a short wait. Everyone else who arrives even a bit later–but still in the initial rush–will have an above-average wait. This means you can put in a lot of effort for absolutely nothing. That’s not a gamble I recommend making, hence slotting it in here, when there’s normally a mid-morning lull. If you’re good at getting to the front of the pack or a risk-taker, maybe you should do this first. Your call.
It might seem like a waste of valuable morning hours to get food so soon, but in our experience, Hooligan’s Grog & Gruel has one of the longer lines throughout the day at Epic Universe. Hooligan’s Grog & Gruel is home to the fan-favorite mac & cheese cones, which are enormous and delicious. They make for a great mid-morning snack. It might even make sense to slot this above the meet & greet depending upon how long the line is for that.
The next stop is Fyre Drill, which is Isle of Berk’s wet-and-wild boat battle ride. Guests board a colorful dragon-headed boat and blast water cannons at flame-like targets to practice putting out fires. This attraction can be a fun time, but it’s very much a ‘you will get wet, you may get soaked’ situation, so doing it earlier is advisable. Or not at all, quite honestly.
Our last stop is the Untrainable Dragon. This is Isle of Berk’s marquee stage show, and it is not to be missed. Strategically, it shouldn’t really matter when you do this, but we should be approaching a time in the day when wait times everywhere else are at their peaks, so knocking it out now should make sense.
For a more aggressive and ride-centric plan of attack, here’s our rope drop run for Epic Universe:
- Hiccup’s Wing Gliders (x2)
- Dragon Racer’s Rally
- Curse of the Werewolf
- Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment (optional)
- Das Stakehouse (optional)
- Stardust Racers
- Constellation Carousel
Same rationales as the above apply here, except we criss-cross Celestial Park and head over to Dark Universe for the next rides of the day, and potentially lunch.
The reason for putting Curse of the Werewolf ahead of Monsters Unchained is two-fold. First, it’s shorter; you can finish it faster. Second, Monsters Unchained is going to be the top priority for many Universal diehards (many of whom we expect to question the wisdom of this plan starting in Isle of Berk!), so we’d advise “waiting out” the rope drop rush of these guests.
This isn’t to say that Monsters Unchained won’t be popular–it will be, and for good reason. It’s just a suboptimal #1 priority from an objective perspective. Monsters Unchained is a fantastic attraction–one we ranked tied for #1 on our Rankings & Reviews of All Epic Universe Attractions.
However, the simple reality is that Monsters Unchained is not going to be as popular with general audiences and that it has a very high hourly capacity when it’s firing on all cylinders. We still like the idea of doing it early to hedge your bets, but Monsters Unchained will likely be the headliner ride with the lowest wait time at Epic Universe once the dust settles.
Constellation Carousel is the sleeper pick here. This will not be a high priority for most guests, but it will have a higher wait, especially at night when it looks gorgeous. Then there’s Stardust Racers, which is an incredible coaster…but also one with incredible capacity. No real need to heavily prioritize this one unless you’re visiting on one of the busiest days of the year or there’s a lot of downtime.
If you’re really willing to bounce around the park (Epic Universe is fairly compact), it makes the most sense to save Monsters Unchained for later, and do Stardust Racers immediately after Curse of the Werewolf.
While you’re in the neighborhood, queueing up for Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry around lunchtime also could prove to be a savvy strategy. We don’t have sufficient wait times data on that yet, but it’s common for actual wait times (not necessarily posted ones) to drop shortly after noon because fewer guests line up since they’re eating lunch. Of course, this assumes no ride breakdowns while you’re in line–but that’s going to be an ongoing issue with Battle at the Ministry.
Ultimately, this is how we’d approach mornings at Epic Universe for the foreseeable future. The advice here might be disappointing and “unsexy” in that we don’t recommend starting with one of the headliner rides in Epic Universe, but that’s precisely the point–you want to zig when they zag and head in the opposite direction of almost everyone else.
If it helps, think of this as the Moneyball Method™️ for theme park attractions. Sometimes it’s better to find a way to get on base/attractions quickly and easily! By starting in Isle of Berk, you can knock out a higher quantity of attractions than by beginning in any other portal. In aggregate, the time saved across all of these lower-stakes attractions will be greater than other areas of Epic Universe.
The good news, hopefully, is that we’ve presented you with a few different ‘choose your own adventure’ options. That might be overwhelming, but our hope is the opposite–that it’s nice to have multiple options based on your preferences and priorities, so you can choose the one that works best for your family.
There’s also the subjective side of this. All of the other lands in Epic Universe are much better at night, whereas How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk is only slightly better. It might be the one land that (at least arguably) looks better in the morning under crisp blue skies and puffy Florida clouds.
Speaking of the subjective, it’s also worth emphasizing that Epic Universe is a gorgeous park and Isle of Berk is a highlight among highlights. After you knock out Hiccup’s Wing Gliders and Dragon Racer’s Rally, don’t be afraid to slow down and savor the stunning setting.
The fact of the matter is that Epic Universe is busiest first thing, so it’s perfectly fine to not be in a rush to destinations #3 and beyond–pace yourself, wait out the crowd, and enjoy the best theme park that Universal has ever created. Whether this means sticking to Isle of Berk or exploring other portals is entirely your call. The oversaturated settings of Super Nintendo World also look great under those bright blue skies and puffy clouds!
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Your Thoughts
What do you think of the Moneyball Method™️ for rope dropping Epic Universe? Like this more laid back approach, or do you favor a more aggressive plan of attack to knock out Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry or something in Super Nintendo World? What is your Epic Universe rope drop strategy? Do you like to savor the low crowds and knock out popular rides with short lines, or have a leisurely experience? Do you agree or disagree with our approaches to Early Park Admission and rope drop? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!