With rumored previews set to begin any day now for Universal’s Epic Universe theme park, we wanted to take a land-by-land (or world-by-world) look at the theme park through the discerning eye in the sky of friend of the site Bioreconstruct. Bio has been flying over Epic Universe for years, providing outstanding documentation of the first major theme park for Central Florida in decades. In this article, we’re going to take a look at the Dark Universe land, which appears to be ready for limited Team Member previews soon ahead of more widespread Team Member previews, and then, eventually, public previews.
Aerial Look at Universal Monsters Land in Epic Universe
Before we jump into the photos, let’s first get a lay of the land for the Universal Monsters land within Epic Universe. If the main entrance of the park was at the 6 o’clock position, Universal Monsters would be at the 10 or 11 o’clock position, next to the Helios Grand hotel at the 12 o’clock position.
In Dark Universe, guests will visit the village of Darkmoor, where monsters come alive. From the experiments of Victoria Frankenstein to a twisted landscape where monsters roam, Dark Universe is a grim world of myth and mystery. The flagship attraction is called Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment where Dr. Victoria Frankenstein continues the work of her ancestors deep below the family estate. A demonstration of her experiments to control monsters goes awry when Dracula leads a revolt of enraged monsters including The Wolf Man, The Mummy, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and more.
Another attraction, Curse of the Werewolf is an outdoor roller coaster where Maleva, leader of The Guild of Mystics, welcomes you to a secluded wagon camp. Here you’re warned of the creatures who prowl the deep woods. Before long you’re riding Curse of the Werewolf – surrounded by glowing eyes and gnashing teeth, you’ll spin and weave through the forest as you attempt to escape a pack of werewolves.
To eat, there will be three dining locations – all quick-service restaurants. The two most popular will be Das Stakehaus and The Burning Blade Tavern. The third location, De Lacey’s Cottage, is located near Frankenstein Manor.
Finally, other offerings within Dark Universe can be found within the Darkmoor village such as roaming musicians, roaming monsters, and the Darkmoor Monster Makeup Experience.
Ok, with some of the background out of the way, let’s take a look at the latest aerial photos of Dark Universe. As you’ll see, construction progress on the land looks great – so much so that we think there is a high likelihood that the limited Team Member previews will begin here. It is believed that there will be land-by-land previews before a more widespread operational preview of the entire theme park sometime in March. Once Team Member previews are complete, it is very likely that Universal Orlando Resort will open up paid previews to the general public, giving existing Annual Passholders a first shot at securing preview tickets.
We’ll start at the entrance to the land. Like the other three lands, Dark Universe will invite guests in via a themed portal. This is a rather unique way to separate lands. While Celestial Park will be a centralized park (containing attractions of its own), guests will not be able to walk between lands. Instead, guests will enter through a highly-themed portal and exit nearby, all through Celestial Park.
Here’s a photo from January showing the Dark Universe land from back to front, with the massive show building for Monsters Unchained in the lower left, the Burning Blade Tavern and Curse of the Werewolf in the lower right, and Darkmoor village/entrance portal in the top middle.
Just past the portal, guests will walk past a crypt and a step into Darkmoor village, which sets the scene for what you might find laying ahead. When looking at aerial photos, we not only try to look at the actual work and execution of concepts, but also signs of completion. One of the encouraging signs within Dark Universe is the presence of in-land effects. As you can see below, fog emanates from a crypt and there are no major signs of construction.
Taking a look at Darkmoor village itself, we can see that there is no substantial construction work taking place. Any remaining work in the village appears to be related to effects and final touches. There has been online chatter about the state of pavement in some areas of Epic Universe as not being ready, but there are no such indications in Dark Universe. Again, we expect that the early previews will be on a land-by-land basis.
Speaking of encouraging signs, the photo below contains Team Members walking through the land without hard hats on. This is a significant milestone in and of itself, let alone the soon-to-be-reached milestone of turning the land over to operations as construction crews presumably move to an overnight schedule. Other aerial photos from earlier this month have shown musicians practicing within the land – not in full costume yet, but we expect that will happen soon.
As you walk through Darkmoor from the main portal entrance, you’ll find Das Stakehaus to your right. This is the main eatery within the land. For a more detailed look at dining in Epic Universe, check out our earlier article.
Again, we see that in-land effects are running such as the fog seen billowing out of the central well in the middle of Darkmoor village.
Although difficult to see in the shadows, the buildings across the central plaza from Das Stakehaus will contain the Darkmoor Monster Makeup Experience where guests of all ages will be able to transform into a more monstrous look. The makeup experience is located within Dr. Pretorius’ old lab.
Going past the gates of Darkmoor village, we will find Dark Universe’s two attractions and a couple of places to grab a quick bite to eat. We’ll start with the flagship attraction, Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment. Universal has built a massive version of the Frankenstein estate where Dr. Victoria Frankenstein continues the work of her ancestors. This attraction will feature more than a dozen Animatronics as guests try to escape the clutches of classic monsters. For a more detailed look at the Animatronics and what you can expect, check out our earlier article.
Going back to the concept of looking for positive signs, the attraction exterior is functionally complete. There is some scaffolding along the massive show building, but this isn’t something that would prevent previews or even really impact a regular day at the park if it was operating normally.
Furthermore, we can see that queue stanchions and ropes are in place as they would be for regular guests. Safety signage is in place at the entrance to the attraction, as well as signage for the Universal Express skip-the-line offering. Everything on the exterior is encouraging. We’d expect that the interior of the building looks functionally complete as well, and we’d imagine that the attraction has been cycling for weeks, if not months at this point.
Here’s an overview of the Curse of the Werewolf roller coaster, which will be mostly outdoors. The spinning roller coaster will take guests through a forested scene, and even bring them face-to-face with a werewolf Animatronic.
More recent photos show that crews are primarily concerned with getting the final safety netting in place for the roller coaster. It looks like there is an extensive amount of netting, including some temporary netting possibly in place early so that previews can begin as final netting is installed during overnight construction sessions. The difficult thing about having a free-spinning roller coaster in an outdoor setting is that the safety netting needs to be fully enveloping for the ride given the large number of orientations that a guest could be traveling in. From the air, the netting looks extensive – to the detriment of the attraction visuals. It will be interesting to see how invasive the netting is from the ground.
As we keep an eye out for the start of limited Team Member previews, Dark Universe looks ready from the air. Of course, the on-the-ground reality is likely far different, and there are aspects of the land that we can’t judge yet such as restaurant readiness and the state of the interior queues or attraction functionality, but some of those items are the types of things that early previews are designed to work through.
Overall, it is encouraging to see so few construction crew members and areas of concern within the land, and we’re excited to see what the next few months hold in terms of preview opportunities before the May 22nd grand opening of Universal Epic Universe.
For more on Epic Universe, check out our dedicated page below!
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