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Speaking of second city walk Alicia Stella just posted this weekend some convention is going to allow their attendees access to Celestial Park for Shopping and Dining which also lines up with the rumor that Celestial Park hub was meant to be City Walk 2, and then you use your park ticket to get into gated portal areas.

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I hate that idea so much. Waiting in lines and scanning tickets to get into individual portals will ruin the immersion of walking through the portals. It'll also mess up hopping back and forth between portals easily. Also, how do they expect to clear the park of non-ticketed guests by the fireworks? Once they have a full show, I doubt they'll want free guests watching the show
 
I don’t think people understand the facial recognition tests they are doing. You won’t have to scan your ticket. The goal is you’ll just walk into the portal. If you don’t have a valid ticket, you’ll be turned away. If you do have a valid ticket, you’ll keep walking.

It’s the same system they’re running with Express right now.
 
I hate that idea so much. Waiting in lines and scanning tickets to get into individual portals will ruin the immersion of walking through the portals. It'll also mess up hopping back and forth between portals easily. Also, how do they expect to clear the park of non-ticketed guests by the fireworks? Once they have a full show, I doubt they'll want free guests watching the show
Also the idea of the masses of confused people who will not understand what is going on and go to Celestial Park and think they just made it into Epic for free. While yes they can turn people away with the facial recognition like @sfnefan said, but can you imagine as this is being done half the people trying to get in on the regular are clueless and dont pass and the Customer Service nightmare those Cast Members (or whatever Universal calls them) will have to deal with.
 
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I don’t think people understand the facial recognition tests they are doing. You won’t have to scan your ticket. The goal is you’ll just walk into the portal. If you don’t have a valid ticket, you’ll be turned away. If you do have a valid ticket, you’ll keep walking.
Yeah. Same system they use for tickets at the gate. And yet there's lines there. It still takes a few seconds for the camera to verify your face, so there'll still be lines. And people arguing at the portals with TMs like @kmccarthy27 said. So it's still gonna be a vastly decreased experience. Why on earth would Universal let people into Celestial for free when the park it's in is already incredibly crowded without even having APs. Letting the public in for free before letting people who pay thousands each year into the park is insane to me
It’s the same system they’re running with Express right now.
And there's still usually at least a few seconds of wait at the kiosks for Express, before you get to the actual Express line.
 
I doubt there would be lines at every portal. When I visited in late march, I didn’t even have to stop for the facial recognition system in place. Very few had to stop to get the facial recognition system to work.

Also, the system was described to me as a “learning” type system. If it gives an error at the park gate for the associate, they just have to scan your ticket barcode in the app for it to sync up that image capture to be associated with you. After that first scan, you should have a smoother experience moving forward.

I also had been lucky and got a one time express pass for a delay while waiting for battle at the ministry, and used it on mine kart madness. They only had to scan the barcode for the express pass at the first photo recognition pole, then it recognized me as a valid entry when I got to the merge point pole in the line.
 
Yeah. Same system they use for tickets at the gate. And yet there's lines there. It still takes a few seconds for the camera to verify your face, so there'll still be lines. And people arguing at the portals with TMs like @kmccarthy27 said. So it's still gonna be a vastly decreased experience. Why on earth would Universal let people into Celestial for free when the park it's in is already incredibly crowded without even having APs. Letting the public in for free before letting people who pay thousands each year into the park is insane to me

And there's still usually at least a few seconds of wait at the kiosks for Express, before you get to the actual Express line.
It’s a more advanced system than what’s at the front gates. You literally just walk through without stopping.

To answer your question on why? The park was designed with all of this in mind. This is seemingly only for convention guests right now which makes sense. Let them come in and enjoy the dining and shopping.

I can also easily see them selling one time ride access to Stardust and Constellation Carousel at the concierge huts around the park.
 
Makes me wonder what manufacturer's Universal would work with going forward. I would imagine they'll continue to work with Intamin. Maybe they'll be interested in some of Vekoma's new ride technologies. I imagine the other Orlando parks will be looking at SeaQuest next year with intrigue
there's at least one Vekoma well in development for Epic at this point.
 
Ok, spill the tea. What do you know . . . 👀

Presumably the rumor is an indoor Vekoma Thrill Glider for Potter?

 

Check out this long form. Lots of interesting points regarding Zelda, the Megaplot beside Stardust, and a look ahead at development of a secondary adjacent park to Epic as well as a “southern CityWalk”. Fantastic work imo.

IMG_3962.webp

This is the Megaplot land and the proposed use.
 
I feel Wicked is going to be added to Islands of Adventure, but not the part they are wrecking now. I think it will be over by that stage between Marvel and Toon Lagoon, with it taking some of Toon Lagoon's space.

Plus the original theme of Islands was book based and most of that stuff has book ties so it fits right in.
 
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I feel like we're getting way ahead of ourselves here. Epic in this next decade will receive two new coasters. After 2030, we can talk about what's next. 😆😅
 
Epic in this next decade will receive two new coasters.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this. Is this really half the park’s lineup? Is that too much? But then I realized:

Potter Expansion + Monsters Expansion + Stardust Racers + Hiccup’s + Donkey Kong + Werewolf = 6 coasters

And if we’re counting both sides of Stardust Racers, it's 7.

Congratulations! America’s biggest new theme park by the end of the decade will have a grand total of 6 / 7 coasters. Epic.​

 
Presumably the rumor is an indoor Vekoma Thrill Glider for Potter?

BANG!

This would be an absolute HUGE hit
 
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