Epic Universe construction update: Entrance sign, Chronos tower
Epic Universe construction teams have completed two major milestones: Installing the park’s entrance sign and topping off a landmark.
Aerial photographer bioreconstruct took to the skies in late June 2024 and captured historic moments in the construction progress of Universal Epic Universe. The new theme park opens in 2025 at Universal Orlando Resort. Let’s fly with bioreconstruct over the park’s main entrance and central hub.
Epic Universe Entrance Sign
Large portals will be a consistent visual motif throughout Epic Universe, starting at the park’s main entrance. In between the arrival/ticketing plaza and Celestial Park (the central hub of Epic Universe), guests will walk through a portal to officially begin their journey into the worlds of Epic Universe. Construction workers recently installed the park’s entrance sign upon this portal.
Chronos Entrance Tower Topped Off
In another huge milestone, contractors topped off the main entrance tower known as Chronos, which emanates upward from the aforementioned portal. As is tradition, the American flag atop Chronos represents the workers building the structure to its highest point. The flag will likely not remain above Chronos when the park opens.
Construction teams made quick progress on Chronos, having just gone vertical with it last month. What’s that white tarp covering, though? Hmm …
Chronos Objects
Lucky for us, bioreconstruct flew over Epic Universe several days prior to the above photos and captured Chronos in progress prior to its topping-off. At that point (June 20, 2024), objects representing each of the main “worlds” of Epic Universe were not yet covered by a tarp.
Visible in the photos below, the objects (from top to bottom) are:
- a medallion displaying the hour-glass-like Time Turner, a magical device used to travel through time in the “Harry Potter” stories (The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Ministry of Magic)
- a double-sided gold coin, one side displaying 8-bit Mario and the other showing present-day Mario (Super Nintendo World)
- a red-orange sphere with a dragon silhouette (How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk)
- a purple sphere with ominous clouds within it (Dark Universe)
Epic Universe Entrance Plaza
With so much attention (understandably) focused on the inside of the park among fans and publicity material, we haven’t seen much of the area guests will walk through before actually entering the park. The photo below shows the current status of the area between the parking lot and the main entrance of Epic Universe. From this angle, guests will walk from the bottom of the frame to the top (where you can see Chronos visible in the top right).
Stardust Racers Roller Coaster
Stardust Racers, a launch coaster with two side-by-side tracks (and previously announced as Starfall Racers but now renamed), has been fully constructed in Celestial Park for quite some time now, with focus now turning to its surrounding architecture and queue areas.
If coaster trains on both tracks are synchronized, this double “top hat” section of the ride path shown below might just be a highlight of Stardust Racers.
This section calls to mind the similarly structured “top hat” element in Jurassic World VelociCoaster at Universal Islands of Adventure (below). Stardust Racers will have two of these side by side!
Constellation Carousel
Also inside the Celestial Park central hub, construction teams are setting into place the roof above the open-air Constellation Carousel. The individual carousel figures have not yet been installed.
The Blue Dragon Pan-Asian Restaurant
Construction workers continue to shape The Blue Dragon Pan-Asian Restaurant, one of Celestial Park’s table-service eateries, into its soon-to-be recognizable form.
Nintendo Super Star Store
The main gift shop for Nintendo merchandise in Epic Universe will be located in Celestial Park, not Super Nintendo World. This establishment, called Nintendo Super Star Store, will greet visitors with a Mario fountain outside its doors.
(During this same flight, bioreconstruct captured photos of inside Super Nintendo World, including the Donkey Kong coaster testing on the tracks.)
Universal Helios Grand Hotel
At the back of Celestial Park stands Universal Helios Grand Hotel, a 500-room luxury destination. Here are some views of Helios Grand from outside of Epic Universe rather than above it.
Helios Grand will contain a special back entrance into Epic Universe exclusively for the hotel’s overnight guests. This entrance will be located on the opposite side of Celestial Park as the main entrance servicing other guests.
Helios Grand overnight guests will park in an adjacent parking deck. From the perspective of the photo below, Celestial Park sits to the right, out of frame.
Helios Grand will be as close to Epic Universe as guests can possibly stay. Take a look at the proximity between the pool (bottom center) and Dark Universe. From this angle, Celestial Park is out of frame to the left.
Explore Celestial Park
Contractors recently added H2O to many of the water features within Celestial Park. See photos in our previous update:
See what Celestial Park will look like upon completion in this virtual fly-through video:
Discover the Worlds of Epic Universe
At the time of this writing, Universal has shared the attraction names and details for Celestial Park, How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk, Super Nintendo World, and Dark Universe. Universal has yet to reveal equivalent details for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Ministry of Magic. Read our previous coverage for all the announcements:
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Getting excited. It’s it time to let out some important information, price, express passes,reservations for Grand Helios.