Despite rumors that attendance at Universal Orlando Resort would spike during the opening weeks of Epic Universe, all three hotels surrounding the new park still have rooms available to book during Epic Universe’s opening week and throughout the summer.
Epic Universe Hotels Available for Opening Week
The Epic Universe theme park at the Universal Orlando Resort is set to open on May 22, 2025. The park will include five themed lands featuring characters from Harry Potter, Universal Classic Monsters, “How to Train Your Dragon,” and Nintendo video games.
Along with the new park, Universal has also constructed three new hotels in the nearby area to handle the suspected increase in demand. Unlike the current hotels located closer to Universal Studios Florida and Universal Islands of Adventure, the Epic Universe hotels are within a short few minutes of the new park. In the case of the Universal Helios Grand Hotel, guests will actually be able to enter the park from a dedicated entrance connected to the hotel’s ground floor.
Due to the widespread anticipation of Epic Universe’s grand opening, rumors have suggested that overall attendance at Universal Orlando Resort would spike for the first few weeks following the new park’s grand opening on May 22. However, as of the time of writing, all of the resorts surrounding Epic Universe still have rooms available at some of their lowest rates.
The most notable of the three new hotels is the Universal Helios Grand Hotel. As this hotel is connected directly to Epic Universe, it is also scheduled to open on May 22. A two-night minimum stay is required for the opening weekend, but not for any stays after that. Universal stated that the starting price is $293 per night (note you will be HARD PRESSED to find that rate anywhere on the calendar), though most of the rooms on the opening week are now in the $600 range.
When checking the website’s booking calendar, rooms are still available at the Universal Grand Helios Hotel for select dates during the opening week. The hotel currently has no rooms on the official opening night or weekend, but a single room type appears when searching for May 26, which is the following Monday and the major Memorial Day holiday in the United States. A single room type is similarly available for May 27 and 28.
The Universal Helios Grand Hotel actually has multiple room types available on May 26, including pool view rooms, park view rooms, a “How to Train Your Dragon” themed kids’ suite, and even a 740 square foot Celestial Suite.
The other two resorts in close proximity to Epic Universe are the sister resorts Universal Stella Nova and Universal Terra Luna. Stella Nova opened to guests on January 21, and we have a full photo resort tour available on our website. The Terra Luna resort was originally scheduled to open on the same date, but it was later pushed back to open on March 25. Both Stella Nova and Terra Luna are considered Prime Value Resorts and currently offer rooms at a cheaper price than the Universal Helios Grand Hotel.
Like the Universal Helios Grand Hotel, Stella Nova and Terra Luna have rooms available during Epic Universe’s opening week. In fact, both resorts still have rooms open for May 22, as well as the rest of the first week. Multiple room types ranging in price based on their views are also available. In fact, we were able to book a room at one of the new hotels during the opening week for just $107 a night with the Universal Annual Passholder discount (standard rate at $119 as of publication).
The ability to still book rooms at all three resorts over Epic Universe’s opening week and beyond raises some questions over whether demand is a high as Universal would want it to be. While it is possible some guests are avoiding the first few weeks of operation because they fear large crowds or operational issues, there are a few other reasons this could be the case. According to sources inside the company, bookings thus far for Epic Universe are not as strong as the company expected them to be.
Currently, one of the only options available for out-of-Florida guests to visit Epic Universe is to book a multi-day resort stay at a Universal Florida Resort hotel. Even when guests book multi-day park tickets with their hotel room, however, they are only allowed to visit Epic Universe for a single day during their trip. Even if they just want park tickets, they are forced to buy admission to the existing theme parks (at least Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure), which they may not want to.
Additional Epic Universe ticket options are available for Universal Annual Passholders, but the passholders must still purchase Epic Universe admission as an add-on, rather than it being included in their prepaid passes. Universal also announced multi-park ticket bundles available for Florida residents and Military Freedom Passholders, though they still only allow a single day at Epic Universe per purchase. Universal has also stated that the park will not immediately be added to Universal Express Pass, even for guests who have Unlimited Express Passes.
The sheer amount of restrictions on how many days guests can visit Epic Universe, how many tickets must be purchased, and what kind of tickets must be bought may be helping to drive down demand. As a result, the hotels surrounding the park are not as full as many would have believed. Of course, things could change should single day Epic Universe tickets become available before the park officially opens on May 22.
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I was thinking about going, but no express pass included with the new hotels, plus the fact that you have to buy a 3-park bundle to get into Epic changed my mind. Those are deal breakers.
That’s because it’s so expensive to stay there for that weekend. I think most people are going to be going down offsite. I also think most people will be waiting to see how everything is. I think over the summer and on it will be a massive haul for guests.
Helios IS sold out for the weekend, it’s not after that. None of the three hotels are sold out at any point beyond either.