Believe it or not, we’re just a few months away from Epic Universe’s third calendar year of operation! Since its official public opening back in May of 2025, Universal’s latest theme park has seen its operations streamlined, which has led many potential guests to wonder if they still need to worry about major crowds at the park.

Luckily for those wondering, we’ve been tracking Epic’s wait times from the VERY beginning, so we can offer a pretty clear picture of how they’ve developed since the park made its debut.

When Epic Universe opened, the ride and its crowds were largely defined by Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry. The latest attraction in Universal’s cadre of Harry Potter rides opened to MASSIVE crowds and waits hovering around 300 minutes on Epic’s opening in 2025.

Throughout the ride’s first year of operation, the attraction — which often saw downtime and early closures during those initial months — averaged waits between 100 and 150 minutes, occasionally nearly 200 minutes. However, if guests were able to time their arrival at the attraction just right (like, say, right after reopening from a closure), they could get on in about an hour if not less.

As the excitement for the park has come down from opening levels — and Universal and its Team Members have gotten a better handle on the attraction and its upkeep — wait times have gone down a bit. Currently, the ride is averaging a 90-minute wait in 2026. Interestingly, however, the ride’s numbers have risen above that average over the course of September 2026, as the attraction is averaging a wait of about 100 minutes over the month. Suffice to say, if you’re heading to Epic anytime soon, you’ll likely still have to wait a bit for Battle at the Ministry, but likely only about 1/2 of the gargantuan 200-minute waits that greeted guests initially.

While the long lines associated with the latest Potter attraction were arguably anticipated by many when Epic opened, the park’s other challenger for busiest ride is arguably a tad more surprising. While the Donkey Kong-themed Mine-Cart Madness was somewhat anticipated given its mystique as a previously Japan-only attraction plus its unique track, the coaster is arguably a smaller-scale attraction, and its initial numbers reflected that. On opening day, the ride averaged about 40-to-50-minute wait times; however, that quickly changed. Within weeks of opening, Mine-Cart Madness began averaging waits close to 100 minutes, and has stayed that way (when it’s open, an issue with all of the park’s outdoor rides that are subject to weather-related shutdowns) since. In fact, the ride’s 2026 average wait time is 105 minutes, easily the longest in the park.

While those rides will still require a relatively large time commitment, the rest of the park’s attraction lineup has settled into manageable times. Over the course of 2026 to date, the only other ride to average a wait over an hour is Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge.

In a testament to the efficiency of its ride system, the widely acclaimed Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment has averaged 16 minutes this year — a number in the same range as it’s had since the park opened — despite attracting some of the largest crowds in the park.

If you’ve been holding off heading to Epic Universe due to fear of massive crowds at Universal’s latest theme park, you’re likely in the clear to visit now, as long as you prepare to dedicate decent chunks of time to waiting for Battle at the Ministry and Mine-Cart Madness. Stay tuned to DFB for more coverage of Universal.

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Have you noticed crowd level changes at Epic Universe? Let us know in the comments below!