Okay, so we’ve finally had a chance to check out Universal Nights at Epic Universe, Universal Orlando’s limited-capacity after hours event, which is a lot like Disney World’s After Hours events where you buy a ticket to spend time in the park after it closes with fewer crowds.

During Universal Nights at Epic Universe, which happens after Epic Universe closes for the day, you’ll get to take advantage of free snacks and beverages, free refills at Coke Freestyle machines, character interactions, and fewer crowds. This also means you have access to rides with shorter lines during that time, so we decided to see how many rides we could knock out in the park during the event.

Universal Nights at Epic Universe is a separate ticketed event taking place on October 3rd, 17th, and 24th, as well as November 6th and 20th from 9 PM to midnight, although those with a ticket can enter the park as early as 7 PM. That gives you a total of five hours to knock out some rides. Tickets start at $179.99 per person.

So here’s the thing: EVERY ride in EPIC Universe is open during Universal Nights at Epic Universe, so we wanted to see if we could ride EVERYTHING. We arrived right around 6:40 PM to get in line, and when we were walking into the park, wait times were looking decently high, since normal day crowds were still in attendance. Constellation Carousel and Ministry of Magic were at 55-minute waits, Hiccup’s Wing Gliders was at a 35-minute wait, and Mine Cart Madness was sitting at 120 minutes.

Not much changed when the event started at 7 PM, and we even saw wait times rise (for example, Mine Cart Madness jumped to 150 minutes around 7:40 PM), so we started to get nervous.

How To Train Your Dragon — Isle of Berk

First up, we headed to Isle of Berk and got in line for Toothless right around 7:25 PM, and he was posted at a 45-minute wait. As a general rule, though, you can usually expect about half the time waiting in line, and we ended up only waiting about 25 minutes.

After our meet with Toothless, we headed over to catch the fireworks show at 8 PM in Celestial Park (which is stunning, by the way, don’t miss it!), which also marked the end of the day for regular guests. This was also when crowds really started to change, because Team Members were very diligent about checking for after-hours wristbands, which made sure that the only people getting in line were those with tickets for the event.

Right around 8:50 PM, we couldn’t BELIEVE the crowd levels and how much they dropped! We had gotten back into Berk around 8:15 PM to start riding rides, and we made it through every single ride in the land in just about half an hour. They were basically all walk-ons in ways we’d never seen before. Other than waiting behind a few people in front of us, we were on the ride in just minutes.

But what about the other lands?

Celestial Park

Celestial Park also cleared out in ways that blew our minds. Right around 8:54 PM, less than an hour after regular day guests left, there wasn’t a ride in the park that was over a 10 minute wait, including Stardust Racers and Constellation Carousel.

We had a feeling everyone was over at Ministry of Magic and Super Nintendo World, but to our surprise, that wasn’t the case!

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter — Ministry of Magic

We had a feeling we’d be waiting a long time for one of the most popular rides in the park, Harry Potter and the Battle at the Ministry, but imagine our surprise when around 10:50 PM, we literally walked through the ENTIRE queue for the ride with absolutely no stops because the line was nonexistent.

Our second reporter in the park headed to do the same thing around 11:15 PM, just to see if wait times would jump with less than an hour left of the event, but nope, they ended up walking straight through with no stops! This is certainly nearly impossible to experience with this ride any other time of day, so this truly was special.

Super Nintendo World

Super Nintendo World was one of the busier spots of the night, and we did see Mine Cart Madness spike up to 40 minutes around 11:30 PM, but that was likely due to the fact that the ride had been going down a few times throughout the night.

However, Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge stayed pretty much right around 10 minutes for the entire night, which is a major win. You could have ridden it over and over again, if that’s what you wanted!

Dark Universe

Being able to visit Dark Universe at night is SOMETHING, so we made our way straight over to Monsters Unchained, which sat at around a 10-minute wait all night. This was another ride you could have ridden time and time again, and yes, we were tempted.

Curse of the Werewolf was another ride that did experience delays and short closures throughout the night, so we did see it pop up to 25 minutes around 11:30 PM, but that’s still not too bad for this attraction!

So how many rides did we knock off during Universal Nights at Epic Universe? Well, the grand total was ALL OF THEM! And that was also with watching the fireworks, meeting Toothless, getting some snacks, and feeling like we could wander around casually instead of sprinting to rides and spending lots of time in line. Overall, it honestly was the most chill after-hours event we’ve ever been to, and it was easy to get done everything we wanted to without feeling rushed — it may be our favorite one we’ve ever been to!

We’ll be back with even more Epic Universe news, so stay tuned to DFB for more.

I Spent $58 On This For Epic Universe, and I’d Do It Again in a Heartbeat

Are you interested in more after-hours events in Universal Orlando? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!