Expanding Epic Universe, Part I: An Armchair-Imagineered Build-Out of Universal Orlando’s Cosmic Theme Park

CELESTIAL GARDEN

Background

Typically in a park build-out, I feel like we sort of breeze through the “entry” land with a sense of like, “Yep, it is what it is!” and then move on to more interesting pursuits. But obviously for reasons we’ve already examined, Celestial Park is no typical “Main Street.” There’s not only a lot of operational and narrative weight to it, but a lot of possibility and potential. So I think it’s important to make sure we understand it as well as we can!

It begins with the aforementioned CHRONOS. In keeping with Universal’s treasured tradition of positioning its park icons at each park’s entrance rather than their center, the Chronos basically serves as modern equivalent of the Disneyland Railroad tunnels – it is the literal and figurative portal you pass through to begin the day. Whereas a carved message on a bridge over Islands of Adventure’s Port of Entry offers the prompt “The Adventure Begins”, Epic Universe’s Chronos goes poetic:

“Beyond this gate find gardens green and epic worlds to fill your dreams.”

Among the many things I love about the Chronos is that it’s distinctly of our world (you really can imagine this kind of copper clocktower as the icon of a turn-of-the-century World’s Fair) and from beyond it – covered in stars, orbital mechanisms, and columns of light that pierce the clouds. The Chronos is flanked by bronze carvings of Astraeus (god of dusk) and Eos (goddess of dawn), both holding glass orbs representing sun and moon. The hollow interior of the structure contains large-scale “medallions” that match the insignias over each individual land’s portal.

An early version of the structure was larger and had far more moving components (see Build-Out, below) to really sell the jaw-dropping effect, but even the “toned down” version that survived COVID contraction is quite stunning, marked by its most substantial kinetic element: a giant bronze orrery near the glass-dome roof that spins in hypnotic patterns.

All of that is meant to contribute to the story-building sense that the Chronos is essentially a cosmic antenna, drawing in the unseen ethereal energies of the multiverse and weaving strands of time and space together like a celestial loom. This massive structure, in other words, is the power source of the Celestials, bridging the path from our world to theirs and then powering portals onward to the otherworlds junctioned later on. Anyway, enough fangirling over the creation of a genuinely-unique and captivating new park icon.

As for the land itself, in an interview with Attractions Magazine Universal Creative’s VP of Creative Development and Branding, Adam Rivest, spoke at length on the world, noting “There were no books or film references, no canon. Everything was open to development and allowed us the space to design every aspect of this ‘world between worlds’ to be exactly what we needed it to be. It also meant, once established, we had to become the guardians of everything Celestial Park stood for functionally, thematically, and most important, emotionally.”

Universal proclaimed that Celestial Park would “put the ‘park’ back in theme park,” promising it would be lush and beautiful and green – a place to stroll and chill and relax and connect. You can see that effort incarnate as you step through the Chronos and emerge on an overlook, peering over the shoulder of a statue of Luna, goddess of the moon, who presides over a landscape of descending waterfalls, bridges, rocks, and gardens.

Frankly, the space isn’t quite to the “park in theme park” stage, and even in ten years probably won’t be “forested” per se. Especially now, it reads more like a conservative botanical garden with vast unshaded concrete pathways. Anecdotally, Celestial Park is pretty much a ghost town during the day because there’s relatively little to do and lots of sun-baked pathways, which is an awful waste of real estate where potential ride capacity can exist. But the spirit is certainly there, and if “Phase II” allows Universal to truck in some full grown trees (as they did in Dark Universe), all the better.

Anyway, Rivest discusses how the land took inspiration from real World’s Fairs spanning from the 1880s to the 1940s, trying to bottle the beauty and optimism of those global, cultural celebrations. “They were a place where people gathered to see the latest in art, science, and entertainment, and free the imagination to dream the impossible.” You can see that, too, in the way that the Luna Overlook then splits left and right, funneling all guests under covered glass arcades, then onward to lagoons and plazas punctuated by stylized eateries and shops, all united by plant life, cosmic patterns embedded in the pavement, and a green copper color palette.

To give you a sense of the thematic breadth of depth of this century-spanning, otherworldly space, take PIZZA MOON – a quick service pizza restaurant that, we gather, is built in an old 1900s Victorian theater. Going “full Discoveryland,” Pizza Moon allows guests to dine amid the saturated sets, curtains, and backdrops of a space stylized around Georges Méliès’ 1902 film, A Trip to the Moon (considered the first ever science fiction movie). A crashed rocket on “stage” is the pizza oven, and the ube-tinged purple crust comes topped with “fromage de lune” – “moon cheese.”

As the story goes, designers were instructed that the land feature no “cogs and gears” lest Celestial Park fall into the typical trappings of “steampunk.” I actually think that once you know that, the land feels even stronger because you suddenly notice that the interior of the Chronos – which could’ve so easily become revolving gears and steaming pistons – isn’t that. Instead, fantasy and mythology pervade the land and its spaces, coalescing with a World’s Fair’s quest for knowledge and connection and commerce. Just from a conceptual standpoint, the distinction is brilliant.

The result is that instead of a higher-budget interpretation of the steampunk lands that permeate regional parks, we get a world that really does feel like this reverent, historic, and idealized, passed through a lens of fantasy – the “magical mix” that powers Disney’s best lands. (Where else might you find a bronze Celestial atop a Coca-Cola stand, lit by the warm glow from within a glass Coke bottle?)

Celestial Park is a major contributor to my sense that as a whole, Universal is finally taking itself seriously, elevating its output, and deciding they need not just be the “bratty, immature, irreverent oddballs” in Orlando anymore. It’s certainly a perspective begun via Islands of Adventure, but Celestial Park suggests it’s here to stay.

Obviously, Celestial Park isn’t perfect, and we’ll try to work out a few flaws in the Build-Out section below. But one of the most immediately apparent is that this very large, very important 25 acre land contains only two rides. That worries me for a few reasons, not the least of which being that I bet the enthusiasm and budget for adding to this land will be in fifth place behind the four IP-based lands. “Phase I” was probably the best time to really fill this land with stuff to do, and that didn’t happen which, in my opinion, doesn’t bode well.

Of the two rides, the first is the waterside CONSTELLATION CAROUSEL. Don’t let “carousel” fool you; the ride is a wonder in its own right. The mechanical marvel positions guests atop sculptures of astrological animals (lit from within at night), which are themselves positioned on pivots or turntables, so that as part of the ride’s dance-like cycle, the animals can rotate to travel backwards, face in toward the center, and more.

The second ride is STARDUST RACERS – certainly one of the park’s E-Tickets, and in the way only Universal can do. From Dueling Dragons to VelociCoaster, Universal has demonstrated that they won’t shy away from having “bare steel coasters” – and more to the point, that they don’t think having “bare steel coasters” precludes their parks from being world-class theme parks. (Disney won’t even play Star Wars music in their Star Wars land, whereas Universal has a multi-launch Intamin roller coaster in its Harry Potter land.) Stardust continues the tradition with a double-tracked racing coaster manufactured by Mack Rides.

There’s a “Lite Story” here that before the development of portals, the Celestials harnessed the power of comets to travel between worlds. As a result, the simple queue for the coaster is sort of a WPA-style transit station, but, y’know, of the heavens. All that aside, the cool thing about the coaster is that it doesn’t “duel” like Dueling Dragons (most guests’ immediate comparison, I bet). Instead, the green and yellow track are meant to “dance.”

There are vertical climbs, arcing top hats, ejector air moments, and a patented new maneuver called the “Celestial Spin,” where the two coasters launch alongside one another, then bolt for the sky, taking turns inverting over top of one another as part of a sort of stellar ballet. The trains include synchronized on-board audio and a dazzling light display. What’s cool about that is that Universal intentionally leaves the coaster structure itself unlit at night, so the two sparkling trains look like comets racing across a dark sky.

Obviously, Celestial Park provides a really strong foundation and a flexible enough frame story that we can include Roman gods, French cinema, and an astronomical roller coaster. Now it falls to us to begin with play with its components to try to add more to do without breaking the rules. So after a quick name change to the more ethereal, Elysian “Celestial Garden,” here’s where I took it…

Build-Out

While the Chronos we got is beautiful and compelling in its own right, we may as well start our Build-Out with the “plussed” version that never was. The “pre-COVID” entry portal ditched the bare-bones iron framing in favor of a fully “stone” entry plaza and foundational base for the rising tower icon (which, at that point, was about a third larger). This original Chronos reportedly contained about three dozen moving components – flipping time-turners, rotating coins, circling orbitals, bronze aureoles, spinning disks, and more. Certainly, that would’ve added to the tower’s hypnotic, kinetic appearance with elements orchestrated as if in a giant, swirling ballet of near-miss motion.

Altogether, the “stone” aesthetic of crawling ivy, dimensional carvings, and mossy rockwork would also have established a really unique environment here. Obviously, the “bare bones” design that won out looks “good enough,” with its medallions all permanently locked into slightly-off-kilter position that are meant to give the impression of movement even though the final Chronos has just three actually-kinetic features. It’s a bummer since the “devil is in the details” and since, again, returning to the Chronos for reengineering is highly unlikely, meaning that if these features don’t exist in “Phase I” it’s likely they never will. But in our built-out version of the park, we can proudly restore this never-built version!

With it, I think I’d also address the park’s entering “thesis” message. From Disneyland’s “Here you leave today…” to Islands of Adventure’s “The Adventure Begins…” these little bits of copywriting can actually carry a lot of emotional and narrative weight! Epic Universe’s is presented via message above the Chronos’ portal which reads: “Beyond the gate find gardens green / and epic worlds to fill your dreams.” It’s fine! It’s cute!

Still, I drafted my own set, which I envisioned being displayed digitally in sequence so that even if guests only see any two, they’re seeing one that’s about the Chronos itself and one about the wider mythology of the park. It’s all mood-setting stuff, but I think it can be powerful!

The Chronos draws celestial bonds / to forge its paths to worlds beyond…
Twixt Helios flame and Luna pale / ‘wait worlds from story, song, and tale…
A loom of aether, Chronos weaves / a bridge for those whose hearts believe…
‘Neath swirling cosmos, stars align / and light the path through space and time…
Through the Chronos, disappear / to worlds of magic, joy, and fear…
Let those who pass this portal find / their reason to leave home behind…

Okay, now onward into the rest of Celestial Garden. I know it’s not a very “sexy” thing, but if you’ve read any of my Build-Outs, you know that I think nearly all of Orlando’s parks desperately need more flat rides: off-the-shelf (but artfully-customized!) attractions that we’d call “B- or C-Tickets”; the un-flashy but essential rides that fill out park lineups, add family capacity, and give people something to do between E-Ticket rides. Parks need carousels, teacups, spinners, yoyo swings, scramblers, and Ferris wheels, and everyone knows it… but these additions aren’t very “sexy” or marketable.

Even worse, outside of Cars Land, neither Disney nor Universal has really figured out how to make these work within the highly-immersive, “plucked from the screen” Living Lands that are the new standard. I mean, Disney won’t even play Star Wars music in Star Wars land, and you think they’re gonna plop down some sort of scrap metal themed Dumbo spinner? Buy a Zamperla ChronoZ? Please! At Epic Universe, the problem is necessarily even greater because every land holds itself to the same standard as Diagon Alley, where you’d sooner find a Coca-Cola than some off-the-shelf carnival ride. But we will solve the park’s capacity problem with flat rides if it’s the last thing we do, and Celestial Garden is certainly a place to start.

To get us part-way there, I’ve added three key flat rides to Celestial Garden – each as well-appointed and poetic in its execution as the existing Constellation Carousel.

First, adjacent to the Atlantic table service restaurant and its adjoining lagoon, I placed MOON SWINGS – a classic “yoyo swing” ride with an unusual appearance. My inspiration here is a very odd, unusual ride model called “Apollo 14” developed by defunct manufacturer Schwarzkopf. Exactly two “Apollo 14” rides were produced, and neither worked great. As a result, both had their impressive structures retrofitted as “yoyo swing” rides that ended up with giant, 59-foot tall moons in the center.

They’re weird, but actually, I think this general vibe is sort of perfect for Celestial Garden – that precision alignment between a vintage World’s Fair of retro, copper vibes mixed with a place powered by astronomy and astrology combined. Creating a modern (and admittedly downsized) version of this reverse-engineered moon swing as a family attraction here felt like a really cool “rebirth” of the concept that felt fittingly celestial.

You’ll also notice that I placed the Moon Swings under a glass dome canopy – a feature I’ve pulled from the land’s existing architecture and will continue to add where I can. Obviously, this is meant to combat the park’s lack of weather resistance. (To solve for the very large moon, I envisioned creating just the bottom half of the sphere with a mirrored ceiling to complete the illusion.)

Similarly, I added a large domed space to the plaza outside of the Constellation Carousel, which theoretically looks like a space for convening but is actually just sort of a sun-baked no-man’s-land. In the center is PLANTES À ROQUETTES – a ride meant to read as a complement to Pizza Moon. Rocket-themed spinners have been a staple of Disney Parks since 1955, so I adapted this one to Celestial Garden by imagining the ride as a giant topiary sculpture with guests riding in bronze rockets gripped by vine-like arms.

Already, we’ve managed to add two additional flat rides to Celestial Garden so that (along with the Constellation Carousel) this land is home to three highly-kinetic, weather-resistant, all-ages attractions that “fit the brief.” I think this trio feels fittingly “Tivoli” in the sense that they bring a sort of antique, astronomical, aged appearance mixing mechanics and nature.

Finally, in the rear of the land in a small plot in front of the Helios Grand Hotel is my final flat ride addition here – VOYAGE TO THE ENCHANTED GARDEN. This is a ride lineup substitution for the Mack Rides “Fyre Drill” ride currently in Isle of Berk (which, spoiler alert, will be leaving!). If you haven’t experienced it first hand, this Splash Battle model ride positions riders on either side of a small boat, outward facing, with practical, crank-powered water guns that allow guests to spray targets, riders on other boats, and even onlookers (who, if equipped with their own crank-cannons, can spray back).

“Splash Battles” are arguably more fun to watch than to ride unless their interaction points are sufficiently dense and compelling. Fyre Drill definitely achieved that (via physical, rotating medallions that I love), so it would be our goal here, too – just with a dense botanical garden vibe. I figured that Voyage to the Enchanted Garden would draw from a number of successful models for this sort of thing…

• from the park’s existing Fyre Drill, of lots of motion and special effects – for example, medallions that cause flowers to bloom, glow, spin, or even spray riders;
• from Disneyland’s “it’s a small world,” I wanted to draw the idea of a garden of topiary creatures – here, given life and motion by water squirts that strike their medallions;
• from Shanghai Disneyland’s Voyage to the Crystal Grotto, scenes that spring to life with water and music in unexpected ways, and a “finale” that elevates the experience – in this case, boats that sufficiently bring the garden to life would be diverted into the Enchanted Greenhouse for a spectacular finale of cascading waterfalls around the goddess Pomona.

Altogether, this seemed like a nice placement for this kind of ride. It wouldn’t interrupt views from the Helios Grand, and it also wouldn’t elicit too many screams, even calming down at night when getting wet has less appeal.

Finally, I knew I wanted to utilize one of the park’s smaller expansion pads for something that would be sizable for Celestial Garden. Every park needs an all-ages, no-height-requirement, nothing-goes-horribly wrong dark ride. Haunted Mansion; Pirates; Peter Pan’s Flight; “it’s a small world”… These sort of “grand-but-accessible” attractions are literally the reason that the popular image of Disney Parks is that they’re places for everyone from newborns to great-grandma.

These rides often yield memorable characters, settings, and songs! Plus, it’s no coincidence that many of these rides are the ones cloned again and again, becoming “staples” of Disney Parks. Aside from brief forays into the genre (like E.T. Adventure and the Secret Life of Pets: Off the Leash), Universal tends to avoid them like the plague. That’s a real shame, because (like all Universal Parks) Epic Universe clearly needs more rides that grandma or your one friend who doesn’t like rides will still enjoy.

Believing that Celestial Park was the perfect place to make it happen, I settled on a concept I call CHRONOMICA – a journey into the grand, cosmic observatory where Celestials chart the course for worlds unknown. My vision was that guests would stand before a grand observatory perched atop a mossy rock cliff face with pouring waterfalls. Entering through a fissure in the cliff face, they’d be invited through passages containing libraries, star charts, and navigational relics of the Celestials’ discoveries of world travel.

Finally, the queue would end in the dusty archives of the Observatory where we’d encounter and awaken two long-abandoned mechanical birds: Noctua the owl and Gallus the rooster. These two original characters (representing dusk and dawn; wisdom and creativity, respectively) would invite us to join them on a journey to the heart of the Observatory: the grand Orrery where Luna tracks the movement of the worlds across the universe. Beyond here, the queue would split to Noctua’s Path and Gallus’ Path – leading to separate loading stations. In either case, riders would sit aboard trackless, LPS-style dark ride vehicles and be dispatched together into the Observatory.

Again, especially at Universal Parks, I always feel some amount of pressure to have a dark ride where “nothing goes horribly wrong.” That would be the case here, as the two paths would diverge and reunite, dancing through musical, enchanted chambers brought to life through projection and effects, with a stunning finale in the swirling, cosmic Orrery that’s brought all of the worlds into alignment. My hope was that we’d end up with a really nice family dark ride that also gives Universal a new set of original characters and music that can become this park’s Pirates of the Caribbean, if that makes sense.

Just outside of Chronomica is the CELESTUARY – a hands-on, special effects-filled walkthrough that sort of echoes EPCOT’s Journey of Water. Here, in this enchanted place, guests could interact with leaping fountains, balance balls on streams of water, activate ancient Celestial mechanisms to spin waterwheels, bring “spitting” fish fountains to life, explore an ancient cavern of cosmic geysers, and discover the spring from which Celestial Garden’s enchanted water eternally flows.

Finally, there were once rumors that every world at Epic Universe would have a must-buy interactive device on par with the Wizarding World’s Wands or Super Nintendo World’s Power-Up Bands. Obviously, none have materialized (yet), but I envisioned one for Celestial Park that I called the COSMIC COMPASS. I basically scattered interactive compass points throughout the land coinciding with the “elements” – Water, Fire, Earth, Air, Dark, Light, and Aether. At each of these points, the compass would activate a really-for-real environmental effect: steaming fountains for Water, a glowing starfield in the Stardust Racers’ launch tunnel for Aether, flaming arrow shots from Apollo for Fire, and so on.

The Compass would actually ‘remember’ which elements you had activated such that if you successfully found each element, your glowing compass would slot into a stone relief outside of the Celestial Vault, ushering you into a grand finale experience. I won’t lie. This exists entirely because I wanted an excuse to have guests step inside and find the stunning sequence at the climax of the Lost Legend: Poseidon’s Fury – of a sweeping musical score, a great circular door rotating, aligning, and rolling away, and then the jaw-dropping creation of a water tunnel to walk through. The Vault itself would include a preview center for the park, a lounge space, and a spot to unlock the Compass to discover a pin inside.

Phew. Altogether, Celestial Garden takes more words than any other in the park, which makes sense. This land is gargantuan in terms of its physical space and its importance. Its Background provides essential context for the entire park, and the Build-Out I’ve presented here works really hard to make this a space that has more to do, extends linger time, provides weatherproofing, and uses its physical space to increase the park’s appeal and capacity for families.

I think this Celestial Garden gets us off to a really good start. So now, let’s put that same mindset to work as we explore expanded and new worlds that branch off of it… Here we go!