My Honest Thoughts on Super Nintendo World at Epic Universe

My Honest Thoughts on Super Nintendo World at Epic Universe

So, my family and I just got back from a trip to Epic Universe in Orlando, Florida. And yes, that is the home of Super Nintendo World. And guys, I got to tell you, I have been dreaming of going to this park for years. So, did Super Nintendo World live up to the hype, or did I actually end up leaving a bit disappointed? Well, there’s only one way to do this. I’m going to break down the entire world using these categories right here. Then, I’m going to assign them a star rating on a scale of 1 to five. Here we go. Oh, now first up, I think we have to look at the overall theming of the world. How well did they do at capturing the overall look and feel of the Mushroom Kingdom. One thing that is especially unique about this location are the portals outside. So, if you’re not familiar with Epic Universe yet, everything is organized around the central hub, which is known as Celestial Park. As you go through that circular portal, you are immediately in a giant warp pipe. I mean, this warp pipe is big enough for two escalators, both of them going up. And as soon as you get inside, you start hearing those classic warp pipe sounds from Mario. Now, when you get to the top of the warp pipe, you’re actually not immediately in the world. Instead, you’re inside Peach’s Castle, and they have a couple of throwbacks right there in that first little area that are throwbacks to Super Mario 64. They’ve got these little paintings on the wall, and they actually kind of shift and change to different things as you walk by. So, you take a few steps through there, and then you’re actually exiting Peach’s Castle going into Mushroom Kingdom. I don’t know how they do it. That is the one thing like you’ve got the visuals of course, but then the sound is really what just makes everything so much more epic. [Music] It’s so bright. It’s so colorful. There’s so much movement as well. You’ve got the little piranha plants moving. You’ve got Koopa Troopas moving around. So many different pieces that you just your eyes don’t know where to look. You don’t know where to start. You got the three main attractions. one for Mario Kart Bowser’s Challenge, the Donkey Kong coaster ride, and then Yoshi’s Adventure ride. You also have kind of a secret, but not so secret experience with Bowser Jr. that you can actually only access using the powerup band. So, we’re going to talk about that in a bit as well. But all of this, I I consider all this as part of the score for the theming. But just the whole world, I mean, they absolutely knocked it out of the park. I can’t give it anything less than a five out of five. All right, now let’s talk about merch. So, I got a couple different things that I brought back. Just overall, there’s going to be a common theme with it because the vast majority of it is really, really cool stuff. It’s also ridiculously expensive. Like these things right here. If I was pricing them, I’d think, h maybe, you know, 20, $25 would be good. If you go ahead and add in that extra tax that you’re going to have to pay being in a theme park, you think, okay, maybe they’ll raise it up to $35. No. Uh, these bad boys are $45. I I didn’t even get one. These are my kids. My oldest son got uh Yoshi and then my younger son got Luigi. Even though I don’t love the price, I will say that these things are pretty darn cool with what all they can do. We’re going to talk about the interactivity of the park here in a second, but as far as merch goes, I know this is a big item that a lot of people want to talk about. Now, my younger son also got this Donkey Kong plush that you can see here. And then my older son got this Donkey Kong water bottle right here, which you can’t really tell just from looking at it, but the bananas actually have this really nice little texture to them. So, you can feel all the bananas. I got this DK mug right here, which actually you get through another item that is related to the food. So, I’m going to talk about the food in a second. You could use it as an actual mug to drink out of. I think instead what I’m going to do is just kind of have it on a shelf over here and maybe put something inside it. I don’t know. It might be cool to have like a DK plush sitting in there. Diddy Kong plush, something like that. I don’t know. I haven’t really figured out what I’m going to put in there yet. So, if you guys have any ideas, definitely let me know in the comments. Oh, and I almost forgot. I did get a Super Nintendo World lanyard as well. Now, when it comes to all the different locations where you can buy merch here, don’t worry. Nintendo stuff is going to be everywhere. You can even get it outside the park at some of the shops, but as soon as you get inside the park there, before you’re even in Super Nintendo World, there’s a shop where they have a ton of Nintendo stuff. Now, you may be thinking there’s not really a need to visit all of them, and I will say there’s a lot of overlap in terms of the items. However, I feel like Universal does a really good job of having like a couple of unique items in each store to where you feel like, oh man, they might have something cool in there that I haven’t seen. And usually there will be like one or two things you’re like, oh, this is the first time I’ve seen that. So, now that we’ve established, yeah, you know that the pricing is going to be high. The actual quality and quantity of the merch is amazing. But, of course, now we need to rank the merch on a scale of 1 to five stars. Now, if we were only talking about the quantity and quality of the merch, it would be a five out of five, but I just cannot ignore the insane pricing here. So, I’m going to knock it down to a four out of five on the merch. Now, let’s talk about interactivity. And if you’ve never been to this park yet, you may be wondering, what do you even mean by interactivity all throughout this world, as soon as you walk in, there are so many locations where you can interact with these powerup bands. And that is why even though they are $45, I recommend that however many people you’re going with, at least one person needs to get one of these. The Bowser Jr., it’s not really a ride. It’s more like an attraction that I mentioned earlier. You can only get that if you find three keys that are hidden throughout the world. And guys, this thing was super cool. And I think the coolest part about this is kind of this illusion that when you jump, you jump extra high. So you can see yourself there moving like you would in the real world through your shadow there. But then when you jump, as you can see right there, it’s like it sends you super high just like you’re in the world of Mario. And then you get power-ups as well. There’s the star. There’s the firefl. And so then when you like throw your hands out like this, the firefl starts shooting. It’s just a super fun interactive game. And guys, I’m not joking with you, man. They are dead serious about you actually having the keys. So the first day we got them, we go through the Bowser Jr. area. No problem. The next day, we thought, “Oh, we’ll already have all three keys because we did it the other day.” Uh, but no, it actually did not let us do, so we had to go back and do them again. Now, they do also give you this map here. Well, I shouldn’t say they give it to you. It’s actually included when you buy the powerup bands right here. So, whenever you buy one of those, you actually get this map here, and it shows you where a lot of the secrets are hidden. It shows you where the keys are hidden. And then we haven’t even got to the Donkey Kong area yet, but they have all sorts of things you can find as well. You’ve got the Ko NG letters. Again, such a great nod to the actual video games, going around and finding those letters. Now, to track all of these elements, you actually manage this through the Universal app. I kind of wish it was a standalone app cuz it’s a little bit buried inside the Universal app, but you can ask an employee. They’ll show you exactly how to get to it, how to open it up. But once you get it opened up, it is actually pretty cool to be able to see all the little things that you found and collected. Bowser Jr. like that’s something that you want to work toward, right? But then they have all these other little challenges and missions that you can do just going around and hitting question blocks. There were some of the song blocks in the middle of the area that we just walked up to. We didn’t even really know what you were supposed to do and one of them would light up and my son hit it and then another one would light up and so it would teach you how to play one of the classic Mario songs. And so after he hit enough of them in the correct order, all of a sudden the song would start playing and then the ad unlocked a special achievement on the actual app. I got to say I was really really impressed with how well these powerup bands work because my kind of point of reference was the Wizarding World wands in the Harry Potter area. And while it’s such a cool thing to have the wands, I’ve just never felt like they work how they should. It’s it’s like not always perfect. And I know it’s like, well, you got to get the motions just right. These things, guys, every now and then you might have a little glitch where you can’t figure out what’s going on. But I would say nine times out of 10, these work exactly as you expect they would. And I think just make for a super fun aspect of this park. And so even though I don’t love that they’re $45, I do have to give Super Nintendo World a five out of five ranking when it comes to interactivity. All right, now let’s talk about the food options. And I’ll tell you guys on the front end for this one, I was pleasantly surprised cuz I had seen a lot of the food already because this park already exists in two other parts of the world. Honestly, I didn’t think it looked that great. I thought the theming looked really nice, but I didn’t think that the food looked that good. The first day we go there, we spent so much time in Super Nintendo World. It took way longer than we expected. Of course, by the time we got finished with the rides that we wanted to do, it was already lunchtime. And so, we’re like, well, we’re already here. or we might as well just go eat at Toad Stool Cafe. So, I actually got the Luigi burger, which is really not a burger. It’s chicken sandwich. It’s a piece of grilled chicken and I think it had green pepper on it and then I believe a pesto sauce. And I’m not like a huge fan of pesto. I don’t eat a lot of it, but I was like, you know what? I’m just going to I’m just going to go in and try it as is. And I loved it. My son, uh my youngest son, he got the kids version of like I don’t remember the exact name of it, but it was like a Mario burger. And guys, the theming on that was so good. You could see here just how they had everything organized. You’ve got Mario there, and then this part over here, you’ve got like this corn on the cob, and then the broccoli is meant to be like the green area of Mario Kart as he’s jumping up the flag. So, that was Toad Cafe. We also ate at one of the other restaurants in the area, which really only serves one item, and that is the bubbly barrel, which serves the DK Crush Float. I have heard so many mixed opinions on this and people describe it in different ways. I will say the ice cream is kind of like a banana pineapple. If you like Dole Whip and you like banana flavor and pineapple flavor, you’ll like this. And I like all those things. So, I absolutely loved that part of it. It has like caramel popcorn on top. That part of it I loved. The float part of it, I’m still just not a fan of floats. For one thing, no one warns you about this. I can’t believe no one in any video anywhere warned me, but as soon as you get it, it also comes with these really cool DK spoons as well. Like, do not press down whatsoever because I just very lightly pressed down and my entire float just starting rushing out of the cup. I mean, it got all over my hands. If I could get just the ice cream and just the caramel popcorn and all that on top, that was great. But I just I don’t need the float part of it. That being said, I do think it’s a pretty cool like just the visuals look amazing and I’m glad I tried it. But I will say going in my expectation was that the food here was going to be like a two out of five. I will say I’m not going to go four, but you know what? I will give it I’ll give it a solid three and a half out of five stars on the food. I would definitely eat at Toad Stool Cafe again. And honestly, if I try some more of the items and like them as well as I did that sandwich, I might even bump the overall score up to a four there. All right, now let’s talk about the three major rides in the area. It’s just crazy to me that we’ve had so much to talk about in this park already and we haven’t even gotten to the rides yet. I mean, usually that is the main draw. That’s the main they call them attractions. Those are the main reasons that you go to a lot of these places and we haven’t even talked about them yet. So, I will tell you guys, even without the attractions, Super Nintendo World is already so fun. Then when you consider the rides, here is where I think we get to my biggest disappointment. Let’s start with Yoshi’s Adventure because I think this is the easiest one to explain. There’s really not a whole lot to it. You can see it as soon as you walk into the park. You can see the little Yoshi cars moving along and pretty much what you see is what you get here. It’s called a people mover. It moves at a very, very slow speed. This is a nice relaxing ride that the whole family can ride. Two people can fit in each individual Yoshi there. So, you have to figure out how you want to ride. But honestly, there’s like no thrills to this at all. It doesn’t move fast. It does give you a really nice view of the whole area of the park. I was actually even able to pull out my phone here and get some video on this ride because again, it moves so slow. They don’t make you take off your hat or anything on this ride. So, don’t worry. You’re not going to get sick on this one. Anybody can ride this. I will say I wish more of it was indoors. We were there when it was super hot, so we were just looking for any moment where we could get inside for a little bit. There is a very small section of the ride that goes indoors for a little bit. I just wish the ride was longer and had more indoor elements. It’s not designed to be this ride that you want to just get on over and over and over again. I will say the best part of it, I think, is the view that you get of the whole park. And then it does have a bit of an interactive element as well. As you’re going along, you’re going to spot these eggs throughout the ride, and they’re going to be one of three colors. I think it was red, blue, and green. And then you have a corresponding button on the little uh panel in front of you. And so whenever you see the egg, you just hit the correct one. It’s completely optional, but I think for the little kids, it just adds a fun little extra element of interactivity to it. So I will give the Yoshi’s Adventure Ride a three out of five stars. I definitely think it’s worth doing, but I certainly wouldn’t wait more than like 30 minutes for this ride. Now, let’s talk about Minecart Madness. This is actually the one that I was anticipating the most because I’m a big coaster guy. I love roller coasters. I love thrills. And I was really excited to see this totally unique track setup that they have for Minecart Madness. If you haven’t heard about it, you can see it as soon as you walk into the Donkey Kong area. So, you actually have to go through Super Nintendo World and then inside of Super Nintendo World, it’s like you get another portal that takes you into the Donkey Kong area. That’s the only way you can get into it is by going through Super Nintendo World. But what your eyes will immediately be drawn to as soon as you enter this area are the minecarts that are part of this ride. And they have set it up to where you get the illusion both a little bit on the ride, but especially for people watching the ride where it looks like it jumps the track. So this of course is a nod to the video games, which as a big gamer, I love when they try to do stuff like this. Now, how does it actually work out in practice? I will say the visual of it is really fun. Has like this arm that the mine cart is kind of attached to, sort of like this. And so, what’s actually moving is that arm going back and forth. And then the cart, it looks like you’re on a traditional track, but it’s not. It’s it’s not a traditional track. You’re actually just attached to that arm. And so, that’s how they’re able to create that illusion of you jumping the track. Now, one common thing you’ll hear from a lot of people who ride this is they say that it’s really rough and kind of jarring how it moves. It was a little bit jarring for me, but I don’t know, man. Like, for me, I just had in my mind that I was going to be constantly kind of bouncing around, and it it really just wasn’t that bad at all. All right, so as for the rating, it’s definitely better than Yoshi, but four just feels too high. So, I think I’m going to have to play that halfep game again, and we’ll go with three and 1/ half stars out of five. Now, is that enough for Minecart Madness to beat out the final ride of the area, Mario Kart Bowser’s Challenge? Now, let me tell you guys, Mario Kart Bowser’s Challenge is the ride for Epic Universe. Now, what I mean by that, it’s not the best ride. It is the ride that has the longest wait times. This ride consistently throughout the days that we were there almost always had the longest wait time. Let’s start with the queue because the queue for this ride, if we were only rating it based on the queue, it is a five out of five. Just masterful queue. I I loved going through this line. There are so many fun little nods to the Mario Kart games. So many little secrets that you can find throughout this. So, if you’re not familiar with this ride, as you move through the queue, you’ll eventually come to a spot where you get these Mario visors. They’re kind of these hard plastic visors that go on your head and they don’t really tell you anything else at that point. You get to another room that kind of explains the visor. So, you’ve got this big plastic piece on and then when you actually sit down, I don’t know how else to describe it other than saying it’s like a kind of a giant pair of 3D glasses, but they’re really not 3D glasses. This is more an augmented reality ride. And that piece actually snaps into the visor. One little pro tip here. Don’t put the visor on right away. because if you put it on right away, you still have quite a bit of the line to get through and by the time you actually get to the ride, it’s like, “Oh man, this is like really weighing down my head at this point.” So, that’s a little pro tip I have. Wait until you’re actually much closer to the ride to put that on. As you go through this ride, it’s not a super fast ride. Now, because of the augmented reality, at times it will look like carts are moving fast around you, and there are various elements that make it feel like you’re moving fast, but you’re actually moving pretty slow. And so the whole point of this ride is you’re on team Mario, of course, and you want to defeat Team Bowser. Then here’s where it gets tricky because we actually have to aim those shells that we have. Now, how do we do that? You’re moving along a track and then there are various moments throughout the race, I guess you would call it, where you’re going to see an arrow. I’m pretty sure it lights up red when it first appears. So, an arrow may light up and be pointing to the left. When you see that, you want to turn to the left to actually aim, you have to look with your visor. So, like if I’m looking over there and that’s where I want to aim, I have to look at it and then I have to press the buttons on the steering wheel. This is like it’s very jarring because you’re like, “Okay, it says turn left. I’m turning left, but then oh wait, actually, there goes Bowser and yeah, I need to be shooting at him. So, let me push this. Oh, wait. There’s another arrow. Now I need to turn right. And I actually found myself um wanting to just kind of stop and like just watch the ride. Like I just want to see some of the stuff. But because like the whole ride is emphasizing this gamification aspect of it, you feel like you constantly have to be trying to hit the enemy rather than enjoying the ride. So I hope that makes sense because I will say the second time we rode it, I actually liked it a lot better than the first time. And I can definitely see this ride being one of those that the more you ride it, you’ll actually start to enjoy it even more because you’re going to get to notice things more. You’re actually going to get the controls down more. It’d be like playing a brand new Mario Kart game, but having to do it without a controller, with just completely different style of controls than you’re used to. So, if you can’t tell, I didn’t love the Mario Kart ride. I didn’t dislike it. I didn’t hate it or anything, but I didn’t love it. Honestly, it’s kind of in that same category as Donkey Kong. It is better than Yoshi. The queue alone is worth it for an hour. It’s not worth it for like a 3-hour wait. Definitely not. And then the ride, as long as you go into it knowing that, hey, this is really like an interactive game that I’m going to be playing with some cool things happening on the side, I think you’ll enjoy it a lot more. And I hate to say it, but I think you’ll enjoy it a lot more the second and the third time as well. For the ranking though, oh man, I’m going to go with You know what? Let’s do the same thing as we did Donkey Kong. Let’s go three and 1/2 out of five stars. So, overall, is the park perfect? Absolutely not. But is it a dream come true? Yes. I absolutely loved it. Can’t wait to go back. Fingers crossed that we actually end up getting a Zelda attraction. Oh, and unfortunately, the only items that you can use on the ride are shells. But hey, if you’ve been playing Mario Kart World on the Switch 2, then you have all sorts of items at your disposal. I actually made a video here ranking all of the items in Mario Kart World from worst to best. Check out that video next over on the left side of your screen now. And guys, if you’re not subscribed to the channel yet, we’re trying to hit 100K before the end of the year. So, hit that subscribe button.

My family and I just recently got back from a vacation to the brand new Epic Universe Theme Park in Orlando, Florida. And yes, that is also the home to Super Nintendo World.

I have been dreaming of going to this park for years, you guys, so now that I’ve finally been, I have so much to share.

I’ll break down the entire world and give each category a score between 1 and 5 stars.

Everything You NEED To Know About Super Nintendo World!

═══════════ 🎢 Official Details ═══════════

Experience the Fun of Super Mario™, Donkey Kong™ and More!
Enjoy interactive attractions that put you in the middle of the action at SUPER NINTENDO WORLD™.

Mario Kart™: Bowser’s Challenge
Ride through iconic courses, throw shells, and collect digital coins to beat Team Bowser. You’ve never experienced Mario Kart™ like this.

Mine-Cart Madness™
Careen through the jungle and help Donkey Kong protect the Golden Banana on the thrilling family coaster, Mine-Cart Madness™.

Yoshi’s Adventure™
Join Yoshis and search for the glowing eggs as you travel through Mushroom Kingdom landscapes in this enchanting, family-friendly ride.

Meet Mario, Luigi, and More
Say hello and pose for photos with some of your favorite characters, including Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and Toad.

https://www.universalorlando.com/web/en/us/epic-universe/worlds/super-nintendo-world

═══════════ 🎵 Music ════════════

Royalty Free Music from Tunetank.com
Track: Tribal Force by PineAppleMusic
https://tunetank.com/track/6894-tribal-force/

═══════════ Hashtags ════════════

#UniversalStudios #supernintendoworld #EpicUniverse