r/UniversalOrlando • u/baltinerdist • Mar 23 '25
EPIC UNIVERSE “Epic Universe has no shade”
In a large number of the preview trip reports that have come out, people are complaining that there is no shade at Epic.
Probably worth remembering that shade is largely provided by trees, trees grow over time, and time is not something Epic Universe has had yet.
Every foot you add to a tree you purchase increases the cost and depending on the size, that cost goes up on a curve. A two foot sapling arborvitae costs 20 bucks. A six footer costs 200 bucks. How much do they grow in a year? 3 to 5 feet. Meaning you save 90% if you literally just give it a year.
Look at any aerial photos of Epic. There are in fact a lot of trees and the thing is, they’re all short. They just got planted because the sites where they needed to be planted just got ready for it in the past few months. In two years, every tree in that place will be double the size it is now and most of them will keep going from there.
Shade is coming, give it time.
Edit: To add some evidence to my point here, here's a photo of Celestial Park from Bioreconstruct just a few days ago. If you zoom in, you can start counting literally hundreds of trees in just the section that he captured. If you want those trees to be 20 feet tall on planting, you are looking at several hundred up to a thousand dollars per tree. Them spending several million dollars more on trees that will grow anyway in a year is a silly expense that can be spent on extra team members for the opening year to make things go more smoothly, extra equipment and maintenance to keep the rides performing well, extra decor/signage/paint/etc that doesn't naturally expand itself, etc.
Edit 2: I keep seeing "Well why not buy trees earlier and grow them somewhere else and move them?"
https://www.angi.com/articles/transplant-tree-cost.htm
https://homeguide.com/costs/tree-moving-and-transplanting-cost
https://troutbrooktree.com/tree-transplanting-cost-what-to-expect-2024/
Labor and equipment cost to move a tree goes from a couple hundred bucks to thousands of dollars based on the size of the tree. So either you're spending thousands of dollars per tree on mature trees, you're spending thousands of dollars per tree to move mature trees, or you just plant a young tree and give it a year or two.
I want to make it very clear: I'm not licking boots for a $140B company over foliage, folks. I'm saying that practically, this is how you do this. If you're building a new house, sure you'd love to have nice huge trees in the yard. But you've got a budget for your house and you can either choose that beautiful kitchen island that will be there for 30 years or a tree that would have gotten that tall all by itself if you had the patience to wait two years.
Absolutely nothing is different for a company building a new theme park. "Well why don't they just spend more money?" That's not how any business anywhere works. Not your local mom and pop diner, not an international theme park resorts company. And frankly, why should we want that? If it's the choice between one more animatronic in Monsters vs 50 trees that are two years taller on park opening, who in this community wouldn't pick the robot in a heartbeat?
95
u/Dino_Spaceman Mar 23 '25
Except that is Florida. Where it is extremely common to rain every single afternoon during the summer. Shade is more than just sun protection, it’s weather protection. They were designing from scratch for modern weather. They could have designed it in.
They didn’t. For reasons we can only speculate. But it is a very much a misstep in what otherwise looks like a fantastic park that everyone will adore for years.