If you’ve stumbled upon this post, welcome to Universal Unpacked! And if you’re as excited as we are about the new Universal Studios theme park coming to the UK, you’re in the right place.
This is likely to be one of the few self-indulgent posts on this site, where I talk a bit about who we are, why we created Universal Unpacked, and what we’re hoping to bring to you next. If you just want news and information about the park itself, that will be coming very soon! But if you want to learn more about the people behind these articles, buckle in. I can’t promise not to ramble, but hopefully you’ll find something relatable if you’re a theme park nerd like us.
Which leads me to the first question you might have…
Who Are We?
We’re Em and Laur, identical twins from a little town in Staffordshire.
Growing up, we were those kids who were bouncing off the walls, always looking for the next adventure and the next way to get into trouble. It’s no wonder that our mum enrolled us in gymnastics classes as soon as we could walk.
We didn’t have loads of money as a family of six, but our parents made sure to treat us, our younger brother Adam, and our older sister Rachel to a number of exciting day trips every year, including trips to our local theme parks.
Even when we were really small, we loved theme parks. The bigger and the faster the ride, the better!
Here’s a super cute photo of us with our older sister, Rachel, enjoying ourselves on an attraction, most likely at Gulliver’s World or Gulliver’s Kingdom, both of which we visited a lot as a family when we were little. We used to take our cuddly toys on all the rides with us to treat them to the experience too!
And here’s an old school photo of us and our dad on the log flume on Blackpool Pier. Log flumes are the first “thrill” ride I remember from childhood. We were probably around five or six in this picture.
As we got older, we transitioned from the Gulliver’s parks to Drayton Manor and Alton Towers, both of which were around an hour away from our home (how lucky were we?!). I remember going on our first real rollercoaster, The Corkscrew at Alton Towers, with our mum when we were around 11. That gave us the bug for rollercoasters, and as soon as we were tall enough, we rode Air (now called Galactica for anyone in the know!), Rita, Thirteen, and eventually plucked up the courage to ride Nemesis and Oblivion.
Alton Towers was by far our favourite local theme park, so when we came across job opportunities at the park, it seemed almost too good to be true! Both of us applied as soon as we turned 16, and that’s how we ended up working there for the next five or so years. Even as staff, we never got tired of the theme park magic, and getting to see some of the behind-the-scenes areas was really cool. I still remember the feeling of walking through the park as the sun was setting on a summer evening, when everyone else had left, feeling like we had the place to ourselves.
As you can probably tell, the obsession with theme parks was well and truly established by now. So you can only imagine how our minds were blown when, after we’d finished our studies at university and took what we believed to be a once-in-a-lifetime trip to America, with Disney World and Universal Studios on our must-visit list.
We spent two solid weeks in Orlando and had the best time. It’s impossible to put into words just how awestruck we were by the worldbuilding of the Disney and Universal parks, having only experienced Merlin attractions until this point. The rides, the immersion, the food… it quickly became obvious that that once-in-a-lifetime trip was going to be repeated again and again.
We’ve since been lucky enough to revisit Orlando three times, with a fourth trip planned in September of 2027.
Here we are looking sweaty and happy on our recent trip to Universal in Orlando:
In case you’re curious, here are some of our favourite Disney and Universal rides: VelociCoaster, Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure, Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, TRON Lightcycle / Run, Avatar Flight of Passage.
As you can see, our love for thrill attractions still exists today!
We’re also HUGE Harry Potter fans, so the Wizarding World sections of the Universal parks are by far our favourite place to hang out.
What Is Universal Unpacked?
Universal Unpacked is our solution for transferring the excitement we have about the new UK Universal park onto paper (or laptop, in this case).
After many conversations and much speculation, we thought we’d put our writing skills to good use (we have Media, Journalism, and Creative Writing degrees between us), and that’s the long and short of how Universal Unpacked was born.
What can you expect from this site? Well, we’ll be doing our best to share all the news and updates you’ll want to know about the park, from build progress to ride announcements, as and when we find out. Pure news with no opinion isn’t really our thing, so we’ll be sharing what we think and getting the conversation going as much as possible along the way.
And once the park is open, we’re planning to visit as often as we can, and that’s the really exciting bit. We’ll be reviewing the food, rides, lands, hotels, and whatever else Universal has in store for its flagship park in England.
We still can’t believe Universal Studios is actually, finally, coming to the UK! It’s a dream come true for anyone who loves theme parks as much as we do. If you’re in that category with us, we hope you’ll check our website and YouTube channel for new content as it arrives.
Alright – that’s enough for now. See you in our next post!
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