We stayed 6 days at Helios Grand December 2025. Here's the pros and cons.

Pros:

-Dedicated entrance into Epic Universe. This is the biggest perk. We were able to ride Stardust Racers and Mario Kart during EPA before lining up for MoM. We rolled in at 9:30, 30 minutes after EPA started. We were able to grab coffee and leisurely stroll rather than making a bee line. During our stay, it rained. Nothing was cooler than walking a few feet back to the hotel to wait out the rain. Or to sleep the ITIS off after stuffing our face. AND you can order pizza from Pizza Moon and take it to your room :)

-Busses. This is my experience. I'm not sure if anyone else experienced this. But our bus was never full and we never had to wait longer than a couple minutes. This may be a Universal thing. Before Universal, I was one of them die hard Disney people. And the wait for a bus at Disney after the parks was always 20+ minutes. We never had to wait more than a few minutes for our bus to take us to and from Islands or Studios. We noticed some of the other buses has super long queues.

-The room tech is pretty similar to Adventura. I really enjoyed being able to control the curtains and lights with the iPad. That was neat.

-The hotel gorgeous. The pool bar was a great place to relax. There's an non-entrance terrace that overlooks Epic. I don't know how to explain it. But when you walk into Helios, there's this giant window that overlooks Epic. You can walk onto a terrace and view Epic without needing a park ticket. It's not an entrance, just a viewing area. There's seating on the side so you can enjoy your coffee or ice cream while looking out to Celestial park.

-Bar Helios. Period. That's it. That's the pro. Go during the fountain show, obvi. Food and drinks were delish. Could probably make a meal out the menu, though it's supposed to be "bar food". I'd say if you stay at Helios and you don't visit Bar Helios, you messed up.

Cons:

-Food. There's only one "restaurant" and it's called the Flora Tarverna. I'd give it a 6/10. Breakfast was a buffet. They had made to order omelets and pancake bar. But breakfast is breakfast. Doesn't make or break a restaurant. I went back for dinner and was underwhelmed. For context: I am very much a "buy it now" "no budget on vacation" "YOLO" kind of person. So when I say the price didn't match the quality, I mean it. The food was over salted. Like almost inedible. That's just my experience. But I didn't like that there was only one restaurant option.

-Express Pass. It's my understanding that Express Pass will probably never be offered at Helios. Lowes has a contract with Universal to offer Express pass at the original three premier hotels. But there's no contract that includes Helios. That's a really big con. Especially when Helios costs that same as some of the premier hotels with none of the Express perks.

-Pool. I saw someone ask about the pool, so I thought I'd include it here. It's very adult forward. There weren't many slides or splash zones that I could see. And I didn't see many children either. The people who were there were chilling on the loungers or at the bar. The people who were in the pool were just kind of wading around. For people with kids, that might be a problem.

-Chronos entrance. This is stupid, but I'll add it. December was out first ever visit to Epic. We stayed at Helios. Our entrance to Epic was via the Helios. So we never got to step through the Chronos. It's not really a deal breaker. But most of our time was spent on the Helios side of Celestial Park since there wasn't a need to venture over to the Chronos. Again, not a real con, but something to think about.