If you are planning a visit to Universal Epic Universe and you want to stay at a Universal Orlando Resort hotel, this is the article for you. The Universal Orlando Resort currently has 10 hotels, with the 11th, Universal Helios Grand, opening on May 22, 2025 alongside the Universal Epic Universe park. For those looking for early theme park access, free transportation to the parks, park views and more affordable options, you can look at Universal Stella Nova & Terra Luna.
Stella Nova and Terra Luna are considered prime value hotels, one of three categories by the Universal Orlando Resort. Prime Value hotels offer a more budget friendly price tag for a majority of the hotel exclusive offerings. But, Prime Value hotels do not offer the Unlimited Universal Express that you can get at other locations.
Stella Nova and Terra Luna, the shiny tile hotels
If you only know one thing about Stella Nova and Terra Luna, it is probably the tiles. Both of these resorts are covered in these vibrant, reflective tiles of varying color. You cannot miss these hotels as you drive up. While the interior theming differs between the hotels the overall look on the outside is quite similar.
On the inside, Stella Nova is focused on lots of space photography with black, white and blue as the primary design choices. Whereas Terra Luna is more colorful, using wood grains and warm colors. The layout of the bottom floor of both hotels is also different.
In our personal opinion, Terra Luna is laid out a bit better. The Terra Luna common areas seem to just flow better, and the warmer colors offer a calmer and more inviting look. This may just be personal preference, but having stayed at both hotels, it felt that Terra Luna was better at managing crowds and the flow of hotel guests.
Rooms at Stella Nova and Terra Luna
Outside of small design changes, the rooms at Stella Nova and Terra Luna are nearly identical. Neither resort offers family suites, but they both offer connecting rooms. These rooms are laid out similar to most resort style hotels. They come with a bathroom that is separated with a toilet and shower, and outside of that enclosed room is a sink and vanity area.
Both the Stella Nova and Terra Luna have a mini fridge, two queen beds, a couch and lounge area, alongside a smart tv and ample places to plug in devices. Both hotels’ rooms also use sensor lights, which you may enjoy or be annoyed by. These sensors are nice when walking in the room, but they are quite sensitive. Those late night walks to the restroom may be met with a bright awakening for others. During our stays at both Stella Nova and Terra Luna these lights were pretty active. It didn’t ruin anyone’s sleep, but it is something to know about.
Rooms at both hotels offer parking lot views or pool views. But don’t be misguided, the parking lot views are both cheaper and better (in our opinion). For both Stella Nova and Terra Luna, the parking lot view has something really important behind it: Universal Epic Universe. Yes, a parking lot is in the foreground, but if behind it is a world class theme park, do you really care? We loved staying up late to see the park shift from day to night as beams of light filled the sky from the Chronos and the park’s portals.
Universal Terra Luna has officially opened! Much like the Stella Nova grand opening, it is filled with entertainment and excitement.
Yet again, great job @UniversalORL & @Loews_Hotels! pic.twitter.com/y1YHfPJhfV
— Everything You Need To Know (@EYNTKinfo) March 25, 2025
The experience of staying at Stella Nova and Terra Luna
We visited both hotels for their opening days. Grand openings come with excitement, but also potential issues. For those looking for a tweet-by-tweet break down of our Terra Luna experience you can check out our above X thread.
What an intro! All those checking in for the grand opening today at Stella Nova are getting an amazing welcome. @Loews_Hotels | @UniversalORL pic.twitter.com/cEbPb7wiLA
— Everything You Need To Know (@EYNTKinfo) January 21, 2025
Or you can checkout this thread of our visitation to the Stella Nova hotel. Both threads go into detail as we explored the resort to discover meals, our room and the views of Universal Epic Universe.
Pros and Cons of staying at Stella Nova or Terra Luna
While these hotels are similar, there are a few differences that could be the deciding factor for your trip. Outside of minimal price differences (the hotels appear to be similarly priced throughout the opening summer), there are some critical differences in regards to Universal Epic Universe.
Universal Stella Nova
Pros: Stella Nova offers direct walking access to Universal Epic Universe via a sidewalk path. The walk to the park entrance should take under 10 minutes on average. While we cannot yet fully walk to the park with the continual construction and park testing, you can walk close and get an estimated amount of time. This hotel also has the potential for fireworks viewing from the pool area. While Universal Orlando has not officially confirmed nightly fireworks, there has been testing. The pool alignment leads us to believe that fireworks viewing is possible from some of the pool deck. Stella Nova also has a kids water play area, whereas Terra Luna does not.
Cons: Some may consider this a perk, but for families with kids the separated smaller lounge areas may make it difficult. Stella Nova has more separated seating areas than Terra Luna. This may work well to give groups “their own space,” but in our experience it also meant looking into each area to find your group. With a handful of kids, this could make rounding up the group more difficult.
Universal Terra Luna
Pros: The layout of Terra Luna, as we specified before, has the advantage of a layout that just seems to work better. There is a priority on surrounding the pool, with the hotel literally curving around it. This makes the common areas feel more connected. The pool and hot tub are also right next to each other. This could be seen as a negative for those looking to get away, but for the primary target of families it is nice to be within a very close viewing distance of the pool at all times.
Cons: Unlike Stella Nova, the Terra Luna hotel does not have a dedicated walkway to Universal Epic Universe. While it is possible to walk there, the distance would be significantly longer than from Stella Nova. In the future this may change, but for now Stella Nova is the better option for those walking to walk to Universal Epic Universe. Terra Luna also does not have a dedicated splash pad. Kids will need to be in the main pool to enjoy playing in water.
Should you stay at Stella Nova or Terra Luna?
There is not one clear answer to this question. Ultimately it comes down to what type of trip you are trying to achieve. In our opinion, Stella Nova is for the group who is focused on the park primarily, with the hotel being a place to rest at night. Terra Luna is a nearby location that offers similar options, but is more laid back and vacation focused.
Stella Nova has quick park access, smaller areas to eat or prepare for your day and a lobby that is thematically less calming. This feels like the resort built for those who wake up at 6 a.m., grab a coffee and hit the road to beat everyone to the parks.
Terra Luna has a cohesive design that feels more connected for large families and groups. This hotel, with its lack of close walking access to Universal Epic Universe, seems like it will be better served for those families who want close proximity to the new park without needing to be the first in the park. Buses or Uber/Lyft from the hotel will be the better option for those visiting Universal Epic Universe and the other Universal Orlando theme parks.
Affordable Universal Epic Universe hotels
While all of the hotels at the Universal Orlando Resort will have transportation and ticket options for Universal Epic Universe, the Stella Nova, Terra Luna and Universal Helios Grand are the new, primary lodging options for this park. The Universal Helios Grand hotel officially opens on May 22 and is in the highest-level, premium accommodation for the Universal Orlando Resort. That also means it is the most expensive of the three.
Stella Nova and Terra Luna are cheaper than Helios by hundreds of dollars a night, especially if you are a Florida Resident or an Annual Passholder. Pricing does fluctuate throughout the year, but staying at these hotels is a cost saving option which still comes with closer park access and early theme park admission.
Incredible hotel service at both locations
You can visit the Loews Hotel website or the Universal Orlando Resort website to purchase your room. Our experience with the staff (called Team Members) at both resorts was excellent. This includes before our stay. We were sent emails about our room and offered early check-in. The wildest fact, the Loews Team actually reached out to offer a room discount and partial refund when they began offering lower rates – that was a first for us.
We ended up saving $35 a night and they just offered it to us without research on our part. If you are looking for the best rates and visitation options, you may want to call the hotel team to see what is best for your group: (888) 273-1311
We are EYNTK – Everything You Need To Know, if you want to join us and tens-of-thousands of other fans who are excited to visit Universal Epic Universe than we invite you to join our Epic Universe Facebook Group. Here we answer questions, share discounts, explain park procedures, share reviews and (when the park opens) post photos from fan visits.
