Credit: UniversalUniversal Destinations and Experiences has entered an extended period of expansion that shows no signs of slowing down. Epic Universe opened at Universal Orlando Resort and quickly established itself as one of the most significant theme park debuts in recent memory. Other theme park companies, such as Disney, have been striving to compete with the success of Epic Universe since its launch last year. Now, just as the summer season is in full swing, Universal has announced the opening date for a project that has been quietly developing in Texas. This project represents a genuinely new approach to family entertainment for the company.
Universal Kids Resort in Frisco, Texas, opens on July 1, 2026.
The park is not a scaled-down version of Universal Studios or a junior edition of Epic Universe. It is something more specific and more deliberate than that. Universal Kids Resort is Universal Destinations and Experiences’ first-ever regional theme park specifically designed for families with young children, built from the ground up around the premise that the youngest guests deserve a theme park experience calibrated to their size, their attention spans, their sensory needs, and the franchises they actually know and love rather than an experience that works best for teenagers and adults and offers a handful of accommodations for the littlest visitors as an afterthought.
The park covers 20 acres in Frisco, one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States and a suburb of Dallas with a family demographic that makes it an obvious target for exactly this kind of destination. Tickets, hotel packages, and the park’s first annual pass option are now on sale.
The Seven Lands and What They Contain
Universal Kids Resort is organized into seven themed lands, each built around a franchise that resonates with the preschool and early elementary age group the park is designed for. DreamWorks’ Shrek’s Swamp brings the beloved ogre and his world to life in an area that has been a crowd favorite in DreamWorks-themed environments since Shrek first became a cultural phenomenon. DreamWorks’ Puss in Boots Del Mar gives the Shrek spinoff character his own dedicated land. DreamWorks’ TrollsFest celebrates the colorful world of Trolls. DreamWorks’ Puss in Boots and Shrek franchises, sharing a park with the Trolls universe, is a lineup that covers a wide range of the current young child audience.
Illumination’s Minions vs. Minions: Bello Bay Club brings the yellow chaotic creatures into what sounds like an interactive water-adjacent environment. Jurassic World Adventure Camp puts the franchise’s family-friendly prehistoric world into a context designed specifically for young guests. Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants Bikini Bottom covers one of the most enduringly popular children’s animated franchises of the past 25 years. And Isle of Curiosity, featuring DreamWorks’ Gabby’s Dollhouse, taps into one of the biggest preschool properties currently streaming.
The park’s design philosophy extends beyond the themed lands themselves into interactive elements scattered throughout the park. Water blasters, bubble blowers, and sidewalk chalk areas for dreaming up imaginary worlds are part of the park’s overall environment rather than specific ride-based attractions. Multiple sensory gardens have been designed to give children and families opportunities to pause, reset, and connect, described by Universal as calming spaces that invite guests to explore through touch, sound, and color in nature-inspired settings. The inclusion of dedicated sensory spaces reflects a level of intentionality about accessibility and neurodiversity that theme parks have been slowly incorporating more consistently over the past several years.
The Universal Kids Resort Hotel
Located at the entrance to the park, the Universal Kids Resort Hotel is a 300-room property with family suites that accommodate up to 6 guests. The hotel offers dining designed to appeal to even the pickiest young eaters, an outdoor pool, and family-friendly amenities that complete the destination picture for families making the trip to Frisco specifically for the park. Early Park Admission is available to hotel guests as part of package options, mirroring the advantage that onsite Universal hotel guests have long enjoyed at the Orlando properties.
Tickets and Annual Passes
The ticketing structure offers one-day and two-day general admission tickets, as well as the Universal Kids Resort Silver Annual Pass, which provides 12 months of access with applicable blockout dates. Pass options that include parking are also available. A Create Your Own Package allows families to bundle tickets, hotel accommodations, and flights with access to exclusive benefits, including Early Park Admission, resort-wide charging privileges, and free merchandise delivery. A specialty one-and-a-half-day admission ticket is also available as part of the package options, a format that acknowledges the reality of how families with young children actually consume theme park visits.
Hotel rooms are available for stays beginning June 30, the day before the park officially opens, with room types ranging from Standard Queen to Signature Queen, sleeping up to five guests, and Family Suites, sleeping up to six.
Universal Kids Resort opens July 1. Frisco, Texas. For families with young children who have been waiting for a theme park built specifically around their kids rather than around them, the wait is three weeks from today.
