gina - yes, I am all about the poolscapes, doesn't hurt that vegas has lots & lots of eye candy! hehe
lynne - yes, ever since AirTran was absorbed by SWA, poof went the NS flights to west coast. Gives me an even better excuse to stop over for a night. Hmmm an hour, I figure that would afford you a 15 solid minutes of the airport slots. Always thought they were money pits until my neighbor informed me he hit big there last April.
Ok, onto beautiful downtown Burbank! Day #2, Universal City Hilton & HHN-VIP package
My DH is the boy scout of our dynamic duo. He is stickler for following the rules, so we are always at the airport bright and early. Took all of 5 minutes in taxi to LAS from the Mandalay. No line @ bag check, received pre TSA again, were at our gate almost 3 hours early. Shortly thereafter, flight was delayed. At least there were plenty of charging stations, whipped out the ipad to pass the time. Surprised to find it was a sold out flight into BUR with standbys even though it was a Friday. Less than an hour flight, took a nap. The three hour time change wasn't going down easy this trip.
I picked BUR this flight because a) it looked closest to Universal Hollywood & b) the shuttle ride was less expensive that from LAX. Was shocked to deplane and walk down steps. More surprised to find the luggage carousel outside.
the terminal reminded me of one you'd see in Caribbean. So small, it's the building in the middle, parking garage off to the right, but very easy to navigate. Had to cross the street to find the shuttle stop where this was taken. Notice, it's 1:30 pm on a Friday and practically deserted. A hidden gem for those who live in the area, lucky them.
Not a fan of Super Shuttle this trip. Long wait for our van. Once it arrived a short drive to the Hilton. Check in was easy, after a mis-step @ the Clearwater Hilton this year, pleasd to say our visits to Daytona Beach & the Universal City properties redeemed the brand.
Going from memory will say we were on 27th floor. View looking towards Burbank, you can see part of Universal on the right, Simpsons area.
the Sheraton and Universal office buildings
excuse the room lighting, was too lazy to pull out good camera. An older property but well kept, they were doing some work on updating elevators but we had no issue.
Just missed the shuttle to Citiwalk that ran every half hour, decided to take the 10 minute walk. Ha! 10 minutes for goats, up the steepest hill imaginable. Only two restaurants were accepting reservations, we settled upon Hard Rock, even though not fans typically. Surprised the wings & burger were very good & alcohol was reasonably priced. Happy Hour'd out, ready to attack HHN. You won't find much in way of food porn in my TRs. I am slowly weaning him away from the idea it's déclassé and all in the interest of information lol.
Since we purchased the VIP upgrade, were permitted to enter the park @ 5 pm, even though the official entry time was 7 pm. There was already a looong line for regular entry. The lower lot area was open with Mummy & Jurassic Park in the Dark, which we skipped not wanting to be soaked all night. Chatted up a guy who happened to be an off-duty TM. He advised us not to use our one per VIP pass to the houses upfront, but to roll thru the lower lot before the regular crowd hit. Great advice, we managed to walk thru everything at least twice, our favorites 3 times there before needing to use the passes
The park amazes me as to how it is laid out working around hillsides. PS miley cyrus lives off to the right of golf course in background I'm told.
The lower lot area was open with Mummy & Jurassic Park in the Dark, which we skipped not wanting to be soaked all night. Chatted up a guy who happened to be an off-duty TM. He advised us not to use our one per VIP pass to the houses upfront, but to roll thru the lower lot as much as possible before the regular crowd hit. Great advice, we managed to walk thru everything at least twice, our favorites 3 & 4 times there before needing to use the passes
I was surprised how differently USH does some things versus USO. One of the most striking was that the majority of houses were tents with low ceilings. I felt this to be a distraction, especially as light would often filter through along the roof line. We visited what was a highly rated house (Insidious) by critics first, they opened it at approximately 5:45 pm. I was so thrown off by the bright light and few scares I needed to regroup when exiting the house, starting to fear I had made a huge mistake working in USH. We walked over to TWD, where despite the intrusive light, enjoyed the first rate actors and the inventive gags. It was quite the shock to get quite wet in the scene with the 3 people over the tub. Woohoo, let the mayhem begin.
The houses/scare zones in the lower area & my thoughts are listed below. Note that even though I may not be over the moon over a house (I admit to taking my haunts seriously); I do appreciate all the work involved in producing each offering. Even a talented actor can be severely constrained by construction, story-line, lighting & sound. I applaud the labor of love that is involved.
Insidious I was so relieved when our subsequent tours thru it were an improvement. Have a feeling they opened the house well before it was actually lighted properly and the actors in their proper places. I've never given much stock to theory it takes the house time to 'warm up' each night, but this was a perfect example. Not a huge fan of the movie franchise, nor of this house.
The Walking Dead, Wolves Not Far A home run!!! fans of the franchise & zombies in general, thrilled to see how they ran with Terminus.
This is the End 3-D When you say it's not as bad as reported, it's typically faint praise. In this case the puppets were worth the walk thru and the actors did elevate the gags.
There was a tram that delivered guests to the other lower lot area. You were let out to turn the corner and run into The Maze of Madness. Very well done, I was initially confused we had stumbled into The Purge by mistake. After a short walk we saw the remaining two houses in this area.
Crimson Peak Not being familiar with the storyline is always challenging with a house. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie. It was very dark, moody & gothic
AVP: Alien vs Predator Surprise of the night for me. A real wow. Lots of scares, despite seeing similarly themed house @ USO. Hard to top the momma puppet at the end.
It was apparent that we didn't need to purchase the VIP tickets. Crowd was non-existant, speaking to several locals was told there had been a big backlash as to large price increases in the tickets this year and attendance was dramatically off. Lots of empty lines indeed.
Up Next, upper lot & Terror Tram.
on the Monday night.
Go big or go home lol. Never much to putz around the resorts other than the pools. Hard when you can hear the parks calling off in the distance.
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need to shake it up every so often with a full travel itinerary lol.
should've kept walking. Stopped back @ Monte Carlo to cash in and trek'd back to MB at 2 am, running on fumes at this point. Decided to skip our 'free' breakfast buffet and catch a few extra zzzz's before our flight.
. It was fun for first few minutes but got old real quick having him bumping (being shoved by the crowd?) into be and screaming in my ear how I was going to meet my demise.
