Today we head to Universal Studios, it was a tuesday and a great time to visit universal. We had organised this as part of our packagage at DLH. The tour company was california greyline, we were picked up from our hotel and taken to their depot where people were put on other buses according to the tour they were departing on, you do have to pay a $5 surcharge for fuel per person, we paid in cash but im not sure if they have eftpos option or not. You pay this inside at the cashier then they give you a voucher with tour info. Our driver was Charles. He was fantastic he actually gave us a mini tour of LA on our way to the studios, if you get him on your tour be sure to tip as he is very worthy, giving hints on places to eat, areas to avoid some history, and a great sense of humour!!!
After a long bus ride about one hour we arrived finally, charles advised us to return by 5pm at earliest with bus departing at 5:30.
A hint from charles was to do the studio lot tour first as you will have excessive wait times as the day progresses so that was the first thing we opted to do.
My partner having being there hmmmm 20 years ago said we have to hurry its all the way down the bottom so we hurried down these massive escalators really steep too.
You have amazing views of the valley on the way down
Here is a link of a Universal Studios Walk Through
http://youtu.be/Cazmd4YggWw
So we finally make it down the bottom, and oh no something has changed in 20 years
The studio tour is now up the top!!!
(FYI its just to right of the simpsons ride)
Back up we go to the tour and luckily we got straight on, it was really hard to take pictures as the car is constantly moving, but here is one of jaws lot
Funnily enough some things never change as this was on the tour 20 years ago lol.
From memory you go through a tunnel where you put on some 3D glasses and there is a king kong theme where dinosaurs are fighting the car shakes about and water is sprayed on you. This scared poor miss tilly to bits very frighting for her.
You then go around where they film Desperate Housewives, CSI, sex and the city a few other movies, there was a section where they imitate and earthquake, a section where you see all the cars from movies, flinstones, Need for Speed cars, etc.
The tour was pretty good, goes for about 20 mins I think, its a good way to see things differently then to the movies themselves. Once we completed the tour they were asking for ppl to be standins for some home cooking show... naaaahhhh we passed on that we had some RIDES to do whoooo.
This is where we seperated for a bit, me and tilly went to watch the animals producers show, look its cute seeing all the animals act on cue, ie running through hoops etc, tilly liked to see the animals but she was a bit bored with the simpleness of it.
After this we had lunch, the guys had some greasy fix, and all i wanted was something healthy!!! After a 20 minute walk I came back with a banana and a cookie for tilly, and beer LOL Healthy simple food is really hard to come across in amusement parks.
By this stage it was getting close to the first show of waterworld which we opted to miss so we can get in some rides. So down to the bottom lot we go.
Transformers 3D!! So if I had to vote on the best ride in all the amusement parks on our trip. This would be it. Absolutely amazing i could ride that again and again and again and still love it every time.
We then did Jurassic Park.
This ride freaked me out, I lifted off my seat on the way down and thought i was going to fall out, but it was still pretty cool
We were in the third row, and poor saxon totally freaked out!!!
My partner and Hamish did this next and the mummy ride while I took saxon and miss tilly to dino play. Its a lovely little areas for the kiddos to run free for a bit
It was an ice cream pitt stop, then back to the upper lot to the simpsons and shrek 4D and the haunted house.
Funny thing about this all 3 kids freaked out on their own rides, me and tilly and sax went to shrek 4D, I was alittle dubious and confirmed when we entered, you go in to an imitation dungeon torture chamber, with the 3 little piggies, pinnochio and donkey i think, being held captive in cages, the voice of the ghost is very loud and its dark, poor miss tilly basically lept on to my shoulders!!!!
Once you go in you can sit on some cinema seats, pop your glasses on, now the seats move about quiet ferociously, so I had to move me and tilly to the seats that didnt move, you feel the wind of spiders crawling on your feet, and tinkerbell comes out of the screen she landed on tilly so she was happy with that. Saxon enjoyed this ride, but not so on the simpsons, he took a quick exit before he got on.
Upon exit we bumped in to donkey and tilly and sax had a great funny chat with him
Hamish decided that the haunted mansion was too much for him and he took the quick exit too.
By then it was time to go check out the city walk. Which was amazing!!! lots of shops and cheap souvenirs, we spent quiet a bit of time here but not long enough unfortunately as we had to return to the bus.
We have decided that when we go back to california this year we are going to stay at the Hilton at Universal City simply so we can spend some more time at the city walk. You dont really get a full day at the park when you do the tour, due to travelling, so this will allow us to spend a great deal of time at the park too.
being an onsite hotel and we were very weary.
We returned to the bus and got back to our hotel which was the first drop off so after a long day another bonus.
I think we ate at tortilla joes on downtown disney, YEP they have CORONARITAS and the food was fantastic, very fresh and abundant, customer service was great, i think we paid around $85 including tip so it was quiet good.
Will post a link later to the studio tour.