[post=51073933]Last Installment on the Trip Report[/post]
Day 4 – December 29th, 2013 – Part 3
Universal Studios Hollywood and the Studio Tour 1
After we left the Desert Inn & Suites in Anaheim after being at the Disneyland Resort for 4 days (3 days for DAW, Cousin C, Silv and MP since I went on Sunday by myself for a couple of hours), we start to go on our next destination in Southern California. My DAW told me when we were in SoCal, she wanted to take Silv and MP to Universal Studios Hollywood. I had no problem of going to Universal Studios Hollywood with them since DAW wants them to experience something else then the DLR. It also was my first time going to USH in over 10 years which is around the mid 90’s. I haven’t been to USH in years and it was nice to go and see the difference when I last visited. I have been to Universal Studios Orlando four times since my last visit to USH in the mid 90’s.
I was mostly driving all the way to USH that morning but Cousin C was able to drive until I need a break. It was nice that he was doing okay after a scary incident the other day. But he was okay and he was looking forward to USH the most out of all of us since this was the event that he wanted to see even over the DLR.
Before we head on over to Universal Studios Hollywood, we stopped at a Denny’s restaurant around Universal Studios Hollywood since everyone was getting hungry that afternoon around 11:30pm. I thought that we were about to try one of those interesting restaurants that my DAW was looking at in Los Angeles. She was looking at a restaurant that she saw on the Food Network Diners, Drive-In & Dives but it was out of our way and we didn’t have a lot of time at USH so we just stopped at a Denny’s on the way.
After we ate at Denny’s we head on over to Universal Studios Hollywood around 1pm. Very interesting for me is that I will be going to two different resorts on the same day (Disneyland Resort and Universal Studios Hollywood). This is not the first time for me to be at two different theme parks that are owned by different companies in which I have been to Walt Disney World and Universal Studios Orlando during my Florida trips.
We parked our cars and we walked through the Universal CityWalk on over to Universal Studios Hollywood park. The Universal CityWalk just like the Disneyland Resort where it is decorated during the holiday season. It almost feels to me that the Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles is much bigger then Orlando when we were walking on over to the park. I believe that the Orlando CityWalk is bigger over the Los Angeles version.
Universal Studio Store
We were at the front entrance to USH and it was all decorated with the Grinch Stole Christmas theme decorations.
The wacky Christmas trees
Before we entered the turnstiles to Universal Studios Hollywood, we had to pick up our ticket at the guests relations. We ordered the tickets online and my DAW had to pick up the tickets at GR. While she was in the queue, there was a problem with some of our tickets saying that we only had purchased three out of five tickets. My DAW told the staff that we had ordered 5 one day tickets where it only said three. So she had to talk with the management and showed her some email to confirm that she actually bought 5 tickets then the three. I was surprised to hear that we only got three tickets instead of five. I knew that my DAW bought five tickets since I was with her when we were purchasing the tickets on the computer.
So while DAW and Cousin C are at GR to work the problems, Silv, MP and I went inside USH.
When we got in Universal Studios Hollywood, it looked completely different when I have been here since the mid 90s’s. So it was all totally new to me since I am not a fan of USH. While we were walking in, SIlv, MP and I went in to some of the stores while we were waiting for DAW and Cousin C to come in the park.
The whole day was busy as expected during the Christmas break.
Not only the rides and shows but the food queues are also busy that afternoon with long queues.
After going into some stores, we head on over to the Studio Tour which is the highlight of the park in my opinion. We have been talking about going on this ride when we were in USH. But I was worried that the wait time was going to be in the hour plus range since we came late that afternoon. When Silv, MP and I head on down over to the Studio Tour ride, the wait time was already at 70 minutes.
We head on down the escalator and over to the USH ride. It has been years since I have went down the long escalators to the ride where the park is on a mountain and this is not flat like Disneyland. So I wasn’t used to taking escalators in the parks. Like at Universal Studios Orlando, there weren’t too many escalators like Universal Studios Hollywood.
While the three of us are waiting right at the front entrance of the Studio Tour ride for DAW and Cousin C, we were talking about the experience during the whole trip. Silv and MP were glad that it was with us.
When DAW and Cousin C finally made it into the park, they told us about the ticket issue and my DAW showed the management the email of the ticket purchasing of five instead of three that was in the system.
For all the trouble, we were given three priority front of line passes for the trouble. This was a great comp for all the trouble that my DAW had to endure at Guest Relations. So with one of our three front of line passes, we used the first one on the Studio Tour ride. It was great to get the front of line pass so we wouldn’t have to wait 70 minutes to get on the ride or we would have to wait a while that afternoon.
We got in the line and moved towards the front waiting for the next tram.
So we had two priority passes to use that afternoon and you will find out later on the posts to see what the other two rides that we have used that day.
In less than 10 minutes since we got in the queue for the Studio Tour, we boarded the tram and now on our journey through the Studio Tour. It has been years since I have rode the Studio Tour at Universal Studios Hollywood since I have ridden the version at Universal Studios Orlando and a similar version at Disney Hollywood Studios Studios Backlot Tour.
The host of the Studio Tour was Jimmy Fallon the star of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”.
Here are some pictures from the Studio Tour and it was hard to memorize the whole experience since it was over half an hour tour.
We moved on to the King Kong 360 3-D. This was the highlight of the Studio Tour experience since it is the world’s largest 3-D experience. It was very interesting to go through the King Kong 360 3-D experience that it lived up to its hype after seeing it for the first time.
The show lived up to its expectations and now we moved on from the experience and to our next area of the tour.
Next was the Universal Picture Cars that were used in the movies.
Cars from 2 Fast 2 Furious
The Flip Car from Fast & Furious 6
Stage 55 which is the Fast and the Furious Extreme Close-Up that we didn’t go through during the tour.
That will be it for this part of the post and it will be continue on the next post.
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