- Quote from Jenny, the Warner Bros Tour Guide about the WB Water Tower...
After I left Warner Bros Studios, I waited nearly 45 minutes for an every 10 minutes bus... I wasn't very impressed given that it was around midday and even in the shade it was very hot!
 |
| "Krustyland" - The Simpsons Ride |
I finally arrived at Universal Studios at around 1:30-2pm. The buses take you to the main road and then you get a little train car up the (very steep) hill to Universal.
 |
| A house used in Desperate Housewives |
 |
Probably one of the cooler staff
outfits at Universal Studios
#Shrek |
With a 3+ Day LA City Pass, Universal is included, which is excellent as tickets are around $95 (nearly £70) separately! I got in the queue (which had no shade) and was stood there for nearly 30 minutes before reaching the front - thankfully it wasn't that long, as not many people seem to go in at lunchtime, but the people in the ticket booths were rather slow... When I finally got to the front of the queue, they then told me that because I had the City Pass, I actually needed to be in the "Special Tickets" queue. I was so cross that they didn't have a sign saying that somewhere?! So off I went to the "Special Tickets" queue, only to have to wait for another 20 minutes with the other 3 people in the queue because there was only one booth open, and the woman at the front was asking some really complicated questions that took forever!
 |
We can just blow up a few
planes for a movie, right? |
I think I finally made it in there sometime around 3pm, so I was pretty annoyed as that left me with much less time to do things. I asked the Info desk what the best order to do things in was, and was advised to start with the Studio Tour, as that closes first.
More queuing followed - although that queue had shade for some parts of it, and the water sprayer things on the ceiling which helped, but the shade made it stuffy and there were a lot of hot, bothered, stroppy children both in front and behind me...
 |
| Before... |
 |
| ...After |
Mum thought I'd love the Studio Tour more than anything - probably because she did back in the 80's - but most of it wasn't that great. They drive you around some of the Film/TV sets, and then you see some of their special effects 'studios'. Some of them were great, like one where they flooded a town in about 30 seconds, and one where they threw a load of train carriages around an underground station and made the roof collapse, but there were lots of really cheesy bits that were just a bit ridiculous and overly American... For example, a lake with a dummy diver in there, the tour guide shouts "This is our diver friend, Steve. Hey Steve", next a Shark appears in the lake behind the diver suit, and the tour guide starts screaming "Ahh, Steve look out behind you" as the shark gets closer and appears to pull the dummy below the water... "Noooo, Steve! Steeeeveee!!", she screams....
 |
10:04pm, 12th November 1955
(Back to the Future) |
They had some special "new" 3D bits too - the King Kong and Fast & Furious rides. These are pretty clever as they drive into a garage and display 3D screens on the walls around you, and the floor moves too so you feel like you're being bashed about by a T-Rex and falling off rope bridges and being caught by the King of the Jungle...
After that, I checked out the Shrek ride, as it had a short-ish wait time (around 15 minutes). That was a 3D film in one of those cinemas where the chairs shake and they spray you with water and air etc. It was a spooky, halloween kind of ride which I wasn't so into, but it was quite clever.
At this point, it was probably coming up to 5:30pm. I wanted to see the Waterworld Show at 6:30pm, but wanted to go on some more rides in the meantime. The Jurassic World ride (and a Mummy ride) is on the lower level of Universal, which takes around 10 minutes to get to as it's basically at the bottom of the very steep hill again (although on another side) and so you have to spend ages going up and down escalators to get between the two areas of the theme park.
 |
They are building
"The Wizarding World
of Harry Potter"
but it's not open until
April 2016 *sob*
|
At the top of the very long escalator bit, I asked some Universal staff if I'd have enough time to get down there, go on the Jurassic ride and get back over to the Waterworld show in an hour. "Urrm, maybe not but just wait right here a mo", says one of the (very LA) Universal staff. A minute later, he came back with a Fast-track Queue Jump ticket for one ride. I sprinted down the several sets of escalators/stairs, and shoved my stuff in a locker (it's a wet ride), only to find out that Jurassic has a "Single Riders Line" which, very conveniently, was practically empty.
This was a fun ride. You go on a little boat trip along a river with the Jurassic Park music playing and dinosaurs moving about. Then, you go into a garage sort of thing, and have the T-Rex roar above you, right as you hurtle down a very steep waterfall and splash in the bottom.
I had loaaads of time left, plus my Fast-track ticket, so went for the Simpson's ride too. I waited in a queue for rather a long time (wasn't happy as I was told "it'll be less than 2 minutes"). This one is not suitable for anyone with pretty much any medical conditions whatsoever as it's a "Very Violent" ride - which they weren't joking about. This one you get lined up for ages in a Simpson's themed room before getting directed into your separate rooms with up to 5 other people in your queue. Then you hop into a little car which later on raises up on a pole and very forcefully pushed forwards, backwards, and from side of side while you watch a 3D video of a Simpson's rollercoaster ride with Sideshow Bob...
 |
| Waterworld Show |
After that ordeal, I ran over to the Waterworld Show which from memory was due to start at 6:30pm (I had about 5 minutes to get across the whole park to get over there), thinking I was going to miss it. I thought it was a bit of a miracle there was any seats left - the only ones available were the non-wet-zone seats (no complaints from me). This was one of those generic shows involving giant spray hoses, jet skis and pyromaniacs supposedly along the theme of the
Waterworld film (which I have yet to watch - IMDb only gives it a 6.1/10... I may never get around to it).
 |
| Waterworld Pyrotechnics... |
 |
Huge American
Hot Dog! |
Overall, I'd recommend Universal Studios, but I'm not sure I'd go there more than once (that's a lie, I'll go there again for Harry Potter World, but that's all!). It's just rather overpriced, and it was just so soo hot in August!!
