It’s not Christmas here yet, as we are 19 hours behind Melbourne. But it is at home, so I hope you’re having/have had a great day!
I slept for ten hours last night, I needed it after a few big days at Disneyland! We got up, grabbed our fruit and coffee from reception and caught a short Uber to Universal Studios. I’ve been to this park twice in Hollywood, and once in Singapore. Rob has been in Singapore but not here.
We arrived early enough that we were second in the queue, and when they dropped the rope to open the park we speed walked to the ‘Harry Potter’ ride as we knew its queue would escalate the worst later. It was just as great as I remembered - flying through Hogwarts with Ron and Harry. However, it does make me a little motion sick so we only rode it once!
Staying ahead of the crowds, we then went to the lowest part of the park and rode Jurassic Park (it’s been updated to Jurassic World) and ‘The Mummy’ twice each. We got pretty wet on Jurassic, but I still think it’s the best ride!
Next, we went on the studio tour. This runs for about an hour and is always my favourite part. You sit in a buggy vehicle and are taken around the back of sound stages and sets. We saw the facade of city hall from ‘Back to the Future’ and much more. The guide was really good too, telling us that apparently when ‘Jaws’ was filmed here the original model they made sank, and delayed release from Christmas until summer as it took over 100 days longer to film. This meant that instead of a typical holiday release date, the film was one of the first “summer blockbusters”. The queues to see it were supposedly so long that people queued around the block! And needless to say, not many people wanted to swim very deep in the water that year!! The dedication of Steven Spielberg became evident too when the guide told us it cost $200 000 USD ($300 000 AUD) for him to get the actual Boeing plane sent in and set up for ‘War of the Worlds’, and it was then only in the movie for four minutes.
The highlights of the studio tour for me were seeing a flood scene that I remember from 2005. They must have been using that set to film in 2017, as it wasn’t in my tour that day. It’s cool how adaptable everything is. Apparently we were some of the last people to see the set of ‘The Good Place’ as they’ve just wrapped up their fourth and final season. We also had Norman Bates come out of the Psycho hotel and pretend to come and attack our bus which was funny!!
By this stage, the queues and crowd were getting out of control. ‘Harry Potter’ had a wait of 1.5 hours, and we weren’t that fussed by all the other 3D screen rides as they make us sick and we had done them before. So we instead checked out the Grinchmas area where we ran into the Doc from ‘Back to the Future’ - one of my favourite ever movies. He made a beeline for us because as he came around the corner my face lit up. He shook my hand and when I told him we were from Australia and said we had time travelled from Christmas Day he had a good laugh. I even got a photo!
Then we watched the ‘Water World’ show and thankfully didn’t get very wet, and next got our photo with the Grinch dressed as Santa. While we waited we enjoyed entertainment by people dressed as the whos of Whoville. The sign said 30 minutes, but it actually ended up taking about 60. Ah well, it was interesting seeing his makeup and green contact lenses up close!!
Then we each had a seriously overpriced hotdog, and Rob went and did ‘The Walking Dead’ walk through. Mum and dad took me into a horror walk through here as a kid and it scarred me for life, so I sat this one out. I hate people in my face and scaring me, so I happily people watched for a while. Rob came out saying he enjoyed it, but that I should be glad I didn't do it. Good decision, me!
At this stage the park was heaving, and we were very glad we had already done the rides we cared about the most. We went and looked in Hogsmeade (the ‘Harry Potter’ area). It was good but very full of people and hard to move around. All day we made comparisons with Disneyland and we’ve decided the park plan and accessibility during crowded times is much better than Universal. Universal only has a fastpass system if you pay a heap more on top of your already expensive ticket price.
Then we went to the special effects show, followed by the animal actors show. The special effects was good, but we enjoyed the animal actors even more because we arrived early and were close to the front. Finally, we watched the light show projected onto Hogwarts twice. It was so beautiful that we stayed for a second time.
On the way home we bought some dinner at the supermarket, and now back in the room we have both called our families for Christmas. Tomorrow we get up early and are flying to San Francisco for our Christmas Day. I hope you’re all having a wonderful day!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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