Hi there,
thank you so much for returning to my blog! Today, I am so excited to share with you everything I loved and enjoyed at the incredible Universal Studios, Hollywood. I am going to be sharing with you everything about the day there, my favourite rides and also what I recommend!
WHEN WE ARRIVED:
My family and I left our hotel really early (like 7ish!) The hotel's shuttle drove us up to Universal Studios where they parked. The ride was really short there and immediately we queued up to go through security. The security process is not that long, it was shorter than airport security, and then we were through! At the entrance there is the Universal Studios sculpture. Is that what you call it? It is like the globe that says Universal Studios on it... We took some pictures of that and then headed up to the red carpet to get a picture of the entrance gate. After we took some more pictures, we asked one of the staff if we had early admission tickets. Basically, if you have different tickets to the standard ones, you can arrive earlier before the park opens and you can get to go on the Harry Potter rides an hour earlier than everyone else. I would really really recommend doing that! It does cost a bit more than the standard entry tickets, but it is so much better as the queues for the rides are so much shorter.
However, when we went to ask the member of staff, he told us our tickets did not allow us to go into the park early. My family found this strange as our hotel had booked us the early admission tickets. It was so frustrating as we had arrived at 7:30 because we thought we would be able to get in at 8! We were then being told that we could go in at 9 which was annoying. We walked back to the street section where all the shops are. There is a selection of cafes, restaurants' and even clothes shops!We ate our breakfast and headed back to the entrance of Universal. One thing we all found tedious was that once you go to the shops you have to re-enter security, we were told by a security guard that the Shops area (called the city walk) is not attached to the park and is in fact open to the public! We were all quite shocked by this but agreed to go back through security. Once we were by the entrance, we then found a member of staff and asked about our tickets. She said we had early admission which meant we could have entered the park an hour ago. We were all so annoyed as the other staff member had said we hadn't. We quickly walked through the entrance and went to the back of the park where the Harry Potter rides were.
THE HARRY POTTER RIDES:
It was almost 9 by now and so the queues were quite long. We went to the most popular Harry Potter ride first, which was the one in the Hogwarts castle, the queue was already 30 minutes long! The queueing system was really good as the lines moved quickly and you got to listen to Hermione, Ron and Harry as you walk through each room of the castle, to get to the ride. The ride was called 'Harry Potter and the forbidden journey.' It is inevitably one of their most popular rides at the moment as it is one of the parks new ones.
Honestly, this ride was so good! You feel as if you are actually with Hermione, Ron and Harry. It is scary as the seats move up and down and the carts (can you call them carts?) spin around and move down so much that you feel like you are actually falling. At one point my glasses nearly fell off my face. (I would not recommend bringing glasses on rides) I screamed so much! This ride uses incredibly advanced technology to make it seem so realistic. After it was finished, we came back out and saw that the waiting time was now an hour long! We immediately went to the second Harry Potter ride which was a rollercoaster. This ride had a much smaller queue and was more for families. I was terrified as I held the lap bar over me and my sister as I had never really been on any rollercoasters before! The ride started really slowly but then suddenly it literally went up and then all of a sudden It was going down and tilting to the sides. It was over so quickly that I didn't really have time to be scared! I thought it was really good and it is something I recommend.
After we had done the two Harry Potter rides, we walked through the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which was a big collection of shops and even the Hogwarts express! I took a lot of pictures as we walked back through to get to our next ride. Personally, I would save looking around the shops until later in the afternoon, as the park gets SO BUSY between 12-7 and otherwise some of the ride queues reach up to 2 hours long. So, we headed back to the centre of the park and we went to the Kung Fu Panda ride.
KUNG FU PANDA RIDE:
This wasn't really a ride, as it was set in a large theatre. The ride was more like watching a film, however the chairs we were seated in moved around a lot and water was splashed on us often! I thought it was superb and the visual effects were incredible. However, I wouldn't rush going to this ride as the theatre is huge and so the waiting time is not normally very long.
We next went down the elevators to reach the section of the Park that had not yet opened. Majority of the rides down there were opening from 10-11 and we got down there really early. When we arrived, we saw that the 'Revenge of the mummy ride' had a two minute queue. My sister and I immediately went to the queue and it was a really quick wait! Within minutes we were seated in our car on the track and ready to start.
REVENGE OF THE MUMMY:
This ride was probably one of my favourite due to its thrill factor! I knew it was going to be scary before we started the ride, as the waiting room was eerie and practically completely dark, however I never expected it to be quite as scary as it was! The ride started slowly and there were lights around, with the incredible special effects of zombie arms in the ceiling, but then, the torches disappeared and the roller coaster plunges downwards into almost total darkness. It was honestly so frightening and when I thought it couldn't get worse, It did! The rollercoaster then reverses backwards at speeds of 45 mph to the starting point of the ride. After getting off, I went back to my family, but then my younger sister wanted a go! We all set off back to the ride, and the queues were still only very short. As I went off on the ride again, I screamed as it went backwards and I shut my eyes and waited for it to finish. But it didn't. Somehow our cart had got stuck on the way back to the end, it was probably more scary than the actual ride to be honest, sitting in the dark on a lopsided track and wishing it would run again.
It was comforting to be with other people, as my previous ride before, it had just been me and my sister in our cart! However, after a minute the ride resumed and we departed quickly so we could get onto the next one.
THE JURASSIC PARK RIDE:
This ride was my absolute favourite! However, the ride will be going 'extinct' like the dinosaurs in September as a new Jurassic Park ride will be taking its place. If you are going before then, you will have to experience this ride. The queues are always long as it is one of the best the park has to offer, and it is also the only water ride! Therefore, I would recommend you go on it early on. The ride is set in a yellow raft and sets off on an adventure where you are squirted with water and meet real size dinosaurs, including a terrifying T-Rex! At the end of the ride, you drop from 84ft to come out at the bottom of the Shute into more water. I would really recommend going on it, although you must be prepared to get wet!
TRANSFORMERS RIDE:
This ride was so good and the queue was not that long. We entered the building and watched the safety videos before getting on to the ride. It was in a very secure cart and we were give 3D glasses. I honestly felt like I was in the film and it was so interesting. I would definitely recommend this ride, it was really super!
THE WALKING DEAD:
This was so scary! The queue was extremely short because it was a reallt terrifying attraction. This is not a ride, but instead you walk through a pretend hospital where there are zombies (obviously not real ones!) The zombies try to grab you and they come out of the corners and where you least expect them. I literally ran through the whole thing as I was terrified! Only do this if you are not scared of blood and pretend zombies jumping out at you.
THE SIMPSON RIDE:
It took longer than an hour to wait for this ride and I wasn't that impressed by it, although it was quite similar to the Kung Fu panda attraction as although you are in a cart, you don't move and you do get water on you. I would recommend, but I didn't enjoy it that much and it was extremely short for our long wait!
So they are all the rides we went on! We did try to do as many as we could, and we did miss the minion ride as well as some of the shows they had on. I would recommend going to them if you have enough time, because they all look amazing! However, we did also queue up for the water world attraction and the famous studio tour.
THE STUDIO TOUR:
You should try and get here as soon as the tour queues open as EVERYONE wants to do it! We were walking for at least an hour through the zigzagging lines until our studio tour finally began. You stay in the bus the whole time, but it is still super interesting. You get to see the sets of many films and learn about current films and Netflix shows filming at Hollywood. You also get to enjoy a King Kong adventure which was amazing! I also really enjoyed the trip to Amity Island and seeing the shark swimming in the lake there. One of my favourite parts was probably when we experienced a fake earthquake in a subway and water began surrounding our little bus! This tour was one of my highlights of the day and I really recommend it.
THE WATER WORLD PARK:
This show was incredible! Action - packed and very impressive stunts pulled off by actors and actresses. I would really recommend watching, however, if you are not too keen at getting wet then I would aim to seat yourself far up at the back and NOT on the green seats.
FOOD:
There were so many places to eat and snack at so don't worry about food as there will definitely be somewhere you can eat!
Thank you for reading this blog, I hope you liked it and it explained more about Universal Studios Hollywood. Please like, comment or share if you enjoyed it. Enjoy this blog? Then why not read my LA blog which is all about the incredible other things you can do during your stay in Hollywood!
Beth Lucy