[Los Angeles] Universal Studios - Entertainment Capital of the World!

Week 1

Day 7 (Nov 26th, Wednesday)

Day 1 back in Los Angeles - Universal Studios full day

We woke up early, all excited like bright-eyed little kids, ready for our day of fun and adventure in Universal Studios Hollywood. Thanks to Leo's pre-planning, the park was just a short drive away from our hotel.

Brangelina!

A visit to famous theme parks like Universal Studios and Disneyland involves quite a bit of planning beforehand as the park compound is huge. Each ride/show had its own schedule, so we had to plan which rides to take first to avoid missing any of the shows! One thing good about Universal Studios was that the park workers were very helpful and were stationed all over the park ready to answer all our schedule queries. Going on a weekday off-holiday-season also helped as the crowd was significantly less.

Universal Studios is divided into the Upper Lot and Lower Lot. The rides on Upper Lot will open first, so we tried to finish them all before advancing into the Lower Lot.

#1 House of Horrors!

It was a walk-through horror house with "ghosts" reaching out to touch us. Nothing really special here but I got to see my beloved Chucky doll! Last time before my youngest aunt got pregnant she used to feed my brother and I with all the Chucky movies.

#2 Water World

This water tricks-filled show (named after the movie) has some really cool stunts and gunfire action on water! Don't sit on the first few rows if you don't wanna get drenched!

No!! Jaws took my bf...!! -Outside the Water World arena.

#3 Terminator 2: 3D

We went inside an amphitheatre for the ultimate 4D experience where Arnie, Sarah Connor and John Connor leapt off the screen and the machines came alive and tried to shoot at us. Hollywood technology is just incredible. It was like THE coolest effects, ever! 5-stars rating for this one.

Fatter version of Paris Hilton took photos of her bf after my brother got off Arnie's bike.

#4: The Simpsons Ride: 3D

Leo's FAVOURITE ride. At Krustyland, don't be fooled by the non-existent queue outside the amphitheatre, cos once you get inside it's another story. The wait was quite long because the amphitheatre was very small. I think it could only fit around 20-30 people? They showed Simpson's cartoons from hanging LCDs so that we wouldn't get bored from the long wait. I didn't like this ride very much cos I was dizzy from watching the 3D-simulated rollercoaster ride and getting my body bumped here and there on the uncomfortable chair.

But the "real" Simpsons were so cute! Bart tried to dig Leo's nose and also tried to look inside Mom's handbag. =_='''

One for the camera with Scooby-Doo!!

#5: Mummy Ride

Short rollercoaster ride. The special thing about it is the rollercoaster can move front and backwards. I think this is the first time after many years that my parents have sat on a rollercoaster together with me. My mom was SO THRILLED from the ride!

After that we could see the mummies/zombies walking around on the street.

#6 Jurassic Park

My favourite ride in Universal Studios. I so hope this ride opens in Universal Studios Singapore so I can relive my favourite moment all over again. It was the ride I've waited to take all my life since I watched the first Jurassic Park movie!

I almost cried when our raft sailed through the high wooden doors that opened into the mist-filled prehistoric world (like in the movie). Complete with the movie theme songs playing in the air, I felt like I was transported into the movie. It was an exciting boat ride through "jurassic period" plants and fake dinosaurs (I even saw that Brontosaurus) that ended in a plunge that totally drenched us all. Brace yourself for T-Rex at the end!

After the rides we were ravenous. We grabbed lunch at one of the foodcourts near Jurassic Park.

Our lunch

#7 Backdraft

An extremely dangerous situation when the fire is contained in a room and in lack of oxygen, once somebody opens the door letting air in, the oxygen will fuel the fire and make the whole room explode. When the fire eats up the oxygen inside there will be an "air-sucking" motion beneath the door, known as backdraft.

An extremely amazing showcase of Hollywood special effects not to be missed!! This technology was used in the movie of the same name. Pipes and gas-drums were exploding and the whole floor suddenly spread into flames as we stood at a "safe" distance, safe enough to watch but we could also smell the fumes and feel the heat coming straight at us!!

#8 Special Effects Stage

We skipped the Animal Actors show because we didn't have time and went to see an interesting talk and demonstration on how special effects like robotics and makeup were deployed in the making of a movie. Very informative.

#9 Studio Tour

In our mad rush to complete all the rides, we completely forgot about taking the Studio Tour which we should have visited first! So we rushed all the way back to Upper Lot while I was praying all the time. Thank God we managed to catch the last tour, cos this was THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIO TOUR! Not to be seen anywhere! The downside was that it was already dark at that hour so we weren't able to see many things clearly. Oh well, dusk is always a different experience altogether.

The open-tour cart took us through spinning race cars used in Fast and Furious 2, through an old mining town where they simulated floods, through a mechanism used for parting rivers, to the miniature Skull island used to film King-Kong, through a Spanish-type courtyard, through an underground subway station where they simulated a San Francisco earthquake (totally MIND-BLOWING!), through the filmset of Psycho where Norman Bates actually ran out and chased our cart (this was creepy), and through the disastrous ruins of the War of the Worlds filmset. At times the tour-guide halted the cart and told us to keep quiet as we neared some places where some film-crews were shooting CSI: Vegas and Ghost Whisperer. To imagine that we were so near those places that we often saw on TV, it was SO COOL, I tell you!!

Again, too bad I couldn't see Wisteria Lane - because, they were shooting Desperate Housewives at that time!!! Oh man!! What wouldn't I give to see Susan, Gabrielle, Bree and Lynette in person, and the houses they live in! ;-(...

#10 Shrek 4-D

We were all oohs-and-aahs after the Studio Tour. Our last stop was at Shrek 4-D, also in an amphitheatre. This 4-D show is better than Simpsons -storyline and cuteness-wise. :-)

Totally satisfied because we got to sit all the rides we wanted, we took a walk around the souvenir shops. My favourite Betty Boop. Everything's too expensive in the souvenir shops so I just took some pictures for memory.

Last but not least, an Oscar for my award-winning boyfriend... XOXO!!