Universal Studios!

Today we visited Universal Studios! We got there just after the studio’s opening time of 10am! We parked in the Curious George carpark and walked through the Universal Citywalk towards the park entrance! It reminded me very much of the Warner’s Bros Studios on the Gold Coast! There were quite a lot of people but it wasn’t exactly packed for a weekday.

First up we did the new Simpson’s Ride! We lined up for 30mins before finally reaching the front of the line! It was a motion simulator that took us on a rollercoaster and flying adventure over Springfield! Pretty good! Next we headed to the lower lot of the park and Di convinced me to go on the Jurassic Park ride! There was no line at this ride so we got straight in! This was a river style ride with an 84 foot waterfall drop at the end!

Next up we checked out the stage effects show which showed us some common visual, creature, and sound effects used. Then we checked out the Backdraft show which demonstrated how they did the fire scenes from the movie! The last thing we did before lunch was the Mummy ride! This was an indoor rollercoaster almost completely in the dark! It was short but pretty scary! Thankfully I didn’t feel sick afterwards!

We had lunch in the Jurassic café before heading back up to the upper lot to do the famous Universal Studio tour! Again we didn’t have to wait and we got straight on to a tram. They took us through the backlots which is apparently the largest in Hollywood. They showed us sets from the Fast and the Furious, Jaws, the Mummy, old western movie sets, and a huge outdoor blue screen used to film Evan Almighty. We also so Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives! Many of the sets had live action demonstrations eg the mechanical shark used in Jaws and the robots used to produce the stunts in the Fast and the Furious! We also saw the remains of a set that caught on fire just on Sunday!

After the 45 min tour we headed to the Waterworld live show! This was based on the movie Waterworld and the stage was a huge pool with much of the set from the movie. The show was really good! There was a storyline and lots of action with jet skis, powerboats, flying foxes, and even a huge boat plane!

Next up we saw the Terminator 3D show and then the cute animal actors show! Finally we caught the last session of the Shrek 4D show (the 4th D is the vibrating chair and air and water effects) before doing a spot of souvenir shopping before the studio closed at 6pm!

As we headed back to the carpark along the Citywalk, we decided to hang around and have dinner. Until then we filled the time by watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! It wasn’t as good as the original 3 unfortunately! When the movie finished at 10pm, most of the restaurants had closed! We had initially planned to eat dinner at Hard Rock Café but it was only serving drinks by the time we made it there.

Instead we had to settle for Jack in the Box drive through on the way back to Di’s cousin’s place. A long day but we made the most it and really enjoyed Universal Studios! Nite!