Day 16

Today we went to Universal Studios in Hollywood. We got up quite early and got to the park for 10am. We had some breakfast in the park at Cinabon, which was a very sweet affair.

We had a little wander around before deciding to start our day off with the Waterworld show. It was brilliant. We sat just behind the soak zone and so we didn’t get too wet. The show was really entertaining with lots of jet skiing, pyrotechnics, stunts, explosions, sound effects and crowd participation (everyone loves booing the baddie, right?)  The best bit was towards the end during the finale sequence when an enormous plane appeared from behind the set in a big fireball, flew through the air and then crash landed in the water in front of us.

Next we went down to the lower lot of the park and rode the Jurassic Park flume which got us both completely soaked! More soaked than we’d expected. This was okay though as it was really heating up now and the water cooled us down.

Then we rode the Mummy Returns coaster which terrified Laura as it was in the dark and went forwards and backwards.

At this point I should probably mention that we avoided all the queues because we’d paid extra for Front of Line passes. They were totally worth the money and made us feel like VIPs as we walked passed everyone queuing and right on to each ride.

We looked at lots of props and clothing in one of the exhibits. They had the Delorean from Back to the Future (along with the Black & Decker rehydrator and Mr Fusion!) plus newer things like Tom Cruise’s costume from Oblivion.

The next ride we went on was Transformers 3D. The wait time was already 50 minutes, so it was a great feeling to skip the line and walk straight on. The ride was incredible. The mixture of filmed 3D, motion simulation and actual motion worked so well. It really felt like we were part of the movie and being flung about by giant robots. Awesome. We both stepped off the ride with sore faces from pulling amazed expressions so much.

We grabbed our stuff from the locker (using a finger print to open it – how cool!) got the Jurassic Park music stuck in our heads again and went back up the escalators to the top lot. We saw the special effects show and I was thankful again for the Front of Line pass as we got seats right in the centre at the front. It was a really entertaining show as they explained how special effects are done.

We then went straight to the Animal Actors show and ooohed and aahed lots as animals performed the most amazing show. Guinea pigs ran over the stage, cats chased dogs, a parrot stole a dollar bill from an audience member’s hand. It was great. I think Laura particularly like the tiny fox and rued her choice of career. It’s never too late though, she could always retrain as an animal trainer.

The Simpsons ride was fun but kinda left me feeling a bit sick! It quickly passed though and some food helped. Lunch was eaten at Panda Express and it was very tasty. We browsed some gift shops and then went on the Studio Tour. This was great and took us behind the scenes onto the back lot. Again, we skipped the queue and got priority seats on the front tram. Our guide was really entertaining and we saw loads of cool things. The King Kong 3D experience was cool.

We saw Shrek 4D before deciding to watch the Water World show again. We weren’t quite so surprised when the plane flew towards us this time!

Outside the park we looked in a few shops in the City Walk and got dinner at Johnny Rockets – a slight deviation from our original plan. The burger and sweet potato fries were nice. There was a big movie theatre there so we bought tickets for Elysium and experienced what it was like to watch a movie in the US. Not that much different to the UK, but there were a lot more trailers and the adverts weren’t quite as cheesy as in the UK.

We then headed home. Tired after a long day!