Going to Universal Studios in Hollywood

Universal Studios gives you insight into the inter workings of your favorite movies! From famous sets, to special effects, to fun rides, you can get it all here! What I really love about Universal Studios is how it truly captures all the little details of your favorite movie or TV show, so you feel like you are there!

Harry Potter Land!

My absolute favorite part, of course, is the Hogsmeade Village as part of the Harry Potter land. It is amazing how they make you feel like you are stepping into the book / movies (minus all the tourists). There is Honeydukes to buy candy, Olivanders to buy a wand, and you can grab a beer at the Hogs Head! The atmosphere is perfectly captured in each of these spots. It is not modified to be more practical in our Muggle world.

For instance, the wands at Ollivanders are just that, which we Muggles have no use of, but a cool souvenir none the less. The shop is just like you would expect his shop to be, messy, chaotic and wands everywhere! The candy at Honeydukes is exactly what you would expect – every flavor jelly beans and chocolate frogs! Yes, every flavor! My boyfriend said he didn’t necessarily taste like the specific flavor (i.e., puke) but I found I didn’t like these flavors as much haha! The chocolate frogs are huge and hard to eat, totally impractical, but amazingly awesome. Fair warning, the candy is expensive!

Hogs Head has traditional food from London aka Thanksgiving food no matter what the time of year, YUM! It reminded me a lot of the food I had in Germany, turkey, gravy, and potato dumpling. May not be for everyone, but I am drooling. Paired with a nice beer! Next door is the Three Broomsticks. You can get butter beer walking around, but it is a kids drink aka no alcohol. Which is fine, but no I did not get to drink a butter beer at the Three Broomsticks, I got an actual beer.

The Studio Tour

The most unique thing about Universal Studios, especially with all the other theme parks not far away (I see you Disneyland!), was the studio tour. This is an hour ride on a bus that takes you through all the studios universal uses. There were full on small villages, neighborhoods, lakes, etc. that have all been featured in your favorite movies! It amazed me how many sets are used in the same movies, and the audience can’t even tell.

This was a truly spectacular ride that is to not be missed. This is something that no other theme park offers! A backstage pass to where movies were set and how they are manipulated to make you think it is real. There is even some special effects on it!

The Shows

Another thing Universal does differently to stand out against the competing theme parks is the shows. One of my favorite shows was animal actors! It was more a parody then how animals actually get trained. The trainer has all these animals come on stage and pretends that they are messing up, when in actually they are trained SO well to do all these incredible things. I was highly impressed!

Another show as Waterworld, where actors did a whole skit. They had ‘splash zones’ that was just hilarious to see people get made fun of and splashed in these zones. Yes, if you are sitting here and look like you don’t want to get wet, they will splash you specifically. The special effects during this show were truly amazing! They have full on fires, people drowning, and falling into the water all part of this epic fight scene.

The last show that really stuck out for me is the special effects show. They showed us how all the special effects are done in the movies. To show us how people ‘fly’ in the air, it made me laugh, a lot! Every show was amusing but also informative. And again, you can’t get this anywhere else!

Simpsons

My last favorite part of the park, is the Simpsons area! Mainly because I got to drink Duff beer hahaha. But it did make me feel like I was drinking with Homer Simpson when I sat at a bar outside sipping on Duff beer, surrounded by Simpsons memorabilia. There is something so special, as corny as this will sound, about being brought into the scene with your favorite characters. Universal truly succeeded at this!

The Rides

My favorite ride and the most comparable ride to Disneyland was the Jurassic Park ride. Mainly because of the water drop! All the other rides, felt…and I don’t know how to say this, but over done on the technology side. None were about being out in the fresh air with just a classic roller coaster drop. Once you did one ride, it felt like you did them all. All had story lines, bad guy does something, main character needs your help, chaos ensues, and day is saved.

How did they do this you ask? These are all 3-D simulations, with screens surrounding you to make up the environment. You sit in an electronic seat that simulates drops and the events that are happening on the screen. The intent is for it to feel real, and not like a simulation. But to me…it just felt like a video game. Drops weren’t actual drops. I couldn’t see what was really happening. I suppose I like my classic roller coasters without all the over-done technology. It is cool we can do that much with technology truly, and one ride would have been fine but it was all of them.

Imagine the Harry Potter ride being like the Matterhorn where you are taken up around the castle and get an amazing view of the park and the inter workings of the castle before a spectacular drop! Or all the work that is done behind the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, with such attention to detail. It was like all of that was removed in place of technology…

To boot all the same story lines and rides focused on a short story, while it makes sense given the Universal theme, I still would have liked some variety. I think they were trying to stand out and differentiate themselves by doing something unique this way, which they succeeded in doing, but it did get redundant.

Overall Thoughts

LOVED how unique this place is. I know I keep comparing it to Disney, but I guess I was expecting a Disney wanna be. That isn’t what I got at all, in a good way! Universal stands out a lot, especially the Harry Potter portion of the park and the Studio tour for me. That being said, because I rode a ride, saw what the story line is, then I don’t need to ride it again. It isn’t for the pure thrill, where you can ride a ride over and over and over. For me, this is what is lacking.

My thoughts are that Universal is great to go to just once for one or two days – one day with a fast pace, two days without – but don’t go more than that, you will get bored. Also, if you do take my advice and just go once, I would invest in the fast pass. Made the day so much more enjoyable, especially given I wasn’t a huge fan of the rides. I think I would have more negative to say if I had to also wait in lines! I also am not planning on going back anytime soon, but I am definitely happy I went! I would highly recommend Universal to any of my friends.