A few days after getting back from the Sweden CF Live, plus the Denmark add-on, I flew out to Los Angeles for a 16 day holiday in California and Las Vegas. The original plan was to do this from Hong Kong and not go back to the UK/Europe at all this summer, but then the Kate Bush concert happened and the whole summer HAD TO be rearranged around that. I decided to stick with the plan of going to California as well as going back to the UK. It was an amazing summer, but easily the most knackering I’ve ever done. Going from Hong Kong to the UK to California to the UK to Hong Kong is the most **** ed up way of doing things considering only the Pacific Ocean separates Hong Kong and California.
Anyway, I arrived on a Wednesday evening and had a shuttle booked to get me to my hotel in West Hollywood. It was a bit of a dump, but the location was good right on Santa Monica Boulevard. I found out a couple of days later that Jim Morrison used to live there. Never been a fan, so wasn't impressed. An earlyish night was had so I could get up early for the first park.
Universal Studios Hollywood
It took about 45 minutes for me to get here from my hotel, via a bus than ran constantly from right outside to donwntown and then a quick metro ride.
There was a bit of faff getting in as I’d stupidly left my pre-printed ticket at the hotel, so had to go to Guest Services for them to find the booking and reprint it. No big deal, but completely negated the whole point of pre-booking in the first place.
My first thought was to head away from the entrance and to the Studio Tour first, figuring that it would get long queues. However, Universal’s House of Horrors, right near the entrance, only had a ten-minute queue, so I jumped in there first, being pretty sure that it wouldn’t have that short a line for the rest of the day.
It was pretty decent without being over the top scary, and was well-themed with decent sets which is something I prefer with these things than obvious scares, though this had a few of those as well. I didn’t realise at the time, but it closed down for good just a couple of weeks later, so I’m glad I gave it a go; I probably wouldn’t have bothered if there was a long wait.
Have a couple of pictures of general theming (not as good as Osaka or Singapore) to break up the pesky words:
Shrek 4D was the same as the other two of these I’ve done: moving seats and squirts water at you. It was fine for a 4D theatre thing, but still just a 4D theatre thing. At least this one didn’t abuse a huge castle to house it like the waste of space at Singapore.
Harry Potter construction. At least I assume that’s what it was.
I’m assuming that that was for the whole street area. There was a huge building between that and the Studio Tour which I’m assuming is for the ride?
Onto the Studio Tour then. By the time I got there, after making quick stops at House of Horrors and Shrek 4D, there was still only a 10-minute queue. It was still not long after opening time, and the park never really started to get busy until the afternoon.
It was pretty good really, mostly because it’s an actual working studio with real film sets scattered around. I’ve never really understood the whole fake studio theme at all, especially that god-awful piece of s**t in Paris. The tour lasted close to an hour, but I can’t remember what most of this stuff was now. Some stuff:
Back to the Future:
The tour was part actual sets and part theme park attraction, with this flooded town thing,
a fake subway station that suffers an earthquake – pretty much identical to the old Earthquake attraction in Florida from what I remember as a kid, with water, fire and the road above collapsing.
The newest of these sections was King Kong 360, a supposed 3D surround screen. Unfortunately, you could easily see the bottom and top of the screens, so the effect didn’t quite work. It was really short as well, all a bit crap really.
Wisteria Lane has been totally neutered, leaving just a couple of houses before it hits a fence. Makes sense really given the size of the set, they’re not making Desperate Housewives anymore and it’s hardly going to go down as a classic, must-see show.
The Jaws bit was decent, basically a scaled down version of the rides in Florida and Osaka, only obviously not on a boat. It was a good way to do it really, seeing as the actual park section doesn’t seem very big on space. I was on the wrong side of the tram though, so got a crap view of the shark, hence no pictures of that bit.
The Bates’ house was fab. Again, being on the wrong side I got a crap view of the motel section.
Why they have this massive War of the Worlds set here is a bit of a mystery. Yes, as a set it looks cool, but it takes up a massive space and it’s not as if the film was any good.
It was around 12 by the time I got off the tram tour. The Simpsons had a queue advertised at an hour, but which actually took only half that.
It was ok, but as to be expected given that it’s just an upgrade of a much older ride, the actual ride tech was pretty dated. It’s neither better nor worse than the ride it replaced to be honest, except that it now squirts water at you. Not that I rode Back to the Future at this park since it was my first visit here, but I’ve done the other two which are seemingly identical.
Some nice views from the exit steps anyway.
After that it was time to head down to the lower section of the park. I literally had no idea about the park layout before I went, so spending over ten minutes on f**king escalators to get down there came as a bit of a surprise. Luckily, the rides down here all had single rider lines, which was brilliant as queues were around the 45 minute mark – still not too bad for a day in August though.
Nobody else was using the single rider line for Revenge of the Mummy at all, which meant I just walked straight onto it, getting five rides in over the course of the 90 minutes or so I spent at that end of the park.
It was ok, but not as good as Singapore’s version. From the outside’s clear that it’s been shoved into a pre-existing building and doesn’t appear half as impressive. The pre-show section, which squirted water at you, was different, but about on the same level I’d say; they’re both very good. The coaster section was good, with the backwards section on this one being a lot more substantial, but the ending was absolute **** unfortunately: the cars just get turned forwards and roll into the station. Apparently, Singapore’s coaster, as a coaster if not a story, is identical to Florida’s, so that might give some people a frame of reference.
Anyway, for an indoor coaster, it was excellent, just not as good as the other version I’ve ridden.
There was a crappy “museum” opposite, which was a basically a room with a Delorian and not much else.
Transformers had a few people using the single rider queue, but staff were really efficient and I never waited more than 5 minutes for any of the 3 rides I had on it.
As far as I can tell, it’s identical to Singapore’s including squirting water at you, apart from, again, the outside of it. I really need to re-ride Spiderman to make a fair comparison, but at the moment, while Transformers is amazing, I still prefer Spiderman over it.
The final ride here was Jurassic Park, again with a single rider line.
It was excellent, but I have to say that the animatronics on Osaka’s ride were better from what I remember. If you’re getting sick of comparisons, get used to it since you’ve got Disney to come in this report yet.
Back up to the main part of the park then to polish off a couple of things. There’s a new kiddy play area there which I obviously didn’t go into.
The new ride this year is Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem. The queue time was posted at 90 minutes, which was a ballache. I asked about a single rider line, but the guy at the front was a **** ing muppet, “I don’t want to say yes in case there isn’t one”. What does that even mean?! Either there is or there isn’t. About a minute later a woman came out holding a single rider sign, so it seems that they sometimes merge single riders with fast-pass people and sometimes don’t bother. It was ridiculous, but at least it meant I got to ride it as I doubt I would’ve sucked up a 90 minute queue.
I had no idea what it actually was, but it turns out to be just another simulator. This time there are a load of simulator cars in one big room, it’s in 3D and it, of course, squirts water at you. The story is that the riders are getting turned into minions. It was good, for a simulator, but quite disappointing in that I thought that it might have been something unique.
I remember there being a Hanna Barbera themed simulator ride in Florida years ago, which seemed very similar to this, so I’m assuming that Hollywood had this ride too and have just rethemed it?
I missed Waterworld in Singapore, so managed to catch it here on my way out of the park.
As in Osaka, it’s a decent stunt show based on a **** ing dreadful film.
Thoughts on the whole then. I liked this place, but was also quite disappointed by it. I was expecting a lot more, and for it to be a lot bigger. Obviously, the studios are themselves massive, but the actual theme park is tiny with nothing particularly unique about it if you’ve been to any of the others. The insistence of having every **** ing ride squirt water at you is also annoying.
Adding Harry Potter is going to be a nightmare as it will draw ridiculous crowds and there will be nowhere for those crowds to go; I can’t help thinking it’s a mistake to be honest.
I also find it quite funny now that people seem to think that the Singapore park has “nothing to do”, when it’s actually a lot bigger than this one, with more unique attractions and much better theming throughout. I’ll need to go back to Florida to form a proper opinion, but it’s this original park that’s the buck-toothed, ginger cousin of the Universal family.
Since I was out of the park by three and I had to pass through this area on the metro anyway, I decided to do a bit of touristy stuff that I’d originally pencilled in for the weekend. I got off at Hollywood and Vine and walked up Hollywood Boulevard to the Chinese Theatre and had a look around there.
The inside of the station was pretty cool.
It was interesting for me since I’ve got a real interest in old Hollywood, but the area itself is a bit of a dump to be fair. Right outside the station was the Pantages Theatre, which used to be a cinema and host the Oscars but is now used for Broadway shows.
Right in front of it I found this without even looking, which was fab.
You could literally spend hours looking at all the stars along Hollywood Boulevard. I was planning to Google Bette Davis rather than try and find it amongst the thousands of others, so it was good that I literally stumbled over her.
Some pictures of the area.
The Hollywood and Highland Centre – shopping and entertainment stuff - has inexplicably built a partial replica of the set of the Babylon scene from Intolerance. It’s fab, but really **** ing ugly as well.
From the back of it, you could see the Hollywood sign; it’s about as close as I got the whole time I was there.
The Dolby Theatre is where they currently hold the Oscars.
The famous Chinese Theatre.
Which is best known for the cement handprints at the front, including some absolute legends.
And then ruined by these three front and centre. What were they thinking?
The inside of the theatre was nice and had some old Hollywood memorabilia which I’m not going to explain. If you don’t recognise it, you’re a philistine.
Heading back to the hotel, I took a slight detour to find this house.
A quick side note, the public transport in LA is MUCH better than I’d ever been led to believe. The metro doesn’t cover much admittedly, but there are buses that cover everywhere, run regularly and are very cheap. The whole “you-need-a-car-in-LA” thing just isn’t true. It would be quicker, yes, but that’s true of anywhere.
Anyway, back to the house where the BEST MOVIE IN THE HISTORY OF FOREVER was filmed.
I did feel a bit stalkerish since it’s in a residential neighbourhood and definitely isn’t on the usual tourist map. It was literally a 15-minute bus ride from my hotel though so I had to see it.
If you don’t know the film the house is from, kill yourself.
Next up: Magic Mountain
Anyway, I arrived on a Wednesday evening and had a shuttle booked to get me to my hotel in West Hollywood. It was a bit of a dump, but the location was good right on Santa Monica Boulevard. I found out a couple of days later that Jim Morrison used to live there. Never been a fan, so wasn't impressed. An earlyish night was had so I could get up early for the first park.
Universal Studios Hollywood
It took about 45 minutes for me to get here from my hotel, via a bus than ran constantly from right outside to donwntown and then a quick metro ride.
There was a bit of faff getting in as I’d stupidly left my pre-printed ticket at the hotel, so had to go to Guest Services for them to find the booking and reprint it. No big deal, but completely negated the whole point of pre-booking in the first place.
My first thought was to head away from the entrance and to the Studio Tour first, figuring that it would get long queues. However, Universal’s House of Horrors, right near the entrance, only had a ten-minute queue, so I jumped in there first, being pretty sure that it wouldn’t have that short a line for the rest of the day.
It was pretty decent without being over the top scary, and was well-themed with decent sets which is something I prefer with these things than obvious scares, though this had a few of those as well. I didn’t realise at the time, but it closed down for good just a couple of weeks later, so I’m glad I gave it a go; I probably wouldn’t have bothered if there was a long wait.
Have a couple of pictures of general theming (not as good as Osaka or Singapore) to break up the pesky words:
Shrek 4D was the same as the other two of these I’ve done: moving seats and squirts water at you. It was fine for a 4D theatre thing, but still just a 4D theatre thing. At least this one didn’t abuse a huge castle to house it like the waste of space at Singapore.
Harry Potter construction. At least I assume that’s what it was.
I’m assuming that that was for the whole street area. There was a huge building between that and the Studio Tour which I’m assuming is for the ride?
Onto the Studio Tour then. By the time I got there, after making quick stops at House of Horrors and Shrek 4D, there was still only a 10-minute queue. It was still not long after opening time, and the park never really started to get busy until the afternoon.
It was pretty good really, mostly because it’s an actual working studio with real film sets scattered around. I’ve never really understood the whole fake studio theme at all, especially that god-awful piece of s**t in Paris. The tour lasted close to an hour, but I can’t remember what most of this stuff was now. Some stuff:
Back to the Future:
The tour was part actual sets and part theme park attraction, with this flooded town thing,
a fake subway station that suffers an earthquake – pretty much identical to the old Earthquake attraction in Florida from what I remember as a kid, with water, fire and the road above collapsing.
The newest of these sections was King Kong 360, a supposed 3D surround screen. Unfortunately, you could easily see the bottom and top of the screens, so the effect didn’t quite work. It was really short as well, all a bit crap really.
Wisteria Lane has been totally neutered, leaving just a couple of houses before it hits a fence. Makes sense really given the size of the set, they’re not making Desperate Housewives anymore and it’s hardly going to go down as a classic, must-see show.
The Jaws bit was decent, basically a scaled down version of the rides in Florida and Osaka, only obviously not on a boat. It was a good way to do it really, seeing as the actual park section doesn’t seem very big on space. I was on the wrong side of the tram though, so got a crap view of the shark, hence no pictures of that bit.
The Bates’ house was fab. Again, being on the wrong side I got a crap view of the motel section.
Why they have this massive War of the Worlds set here is a bit of a mystery. Yes, as a set it looks cool, but it takes up a massive space and it’s not as if the film was any good.
It was around 12 by the time I got off the tram tour. The Simpsons had a queue advertised at an hour, but which actually took only half that.
It was ok, but as to be expected given that it’s just an upgrade of a much older ride, the actual ride tech was pretty dated. It’s neither better nor worse than the ride it replaced to be honest, except that it now squirts water at you. Not that I rode Back to the Future at this park since it was my first visit here, but I’ve done the other two which are seemingly identical.
Some nice views from the exit steps anyway.
After that it was time to head down to the lower section of the park. I literally had no idea about the park layout before I went, so spending over ten minutes on f**king escalators to get down there came as a bit of a surprise. Luckily, the rides down here all had single rider lines, which was brilliant as queues were around the 45 minute mark – still not too bad for a day in August though.
Nobody else was using the single rider line for Revenge of the Mummy at all, which meant I just walked straight onto it, getting five rides in over the course of the 90 minutes or so I spent at that end of the park.
It was ok, but not as good as Singapore’s version. From the outside’s clear that it’s been shoved into a pre-existing building and doesn’t appear half as impressive. The pre-show section, which squirted water at you, was different, but about on the same level I’d say; they’re both very good. The coaster section was good, with the backwards section on this one being a lot more substantial, but the ending was absolute **** unfortunately: the cars just get turned forwards and roll into the station. Apparently, Singapore’s coaster, as a coaster if not a story, is identical to Florida’s, so that might give some people a frame of reference.
Anyway, for an indoor coaster, it was excellent, just not as good as the other version I’ve ridden.
There was a crappy “museum” opposite, which was a basically a room with a Delorian and not much else.
Transformers had a few people using the single rider queue, but staff were really efficient and I never waited more than 5 minutes for any of the 3 rides I had on it.
As far as I can tell, it’s identical to Singapore’s including squirting water at you, apart from, again, the outside of it. I really need to re-ride Spiderman to make a fair comparison, but at the moment, while Transformers is amazing, I still prefer Spiderman over it.
The final ride here was Jurassic Park, again with a single rider line.
It was excellent, but I have to say that the animatronics on Osaka’s ride were better from what I remember. If you’re getting sick of comparisons, get used to it since you’ve got Disney to come in this report yet.
Back up to the main part of the park then to polish off a couple of things. There’s a new kiddy play area there which I obviously didn’t go into.
The new ride this year is Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem. The queue time was posted at 90 minutes, which was a ballache. I asked about a single rider line, but the guy at the front was a **** ing muppet, “I don’t want to say yes in case there isn’t one”. What does that even mean?! Either there is or there isn’t. About a minute later a woman came out holding a single rider sign, so it seems that they sometimes merge single riders with fast-pass people and sometimes don’t bother. It was ridiculous, but at least it meant I got to ride it as I doubt I would’ve sucked up a 90 minute queue.
I had no idea what it actually was, but it turns out to be just another simulator. This time there are a load of simulator cars in one big room, it’s in 3D and it, of course, squirts water at you. The story is that the riders are getting turned into minions. It was good, for a simulator, but quite disappointing in that I thought that it might have been something unique.
I remember there being a Hanna Barbera themed simulator ride in Florida years ago, which seemed very similar to this, so I’m assuming that Hollywood had this ride too and have just rethemed it?
I missed Waterworld in Singapore, so managed to catch it here on my way out of the park.
As in Osaka, it’s a decent stunt show based on a **** ing dreadful film.
Thoughts on the whole then. I liked this place, but was also quite disappointed by it. I was expecting a lot more, and for it to be a lot bigger. Obviously, the studios are themselves massive, but the actual theme park is tiny with nothing particularly unique about it if you’ve been to any of the others. The insistence of having every **** ing ride squirt water at you is also annoying.
Adding Harry Potter is going to be a nightmare as it will draw ridiculous crowds and there will be nowhere for those crowds to go; I can’t help thinking it’s a mistake to be honest.
I also find it quite funny now that people seem to think that the Singapore park has “nothing to do”, when it’s actually a lot bigger than this one, with more unique attractions and much better theming throughout. I’ll need to go back to Florida to form a proper opinion, but it’s this original park that’s the buck-toothed, ginger cousin of the Universal family.
Since I was out of the park by three and I had to pass through this area on the metro anyway, I decided to do a bit of touristy stuff that I’d originally pencilled in for the weekend. I got off at Hollywood and Vine and walked up Hollywood Boulevard to the Chinese Theatre and had a look around there.
The inside of the station was pretty cool.
It was interesting for me since I’ve got a real interest in old Hollywood, but the area itself is a bit of a dump to be fair. Right outside the station was the Pantages Theatre, which used to be a cinema and host the Oscars but is now used for Broadway shows.
Right in front of it I found this without even looking, which was fab.
You could literally spend hours looking at all the stars along Hollywood Boulevard. I was planning to Google Bette Davis rather than try and find it amongst the thousands of others, so it was good that I literally stumbled over her.
Some pictures of the area.
The Hollywood and Highland Centre – shopping and entertainment stuff - has inexplicably built a partial replica of the set of the Babylon scene from Intolerance. It’s fab, but really **** ing ugly as well.
From the back of it, you could see the Hollywood sign; it’s about as close as I got the whole time I was there.
The Dolby Theatre is where they currently hold the Oscars.
The famous Chinese Theatre.
Which is best known for the cement handprints at the front, including some absolute legends.
And then ruined by these three front and centre. What were they thinking?
The inside of the theatre was nice and had some old Hollywood memorabilia which I’m not going to explain. If you don’t recognise it, you’re a philistine.
Heading back to the hotel, I took a slight detour to find this house.
A quick side note, the public transport in LA is MUCH better than I’d ever been led to believe. The metro doesn’t cover much admittedly, but there are buses that cover everywhere, run regularly and are very cheap. The whole “you-need-a-car-in-LA” thing just isn’t true. It would be quicker, yes, but that’s true of anywhere.
Anyway, back to the house where the BEST MOVIE IN THE HISTORY OF FOREVER was filmed.
I did feel a bit stalkerish since it’s in a residential neighbourhood and definitely isn’t on the usual tourist map. It was literally a 15-minute bus ride from my hotel though so I had to see it.
If you don’t know the film the house is from, kill yourself.
Next up: Magic Mountain
.jpg)
) and a few more flats, but the coaster selection is exceptional with X2 and Tatsu being the stars.