Day 3: Universal Studios Hollywood (Clouds + Monday = Empty Park!!!)
After two very full and busy days at the
Disneyland Resort, we were off to Universal Studios Hollywood. As I mentioned a few times in the entry from our Disneyland day, a lot of stuff was closing in both Disney parks (but especially Disneyland) so we tried to pack as much of that stuff in the first two days. Also, that is why we decided the Monday following all of the closures would be a good day to visit Universal Studios Hollywood
For pretty every trip that we've taken down to California to visit Disneyland, we take an extra day and go visit USH. While the theming and nostalgia for USH is not as great as Disneyland, we have always really enjoyed our time at USH (hence why we continue to go back each trip). I know some Disney diehards do not like any Universal parks (which is totally fine) so if you are one of those people, you may want to skip down to the end of this entry as we do experience one of my highlights of the trip that is certainly Disney related.
For this trip to Hollywood we traveled with Viator, a travel company whose Anaheim center so happened to be located in the basement of Anaheim GardenWalk. This was super convenient because the Super 8 we were staying at was literally a two minute walk. Normally, they have a smaller bus pick you up from your Anaheim hotel and take you to GardenWalk where you then load on a large Greyhound bus for the full journey to Hollywood. We instead walked over about 8am, got on a bus about 8:30 and were off to USH!
Once arriving at USH (with pre-purchased tickets from aRes) we noticed right away how dead it was. It was probably 10:00am-ish, so the park had been open for a little while but it was extremely empty.
Unfortunately, WWoHP was not open yet at USH but soft openings started happening a couple weeks after we left. We got to see the OG Wizarding World: Hogsmeade on our Florida Trip in 2013 and I was beyond impressed. I am excited to go back to USO and see Diagon Alley as it was under construction on that trip. I snapped this picture while we made our way down to the Lower Lot.
Previously mentioned Lower Lot!
As a HUGE Jurassic Park fan, I was super bummed when I saw that Jurassic Park - The Ride was under refurbishment this trip. However, sometimes closures are nice for repeat visitors as it makes you excited the next time (whenever it may be) to experience the closed rides.
We started at Transformers thinking it would be the longest line of the day (which was most certainly not the case). Always enjoy this one but not quite as much as Spiderman at Islands of Adventure in Florida. Next was Revenge of the Mummy, which is really fun but kinda short. I feel like I enjoyed the version of the Mummy at USF a bit more (mainly because of the appearance of Brendan Fraser). With Jurassic Park closed, we finished up with the Lower Lot (for now) and made our way back up the Longest Escalators in the World (not actually a world record but it feels like it).
The views that you get from the escalators are amazing! The white buildings way off in the distance are the Warner Brothers studio and the more close up buildings are apart of Universal. You could also definitely see the effect of the California drought with how brown the golf course was.
Next up was Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem, which is a really cute simulator ride that luckily was not very busy yet. Since their are very few "kid friendly" rides at USH, Despicable Me can get quite busy. On our last trip to USO, the line got up to 2+ hours (its a fun ride but definitely not worth even close to that long of a wait).
A fun and unique addition that USH has is Super Silly Fun Land, which is interestingly built on top of a parking garage. It has a bunch of carnival games, a couple of kiddie rides and a water play area. The area is nice but nothing really for us to experience so we walked over to get in line for DM:MM.
They have a bunch of funny signs within the queue that every trip I end up taking pictures of.
The first main pre-show area is extremely well themed with family portraits, Gru's Family Tree (see above) and many little hidden secrets.
A really fun and cute ride, we usually only ride it once a trip but I do enjoy it each time.
Next up is the Simpsons Ride, which I really enjoy as I am a MASSIVE Simpsons fan.
While I enjoy the ride a lot (it's probably the funniest ride in any theme park) but it was probably the most inefficiently run attraction I have ever seen! It was well over 45 minutes for a line that was maybe a couple hundred people. It seemed like they were super under-staffed and the staff didn't really seem motivated to move the line quickly.
I really did enjoy the ride as usual even with the unfortunate line issues. My dad seems to always get quite motion sick on this ride which is kinda odd because he doesn't seem to get sick on really any ride (except the Mad Tea Party, he hates them!) so if you do get motion sick easy, this may be one to avoid or take some dramamine before riding.
With pretty much all of the major attractions (at least those who were open), we decided to make our way down to the with out a doubt highlight of any USH trip, the Studio Tour!
Next Update: The Studio Tour, Transformers (again and again) and a Disney experience I have waited years for!