USH 2/3/09

[BP317]

Went to LA and hit up the Studios for a few hours.

So those unfamiliar with Universal Studios Hollywood, there are two sections of the park: the upper lot and lower lot and they are connected by a series of long escelators. After doing the lower lot instead of taking the escelators I decided to run up the stairs....so here's a video of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp6Kmi3cjbI


After being directed to park in the Curious George garage, walked through this tunnel to City Walk.


HAHAHAHAHAHA


Indoor skydiving thing in Citywalk.


This looked fun, but if I wanted to spend money on skydiving id actually go skydiving.


And apparentley theres a Harley shop in Citywalk.


Almost there.


The USH globe with the NBC Universal tower in the background.


As expected the place was dead, but there was a pretty long line to get in...


...thanks to these stupid things.


USH's signature and best attraction, which id go on later.


First order of business was the [newish] Simpsons Ride.




Entrance to the Simpsons ride.






I wonder what this is supposed to reference?



Hmm, well the Simpsons was pretty good. The queue and pre-show were fantastic and the ride is pretty much a new program/film for BTTF. Not much else to say about that.


Next I headed down to the lower lot for the parks main thrill ride.


Escelator.


Almost there.


Riding the escelators, much more fun than running next to them.


Universal doing its Six Flags impression and putting up banner ads in front of stuff.


Mummy is a bit shorter than Orlando's, but its still really fun.






Being the only one in the entire queue line, I was starting to wonder if this ride would actually be operating when I got up there.


Entering the building.


More of the line.


So I get to the station and take a picture and immediatly ALL of these employees turn around and yell "NO PICTURES!" in unison. Was fairly intimidating. They clapped for me when I came back in the station after the ride though?....(and yes, I was the only one on the train).


In case you were wondering where the "child switch room" is.

[BP317]

Next up was pretty much the only other major attraction in the lower lot: Jurrasic Park River Adventure.


Nothin like a good water ride in February.










Gotta love Universal Studios' cliche 90's special effects.




Saw Backdraft since it was starting when I was walking by.


I dont like where this is going.


FIRE!!!


Time to head back up.


Think ill take the stairs this time [see video above].










Most random theming ever, your walking through a nice medeterannian village then bam. Big futuristic building housing Terminator 2: 3D.


So on one side of Terminator's futuristic themed building you have a medeterrainian village, the other side theres an English themed area.


The Blues Brothers were parked around there also.




For some reason I found this theming clash really funny which warrented 3 pictures dedicated to it.

[BP317]

Another attraction that may not be as cutting edge amazing as it was when it opened in the mid 90s, but still one of the best things there.






The governer gives you a message before you enter the main theater.


Then he blows stuff up!


For a day where no one was in the park there were quite a few charectors in the park.








They were advertising Dodgers tickets in the NY themed area.


Waterworld was closed.


Welcome to California.


This Japaneese guy was walking around a bunch of other Japaneese people, and he had a United Nations umbrella.


Studio Tour was a complete walk on. Its a tram ride through the Universal Studios backlots & studios, the rides about 40 minutes long.




More walkonness.


If you drop something off of the tram you pull this string and they stop the tram and get it.




The Universal movie/TV writers offices are in little houses in the studio backlots.


This is the part that burnt down last year that they are currently rebuilding. Part of it was the clocktower from Back to the Future.


This bridge is in a few movies, I dont remember which ones.


The De-Lorean from Back to the Future.


These cars from The Fast & The Furious did a lot of wacky stuff in the air.


One of the Jeeps from Jurrasic Park.


This set is from Big Fat Liar when Amanda Bynes and Frankie Munez are being chased around, and a few other movies.


The lagoon from the old Creature from the Black Lagoon movie.


Back to the Future stuff.


This set was used in a bunch of movies, I cant remember any of them though.


A movie set from Spartacus.


The main plaza from the original Frankenstein.


Jaws randomly attacks the tram.


They were rehearsing some stuff from Desperate Houseives (yes, they do film some ABC Disney stuff at Universal Studios).


A set from How the Grinch Stole Christmas.


The Bates Motel.


A scene from War of the Worlds.


Plane crash from War of the Worlds.


They showed a bunch of movies they used this wall in on the tram monitors. They paint it to look like a scene in the background.


Terminator is in a huge building built over a parking garage.


And ill end with this awesome picture.

[Director_Guy]

Ah, good old Universal. I haven't been there since they still had the E.T. Ride. I used to feel at home at USH, being that I love theme parks and movies. It really was an awesome place. It doesnt look like its doing too good.

[zjohn1988]

I got tired just watching that video!

[Ilovthevu']

I think one of those movies that I think the bridge was in was Jurassic Park III. They were on the bridge, and the pterodactyl was attacking them. I don't know of any others though.

It's a very nice trip report.

[Demon_07]

Notice, it said BROOKLYN Dodgers.

[demonbulleagle]

I have never been to USH so what is the point of the fingerprint scanners (Thats what I'm assuming they are)

[Ilovthevu']

^The reason I think why they have them at least in Orlando is because people get a 7 day ticket, and than they use 1 part of the ticket, another person uses 1 part of that ticket, and let's say 2 more people use that ticket so it's like the family is using 1 7 day ticket that's supposed to be for each individual person.

Another reason is that I'm using that 7 day ticket, and I only used 3 days of the 7. Some people might be trying to sell (For instance, ebay.) the additional 4 days.

Also, I have to mention that at these parks, admission is quite expensive for just 1 day. Let's say at Universal it's $70 for one admission for one day. They purposely want people to stay there longer. Two days might be $110 so it's cheaper per day. The more days you get, the cheaper each day is. At Disney for a 7 day ticket, it might be around $240, but it's around $35 something dollars per day. For Universal, it's cheaper than Disney though.

These are guesses. I'm not going to go to the Disney website, and look.