WARNING : Long post ahead! 
I will try keep this as brief as possible but a) I’m pretty verbose at the best of times and b) it was the one tourist excursion I was really really looking forward to. 🙂

We began the morning exhausted after only two and a half hours sleep – combination of trying to sort out our photos and delayed jetlag. 

But having been warned to get there early to avoid lines we dragged our tired asses out of bed by 6.15ish to grab breakfast at 25 degrees before trying to figure out how to get to Universal from our hotel. 

Here’s the thing guys, you can take the Metro train out and it’s only one stop and $1.75 pp one way … However, the Metro underground station seemed like it was a bit dodgy and once we saw a slightly unhinged looking homeless person throw his suitcase down the escalator we decided to taxi out instead! (Ju, you forgot to mention the suitcase toting renegade was accompanied by roars and moans floating up the escalators and out onto the surface, like the very sounds of hell itself).

Luckily it was early enough that traffic wasn’t an issue and only cost us $20 and we weren’t accosted by derelicts.  

So we arrived around 8.30am and were immediately wide-eyed by the people, sights and sounds. Disclaimer: I also have to say that our experience was wildly awesome in part due to the fact we had free passes and they were front of line passes. When normal ticket holders had to wait upwards of 50 minutes to get on a ride, we never had to wait more than 5mins. 

Have to say it was a total thrill being able to bypass all the lines and we thanked my work for scoring us the tickets several times during the day. Would have been a very different experience if we’d had to wait in those lines.

So, *spoiler alert* Universal was the part of our tourist itinerary that I was really excited about it (and was gagging to do the studio tour) and everything lived up to expectation. Praise!! 

We hit the Harry Potter world first and it was amazing – the sets and quality of detail were outstanding and we nerded out hard. We did not buy capes or wands although they were huge sellers – one of the store rooms was absolutely jammed with people trying to buy a wand. 

What was clever was that the wands actually activated different tricks/actions in most the store windows. Was a common thing to see people clustered around waiting their turn to wave wands. Very clever sales and marketing people! 

Ok here’s the thing you also need to know – neither Tashy nor I are into amusement park rides BUT we thought we’d give some a go. We got on the first Harry ride and it was insane! Rides these days incorporate epic level 3D video elements so it really does feel like you’re flying through the air avoiding dementors or spiders flying out at you. We screamed and hysterically laughed the whole ride and had to have a wee sit down at the end. 

We also then rode the family friendly roller coaster which was much more palatable for my stomach. What’s crazy is people line for 30 mins for a 30 second ride. Not us – front of line passes RULE.

Next we headed past the Simpson works and got on the studio tour. Literally had a tear in my eye and felt like my heart could burst – I was that excited. The studio tour for me was the absolute highlight – all the awesome behind the scenes stuff and movie sets and ALL THE STUFF. So awesome I wanted to do it all over again but onto the rest of the attractions! 

Then we hit up the Shrek 4d ride (which was actually more a mini movie with rocking seats), The Walking Dead walk through experience and the Despicable Me Minions ride (really funny). 

More on The Walking Dead experience – it was terrifying!! Like legit scary. Like, I thought I’d lose my mind scary. Like, bowels and innards and caged zombies grabbing at you scary. 

Basically I clutched on to Tash and screamed and pushed her through it in about 3 minutes (despite the fact it’s generally a 10 minute walk through).  We ate food after that. But legit I was shaking like I’d done the heaviest weight squats at the gym. 

To cap off the day we watched the Waterworld attraction which was really fun – kudos to the actors as they were really entertaining. We also got drenched even though we were not in the soak zone! Tashy had a white shirt so she was also putting on a show. 

Finally we did the Jurassic park ride which was a river ride expedition theme and you plummet 84 feet down a waterfall at the end. I was nervous but there were two little kids next to me so I had to at least TRY to not freak out. Was actually quite fun and yet again we were totally drenched. 

All in all it was an awesome day and after reading some of the ‘beware’ info for the Transformers and The Mummy rides we nixed the idea of them.

Very tired, dehydrated and damp we headed home on the Hop On Hop Off bus and got a view of Warner Brothers and the general Burbank area before we got home. We slept really well that night! 

Ju x