Universal Studios: Hits and Misses

People are either amusement park people or not. I’m not. I don’t like lines, big crowds and I get a little cranky in the heat. That said, I loved Universal Studios. We went last week with the twins, my mom, my sister-in-law and my niece and nephew. The rides are so unique and super entertaining. While I don’t think I need to go back anytime soon, I am so glad we went and I highly recommend. I wanted to share some of the highlights (and lowlights) in case you are planning a trip and are a newbie like I was.

Express Pass

Get the express pass. It costs more but this was a GAME CHANGER. This might be the cranky old man in me in talking, but I do believe this is worthy investment. Before lunch, we never sat in a line for more than 5 minutes. Towards the end of the day, the lines started to get longer, but we never waited more than 15 minutes for a ride. Because of my adversity to line-waiting, I strongly support this upgrade. The pass also allows you into the park a half an our earlier than it opens to general public which was such a treat. It felt like we had the park to ourselves. PS. LA traffic sucks in a major way. We left San Diego at 5 am and after 72 freeways and 3.5 hours, we made it there for the early access. Barely.

Rides and Shows

Harry Potter was the highlight of the day. I stupidly asked them to take this picture right in the middle of peak fun and it went over like a fart in church. Please excuse the PAIN on their faces. We went right to the Harry Potter rides which seem to be the most popular in the park. The Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey was the BEST. It was unlike anything I’ve ever been on. We ended up going on this one twice because it was so much fun. From there we went straight down to the lower level because we wanted to do some other popular rides that were right next each other before the crowds got too big.

Jurassic World was first. If you sit on the sides you will get really wet. My nephew sat on the side in the back and it looked like he went swimming in his clothes. Luckily it was a really hot day and he is 11. They offer disposable ponchos- which we saw AFTER we got off the ride. If you sit in the middle, its not too bad. If you don’t want to get wet at all, I’d skip this one. Next, we hit up Revenge of the Mummy and the Transformer rides. We had no idea what to expect with each ride so the anticipation factor was big. They did not disappoint. By the time we finished the Transformer ride I was starting to feel a little nauseous so we took a break from the big rides. More on that later. The height cut-off for most of really popular rides (like Harry Potter and Jurassic World) is 48 inches so keep that in mind when planning your trip. Our eight-year old twins were able to do everything at the park and I felt like they were a perfect age. We left our three-year old at home and I’m SO glad we did. There is plenty to entertain a littler one if need be (like Fun Land or any of the shows). There are also lots of characters roaming the park for good photo ops for the little ones. But the big attractions that draw most people there, are better suited for kids a little older.

From there we went on the Studio Tour (which is part ride-part tour). This is about 45 min-1 hour. This was a nice break from all the bigger rides and we got off our feet for a bit. It was pretty interesting to see all the famous movie sets and hear about the history of Universal. I recommend doing this one time, if you haven’t been to the park. One random tip- do not sit in the last seat of the tram. They are close to their special effects equipment and the seats got really hot!

Motion Sickness

I am majorly proned to motion sickness (and so are both the twins and my nephew). Lets just say one of us had a head out the window on the car ride TO THE PARK. Great. I was really worried about this because SO many of the rides are 3D and motion sickness warnings are EVERYWHERE. I was afraid we’d all get sick and not be able to do any of the fun stuff the rest of the day. I packed SEA BANDS and homeopathic nausea pills. Before each ride, I’d ask a worker how long the ride was before we got on. Every one we went on was 5 minutes or less. I figured we’d try the first one and see how it went. Turns out, our motion sickness is something that takes much longer to build up, so we were totally FINE. All of us. I was so relieved. It wasn’t until the fourth ride that we did back to back, that I started to feel a little nauseous. When that happened we just took a break from rides for an hour or so and it went away. I did put on my Sea Bands and took some anti-nausea pills. I do not know if it helped, to be honest, but I didn’t feel sick the rest of the time. It’s hard to prove a negative. I can’t speak for anyone else here but the short duration of the rides wasn’t something I had considered. Usually when I’m experiencing motion sickness, we are on a plane or in a car for several hours with no option to stop.

What I Wore:

Comfortable shoes. DUH. It’s a LOT of walking. For me, that was running shoes. I wore a wide brim sun hat and it was a MISS. It was great for the sun, but not so great for the rides. Most of the rides were roller coaster types and you have to remove your hat or sit against something that doesn’t accommodate a wide brim hat. Luckily a lot of rides had lockers. If it didn’t, it was awkward to hold on to. Next time, I’d wear a baseball hat so I could tuck it away easier or leave it on.

What to Bring

They allow you to bring food and water into the park. (I think the fine print says small snacks and under 2 liters of water). This was huge. My children experience stage 5 dehydration if they don’t have water every 23 steps, so I brought a backpack with a large water bottle and a bag of snacks. This worked out really well because the food and drinks are expensive. I know this because we ran out of the water and snacks by lunch and we paid the price the rest of the afternoon. Sunscreen! It was really warm out and there is not a lot of shade unless you are on a ride or in a restaurant. Don’t worry, I’m sure the patch of ground was sterilized before they laid face down ON THE GROUND.

Lockers: A lot of the rides have a little locker section right before you get on the ride. For many rides, you have to put any loose bags or hats in a locker. At first I was like, ‘oh never mind, this is daunting"‘. But once you do it once, it’s very quick and convenient. I had a normal sized backpack that fit just fine in the lockers.

Download the App

The park it not huge, but there are two levels separated by large number of escalators. I recommend downloading the app. It has real-time wait lines, maps and showtimes. We knew we wanted to see the Water World Show so we mapped out our day around that show’s times. It did not disappoint. It’s eye candy every where you look. There are designated seats where you WILL get wet. Like, REALLY REALLY wet. I won’t give anything away but the middle section is where most the action is and ALL of the lower seats will get wet on all three sides. There are no bad seats in the house so base your decision on seating on how wet you want to get. The cast did such a great job and come out to meet the crowd after the show. It was perfect ending to a great day. Enjoy!