Yesterday, we arrived at the mansion that we had rented rooms from for the first two nights of our vacation. We spent the evening exploring the house, and then we hiked along a creek. The “trail” along the creek was more like a road, and I am sure that bicyclist frequent it on their road bikes. This was the perfect ending to our first day of vacation. We enjoyed the weather, the hike and the mansion so much that we debated whether or not to just spend day 2 of our vacation there relaxing. We finally decided on a trip to Universal Studios for day 2 of our vacation.
I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Universal Studios. I remembered when I was a kid, a girl in my Sunday school class had gone, and she was telling our teacher all about it. She said that it was neat, but in some way a bit of a disappointment to see the Beaver Cleaver’s house was just a television set. She talked all about the different ways that movies were made, and from that point all I wanted my own trip to Universal Studios.
At one point in my life, during a summer internship, I lived about no more than 20 miles from Universals Studios. With the high cost of living in LA and the low amount that I was making at my summer internship, I really could not afford to go. The summer came and went with out a trip to the fascinating place where movies were made.
Today, after thirty years of wanting to go, I finally got to have my trip to Universal Studios. One would think that this could only be a disappointment after three decades of waiting. Not in the least. The park opened this morning at 8:00 AM, so we were there promptly at 7:30 AM to purchase our tickets. At the ticket office, we were helped by Linda; she was the nicest little lady that anyone could imagine. It was as if she knew that I had waited so many years for my big trip, and she wanted us to enjoy every minute of it. Little Chirp danced around while we bought tickets, and Brainy Bird studied the different packages as if trying to make sure that I chose the best deal. Linda was so nice that I couldn’t say no the “front of the line” pass that she was selling in addition to the admission tickets. Before long, we were headed through the gate with our special passes around our necks.
Universal Studios has a Disney World feel to it. With one awful exception, all of the employees that we encountered were over the top nice. There were characters from some of the most popular movies, older movies and classics walking around for photo opportunities. Having arrived early, we decided to say our front of the line pass for each ride until the rides built up, and we went to get as many “line-free” rides in as we could.
We hit the new Despicable Me ride for. Little Chirp loved it. Brainy Bird thought it was fun. Next up was the Mummy Returns ride. The look of sheer terror in Little Chirps face in the on-ride photo was so priceless that I actually coughed up the $20 to buy the photo. It scared me with how real the mummy effects seemed and the speed of the ride. I have no doubt that it scared him too, but he wanted to go again later in the day.
We hit every ride and every show, and we each had our own favorites, for me it was all about finally getting to go on the “studio tour ride”. This was SO incredible. It started out slow as we weaved on our little tram through studio buildings where they film, and all that there was to see was a building with a number on it. It was Sunday, so there weren’t any movie personnel anywhere. Then we were soon driving through the different sets. There was a set in Mexico that they simulated a tidal in, and we got to first watch the fake rain and then the tidal wave came. It was incredible. There would be another “tidal wave” type experience inside one of the studios that was made to look like a subway that was flooding. The best of all was the tunnel with the 3D 360 degree King Kong show. You put a pair of 3D glasses on, and King Kong fights a T-Rex, and you are surrounded on both sides of the tram with the 3D fight. It is as if King Kong and the T-Rex are right there trying to eat you, and fight at the same time, and they hop over the tram and ground trembles as they move about. All three of us LOVED it.
We got to see the classic parts of the tour with Jaws eating a diver, and appearing to come after the tram, and a mysterious man loading a dead body into the truck of a car outside of the Bates motel. I waited patiently to see the Beaver’s house after having heard about it three decades ago. As we were leaving Wisteria Lane, having just seen all of the houses of the Desperate House Wives show, our tour guide says off handedly, “The Wisteria Lane area, used to be called the Colonial Houses, and it is also where other shows such as the Munsters and Leave it to Beaver were filmed.”
Doh! I suppose time has marched on. I wasn’t disappointed, everything about our day was perfect. We didn’t even break for lunch until 2 that afternoon. It wasn’t that we weren’t hungry, we were just having too much fun to stop and eat. It would be more than 12 hours from the time of our arrival when we would finally be heading to our car and calling it a day. Little Chirp spent the walk back to the car begging for another day at Universal Studios.