Drinking Duff and Butterbeer at Universal Studios Hollywood

For movie lovers, Universal Studios Hollywood should be stop number 1 for any visit to Los Angeles. Located on the same block as dozens of active filming studios for Universal films, Universal do an incredible job of immersing visitors in environments of their favourite movies and TV shows. It’s the perfect combination of immersion and exhilaration, despite the lack of big roller coasters.

The park is divided into 2 sections, an upper lot and a lower lot. The upper lot is made up of a themed mini parks and the lower lot is mostly themed rides and a few shops. They are separated by 4 long escalators so it takes some thought and planning to ensure you don’t spend all day riding up and down because it can take 5-10 minutes to ride.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

After the incredible popularity of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter opening in Orlando, it was only a matter of time before it opened in Los Angeles as well. You walk through the gates under the Hogsmeade signed and are met with a row of old Eanglish structures with pointed, snow-covered roofs and familiar signs such as Honedukes, Ollivander’s, The Three Broomsticks and the Owl Post.

Naturally, there are also a couple of red carts selling butterbeer as well so you can drink in Universal’s sickly sweet, interpretation of JK Rowling’s fictitious drink that is similar to creaming soda with butterscotch foam on top.

Harry Potter is easily the most popular section of the park so we visited this first, and went straight onto the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride. It’s a fun and exhilarating virtual broomstick ride through Hogwarts, where you dodge dragons, the whomping willow, and zoom through a quidditch match. It’s a thrill ride for people who don’t like roller coasters but would be pretty scary for young kids, as there are some close encounters with dragons and a pretty intense section with dementors.

Flight of the hippogriff is a roller coaster for people who don’t like roller coasters. It’s short, harmless, and very approachable.

Ollivanders wand show is a little tacky for adults, but it is pretty cool as a novelty and the kids will love it, especially if you get “picked”, and if you time it right, there are shows on the plaza stage such as bullfrog a’capella and the Triwizard Spirit Rally, which occur periodically throughout the day.

Springfield

Harry Potter land was great, but for me it was Springfield that was the highlight. Perhaps it was because I had previously done Hogsmeade at Universal Studios Orlando, but Simpsons fans like myself will be in their element with places like Krusty Burger, Moe’s, the Nuclear Power Plant and the Kwik-E-Mart, as well as subtle Simpsons references throughout to constantly keep you entertained and chuckling to yourself as you relive golden Simpsons moments.

You can drink a Duff Beer at the Duff Brewery, but they also have some great craft beer options like Angel City IPA. And of course, you can actually get your photo taken with some of the characters like Bart and Krusty.

Krustyland is a small amusement park inside Springfield with sideshow alley games and The Simpsons Ride: a virtual roller coaster that follows the Simpsons family during the opening of the same ride “Krustyland” as sideshow Bob tries to sabotage it. It was a bit of fun, but a little underwhelming. Universal have probably overplayed their virtual ride cards, as there are quite a few.

The Lower lot

I didn’t know what to expect from the lower lot but it was certainly smaller than I was expecting. It was clearly built after the upper lot, as you must take 4 escalators down just to get there. The can take from 5 to 10 minutes each way depending on foot traffic. With this in mind it is best to limit the number of times you visit the lower lot so that you don’t waste too much time on the escalators. These rides are also fun and very popular so visiting early or late is the best tactic to limit wait times.

The Transformers ride is a lot of fun, but the mummy ride was the best. Fast, dark and spooky, it had me in tears of laughter. We did these 2 a couple of times and they are both really fun. Transformers is a similar concept to Harry Potter’s Forbidden Journey in that it mixes 3D animation with moving around a course in a vehicle. The Mummy ride is a fast, dark, indoor roller coaster with only the freaky undead for company.

We opted not to go on the Jurassic Park ride. I would have loved to, but I hate rides that get you soaked, and it rained on the day we visited as well. I did enjoy watching the riders finish in the splash zone though. The splash wasn’t actually that big, but then as the boat continued to float downstream these hoses came out and just randomly started shooting at them unnecessarily. Very funny.

Here’s a tip for you, if you help the ride operators out they might repay you with a password to get quickly through the front of line access point. I told them the wait time was wrong so the operator told me because of my help tell this password to the FOL people and they’ll let you through.

Grinchmas

During the holidays, Universal have a great  setup recreating parts of Whoville from the movie The Grinch. You can meet the Grinch and Max, see Whoville carollers, and other Christmassy things in a pretty authentic looking Whoville set. Unfortunately for us this was not active on the day we went as it was a slower day. But the village was great to walk through, complete with Whoville Taxi, and a wonky 60 foot Christmas tree just like in the movie.

Water World Show

Water World is a great stunt show involving fire, high dives, jet skis, and a seaplane. And like every good water-related stunt show, the front 5 rows are designated a soak zone. The soak zone is a soak zone for a reason: you’ll get wet. People understand this when they sit there and as I’ve mentioned, ours was a rainy day so people had ponchos. A few minutes before the show started one of the actors came out to warm up the crowd (so to speak); he just started throwing buckets of water on the front row to ensure they truly were happy being in the soak zone. Unperturbed, they took it like men and stayed there throughout the show.

Front of Line Tickets

Universal has this great ticketing option called the Front of Line pass, which lets you skip the queue of most rides once. We were treated to 2 Front of Line passes courtesy of Universal and I must say we probably under utilised it. Not that we didn’t use it, but because it was a slow day the lines we skipped were 20 minutes maximum; you would feel best value skipping a 60 minute line. Still, it did mean that the most we waited in line was a couple of minutes, and it allowed us to do a few favourite rides twice, which we couldn’t have otherwise done, so I’m very happy we had the luxury to do so.

The best tactic we found was to get the park early, do the popular rides like The Mummy, and Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey first (without using your Front of Line pass), then come back later in the day when the queue is peaking and use the pass then. That way you can ride it twice without large queues.

I didn’t realise this before visiting but some shows have special perks for FOL holders. Water World and the Animal Encounter both offer perks that regular ticket holders cannot access. But these are only available one show per day each and unfortunately we weren’t organised enough to see these particular shows so I can’t tell you about them. (If you’ve experienced these, please tell me about it!)

In all honesty, I probably wouldn’t have opted for the Front of Line pass if it wasn’t generously provided to me by the park, ismply due to budgetary constaints. But, having now used it, on a busy day I can see for a certainty that it would be incredibly worth the value. You could be waiting over an hour for some rides in the regular queue and this can be cut to less than 10 with a front of line. When the park is only for 8-10 hours this is significant.

So will you have a great day if you don’t upgrade? Yes. But because you are likely only visiting for a short time your time will be limited so what comes down to is this: What is more important to you, an extra $50, or making the most of the opportunity and ensuring you can do everything you want to.

General Tips for visiting Universal Studios Hollywood

Go on a weekday if you have the option. I went on a weekday in December and while crowds surged during the middle of the day, it was quite sparse near opening (10am) and closing (7pm). Around opening and closing most people were just walking straight onto rides. In the peak time the largest wait time I saw was 20 minutes.

If rain is forecast, pack a plastic poncho. You’ll look like a ridiculous giant condom but there’s nothing worse than having rain cut your day at a theme park short.

Take time to enjoy the restaurants. The creative people at Universal have put a great deal of effort (and had a lot of fun in doing so) in creating eateries that make you believe you are inside the story. I felt this at Moe’s Tavern (less so at the extra-fictional Cletus’ Chicken), and also at the Three Broomsticks, which served hearty English foods like Shepherds pie, fish and chips, and Guinness Pie. And on a cold, rainy day, it was warm and welcoming, like any good English pub will be.

Universal is less about big roller coasters and more about immersing you in your favourite stories. So if you love movies and want to feel a part of it, Spend a day at Universal Hollywood.

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