Universal Studios Hollywood – VIP Tour
Bo and I had so much fun on our solo trip to California in July. We flew into Burbank so we could spend the day at Universal Studios Hollywood and we did the VIP tour. This was a lot of fun and a great way for us to learn about the park and compare it to Universal Orlando Resort, where we feel like we are already experts after all of our visits there!
VIP check-in was easy and the day starts with a buffet breakfast. We enjoyed sitting on the balcony and watching everyone enter the park while we ate and prepared for the day. After breakfast, we headed to Secret Life of Pets. This is the only ride that is not at Universal Orlando Resort as well. It was cute!
Our next stop was the Studio Tour! This is the biggest difference between the California and Florida parks and the highlight of the VIP tour. Universal Studio Hollywood is part of a working studio, with 300 acres devoted to the studio and only about 100 acres for the park. In comparison, Universal Orlando’s two main parks are over 400 acres!
Our studio tour lasted nearly two hours and we were able to exit the tour vehicle to walk around, explore, take photos, and learn more about all of the sets. It was a very interesting tour and Bo was a great age to appreciate it. The War of the Worlds set was his favorite.
After the studio tour, Bo rode The Simpsons with the rest of our group (its one I skip due to motion sickness) and then we headed to our VIP lunch. The food was quite good and they had many different options and lots of desserts. A foodie won’t be sad by the food offered on the VIP tour and for guests like Bo and myself, that’s important! During lunch, there were also character walk-throughs. We saw Doc Brown and Lucy!
After lunch, we headed to the Waterworld show. It was neat and has some neat effects. And then it was finally time for Hogsmeade, where we rode the Forbidden Journey and Flight of Hippogriff.
After Hogsmeade, we headed to the lower lot for Transformers, The Mummy, and Jurassic World. This is also where the entrance to Super Nintendo World will be when it opens (and we are all excited for it!!). The Mummy is completely different from Orlando and Jurassic World is better in Hollywood than the Orlando version.
After Jurassic World, our tour was over (it was around 3:30 pm by this point) and we had the rest of the day with Unlimited Express to do whatever we wanted! Butterbeer was at the top of our list!
We saw the Kung Fu Panda show (similar to Shrek in Orlando with different theming) and we also took the time to see the Animal Actors show – which was super cute! They have a very similar show in Orlando that is also worth seeing if you’re an animal lover or have animal loving kiddos.
We left the park before it was dark, but we were able to see and do everything. It was truly a wonderful day and Bo was the perfect companion. He let me take plenty of photos and really enjoyed the tour too. We are already planning to go back with Mike, Clara, and Anna when Super Nintendo Land opens!
