Many people visit Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida – but there is also a Universal in the home of movies…Los Angeles.  If you’re headed for Hollywood, then you must stop by and see what Universal has to offer – including their unique Hollywood museum.

Can I get a tour of the Studios?

Yes.  The Studio Tour will let you see the sets of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Desperate Housewives and The War of the Worlds.  The Tonight Show with Conan is also filmed there.  The Studio Tour also contains an element of surprise because lots of the movies and TV programs being filmed there are not allowed to be announced online…so go and see if you get lucky!

What attractions are there?

Here are just a few to whet your appetite…

The Simpsons Ride

Readers of ThemeParkInsider.com voted this the World’s Best New Attraction for 2008.  If you love the Simpsons, this is a must-see.  The ride takes you to Krustyland, a low-budget theme park created by Krusty the Clown.  You’ll fly, float, laugh, scream and have a load of fun!

Shrek 4-D

This is the first time that an attraction has been based on an animation and involved the original cast of the film and the original production team.  You wear 3D glasses to watch this film and see characters jump right off the screen at you.  Your seat also moves to match what’s happening on screen.  A great chance to be right in the middle of a brand new Shrek film that you won’t see anywhere else!

Revenge of the Mummy Ride

This is a great ride for terrifying curves, huge drops and free-falling mummies that land inches from your face.  If you’re scared of the dark, don’t like insects, hate speed, have a fear of heights and don’t like the thought of evil spirits…but love to be scared out of your wits, then this is the ride for you.  Each car has 22 surround-sound speakers so you’re right in the action.  The producers of this ride worked closely with experts in Egyptology from the British Museum, so it’s not only horrifying – it’s historically accurate.

Jurassic Park – The Ride

If you loved the movie, you’ll love this.  Get up close and personal with a 50 foot high T. Rex and ride a raft down an 84 foot drop…

The Adventures of Curious George

Kids…and those who have never grown up…will love this crazy play area.  Experience the 500 gallon water dump and let thousands of foam balls go flying…almost more fun than you can handle!

House of Horrors

This was voted the Best Year Round Haunted Attraction in America by HauntWorld Magazine.  Do you dare enter the terrifying dark and winding maze?  You could come face to face with Frankenstein, Chucky, Wolf Man or other characters from the world’s most frightening movies!

Can we meet characters?

Yes – get your picture taken with The Simpsons, Scooby Doo and Shaggy, Shrek and Fiona, SpongeBob SquarePants, the characters from Madagascar and many, many more.

I love Theme Parks but the queues put me off…

Get yourself a Front of Line Pass.  This will give you all day admission, reserved seats at the most popular shows and priority access to all of the attractions.

When is Universal open?

Normal hours are 10 am to 6 pm on weekdays.  During the busiest times – Easter, Summer, Thanksgiving and Christmas – the park is open for longer.  To check the most up-to-date opening times, see the Park Hours Calendar on the Universal website.

Are there any height restrictions on the rides?

Yes, some have minimum height requirements:

• The Simpsons Ride:  You must be at least 40 inches tall
• Jurassic Park Ride:  You must be at least 46 inches tall
• Revenge of the Mummy Ride:  You must be at least 48 inches tall

How much are tickets and are discounts available?

A ticket for one day is $67.  For those under 48 inches tall, the discounted price is $57.  Children under the age of 3 do not need a ticket.  To see a list of all tickets, and to buy them before you visit, go to the Universal Online Ticket Store. There are often savings deals for buying ahead and there are also special deals here.  Don’t miss the special deals available for the Military.

There are so many tickets and passes…I’m confused!

Universal will help you with this.  Just enter your requirements and they will tell you which ticket or pass is best for you.

A free ticket if it rains!

The park does stay open if it’s raining but if the weather is severe, some shows may be cancelled.  However, Universal Studios is the first park ever to offer a Guaranteed Rain Check.  If the park gets over one eighth of an inch of rain by 2 pm, visitors will be offered a ‘rain check’ ticket which may be used at any time during the next 30 days.

Universal is a magical place full of excitement, thrills and entertainment for all the family.  If you’re headed to the West Coast, make sure it’s on your itinerary!

The days starts out pretty ordinary, we have breakfast at the Terrace Cafe at El Rancho Best Western and then we go to the office to find out what there is to do in Millbrae until our shuttle at 7pm. It appears there isn’t anything to do where we are so, so we think we should go and drop off the bags and go back into San Francisco to spend a few hours.

We get to the airport really early and Qantas doesn’t open until 6:45pm to take check in for our 10:40pm flight. Damn so here we are at the airport with the bags. I ask a rather gorgeous looking security guard if there is anywhere to store the bags for a few hours. He doesn’t think there but isn’t too sure because he is new on the job ,so I check with the Lufthansa check in desk and sure enough there is.

The attendant says ‘yes at the FedEx counter’ with a vague wave of her hand in the general direction down the corridor. So I go back and tell the guard, who is a bit skeptical and asks if she said that FedEx was on the floor we are on. Uh no she didn’t actually say that.

He smiles sweetly and makes a call to check on the information that we have been given.

Sure enough there is an area for leaving your baggage so we are all happy, me because we can leave the airport and the guard because he now has this information the next time someone asks.

At the FedEx counter I ask for the cost and get tossed a sheet of paper with various charges. So okay, this isn’t helping much, what is it going to cost to leave two cases and a small carry on bag

A grumpy older attendant says “I don’t know till I see the size an’ you gotta bring em here cause I aint comin’ dere”. Oh for goodness sake you only have to tell me how this works. A young attendant then comes over and takes the bags, scans them and asks for $40.oo.  Gulp. Okay cheap at the price if I can offload the bags.

Next stop the information counter to find out about catching the BART into San Francisco. The attendants get into a full on discussion about the costs and in the end I thank them and leave, deciding to hang around the airport.

So we plug in the laptop at one of the many points around the terminal and spend the rest of the day in the airport.

Flight QF74

Finally 6:45pm arrives and we head off to check in. We have been given seats in totally different areas but fortunately the attendant changes our seating so that we can sit together – in row 73 the very last seats on the side aisle of the aircraft.

We sit on the tarmac for quite some time and finally its time to go.  The entertainment system for the last 10 rows in our section doesn’t work, great 14 and half hours flight with no magazines, books or movies.

I end up watching a movie minus the sound on another passengers screen 3 rows up.

About an hour into the flight the captain comes on and advises that there is a technical problem with engine number 4. The de-icer isn’t working which is okay while we are flying over the US but will be a really big problem when we approach Australia as the engine will ice up.  I am not too sure I like this age of full disclosure of what’s happening.

We are going to fly for a bit longer and see if the problem fixes itself. Of course it doesn’t and the captain decides that rather than risk the lives of everyone on board he is going to divert to Los Angeles where the plane can be serviced.

So at around 4:15am we arrive in Los Angeles and it looks like a scene out of a movie, with fire trucks, police and various other safety vehicles on the tarmac.

Qantas have arranged for us to stay at the Hilton hotel and we line up to catch the bus to the hotel. I have to say that Qantas staff handle the whole situation in an efficient  and professional manner. I am very impressed with how quickly everything is organized.   Our baggage stays on the plane for the flight in the morning once the engineers have sorted out the problem.

We line up in the almost empty airport terminal to wait for further instructions.

We have a Vietnamese lady from Liverpool, Sydney in our little group, who is a bit bemused what is happening and we are not sure that she speaks English  and fortunately we manage to find someone who speaks Vietnamese to help her.

In the meantime have hooked up with Maureen, who is on her way home to the Central Coast of NSW from visiting her daughter and family in Edmonton, Canada.  She is hanging out for a cigarette and just wants to get home after 5 weeks traveling.

Maureen is very friendly and chatty which helps the time to go quite quickly, and tells me about her trip and the enormous shopping center in Edmonton which I make a mental note to add  to the list of places to visit.

At the Hilton we are given vouchers for both dinner and breakfast and check in is relatively quick considering the large number of passengers to be processed.

The staff on this flight are efficient and friendly and all go out of their way to assure passengers that everything is fine and that arrangements are all in hand.

We are told that after breakfast we are to make our way out to the airport in the shuttles that run every 20 minutes. Nobody bothers with dinner, it is getting onto 5am and everyone just wants to go to bed for a couple of hours.

The hotel room is quite ordinary, not at all what I was expecting, but the bed is deliciously soft and the linen is excellent quality with a soft, smooth feel to it. The pure white towels are also thick, soft and cuddly. There is a clock radio where you can plug in your iPod and you can set the alarm so that it wakes you with either a buzz, the radio or an assortment of music.

There is a coffee maker so Val makes a cup of tea before we shower and go to bed. I set the alarm for 7am, I just want to make sure that we don’t miss the flight home.

We meet the representative in the lobby and are given new boarding passes. Then after a delicious buffet breakfast of scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, toast, bacon and sausage links followed by fresh, juicy fruit, we head off to the assembly area to get the shuttle. Everyone is a bit bleary eyed as we have all had just a couple of hours sleep.

At the airport I can see our plane still in the fix it up area, hmm not sure this is a good sign. After a while the plane makes its way to the pick up point and we are able to board.

We have all be given the same seats as we started of with originally and sure enough my entertainment system now works.

By being at the back of the aircraft we are next to the pub corner where people congregate to stretch their legs and congregate, quite noisily at times.

The flight is uneventful and we land in Sydney at 7:35pm and rush through customs to get onto the transfer flight to Brisbane. There are a half a dozen of us going to Brisbane and the plane has been held up giving us time to transfer from International to the Domestic airport.

Jurgon and Stacy pick us up at 10:35pm and only another 45 minutes and we are home.

The Hilton Hotel Los Angeles:

The public areas are beautiful but I felt that the guest areas are rather dated and worn looking.  The furnishings in the room are quite dated, but the beds are extremely comfortable as are the pillows and the bedding.  In the bathroom there are soft fluffy towels. So the hotel is a bit of an enigma  with high end bed and bath items lower end furnishings.

Chandelier in the Entrance Area

Staircase – Hilton Hotel Los Angeles

Hallway in Hilton Hotel Los Angeles

These are the really comfortable beds in the Hilton Hotel Los Angeles

Computer Desk Hilton Hotel Los Angeles

TV and cabinet

Bathroom

Shower

After arriving back at the pier we walked up Jefferson and had lunch at Johnny Rocket. Just love eating at this diner.

Then it was back to the hotel before heading off to Hyde St to catch the cable car.  The weather became very overcast and we had just purchased a 3 day ticket for $18.00 when it started to rain. We joined the queue and at the start it wasn’t too bad but as we shuffled along the sky opened and it began to pour.

We were both drenched, well so was everyone else except for those smart enough to have brought umbrellas. Paula decided she was wet enough and set off back to the hotel. I figured that as I was already soaked through I might as well stay in the queue, more so because I wanted to get the Ipod speaker finally sorted out with Apple.

 I am short and so was sheltered by the umbrella being held by the gentleman standing behind me.  We started chatting and eventually he and his wife decided to go back to their hotel.  His place was taken by a really tall man who I don’t think even noticed me down by his kneecap. But he inadvertently sheltered me with his enormous golf umbrella until it was time to get on the cable car.

Finally the cable car arrived at the turnaround. Now this is an interesting exercise, the cable car pulls up onto a turntable arrangement and two men actually manually turn the cable car around until it is the right position to set off again. 

The Hyde St cable car drop off point is on the corner of Hyde and Market St, so you get off right in the shopping area.  Anyway I was on a mission so off to the Apple store I went.

I explained how this was my third visit to the store and the speakers still weren’t working with my Ipod Nano. The salesman assured me it should work after all it said so on the box.  We bantered too and fro for a while each taking a firm stand.  Eventually another salesperson chimed in and said, “Oh no, the Belkin Speaker won’t work with the Nano”.  And then the two salesmen had a discussion  along the lines of  – Yes it will, No it won’t.  Finally I got my money back.

I walked back to the cable car stop and the queue was really long so I set off up the hill and thought about heading out to Circuit City in Van Ness St, but once I arrived at Union Square I decided to return back to the hotel as I was dripping wet.

When the cable arrived the only space was on the outside hanging onto the rail. This was fun and I felt just like a kid again. Once we reached Chinatown, a few people had hopped off and I got an outside seat.  

 Now what I didn’t realise was that this was the Market – Powell St cable car not the Market – Hyde St cable, so when we reached the final stop I had no idea where I was other than I was not to far from the water.

So off I set, without a map, trying to identify any local landmark that may give me some idea of where I was. 

 It was quite funny really as I turned out to be about a block away from the street our hotel was in, I recognised the corner souvenier stall and the corner shop with some relief. 

The Holiday Inn Express is situated in an excellent location close to many tourist attractions, bus and cable routes and there are many local restaurants and souvenier shops in the same block. So we found it really handy.

The Powell St stop is nowhere near as busy as the Hyde St cable stop so my advice is to go to Powell St if you want to catch the cable car without having to queue for absolutely ages.

The cable cars are rickety and not terribly comfortable, but it is something you have to experience.

Up once again at 6am to go to Las Vegas. It is quite cool and raining, in fact it has been cool and raining since we got to LA.

The hotel have arranged a car for us because the shuttle buses don’t start running until 9am and we have an early start. The ride in the car (which cost us $55! plus a $5.00 tip) is way more comfortable than the shuttle bus and our driver John is very friendly and chatty. We spend the time chatting about everthing from the lousy weather to travel. It turns out that John is an avid traveller and we have visited a lot of the same countries such as Italy and Hawaii.

Southwest Airlines is another new experience.  They do not allocate seats but simply issue you with a boarding pass that has a group number and when your group is called you get on the plane and just select where you want to sit on the plane. At least that’s how we think it works. Everyday we experience something new.

It turns out we were almost right when a lovely lady named Michelle comes onto the intercom and explains the convoluted system.

So here is how it works:  There are poles with numbers on – 1-5 , 6-10, 11-16 etc,  and another pole with the alpha A B & C. You check your boarding pass for your numer and alpha, then when your group alpha is called you line up in order of the numeric on your boarding pass. I had B10 and Paula had B6 so we were separated by persons 7 ,8 & 9. Apparently this doesn’t mean that these are your allocated seats, when you board you sit were you like or wherever there is a seat avalable. At least we think that is how it works – will know more once we board.

Families with small children are permitted to board after group A passengers and before the passengers in group B.

We decided to have Mc Donalds for breakfast as we doubt there will be any on board service and we were too early to eat at the hotel. McDonalds in LA tastes much like back home, unlike New York where they serve the big breakfast with sweet biscuits like scones.

Okay back to the plane, because there is no seat allocation there are heaps of single middle seats. Single fares have filled up the window and aisle seats for a number of rows so this makes it awkward for people travelling together to get adjoining seats near the front. We head straight down to the back of the plane where there are plenty of adjoining seats.

Southwest is like Virgin Blue in Australia where you can purchase drinks on board.  The trip is only an hour and a half so there is no food service except for packet of peanuts and a water or juice.

The flights are reasonably priced and apart from the ticketing system which actually slows down the boarding process, we would with Southwest in the future.