Trip Report: Universal Studios Hollywood

I recently had the opportunity to check out Universal Studios Hollywood for the first time, and was even fortunate to experience the soft opening of the Wizarding World West.  Instead of giving you a play by play of my day, I’ll just give you an overview of my experience.

Tickets

Even though I was visiting in February during the slower time of year, my family and I decided to spring for front of the line passes since we were only visiting for one day and wanted to be sure that we could experience all of the park’s attractions.  These passes allow you to skip the lines once for each attraction, and also give you priority seating for the shows.  

I would highly recommend the front of the line passes for anyone, and I’ve also heard good things about the VIP tours, so be sure to check out your options before purchasing your tickets.  I would also recommend purchasing tickets online ahead of time since you might save a few bucks with the recently implemented demand pricing.

Side Note:  Ride attendants are supposed to scan the barcode on your front of the line lanyard when you enter the queue so that you can’t use the pass more than once per attraction.  Let’s just say that some attendants were more vigilant in this exercise than others, so it might be possible to use your pass more than once per attraction.  I certainly wouldn’t expect this to happen, but it’s a nice bonus if it does.

Wizarding World West

The Wizard World of Harry Potter doesn’t officially open until April 7^th, but the park is holding soft openings before that in order to train employees and work out all of the kinks before the grand opening.  I was lucky enough to experience on of these soft openings during my visit.

If you have visited Hogsmeade Village at Universal Orlando, then there won’t anything surprising about this new iteration of the land.  It’s still a highly immersive environment, and the rides, shops, and restaurants are among the best themed anywhere, but there are no significant differences between the Hollywood version and the Orlando version.  That being said, if you’re a Harry Potter fan or just a fan of theme parks in general, you will not be disappointed with the Wizarding World West.

As far as the rides are concerned, The Forbidden Journey and The Flight of the Hippogriff are certainly on par with their Orlando counterparts, if not better.  The Forbidden Journey in Hollywood features 3D video, but I didn’t feel that it added anything to the ride.  I’ve heard rumors that they’re still tweaking the video and lighting, so it might be a different experience once they dial it in.  I will say that I found the dementor sequence in the Hollywood version to be vastly superior to Orlando’s due to sheer volume of dementors the creative team decided to include.  It was awesome.  The Hogwarts castle queue was great as well.

I want to include a quick comment about the ride’s restraints.  I’m a bit on the larger size with a barrel of a chest, so over-the-shoulder restraints can be tricky at times for me.  I felt like the Hollywood restraints were a bit more forgiving than the Orlando version.  The Hollywood test seats have a green and red light, so if you can get the green light when lowering the restraint then you’re good to go.  I like this setup much better than Orlando which has a red, yellow, and green lights and can be confusing for riders that just want to know if they will fit or not.  The go, no-go, nature of the Hollywood test seats leads me to believe that the ride vehicles do not have specifically modified seats for larger guests.  This is purely speculation though, so don’t quote me on that.

As far as the rest of the land is concerned, Flight of the Hippogriff was similar to the Orlando version despite being built by a different manufacturer, the shops were very similar, the restaurants seemed the same even though I just took a quick look inside them, and I can confirm that the Butterbeer is just as delicious (even though they don’t offer the hot version at this time).  I didn’t get a chance to experience Ollivander’s, so I can’t really comment on that.

The cast members were very good at staying in character, almost to a fault.  I tried to engage a few wizards in conversation about the differences between the Hollywood and Orlando villages, but they tried to pretend like they didn’t know what I was talking about.  I understand the desire to be authentic and true to the Harry Potter world, but it was a bit annoying to be honest.  But if that’s the best complaint I can come up with, then they must be doing something right.

Side Note:  Both The Forbidden Journey and Flight of the Hippogriff participate in the front of the line program, but Ollivander’s does not.  That’s another reason to consider the VIP or front of the line tickets since those attractions will have very long lines once the land officially opens.

Other Rides

I wasn’t expecting too much from the rides at Universal Studios Hollywood since there’s a lot of overlap between the attractions at Hollywood and those offered at Orlando.  Despicable Me Minion Mayhem, The Simpsons, Shrek 4D, and Transformers are all basically the same rides except for minor differences between queues, so while I enjoyed them all I won’t spend too  much time discussing them.  You can read my Universal Orlando trip report from last year if you want my opinions about them.  The Jurassic Park River Adventure was down for refurbishment, so I won’t discuss that either.

As for the rest of the rides, I was expecting big things from the Revenge of the Mummy since I’m such a big fan of the Orlando ride.  Unfortunately I encountered a big dose of antic-appointment with this attraction.  I really loved the first half of the ride, or at least what seemed like the first half anyway.  I don’t have any quibbles with the ride, really.  It’s actually quite fun.  But it’s way too short.  It feels like an incomplete attraction.  If the coaster had been twice as long, it would have been incredible.  But when the first thought when coming back to the station is “That’s it?”, there’s something wrong.

The other attraction I was looking forward to was the park’s marquee Studio Tour and it did not disappoint.  I loved seeing the backstage areas of the actual working studio, and driving through the different sets was very cool. I especially enjoyed the War of the Worlds plane crash set. The ride portions and staged events on the tour were (mostly) great as well.  Jaws, the Bates Motel and Psycho house, Earthquake, and King Kong 3D were among my favorites.  

There were, however, two sections of the studio tour that I didn’t care for at all.  The first being when the tram crosses a flooded bridge next to a model of a ship from Peter Jackson’s King Kong.  Whoever thought it would be a good idea to flood the tram and completely soak the shoes of everyone for absolutely no reason at all should be fired.  It added absolutely nothing to the tour and only made guests angry.

The second portion of the tour that I was less than impressed with was the Fast & Furious: Supercharged section.  The acting was terrible, the dialogue was cringe worthy, and the graphics were laughable.  The studio tour is excellent and it deserves a better ending than this rotten pile of garbage.  I hope the Orlando version of this ride has nothing in common with this poor excuse for an attraction.

Shows

There are three shows at Universal Studios Hollywood: Animal Actors, Special Effects Show, and WaterWorld.  To be honest, I didn’t expect much from these shows than a nice diversion while I rested my feet for a few minutes, but I was pleasantly surprised.  They were much better than I anticipated.

Animal Actors was fun and entertaining, but then again it’s hard to go wrong when cute animals are involved.  The trainers were cute as well, but that’s another topic for another time.  The Special Effects Show highlighted some of the techniques used by movie makers to create the special effects we all know and love.  It reminded a bit of the Horror Makeup Show at Universal Orlando, but on a larger scale.  Some of the gags were predictable, but it’s still entertaining.

As good as Animal Actors and the Special Effects show are, if you only have time to see one show make sure it’s WaterWorld.  The pyrotechnics, the high flying stunts, and the exciting boat chases will keep you on the edge of your seat.  The show is even more impressive at night, so try to catch the last showing of the day if you can.

Side Note: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the front of line passes provide several perks for the shows as well.  In additional to guaranteed priority seating, select showings have exclusive content for front of the line pass holders.  For example, Animal Actors had an after show where the trainers showed off different techniques for how they train their animals.

Food

The only food and beverages items I had in the park were a regular Butterbeer from the Butterbeer cart in Hogsmeade, and a slice of pizza, Caesar salad, and Buzz Cola from Luigi’s in Springfield.  The Butterbeer was delicious as I mentioned above, the Buzz Cola was tasty, and the pizza and salad were unremarkable.  Overall, I found the food options throughout the park to be severely lacking.  There were much more interesting places to eat in CityWalk, in my opinion, so keep that in mind when looking for somewhere to find eat.

Other

The parking situation at Universal Studios Hollywood needs some improvement.  I understand this is a working studio and land space is limited, but it was very confusing as to which parking garages were open and where we were supposed to go.  Improving the signage and having people direct traffic would go a long way.

I’m also worried about the capacity of the park.  With its odd (but necessary) split-level layout and overall small footprint, I don’t think the park is ready to handle the influx of crowds the Wizarding World is going to attract.  Unfortunately there’s not a lot the park can do about it at this time, so expect longer lines if you’re visiting in the near future.

I also want to mention something that really bothered me during my trip.  When I first entered the park in the morning, there was an extremely loud band playing terrible covers of really bad pop songs.  They were playing so loud that I could not hear myself talking to the employees that were standing a foot away from me.  And that is not an exaggeration.  Needless to say it was a bad way to start my day at the park.  Universal Studios Hollywood needs to get rid of this band ASAP and replace them with anything, preferably with classic movie scores since they are, you now, an actual movie studio.

Conclusion

Universal Studios Hollywood is far from perfect, but I still had a fun day during my visit.  The Studio Tour, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and WaterWorld were the big standouts for me, and the other attractions were fun as well.  Much of the park will seem familiar if you’ve been to Universal Orlando, but it’s still worth a visit if you find yourself in Southern California and are looking for a good time.