Route 66 Day Nineteen

Santa Monica – Universal Studios Hollywood

Woke up and ordered room service for breakfast, I had a ham and cheese omelette and Sarah had the eggs Benedict.

We got ready and then headed to Universal Studios, the last time I was here was in 2000 so was interested to see how much it had changed.

We park our car and then walk over to the theme park through Universal City Walk which is a shopping and dinning area next to the park.

I decide to get the front of line passes, they are like regular tickets but mean you get to go to the front of the line on all the attractions so it will save us time and guarantee we will get to see everything.

The first thing we did was see the Waterworld stunt show and to be honest it did not seam like everything went according to plan with it, there was long periods of silences that looked like they should not be there and some of the actors did not have the type of enthusiasm you would expect.

After the show we then boarded the tram for the studio backlot tour, this is a great ride as it goes around all the sound stages on the Universal backlot, back in 2000 we even drove right past Kevin Spacey when he was outside his trailer. This time Sarah actually saw Jennifer Love Hewitt in an office but before she could point her out to me she was gone. Ghost Whisperer is filmed here so she may have been taking a break.

Also on this tour you go through the Earthquake set, Jaws set, Fast and the Furious and a load others, many of which you recognise from movies.

From here we headed down to the lower level and when on the Mummy ride, which I don’t think is as good as the Florida one as well as Jurassic Park. We then went on the Backdraft special effect show which they don’t have in Florida followed by the behind the scenes experience showing you how they do the effects in the movies.

We then go back up to the top level and watch the animal actors on stage, this follows exactly the same script as the Florida show so I could say the dialogue before the actors but it was still entertaining.

Next came the Creature from the Black Lagoon the Musical, I found out that this was a press screening and the show was not due to be launched for a few days so that was quite interesting.  But as for the show it self I did not know what to make of it, to be quite honest it was terrible and a large proportion of the audience walked out during the performance, it was not the acting that was bad, that was quite good, it was the story and how it mixed with the music. I think it was trying to be a tongue-in-cheek version of the 1950’s original set to music and filled with sexual innuendo, but it was falling well short of the mark, I really think they will need to do some work on this before it is properly released.

We also go and see Terminator 2:3D which again is the same version as the Florida one.

Finally we go to the Universal House of Horrors which is a walk through haunted house filled with actors who jump out at you, Sarah was particularly scarred by a little person dressed as Chuckie running after her, I was laughing the whole way through, Sarah wasn’t.

We leave the park and get some food at Universal city walk before going for a little drive around LA down Wilshire Blvd around Rodeo Drive before heading down Santa Monica Blvd back to the hotel. I really wish we had more time to spend here but we need to move on tomorrow up the coast. Santa Monica is on my list of places I would have a holiday home, after Florida of course.

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