Why yes, going to Universal Studios is part of the “win a chance to go to the USA” bit in N.E.Mation. Not only that, we got on the FREAKING VIP TOUR! GASP! GASPTASTIC MAX.
A note.
If you are ever thinking of going to Universal Studios in Los Angeles aka Universal City aka where they freaking make the shows and movies, I would advise you to get the VIP tour tickets.
They’re much more expensive than the regular tickets but it is so verily worth it since you finish EVERYTHING in one day plus get catered food and exclusive access to some places with it.
If you’re just going to be there for one day and not to return to Universal until years later or something, just get the VIP tour tickets.
Another note: This is going to have quite a lot of pictures so if you want to see bigger details, just click on them and they’ll enlarge!
With that, let’s begin.
HELLO THERE RED CARPET. I walk on you like a star that I am, walking awaaay I go, into Universal Studios! I haven’t gone to the one at Sentosa but here I am at LA first!
Point upwards if you’re a VIP! YEAH, YEAH!
Le fireplace. Our timeslot begins in the morning and they’ve breakfast foods such as buns, jams, juices, coffee or tea… It was good. You don’t have to eat so much though for there’d be a lunch catered too.
The VIP experience lounge is where you wait for your guide and chill out.
Before you enter the room, vintage movie posters line the way and there are display cases of props like blood splattered shoes from Heroes (Save the cheerleader, save the world!).
Our guide of the day was Tim and he’s cool with all sorts of behind the scenes facts.
I hope you guys recognize what was playing on the TV.
If not, then GO WATCH ALL THE MOVIES OF BACK TO THE FUTURE.
Well, watch it after reading this post, okay?
We got out of the VIP room and headed towards where our special tram was! Cameos in my pictures if you can spot them, besides the students and their teacher, we have two people from Animagine and one from Nexus (plus me of course).
It was easy to be distracted and stray away from your group since Spongebob was chasing a kid around, props from various movies were all around (that’s Mr Bean’s car from his movie to Paris!) and a ton of mascots.
Once we moved away from the crowd and to OUR special tram, we headed towards the studios! We’re on the tour track now, you can’t walk on the road for this since you need to be on a tram.
 
And then we drove away from a crash. HAH, YEAH RIGHT.
That’s a set from War of the Worlds and it really is a real plane (apparently shipping to the studio was super expensive).
Well, the first part of the tour was to the studios, no pictures of the soundroom but we got access to it to look see. The foley room and the editing room. We also got onto a set of Parenthood.
The details are so amazing because the set and props people made the house looked lived in even though on camera, you might not see all the details.
Then the second part of the tour after the studios, we got onto fake towns and sets!
FAKE TOWN USA! And other places. The first is Tortuga from Pirates of the Carribean, the middle one is the BACK TO THE FUTURE SET! Apparently with the clock removed, it is now… THE GHOST WHISPERER SET. The last is fake New York in which Spider-Man goes wooshing around on his webs.
Sets have removable parts. Ok, to us they’re not THAT easily removable but it’s removable enough to change the signs, spruce up a bit of the plants etc and it looks like some other place!
We walked from New York, to a Western, to Europe and to the past.
Only VIP Tours let you walk on the sets while the regular ones will only let you stay on the tram with everyone else.
After going through other tram only driven sets, escaping King Kong (that bit is really cool) and through fire, water and dinosaurs, it was lunch time! By the way, really, keep your camera close to you.
There really is fire and water. You can feel the heat scorching as the flames fwoosh up and get wet when dinosaurs spit at you or when a flash flood occurs.
Lunch is so beautiful, it is a catered buffet lunch. I chose this but there’s a lot more food, I just tend to really like cheese plus their grilled vegetables.
Plus, you get this view if you look past the railings. So high up and hilly.
After lunch, we get to go on the rides! Woooh. This is Krustyland! By the way, since all of us had the VIP Tour badges, we skipped ALL THE LINES AND GOT TO THE FRONT.
No waiting at all.
The Kwik-E-Mart is a real store and well, it’s time to run around and get into the rides! What rides? ALL THE RIDES! Our group got first dibs in all of it anyway.
The samoyed in the last pic is from the animal show, all the animals trained are from shelters!
Also, if you watched The Proposal, the samoyed is that puppy when Sandra Bullock screamed at the eagle to take the dog. It was a really funny animal show.
Our last bit for the tour was the Waterworld show! It looks a bit more fire than water here but it’s a really cool stunt show summarizing the whole movie in minutes.
You should watch the movie though, I like the storyline when it first came out. Since we had a bit of time left, we went to the Shrek 4D show too and then just shopping for souvenirs.
That’s it. WE COMPLETED THE WHOLE STUDIO. All the rides and shows. It was so informative since we leaned how the shows were filmed and playing around in the rides were fun.
So evening time and we had dinner at Citywalk which is just outside of the studio. You just had to walk some streets away since the whole area is called Universal City.
Random dancing by people there. We eventually had dinner at a cafe thing by Wolfgang Puck. The temperature was much cooler then so it was good if you had a light jacket or a long sleeved shirt at least.
We headed back to our hotel and here’s what I got at Universal! Heh, next post will be up on Friday, that’ll be a relatively short one since the one on Monday will be about… OUR DISNEYLAND TRIP. Wooooh.
