What time is it there?!

We picked Universal Studios over Disneyland, partly because everyone goes to Disneyland and partly because we have decided that we will go to the new one in Hong Kong in 2006. At our age, one visit every 5 years to Disneyland is enough. So, armed with a back pack of food and drink for the day we headed off. Our first encounter was the parking attendant who was fleecing the unsuspecting tourist $10 just to park the car. This was on top of the $55 we were later to be charged as entry fee. We were also acutely aware of signs informing us that our bags would be subject to search and no food except that for babies is allowed to be taken into the park. This means that you had to pay the exorbitant prices inside for junk food on top of the near fortune you have already paid just to get this far. So we opted for an ‘all you can eat’ package for one ....... You aren’t allowed to share, but Nikky strangely developed some severe food allergies and could not have one! ...... and both of us proceeded to try to eat the park out of all the food they had, whilst also saving a bit for the next day too .... bags aren’t searched on the way out!

Despite being told many times that Universal Studios is the largest working filming lot in LA and that there were live shoots of Desperate Housewives going on, we didn’t encounter anyone on our tour of the recording areas ...... not that we would have recognised anyone from the show as we don’t watch it but I am sure someone would have pointed anyone out for us! Anyway it was quite interesting to see the Jaws set (despite its’ age), King Kong and the Bates Motel from Psycho.

After a few cuddles with some well known kiddies characters (apologies to our older audience who are a little confused at this stage!) we headed off to Jurassic Park, another little rollercoaster type ride which Mark also hated and The Mummy Returns ride which Nikky went to on her own! It was in the dark and backwards .... this would have been off the hate scale for Mark.

We saw a couple of 3D shows which had been developed to 4D by the inclusion of moving seats and water being squirted in your face from the seat in front (when Donkey in Shrek sneezes for example). These were fun.

The Waterworld show (based on the movie but thankfully nowhere near as long) was a great demonstration of how the whole pyrotechnics thing works. Nikky hasn’t seen the movie or heard of all the controversy about the cost to make it and the total box office flop it was, so all this passed her by! But, despite this, it was a good show.