Hollywood from Long Beach

[mjmarshall1510]

Our flight lands at Long Beach at noon on a Thursday. We are renting a car and thinking about going up to Hollywood for the second half of that day straight from the airport and looking for advice on that. I think we are interested in seeing the Walk of Fame and the observatory. They look close by each other. Can we accomplish both in that amount of time or would we be trying to do too much? Is it within reason to think we could also stop at one of the studios, just to see it from the outside, on the way to the Walk of Fame? Everything looks somewhat close on a map. And what's the deal with the studios anyways? My children are under the age that is required to do a tour so that would not be an option. Are we able to at least park and walk to get a picture at the gates? Is there any way to see the outside of that Disney HQ building with the seven dwarfs on it? Any good places to see the WB water tower? Anything else that you would recommend for this trip?

 

[Bad Pink Tink 2.0]

Our flight lands at Long Beach at noon on a Thursday. We are renting a car and thinking about going up to Hollywood for the second half of that day straight from the airport and looking for advice on that. I think we are interested in seeing the Walk of Fame and the observatory. They look close by each other. Can we accomplish both in that amount of time or would we be trying to do too much?

The Walk of Fame stars are on Hollywood Boulevard, which is about 1 mile long. The part of that street the most people want to go to is where The Chines Theater is, the cross section of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue. There is a mall there called Ovation Hollywood and you can park in the parking structure and then walk around. It would be about an hours drive from Long Beach airport.

Griffith Observatory is about a 30 minute drive from Ovation Hollywood Mall.

Is it within reason to think we could also stop at one of the studios, just to see it from the outside, on the way to the Walk of Fame? Everything looks somewhat close on a map. And what's the deal with the studios anyways? My children are under the age that is required to do a tour so that would not be an option. Are we able to at least park and walk to get a picture at the gates? Is there any way to see the outside of that Disney HQ building with the seven dwarfs on it? Any good places to see the WB water tower? Anything else that you would recommend for this trip?

Short answer no to all of your questions.

Ive done all the studio tours.
The studios that have public tours are

1. Warner Bros in Burbank
2. Paramount on Melrose Avenue
3. Sony Pictures in Culver City

• WB Water Tower is located inside the property. When you do the tour, you are on a golf cart buggy and drive past it on the way to the backlot.
• Paramount Studios , the famous arch way which used to be the main entrance is now located inside the property. When you do the tour, you are on a golf cart buggy and its one of the stops where you can get out and take photos.
• Disney Studios are not open to the public and dont have studio tours like the others. You can only go there on private tours like on Adventures By Disney. The only thing you can see is the main entrance arch at West Almeda Avenue.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Besides the Adventures by Disney tours to the Studio, Disney Studio tours are available for D23 Gold members, they don't run every day and require booking usually a few months in advance. You can drive around the outside of the Studio and see the main gate, catch a glimpse of the water tower and get a decent view of the new Animation building and hat (although that is on a pretty busy street). I don't believe it is possible to get a decent shot of the building with the Dwarfs on it.

 

[LKing]

Regarding Disney Studio tours, General D23 membership is free. General members pay $50 pp more for a tour than Gold members.

I understand that your kids are too young for the tour. The seven dwarfs building are referring to is where I have the yellow line on this picture. This Google Maps image shows the view of the building from W. Alameda Av - approximately where I drew a red star on the picture.