Hollywood Movie Set Tour and Disneyland

[KJZO1]

What tours have you taken with kids? How long does it take to drive from Disneyland to Hollywood? Any details of a tour would be great!!

 

[YellowMickeyPonchos]

I have a couple of questions that you will need to answer before you can plan a movie tour.

Are you looking for actual, serious studio tours, like Warner Bros or Paramount, or are you looking for local places known to be used as sets? (I'm assuming studios.)

How old are your children? Several studios have minimum age restrictions on their tour guests. WB is 8 or 10. Not sure about Paramount. These tours are usually 1-2 hours.

If you want one that all/most of you can go on (small children might be scared), Universal Studios Hollywood Theme Park has an "Interactive" tour of the actual Universal Studios backlot. The hitch is that you are taken into several special effects areas, as part of the tram tour, that may induce fear in little ones - their motto has been "put's you in the middle of the movies". Theme park admission is required.

If you want to see the local area of Hollywood, then a Starline Tour would be the thing. Small children would be bored, but on the van drives around the area, guides point out several places used in the movies. These leave from Hollywood and Highland and take 3 hours.

You should allow about 50-90 minutes to get there (depending on time of day).

 

[KJZO1]

Wow, thank you!! Our son will be 13 when we go so hopefully it will be something that interests him. We definately want to see a real studio set. Maybe even try to get into the audience of something?

 

[krispin41]

My DH and I did the VIP experience at Universal, it had front of the line passes for all the rides (multi-use) catered lunch, and the Studio Tour we got to walk around some of the outdoor sets (the regular tour doesn't let you walk around) as well as the indoor set of Parenthood. And a small tour of the prop warehouse. Our tour was only 23 people. Oh and we got to see a few shows too.

 

[papamouse1]

My DH and I did the VIP experience at Universal, it had front of the line passes for all the rides (multi-use) catered lunch, and the Studio Tour we got to walk around some of the outdoor sets (the regular tour doesn't let you walk around) as well as the indoor set of Parenthood. And a small tour of the prop warehouse. Our tour was only 23 people. Oh and we got to see a few shows too.

Krispin... I am jealous! I wanted to do this tour so bad, but we had already purchased CityPass tickets, and Universal doesn't offer any upgrade. So we would have to buy VIP tickets separately, and at $249 per person on top of what we already paid for tickets, we will have to pass

OP... Universal is a simplified way to get a little Hollywood experience. You can try to get into a show at Universal IF they are filming that day and if it is open to guests. If you are staying at DL, you could consider ding a bus tour through AllAnaheim Tours. They offer multiple bus tours that will take you from Anaheim up to Hollywood so you can avoid LA traffic driving... I can't give you personal insight on them since I haven't used them, but just another source to look at.

 

[krispin41]

Oh I missed the part about the City Pass. Although I seem to remember people upgrading at the booth. Good luck, and let us know what you figure out.

 

[papamouse1]

I actually called them direct to see if I could upgrade my CityPass. You can upgrade to the "front of the line" at the booth, but they made it very clear, there is no upgrade available for the VIP. She even put me on hold to go find a supervisor just to make sure. I may still try to upgrade to VIP the day we are there... for sure we are going to try and get the front of the line upgrade