Neon Cactus
Old Run Disney Addict
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2016
I grew up in Southern California and was fortunate to go about once a year to Disneyland, Universal Studios, Knotts and Magic Mountain. Now that I live in Dallas, I generally focus on Disneyland or Knotts Halloween Haunt when I go back and it had been about 10 years since I'd been to Universal in Hollywood. I've been to Florida a couple of times since then, but it's even been a few years since I've been there. When I saw that Universal was doing a Minion themed 5k as an inaugural event for their Running Universal division, and it worked out that I was able to get cheap airfare and a free hotel night at the Universal Hilton, I was in.
I really knew very little about what to expect for the run. The map they gave was pretty basic and they didn't have packet pick up info until a couple of weeks prior to the race. The information they did give was that they would have packet pick up Thursday or Friday, but didn't list times for a while. I made sure to fly out Thursday night so I could get my packet. They ultimately had an option to pick the packets up the early morning of the race. So I flew out Thursday night and a friend picked me up at the airport. I was able to get a great deal on airfare into Burbank, which is much smaller than LA Airport and much closer to Universal. So we went to Tommy's, my favorite restaurant in LA. If you haven't been there before, it's a local chain of greasy chili burgers, but it's great. Several locations are open 24 hours and they're often packed at 2 or 3 in the morning. I got in close to 8 pm and really just needed a basic hotel fairly close to Universal, so I found a hotel in North Hollywood on Hotwire for a good price and my friend dropped me off there. He had to work the next day, so I was on my own for a while.
Friday morning, I took an Uber to the Universal Hilton around 7:30 AM. They had a room ready but wanted to charge me $25, so I just left my bag with them and went up to the park. The park didn't open until 10, and because I bought my ticket online, I could get their early entry, which was at 9:30. I wandered around the Citywalk shops and only a few were open for breakfast, so I went back to the park area about half an hour before we got in. Then it started to rain. I was so happy I was in sunny Southern California. And there wasn't a whole lot of cover in the area right outside the gates so quite a few people crammed into a very small space with an overhang right by the gates. And of course, once the park opened and we had an option to buy a poncho or have more cover, it stopped raining and the rest of the day was actually nice. Because it had been so long since my last visit, the only two rides (besides the tram tour) that had been there before were the Simpsons and the Water World show.
I downloaded their app while we waited and I had this great plan made up to whip through the rides and shows...and then on their app I saw they staggered their rides, so that their three most popular rides didn't open until 11. So we got in the park and they escorted everyone to the Harry Potter area, which was the only area open until 10. So I quickly got on the Forbidden Journey ride. I'm usually very good with motion rides but forgot how dizzy that ride makes me. So of course when I got to the end, they asked if I wanted to stay on and ride it again. That would have wrecked my day, so I went instead to the Flight of the Hippogriff, basically a kiddie coaster but with a cool view of Hagrid's Hut.
By then, it was close to 10, when the next group of attractions would be opening. They have a Kung Fu Panda motion theater, a film where the seats move with it. I got in there right as it opened.
Close to that was the Walking Dead attraction. It's a walk through experience, very much like a Haunted House maze around Halloween, and was very well done. They do a very good job of distracting you with video screens while a live person sneaks up behind you.
The only other ride open at that time was the Simpsons ride, so I got in line for that and it was pretty long, so the other rides opened while I waited. Two of the rides, Transformers and The Mummy are in their lower backlot, so you take four very steep escalators to get there. Transformers is very similar to the Spiderman ride in Orlando, where the vehicles move while the action is on screens on the side. I haven't seen the movies, so I didn't really know the storyline, but it was still fun. The Mummy was great, and it had a pretty long line, but they had single rider, so I got on in under 10 minutes. It was my favorite ride in the park. After that I went back up the escalators and decided to do the tram tour. It's an hour long tour and is the flagship attraction of the Studios. They take you down to the backlot and past a lot of movie sets, and included is three different soundstages. One is King Kong, one is Earthquake and the third is the Fast and the Furious. Quite honestly, I was disappointed in the tour. There were a lot of experiences they no longer do (the collapsing bridge, the parting of the Red Sea and the Flash Flood) and both Kong and Fast and the Furious are similar in that they are all on giant movie screens on both sides of the tram. Earthquake has some good effects. The other thing I didn't like was that the tour always primarily featured a guide who talked about everything you were seeing. They still had the guide, but they didn't talk as much and they had a lot of scenes on video, which then distracted us from seeing the actual props and sets.
So I hadn't eaten yet, so when I got back, I had to get a Homer Simpson giant donut.
I then realized that if I ate the donut really fast, I could make the next Water World show, so I did just make it. The show is corny, but has some good stunts and effects. When I got out of there, the only things I hadn't done yet were two shows and the Despicable Me ride. That had a 40 minute wait and the two shows were on a break until late afternoon, so I went back to Hogsmeade and got some candy at Honeyduke's and some butterbeer and then took a break. A great thing about the Hilton is that it's about a five minute walk from the entrance. It's on a steep hill, so they have a tram, but I never saw the tram, so I never bothered to wait. I walked to the hotel, checked in and got my room and got my paperwork and walked back up the hill to check in for the race.
There was no expo for the race (then again it's only a 5k race) and it was very easy to check in. They were on the lower level of a parking garage right in the middle of City Walk. When I got there, there wasn't a wait to get my bib and then I just had to go to a separate station to get a Minion bag with my shirt. They also had a merchandise cart if you wanted to buy shirts, hats, jackets, water bottles or other souvenirs.
So I walked back to my room, dropped the stuff off, I'd been charging my phone while I went to check in and then went back to the park. I saw the Special Effects Show, which was better than I expected, and immediately after that and next door was the Animal Actors show, so I saw that. Despicable Me had been 40 minutes wait still, so I was going to pass, but then the last Water World show started and most of the ride lines emptied out and I walked on Despicable Me. So I was able to do all of the rides and shows, so after that, I just enjoyed seeing what characters were out. They had Krusty the Clown, the Mummy, Shaggy and Scooby Doo and the girls from Despicable Me.
I had some friends meeting me at City Walk, so I headed out. I passed Dracula near the main entrance and he was talking to two young boys wearing Disney shirts with Mickey on them and I heard him say so why do you have a rodent on your shirt? I went to dinner and had some beer at Karl Strauss. The Simpsons Donut and butterbeer were the only things I'd eaten all day, so my stomach was happy to have real food. We saw a few runners there but otherwise City Walk was very quiet compared to every other time I've been there. So I ended up calling it a night around 11, with a 3:30 wake up call looming.
NEXT: MINION 5K
I really knew very little about what to expect for the run. The map they gave was pretty basic and they didn't have packet pick up info until a couple of weeks prior to the race. The information they did give was that they would have packet pick up Thursday or Friday, but didn't list times for a while. I made sure to fly out Thursday night so I could get my packet. They ultimately had an option to pick the packets up the early morning of the race. So I flew out Thursday night and a friend picked me up at the airport. I was able to get a great deal on airfare into Burbank, which is much smaller than LA Airport and much closer to Universal. So we went to Tommy's, my favorite restaurant in LA. If you haven't been there before, it's a local chain of greasy chili burgers, but it's great. Several locations are open 24 hours and they're often packed at 2 or 3 in the morning. I got in close to 8 pm and really just needed a basic hotel fairly close to Universal, so I found a hotel in North Hollywood on Hotwire for a good price and my friend dropped me off there. He had to work the next day, so I was on my own for a while.
Friday morning, I took an Uber to the Universal Hilton around 7:30 AM. They had a room ready but wanted to charge me $25, so I just left my bag with them and went up to the park. The park didn't open until 10, and because I bought my ticket online, I could get their early entry, which was at 9:30. I wandered around the Citywalk shops and only a few were open for breakfast, so I went back to the park area about half an hour before we got in. Then it started to rain. I was so happy I was in sunny Southern California. And there wasn't a whole lot of cover in the area right outside the gates so quite a few people crammed into a very small space with an overhang right by the gates. And of course, once the park opened and we had an option to buy a poncho or have more cover, it stopped raining and the rest of the day was actually nice. Because it had been so long since my last visit, the only two rides (besides the tram tour) that had been there before were the Simpsons and the Water World show.
I downloaded their app while we waited and I had this great plan made up to whip through the rides and shows...and then on their app I saw they staggered their rides, so that their three most popular rides didn't open until 11. So we got in the park and they escorted everyone to the Harry Potter area, which was the only area open until 10. So I quickly got on the Forbidden Journey ride. I'm usually very good with motion rides but forgot how dizzy that ride makes me. So of course when I got to the end, they asked if I wanted to stay on and ride it again. That would have wrecked my day, so I went instead to the Flight of the Hippogriff, basically a kiddie coaster but with a cool view of Hagrid's Hut.
By then, it was close to 10, when the next group of attractions would be opening. They have a Kung Fu Panda motion theater, a film where the seats move with it. I got in there right as it opened.
Close to that was the Walking Dead attraction. It's a walk through experience, very much like a Haunted House maze around Halloween, and was very well done. They do a very good job of distracting you with video screens while a live person sneaks up behind you.
The only other ride open at that time was the Simpsons ride, so I got in line for that and it was pretty long, so the other rides opened while I waited. Two of the rides, Transformers and The Mummy are in their lower backlot, so you take four very steep escalators to get there. Transformers is very similar to the Spiderman ride in Orlando, where the vehicles move while the action is on screens on the side. I haven't seen the movies, so I didn't really know the storyline, but it was still fun. The Mummy was great, and it had a pretty long line, but they had single rider, so I got on in under 10 minutes. It was my favorite ride in the park. After that I went back up the escalators and decided to do the tram tour. It's an hour long tour and is the flagship attraction of the Studios. They take you down to the backlot and past a lot of movie sets, and included is three different soundstages. One is King Kong, one is Earthquake and the third is the Fast and the Furious. Quite honestly, I was disappointed in the tour. There were a lot of experiences they no longer do (the collapsing bridge, the parting of the Red Sea and the Flash Flood) and both Kong and Fast and the Furious are similar in that they are all on giant movie screens on both sides of the tram. Earthquake has some good effects. The other thing I didn't like was that the tour always primarily featured a guide who talked about everything you were seeing. They still had the guide, but they didn't talk as much and they had a lot of scenes on video, which then distracted us from seeing the actual props and sets.
So I hadn't eaten yet, so when I got back, I had to get a Homer Simpson giant donut.
I then realized that if I ate the donut really fast, I could make the next Water World show, so I did just make it. The show is corny, but has some good stunts and effects. When I got out of there, the only things I hadn't done yet were two shows and the Despicable Me ride. That had a 40 minute wait and the two shows were on a break until late afternoon, so I went back to Hogsmeade and got some candy at Honeyduke's and some butterbeer and then took a break. A great thing about the Hilton is that it's about a five minute walk from the entrance. It's on a steep hill, so they have a tram, but I never saw the tram, so I never bothered to wait. I walked to the hotel, checked in and got my room and got my paperwork and walked back up the hill to check in for the race.
There was no expo for the race (then again it's only a 5k race) and it was very easy to check in. They were on the lower level of a parking garage right in the middle of City Walk. When I got there, there wasn't a wait to get my bib and then I just had to go to a separate station to get a Minion bag with my shirt. They also had a merchandise cart if you wanted to buy shirts, hats, jackets, water bottles or other souvenirs.
So I walked back to my room, dropped the stuff off, I'd been charging my phone while I went to check in and then went back to the park. I saw the Special Effects Show, which was better than I expected, and immediately after that and next door was the Animal Actors show, so I saw that. Despicable Me had been 40 minutes wait still, so I was going to pass, but then the last Water World show started and most of the ride lines emptied out and I walked on Despicable Me. So I was able to do all of the rides and shows, so after that, I just enjoyed seeing what characters were out. They had Krusty the Clown, the Mummy, Shaggy and Scooby Doo and the girls from Despicable Me.
I had some friends meeting me at City Walk, so I headed out. I passed Dracula near the main entrance and he was talking to two young boys wearing Disney shirts with Mickey on them and I heard him say so why do you have a rodent on your shirt? I went to dinner and had some beer at Karl Strauss. The Simpsons Donut and butterbeer were the only things I'd eaten all day, so my stomach was happy to have real food. We saw a few runners there but otherwise City Walk was very quiet compared to every other time I've been there. So I ended up calling it a night around 11, with a 3:30 wake up call looming.
NEXT: MINION 5K