Whats this? A new chapter? The Thumpers do exist.
We last left our quartet at the parking entrance of USH. 4 go in, but do 4 come out?
Getting to the parking garage is a whole other adventure. Keep right, go straight 200 paces, keep left, turn right, now jump. At thats the just first mile or so. It seems you literally cruise around the whole park to get to the parking garage. Once inside the parking garage, Nebo hands me a $10 bill. I guess he wasnt to sore about not seeing the Hollywood sign after all.
Thanks for the tip.
Its to help pay for gas and parking says Nebo.
Guess I was wrong. I did try to give it back saying it wouldve cost us the same to get here whether or not they came along. He wasnt having any of it and let us keep it. Cool. Now I have beer money.
As we walk in, I have Nebo and Smidgy stop and pose for a picture.
People are already lining up. So we join the line and wait.
And wait,
AND WAIT.
Until about 9:45 or so. They open the gates to let us in. Finally. We start making our way down the main path only to be stopped once again by a giant rope. This is something new. At least its something Lady H and I didnt experience last year.
Soon you get a movie director telling you they are shooting a film today and that they need all of us to be part of it. Just act natural, have fun and when they say action; we are to go about our day. Producer comes over the speaker and Action. I want to say everyone runs towards their favorite attractions, but thats not quite the case. TMs still have ropes and hold it and walk you to the middle of the park. This is to keep me from running over and trampling people. Once we get to the middle of the park, half the crowd goes to the left and the other half to the right. We go to the right and head towards the Studio Backlot Tour. This will take about 45-60 minutes of our time. Plus its better to do first thing in the morning when its still some what cool.
If youve never been to USH, The Studio Backlot Tour cars are shuttle type cars. Well here, see for yourself.
I took that picture when we went in 2012. Still the same. As you can see, there are no windows and no air-conditioning. You do not want to be riding in that car in the afternoon. Especially if its really hot outside. You want to save the attractions that will help keep you cool for later on in the day. At least thats our strategy and our plan for today. Yes, I have a plan for today. Do exactly what Lady H and I did last time. It worked for us last time and we hope it works again this time. Were hoping not to have the same failure we did in
Disneyland.
We get through the queue pretty quickly. Lady H hops in, I follow, then its Smidgy and Nebo, and
.. this guy. The one sitting next to Nebos left.
At first this guy wasnt in our row. We had a row all to ourselves. One of the TMs put this guy in our row at the last minute. This made for a not so happy Nebo. Smidgy told me that Nebo needed the end seat to be able to see better. And he had the end seat until the last minute. Had I known earlier, I wouldve let him get on first this way he was sure to have the end seat. One thing we didnt think to look into was to see if they had any type of GAC. Had I also known we would have to wait at rope drop, Smidgy and Nebo couldve probably looked into it. I guess I couldve done some research on it before hand as well. Sorry Nebo and Smidgy.
Our tram departs and we begin the backlot tour. One thing unique about USH compared to its counterpart USO is that USH still uses the studios to film movies and tv shows. On our tram tour, we go to see 2 tv films being filmed today. As we pass each set, well have to be vewy, vewy quiet as to not to interrupt the filming.
I dont remember exactly what shows they were, but heres a pic of the first.
Shortly after we pass this set, we see this and are told to beware. There is a giant gorilla on the loose.
Then they drive us in here.
Hopefully everybody that goes in, comes out. King Kong was fighting to protect us from the dinosaurs. You could feel them jumping on the cars, shaking the cars and you could seem them jumping from side to side. Once Kong defeats the dinosaurs, we're on our way. I look to my left, Smidgy and Nebo are accounted for. Look to my right, Lady H is accounted for. We survived. Now I don't have to worry about filling out paperwork for a missing person.
Next were off to see some of the props and cars used in the movies.
Props from Jurassic Park
Famous Cars
Now that I was looking at the 2 Fast 2 Furious car pic, I realized we didnt get to see the dancing cars this trip. It was something Lady H and I had seen on the last trip. I wonder if its too late to request some of my money back?
After the cool cars and props, we make our way to weather maker. This is basically a bunch of sprinklers set up to show you how they simulate rain, since it never really rains in California. Or so we were told. More on this later. For right now, heres a couple of pics of it raining without a cloud in sight. Gotta love movie magic.
Rained so much, it caused a flood.
After the massive flood, we make our way over to Amity. Were going deep sea fishing. Ive always wanted to do that. This will be fun. On the way, the is another film crew shooting a show. Note to self, dont piss of the film crews.
Did you feel that? Felt like an earthquake.
No, we werent in a real earthquake, but in a simulated one.
All looks quiet.
Until the flood caught up with us again. Must forgot to turn off the artificial weather maker.
Now heres some food for thought. At this point of the tour, if you were in the simulated earthquake and a real earthquake happened, would you feel the real one?
We finally get to Amity. Our fishing trip is cancelled because of sharks in the area.
Jaws almost got Lady H. She got out of the way just in time, but missed taking the pic.
After Jaws, we were on the set of Desperate Housewives even though I didnt see any housewives that were desperate. I was willing to offer my assistance if they truly were desperate. All we saw were their houses.
Oh look. A motel. And theres vacancy. Nebo and Smidgy like to stay onsite, I wonder why they didnt book here?
Im sure the bodies lying on top of the cars didnt have anything to do with it. I wonder where all those bodies came from anyways?
I would get my answer soon enough.
There was another one here.
And here.
You would guess some kind of natural disaster like a twister came through the area. Nope. My guess is they all came from this jet crash.
Actually, all the bodies are part of the Halloween Horror Nights. My guess is they were supposed to be zombies.
Soon our tour would end. These are the last pictures I took of the tour.
At that time, these were the final remains of the
Gibson Amphitheatre, a popular concert and show venue at Universal Citywalk. By now it is probably totally destroyed as USH is adding the Wizarding World of Harry Potter to this park as well. It wont be as elaborate as the WWoHP in Orlando, but it will have some of the shops and the Forbidden Journey ride. Details of WWoHP have yet to be released more in detail.
That was the end of our tour and the end of this chapter. I hope this enough to keep the lynch mob from coming after us. Come back in another month or so for the next installment.
In all honesty though, Lady H and I are glad you are still around. We thank you all for your patience. Work has been super busy. We havent even had time to really post on our TR much less on anybody elses TR. We even haven't had much time come to the Dis for that matter. Things are slowly getting back to normal for me. The busy time of the year for me has passed.
As for Lady H, she may be even busier now. She accepted a new position at work. Ill try to keep the TR going if she cant find the time. So you all may be stuck with my style of writing. Time will tell. One way or another, we will get through this TR.