Hawaii Vacation - Dec 3, 2009, Thursday

Thursday morning we were up and out early to Cincinnati to catch our Delta flight to Los Angeles. The flight was on time and went well. Knowing we would have the afternoon in Los Angeles, I booked us tickets for Universal Studios. Silly me...I thought I was going to just do the tour of the studios. They have an amusement park now and you can't see the studios without purchasing a ticket to the amusement park. Since the hotel listed this as an attraction to see while staying at their hotel, Claude and I determined we should get the tickets and spend the afternoon at Universal Studios. When the hotel shuttle picked us up at LAX I asked the driver if the shuttle could take us to Universal Studios. He assured me it could NOT go that far. Next question...how far it is? "Well, in a car it takes 45 minutes if traffic goes well." I knew from my ticket that the park closed at 5pm. Next question...what options are there for getting there from the hotel? "I can drive you to the Metro and you can take that, or a train, or ride the bus." Next question...How long will that take? "About 1 1/2 hours." Oh My Goodness...there goes our afternoon. Next question...What about a taxi? "That would be the fastest but they are very expensive." I looked at Claude, Claude looked at me...think, process, decision. We will take a taxi so we have maximum time at Universal Studios. We got checked into the hotel and headed downstairs where the front desk had called us a taxi. Our taxi driver was a happy guy. His taxi had seen some wear and tear. He chatted as we drove along. However, his driving was a little on the scary side. We made it to Universal Studios and paid a pretty penny for the privilege. Our taxi driver gave us a card with his "personal" phone number on it. He asked us to call him an hour before we wanted to return to the hotel and he would come and get us. He dropped us off at the place he would pick us up. This was at one end of Univeral City Walk which is a pedestrian street with shops and restaurants on it. We got a map of the park and located the Studio Tour and made a bee line for that attraction. That was the purpose for purchasing the tickets in the first place. They put you on a tram with a TV monitor in the front of each car. The tram will take you through Universal Studio's lot and show clips of shows that are filmed in these places on the TV monitor. It was at this point that I realized I didn't take the camera out of my carry-on and put it in my purse. We were tourists with no camera. So out came my cell phone and we would use it for our pictures. This makes them not the best quality but a whole lot better than no photos. May I tell you what fun it is to take pictures, then try to send them to my home eMail between shows so that I have room to take more pictures. For those of you that text (I do not) this may be an easy feat. Not so much for Sandi.

I really enjoyed this tour. Claude did it many years ago when in LA on a business trip. It was different than he remembered. The sets are fun to view of towns. They tell how they can use the same town and set different things in it to represent different countries. Then they shoot a different angles so you think you are in a totally different place. We passed a patch of grass with a bench on it and the tour guide said, "This is Central Park in New York City." There was a lake with a fishing village as a background. This was were Jaws was done. While on the tram, they slow the car down and out of the water comes a recreation of the great white shark.

They took us down the street on which they film Desperate Housewives. Normally this is not a part of the tour because of filming but they happened to be on location so they headed that tram down Wisteria Lane. We saw the house from Great Outdoors (one of my favorite films). We had water run down a street and right up to the tram. We watched the parting of the water so our tram could drive through. There was a pond with the scale size model of a ship that was used in some movie. There was the set from War of the Worlds with steam coming out of places in it like it had just exploded. The tram was driven into one of the big buildings they create a set in. This set was like being in a subway station underground. They simulated an earthquake with the tram rocking, the ceiling caving in, water coming in from side entrances and sparks flying everywhere. There was even a couple of cars where they showed how they replicate gunfire around cars with smoke and these cars are actually on robotic arms that move them into the air like they are going to crash or explode. These types of sets are great because the robot movement can be replicated exactly for mulitiple shooting. We were able to squeeze in 3 other shows in the afternoon. The first was about Special Effects. They used a lot of audience participation. They moved us to several other rooms to see different ways of using special effects. Another show was 'Backdraft' and it showed you how they used fire and controlled it to get the scenes they wanted for the movie. We moved through 3 rooms for this show. It was very realistic in the last room when things were set on fire like the closing scenes of the movie in the warehouse. We had a funnel cake and water as we waited for the final show of the day for us. It was 'Water World'. Claude and I like that Kevin Costner movie and I think this was Claude's favorite of the 4 things we did that afternoon.

They have recreated the set of the atoll from the movie. Then they do a play that is along the lines of the movie. Lots of jet ski action and falling into the water from very high places on the set. The actors for this particular show were real minor actors from Hollywood. Some were on Criminal Minds and CSI. At the end of the show a plane flew into the set landing in the water in front of us. It was really, really a cool thing.

All through the park there are costumed characters from Universal Studios projects. You can have your picture taken with them.

Now it was 5pm and time for the park to close. We found our way back to Universal's City Walk and back to Bubba Gump's for a nice shrimp dinner. After placing the order I tried to call our taxi driver to come back to get us. Imagine my amazement when I got the taxi service and they said it was illegal for them to come to Universal Studios, they were not licensed for that part of town. Hmmmm....what to do? I asked if he knew of a taxi service that could come get us and take us back to our hotel. He gave me the phone number for City Cab. I called them and we were fortunate enough that they had a taxi parked right out in front of the amusement park.

We had a full great first day to our vacation. Now for a good nights rest before flying to Honolulu tomorrow.