California Adventure Part 4 - Universal Studios

The next day we rode the bus again down to Universal Studios and snapped a couple photos of these fun monuments welcoming you to the park.

 

 

The first thing we did was go on the Studio Tour which I think was my favorite thing to do at Universal Studios.  It shows you famous scenes from movies and shows you a few of the tricks behind movie making.  I always find it so interesting to hear about this stuff and I was right when I figured Ty would be fascinated with it as well.  We're movie watchers and now it will be fun to see if we can figure out some of their tricks as we're watching.

 

On the tour we came across a parking lot of famous cars, one of which was The Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo.  The kids LOVE Scooby Doo so they of course, thought that was awesome. 

And then guess who we found after the tour?!  Scooby Dooby Doo!!!

 

Vanna said, "Mom look!" (for about the hundredth time on the trip :) and when I turned around, this is what I found.  I thought the hat looked pretty funny and had to steal a snapshot.  It reminded me of when my older brother used to tease me by putting his hand on top of my head and making a sucking sound only to describe it as the sound of a starving brain sucker - sounds like an older brother huh!?

We also got to meet Curious George when we went to the Curious George play area.  We started out telling the kids they could get a little wet to cool off but asked them not to get sopping wet.  Does it look like they listened?  Who can blame them though when there's this much fun to be had in the water and when the weather was so warm?  Piece of advice though:  don't wear tennis shoes (they don't dry out so quickly :).

Ty's a Back to the Future fan so you can see his happy face at the following finds:

Great Scott!

Another highlight to Universal Studios was that we got to meet "a real life transformer" (as Vanna would say)!  Vanna still talks about this so it must have really impressed her.  I have to admit, it was pretty cool.  But even for it's coolness and the awesome special effects to the Transformer ride, we were all about sick afterward and wasn't sure it was worth the super long wait to go on it.  I guess by this point of our trip, our minds were tired of all the 3D stuff - it was starting to make us all a bit sick or dizzy I think.

 

I have to record a funny memory from when I came to Universal Studios as a kid.  At that time, The Mummy attraction was a walk-thru and at one point a statue (which was really a dressed up guy) came at me from a dark corner and about scared me to death.  As I was in motion trying to get away from the guy, I ended up running head first into a rock arch doorway that led to the exit of the attraction.  I had been so focused on looking at the scary guy and not paying attention to my surroundings that I hit the wall with enough force that I think it kind of knocked me out because the next thing I knew, I was on the ground on my bottom and facing the opposite direction of the way I was going.  Needless to say, I came out of the attraction with a big goose-egg on my forehead.  So you can imagine why I found it comical that The Mummy attraction now is an actual ride, rather than a walk-thru.  Ha ha ha.

We also got to go to a very action packed water show called WaterWorld and a fun show where they showed us how the animals are trained to be actors in films.  It was pretty entertaining. 

All in all, Universal Studios was probably my least favorite stop, but it was still fun and provided us with great memories!  On top of it all we were just so grateful for great weather we had that allowed us to enjoy every minute of the trip.  Before leaving, I kept hoping for good weather and good health for the trip.  I guess one out of the two is okay :).  I think as far as weather goes, we couldn't have picked a better time - it wasn't too hot yet  - it was just right!