It has been 10 years since I went to Universal Studios last, and I literally have no memory of it. So, I decided to make another trip to Universal with a couple friends. None of us have been to the new Harry Potter world, and we were all very excited to see the magic world! This theme park is a perfect one day park, just enough things to do for one day and we didn't feel like there's anything we missed.
1. Harry Potter World
I was a huge Harry Potter fan when I was a kid and it was really cool to see everything come to life. The Harry Potter ride was my second favorite ride here. You were basically flying on the broom during the ride and it was pretty awesome! It was a combination of big screen CGI and real props, which I thought was a good balance. I also enjoyed walking around the town, seeing all those stores in the book come to life.
2. Transformers
The transformers ride was a little disappointing. It was all big screen CGI and they just move you from one room of big screens to another. I understand that this ride is probably easier for the amusement park staff to maintain, but it really wasn't a very exciting ride. A little underwelming in my opinion.
3. The Jurassic Park
Love the outdoor ride, but may be just a little bit too much water splashing, but it's okay. It was a mild slow ride along, and then the surprise last drop at the end. It was refreshing to have a ride that was real and not just CGI.
4. The Mummy
This is definitely my favorite ride in the park. For people who are not a fan of nauseating rides, this might not be the best, but they honestly did a great job with the ambience and the ride itself.
5. The Simpsons
Cute little fictional town from the Simpsons. This is also where all the food was, so we were having our lunch break here.
6. The special effect show
It was incredibly cool to learn about how all the special effects in the movies were done. They even set a man on fire on the stage. Pretty cool.
7. The underwater world
This is another live performance based on the movie Waterworld starring Kevin Costner. It was probably better than the actual movie. It has a lot of cool explosions, fire and special effects. The actors did their stunts pretty well too. There are labels for "soak zone", and when they say soak, they mean it. Definitely worth it!
8. Studio Tours
This is one of my favorite itineraries. They drove through some movie/TV show sets, and also showed us how to create rain and flooding for weather effects. The tour also includes two cool CGI rides: one is the King Kong universe, the other the Fast and Furious universe. After standing in line all day, this is a nice and fun one-hour relaxing bus tour.
We got lucky that it was overcast most of the day, and the temperature was not too hot at all. We had a great day, besides all the fun rides, we also learned about some of the older movies from Universal and how some of the special effects were done.