I went to Universal Studios with Josh today. It was so much fun. I think this picture highlights an important part of the experience – juxtaposition. It is the Bates Motel in the foreground (which, if I heard correctly, was built for Psycho 2) with the set for How The Grinch Stole Christmas towering over the back of it.The most impressive aspect of the studio is possibly how much they’ve done with so little acreage. The rides are arranged as tightly as the back-lot sets. There’s no room for sprawling rollercoasters, but the inventiveness and unusualness of the rides make up for their lack of size. There are no particularly big physical feats here – none claim to be the tallest, longest or fastest – but the rides definitely make the best use of audio and visual effects I have ever had the pleasure to experience.
By sheer luck, we chose the best time of day to go. When we arrived around lunch time the park was heaving, and by about 5.30 we had still only been on two of the attractions, but as those with children started to leave, the park became quieter and the queues much shorter, and we ended up seeing everything we had wanted to see. We even went on the last ride twice (The Mummy – the park’s only true rollercoaster. It was so short, I’m glad we had only queued 1/2 an hour for it – any longer and I would have felt cheated. But the second time, we got almost straight on, so twice through felt like long enough!). I think if we’d arrived any earlier, we would have been tempted to leave before the crowds cleared.
Perhaps the most impressive attraction is the Terminator experience, simply because it has aged so well. The effects are not as huge as the more recent attractions that have been based on the same technology (a mixture of three-dimensional film and moving theatre seats) but the execution is flawless, and it’s hard to believe the show's nearly 15 years old.
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