Colman: Universal Studios Hollywood

During the California trip, my sister and I went to Universal Studios Hollywood. Yes, just us since my parents aren't really a fan of theme parks and they didn't really know the characters there. As far as I can remember, this is the first time I've went to a theme park in another country without my parents so it was definitely a unique experience for me.

We got the Front-of-the-line passes to make sure we could finish all the rides and shows. Thank god we did as it was Boxing Day and the place was extremely crowded. All the rides except for one kiddy ride had at least a 40 minute wait after 10 am so if you're planning to try out all the attractions in a day, buying the fast passes will be the smarter choice.

I was really surprised when I saw the park map as I had no idea the park would be so small. I was so psyched for the Marvel rides as I didn't reach the height limits when I was younger. Little did I know that that was in Universal Studios Florida. Disappointing yes I know.

We started out at the Minions area as we were looking for Starbucks. The only ride there was the 4D stimulator ride that Singapore doesn't have. It was still early when we got there so we barely had to queue. This was how we made our mistake... After the ride, we went around taking photos with mascots, drink coffee at a French Bistro near the Minion ride (don't buy the starbucks from here because they have really limited choices and the coffee wasn't that good either). The 20 minute wait time for the rides became over 40 minutes!

The second ride we went to was the Jurassic World Wet Ride which is located at the Lower Lot. I kinda hate how there's an Upper Lot and a Lower Lot because it takes 4 long escalators from one place to another. It was really inconvenient and a waste of time. Again we decided not to use our fast passes as the waiting time wasn't that long yet, which was pretty dumb of us because we didn't have time for a second round as planned.

One of the rides was really enjoyable and special. The Studio Tour is a must to go as it is the main attraction of Universal Studios Hollywood. I think that because of their size constraints and the fact that Universal Studios movies are filmed there, the rides are mostly 4D simulators to show off how great their technology and stuff are. So yes, in exchange of exciting adrenaline pumping roller coaster rides, you get to ride on a tram around the sets of many universal studios movies. How exciting!!

I may sound sarcastic but the experience is a lot better than how I just described it. If you don't believe me you can always believe the waiting time of the attraction, which was 75 minutes. It was really an eye opener to learn that the same set could be remodeled to fit different locations in dozens of movies. We also got the chance to watch 360• 4D stimulators for King Kong and Fast and Furious 7. They really went overboard with the water effects because it felt like they dumped a whole pail of unknown liquid on my face.

The other ride I enjoyed was the Mummy coaster. It is almost the same as the one in Singapore so you must be wondering why I had fun on it. So at the last part of the ride, it was really quite and dark. Just imagine the silent part before a jump scare in a horror movie and you'll get what I mean. During that part, I screamed at my sister and she got scared and what made it even funnier was that I did the same thing when we watched an Egyptian movie a few months back. We planned to ride the Mummy coaster again and I was really looking forward to it because I wanted to scare other people but the queue for the single riders was definitely more than 30 minutes in the evening when we got back to it. After wasting 15 minutes we decided to give up.

There were other rides/shows that Singapore doesn't have such as the Simpson Ride, Animal Actors and the classic ones like the Transformer 4D Ride and Jurassic Park.

I think that Animal Actors is a fantastic pet show. Usually pet shows have the usual animals: dogs, cats, pigeons and pigs for some others. I'm quite sure not many pet shows have owls in their cast list. The animals of the shows are actually the animals in Universal Studios movies, one of which is Harry Potter. It was really cool to see how animals are trained to act in movies. What made the show even better was the backstage passes we had due to the front-of-the-line card, allowing us to take pictures with the owl!