Seven days, five
what has been a scorching Los Angeles day.
In fact, with the temperatures soaring past 30C early in the morning, the whole day was looking daunting as we queued with what looked like huge crowds to get into the historic film studio lot.
A full hour’s drive from our hotel, we didn’t have the luxury of a poolside lunch break. But once inside it was amazing how well the venue handles the crowds and the heat. There are impressive escalators to ferry you up the hillside of the split-level site and every hundred metres or so there are giant fans blasting cooling water vapour across the crowds.
There is also an excellent splash park playground, Super Silly Fun Land, to drench the kids in the mid-day heat.
With attractions covering some of the biggest hit movies and TV shows, there was something to capture the imagination of everyone in our family. For the dinosaur-obsessed 8-year-old it was hard to beat the animatronic thrills of the Jurassic Park water ride. For my youngest it was probably the Transformers 3D ride. While the movies didn’t really resonate, the ride was a mind-blowing virtual-reality adventure.
For me, the highlight was the re-creation of The Simpsons hometown of Springfield. Not so much the ride, which was fun, but getting a Duff beer at Moe’s, having a Krusty Burger and hanging out at the comic shop.
For my wife, The Walking Dead fanatic, it was the scare of a life. The new attraction, based on the hit zombie apocalypse TV series, takes you through a special-effects-soaked labyrinth of a burnt-out hospital.
It’s not for the claustrophobic but won’t trouble those prone to motion sickness. The real trick is the unnerving mix of animatronic zombies and real-life actors. You can’t tell which is which until they’ve lurched right into your face causing terrifying jump scares for even a seasoned horror buff.
We left Universal exhausted, sunbaked and satisfied that we’d ticked the “must dos” on everyone’s list while still having time to enjoy the atmosphere. KNOTT’S BERRY FARM Home to some of the biggest and scariest roller coasters in the world and an easy 15-minute Uber ride from our Disney base, Knott’s Berry Farm opened in 1920 as a berry farm and just kept adding attractions over the years.
Mid-week in September it was almost crowd free.