Yes, it's 2025 as I'm writing this. I debated whether to write this post since the trip was six months ago, but better late than never, right? I'm sure 20 years from now I'll be glad that I did. So here goes!
The older kid graduated from high school in 2024, and we planned a trip to California to celebrate. And when I say California, I mean Universal Studios Hollywood and Disneyland. We've never been to Universal Studios before and our last trip to Disneyland was in 2016 so we were excited to go.
We flew into LAX and ubered (is uber now a verb like google?) it to Hilton Universal City, which is a quick walk to Universal Studios. I chose the Hilton because it was the closest to the park and it was definitely a convenient location.
We landed late afternoon and by the time we got to the Hilton, it was around 7 p.m. so we quickly settled in and headed over to City Walk, which is equivalent to Downtown Disney with eateries and shops.
The Hilton was nice. I would stay there again, especially being so close to Universal Studios.
This was taken over the bridge connecting to the park from the hotels across the way.
You don't have to go to Universal Studios to visit City Walk. Lots of shops and eateries. If you park in one of the lots, you'll need to pass through City Walk in order to get to Universal Studios.
Looking up.
We had dinner at Johnny Rockets and . . .
. . . picked up some donuts to eat for breakfast the next morning.
Fun fact: I learned about "June Gloom" during this trip. I was puzzled to wake up to skies like this and my friend who lived in California for a number of years told me it's called "June Gloom". You wake up to skies like this in June and it burns off to become a glorious day by mid-to-late morning.
Back to the blog . . . after our breakfast, we walked over to Universal Studios right at opening and headed straight to the lower lot to Super Nintendo World. Universal Studios is seriously built against a mountain side and is divided into an upper an lower lot. And when I say seriously, I mean seriously. To get between the upper and lower lots, you need to use a couple of very, very, very steep long escalators.
As mentioned, it was our first trip to Universal Studios and I didn't know what to expect, except my priorities were Super Nintendo World and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We were able to visit both these lands and ride a ton of other rides as well.
Super Nintendo World is AMAZING! It's exactly how you'd imagine it to be in the world of Mario and there was just so much detail. When got there, we quickly headed to Bowser's Castle for the Mario Cart: Bowser's Challenge ride. Like Disneyland, the lines can be very deceptive and Bowser's Castle is no exception. Because we got there early, our wait was a "short" 45 minutes and we walked halfway through the castle before we got to the end of the actual line to wait. By the time we were done with the ride, the wait for over 90 minutes!
View from the top of Bowser's castle.
Another view.
Front view of Bowser's Castle from the ground.
Some pics inside. I didn't really got to take a lot of pictures because we were walking fairly quickly until the line actually started. If you're waiting, there's a lot to observe. I'm glad we didn't have to wait, but I'm bummed I missed out on all the things in the castle.
After Super Nintendo World, we stayed in the lower lot and rode Jurassic World (the kid really liked this ride and rode it multiple times) and Revenge of the Mummy. We skipped the Transformers ride.
The upper lot is the larger of the two areas, and we skipped rides like Despicable Me, Secret Live of Pets and Simpsons. Instead we did the Studio Lot tour, Water World show and of course, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We enjoyed all three.
Like Super Nintendo World, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is an experience. When you enter, you are immersed in Hogsmeade and it really feels you are swept up into this fantasy world
There are two rides at Harry Potter -- Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey and the Flight of the Hippogriff. The Flight of the Hippogriff is a seriously short ride. I swear it was 30 seconds, but it's super fast and super fun! I enjoyed it.
The Forbidden Journey is also another fantastic ride. You ride sidewards . . . so you are not facing forward, but to the side and you soar and twist through Hogswart and encounter dragons, mythical creatures and other characters. Sooooo good.
Like Bowser's Castle, they build this ride with the expectation of long lines, so you meander through Hogsworth and you find yourself in Dumbledore's office (above) and meet the Sorting Hat (below) among other things. The line was pretty short when we rode this, so I didn't really have the chance to absorb all the detail of Hogswart.
Butterbeer! We got it cold . . . you can also get it hot . . . and it was super refreshing on a hot summer day.
I was a terrible blogger on this trip. I didn't really take a lot of blog worth photos (I didn't include any pictures of the Studio Lot tour -- which was amazing -- and of the Water World show -- also amazing) because I was just having too much fun to think of the best angles, etc. I don't really have a lot of details about the park itself, including dining, to share.
What I can say is to get there early when the park opens (you can also purchase an early access ticket that lets you into Super Nintendo World, but we didn't do that) and head to Super Nintendo World first. When we returned later on during the day, it was packed. I would also recommend buying the add-on to get priority access to each ride (except for Mario Cart). Unlike Disney's Lighting Lane, you can use the priority pass at anytime and you don't have to wait to use it for the next ride. The park wasn't very crowded when we went, so we stood in line for most of the rides and used the priority pass if the lines were long or we were returning to ride it again.
I really enjoyed visiting Universal Studios and would love to return again. The new Fast and the Furious ride should be open when I do return, and I would just be leisure about everything and spend a lot of in Super Nintendo World and Harry Potter.
Universal also has a lot of characters to pop out to greet guests and take pictures throughout the day. I'm going to end this post with my favorite photo. It's the character from Madagascar and he took a lot of pictures with the kid in various poses; the below (very deliberate) is my favorite. So fun!
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