All Summer Long

Surely we couldn’t come to the entertainment capital of the world without visiting Universal Studios. So we visited it.

I’m not big into fast rides, so knowing that I would be coerced into riding everything in the theme park, it was a relief to find that there were only a couple of genuine rollercoasters, and one of these was a low-altitude flight on a Hippogriff.

Pretty much all the attractions were amazing, but a couple of highlights were the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey flight through a game of Quidditch, the Jurassic Park log flume, and the Simpsons simulated rollercoaster, where Sideshow Bob cuts the track and sends you on a goose chase through Springfield. The effects on all the rides were immersive, so it was a great way to get chuffed without being paralysed in absolute fear.

Aside from the rides, Nicola had a photo shoot with Doc Brown and some unsavoury characters from Hogwarts, and I got my second hot dog of the holiday, so we were both enveloped in extreme happiness.

The backstage tour capped off our Universal Studios experience, as we rode a tram through the facades and sets of Manhattan and Wisteria Lane, past the Bates Motel, and into a couple of tunnels for more immersion in King Kong and Fast & Furious 4D experiences. Things were flooded and set on fire, we got gassed. It was awesome.

We finished the day watching the sun set over Hollywood from the Griffith Observatory and saw a dodgy show in the Planetarium, where an overly earnest staff member flashed her orb and narrated to the rhythm of Ride of the Valkyries. The moon was red as we walked down the hill in darkness.