While I had planned to go on the Universal Studios Hollywood VIP Tour at some point this year, I hadn’t planned to go on it just yet. However, one of the employees was going around to try to upgrade people as I waited to be let into the park.
I made eye contact. And if you don’t want someone who is selling something to come over, you don’t do that. Now, I did want him to come over. This was because I wanted to ask about how it would work given that I have a season pass. But, I had fully intended to say no. Then he explained about how the prices go up through the season, and I was sold.
Financially, I am living off of my savings right now, and the only goes so far. That is why I had intended to say no. However, with the prices going up, there was likely not going to be a better time to go. And business-wise, it was important that I went on this tour. How else could I tell you about it and whether or not it was worth it?
The VIP Treatment began immediately. The Universal employee offered to take photos of me, since I was by myself and probably was only able to take selfies. It was true. I mostly did have only selfies and in fact, had just taken a few selfies at the entrance.
The selfies were nice photos all in all. But, being able to take photos that actually had the entire entrance in them was better. From there, I was ushered into the VIP building for a lack of a better way of explaining it. They checked me in and sent me upstairs to wait for the 10:15 tour to begin. Normally, there are 12-14 people on each tour. There were five people on my tour (4 after lunch, as one person didn’t meet us and was left behind).
Breakfast & Food Sensitivities
You’ll note in the video above, there is a short clip where I say that they had coconut milk yogurt. And, then the words flash on that the struggle with food sensitivities is real. I found out about six months ago that my body is highly sensitive to dairy products–along with a lot of other things. I try my best to work around them when I can. But often when I go on trips or even just a day trip to Universal Studios, it can be really hard to do that. Especially where butterbeer is concerned–sometimes I make an exception there.
The truth was that I wasn’t anticipating there being anything at the continental breakfast that I could eat, so I was pleasantly surprised to find coconut milk yogurt. I had had turkey bacon at home before I left and had brought a banana. So, this allowed me to have a balanced breakfast with the three of those things.
Studio Tour
The studio tour took up the bulk of our morning. Normally, this is a long tour (1 hour), but on the VIP Tour, we got to see things that the general public does not.
We got to see the sets for Transformers, The Amazing Spiderman, and Captain America: First Avenger, The Good Place, and so much more.
King Kong 360
I filmed the entire thing, however, it is blurry in spots. This is likely due to it being 3D and the fact that I had my eyes closed. You can, however, tell what is happening. So, I’ve uploaded it to my Patreon page if you’re interested in seeing the entire thing.
Weather Effects & Earthquake Effects
These are pretty self explanatory if you are familiar with the tour. Clips of these sections appear in the video above. For the full videos, check my Patreon page.
Psycho Set
In the overview video, after the Psycho set clip, it says, “Obviously, I’m more afraid of dinosaurs than psychopaths.” The original audio unfortunately did not come through on that video, but it does come through on the video above. If you listen at the end, you can hear me laughing. I loved this segment! I thought it was hilarious. But then, I knew that this was an actor playing Norman Bates rather than a real psychopathic killer going after me with a knife.
War of Worlds
The video of my Universal Studios Hollywood VIP Tour at the top of the page includes woefully little of the War of Worlds set. This is because there was a glare and so the quality is not great. If you are interested in viewing the videos of that set however, they can be found on my Patreon Page.
The Fast & the Furious
I also got film of the entire thing for this. (I was able to keep my eyes open, too!) However, just due to the sheer amount of material on this one, I opted to only include the opening sequence for this. I am probably going to edit the footage for a standalone video to go out the end of next week, but in the meantime, you can find the footage for this on my Patreon page. Once the edited version is ready, I will add it here.
Character Interactions
Finally, even though there was a small section in the video at the top involving character interactions, I will not be covering it here. I will be writing a separate post on character interactions.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of my Universal Studios Hollywood VIP Tour, most likely coming out next week.
AprilCoxTravel & Freelance 