Universal Studios Hollywood

Visited: September 26, 2026

Attending: Just Brian

In case you forgot, they really make movies here. Do directors really do that with their fingers?

For my final trick, I planned to visit Universal Hollywood. This would mean that I visited Universal Orlando and California within a week of each other. Which has no special meaning except that I think it’s kinda cool. Ostensibly, I could compare the rides that are at both parks, but really, there aren’t all that many. One interesting thing about Universal Hollywood is that it opens at 8 a.m. (and Mario World opens even earlier, if you pay for access). I got there not long after 8, and to my great surprise and pleasure, the place was nearly empty. The immersive parts reminded me so much of Florida, but without the humidity or most of the people. I loved it – until around lunchtime, when the crowds showed up. Oh well. And of course, there were already crowds for the main attraction…

Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift

Something, something, family, something.

At the time of this writing, this coaster opened last week. It’s pretty rare I get a chance to experience a coaster that new, although I’ve had some passholder previews in the past. When I showed up, the standby line was stated at 120 minutes, and Express wasn’t even open, but I am a mighty single rider, so I got in an even shorter line and…waited, because they hadn’t even started sending test trains yet. The queue seems pretty cool, with cars scattered throughout, although I didn’t see most of them. The station is spacious, and has a well-themed look, with graffitied murals on the walls. Better, it’s got dual boarding platforms, but that only saves a little bit of time when they’re only running two trains, boo. The train cars themselves are modeled on cars from the movies, with Dom’s big black Charger in the lead. Of course, when the cars are shaped like actual cars, there’s less room for seating. Four people per car, four cars per train, that’s it. But the good part is they don’t want any seats to go empty, so the single-rider queue was rocking.

The layout of this ride is strange, because the layout of the park is strange, because the layout of the studio is…well, probably not all that strange, really. But it’s built onto the north side of the Hollywood Hills, which means it’s on some pretty steep terrain. The park is divided into upper and lower lots, which are separated by several hundred feet, and a bunch of escalators. And now by this coaster, which is built on the steepest part of the terrain, like some insane mountain goat. The ride starts by diving right off the side of the hill, where it does some small bumps that provide a little airtime, and the cars swivel from side to side before turning into a really large curve. There’s a mid-course, and then the signature move: the track tilts right, and all the cars face that way. The train dives down, there’s a boost, and all the while the cars are rotating to face backwards. Which means that the cars are backward as they rise from the boost into a dive loop. I can honestly say that doing a dive loop backwards is one of the stranger experiences I’ve had on a coaster. Once that’s done, the cars are facing forward again, and at the lowest point of the ride. So there’s a straight launch, which I imagine is the fastest point of the ride, to get back up to the station level. There’s a straight zero-g roll with the cars facing in who-knows-what direction, because they’re doing a zero-g. (Incidentally, the zero-g has no sound barrier, and I think that element may be the one neighbors are complaining about. There’s definitely confused screaming.) Then there’s the showy part where the coaster goes over, then under, the uppermost escalator, drifting the whole time. That bit isn’t actually all that fast, and may be more for the folks on the ground. The most prominent sound barrier is there, though, and matches the sun-shades that cover the escalators, which is a really cool effect. Then a corkscrew for good measure, and into the brakes.

The coaster isn’t super-long (4100 feet), but having that dive loop right in the middle makes it feel like a complete, satisfying ride. I’ve ridden a few spinning coasters, mostly free-spinning ones, and I feel like this spinning motion is smooth and natural. On many spinners, there’s a point where I want to grab the restraint, because the angle of the forward momentum is just so strange. On this ride, I admit I felt the urge, particularly during the zero-g when I had no clue which way was up, but I resisted, and I’m really glad I did. The ride ops were generous with the amount of space they allowed, and the seats are super comfortable, which is unusual for an Intamin. It actually felt more like a Premier seat. There’s onboard audio, and the only complaint I have is that it plays generic engine noises. I think a soundtrack could really enhance this ride. But on the whole, it’s a fantastic experience.

It was fantastic enough, in fact, that I immediately went for another round. Unfortunately, the Single Rider Lyfe doesn’t often let you choose your seat, and I had row 5 for my first ride, row 4 for my second. Not much difference between those, although they’re different cars. The train is short enough that I don’t think front or back would make much difference, but I’d like to try.

After my second round, I was aware that there was still stuff to do, so I moved on.

Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey

Welcome to Scotland! It's still unusually hot, but not nearly as crowded or humid.

The Hollywood version of Hogsmeade looks identical to the Orlando version, but there were many fewer people, and it wasn’t super humid, so I spent some time enjoying that. When I got to the back, I found the Hogwarts model to be more impressive than Orlando. I didn’t do Forbidden Journey in Orlando last week, being too occupied with the coasters, but I decided to give it a go here. In fact, with a five-minute stated wait time, I decided to skip the single-rider line and walk through the standard queue. Hogwarts seemed a bit smaller than what I remembered from 2011, but all the right bits were there. As for the ride itself, the “plot” still barely makes any sense, and I found the video scenes a bit more disorienting than usual, but I was operating without my glasses. I don’t think there’s any difference between the two versions of the ride, but Monsters Unleashed is better than both. Sorry, Harry.

(Yes, I know Flight of the Hippogriff is in this area, and is technically a coaster, but it’s a Vekoma Roller Skater, which is close enough to “kiddie” that I didn’t bother with it.)

Revenge of the Mummy

A slightly less spectacular entrance for a less spectacular Mummy.

I took all the escalators to the lower lot, stopping to appreciate the views along the way, because they really are spectacular. I decided I didn’t want to do the Jurassic World flume ride, but the building is much closer to the walking paths in Hollywood, and the steepness makes the building look gigantic. It’s a neat effect.

Anyway, the lower lot is kind of cramped now, which makes the Mummy’s entrance stand out more than it does in Orlando. However, it wasn’t particularly crowded, so my single-rider queue ended with a walk-on. I got the front row, same as in Orlando, but there were no 3D glasses this time. I assume the layouts are different, as this one doesn’t have the fake-out first drop that Orlando has, but after that, they may well be the same. I mean, it’s dark, and while there’s a good sense of speed, I couldn’t actually see much. There are some glowing cut-outs that reminded me of Hershey’s Laff-Trak, which probably isn’t the desired effect. It has a backwards section, like Orlando, and then…it just ends. I was expecting the fake-out ending that Orlando has, but this had no such thing. On the whole, the Hollywood version is pretty clearly inferior.

And with that, I’d done all the coasters I was planning to do. I walked into Mario World for the heck of it, and it looks much the same as Florida, just smaller. It doesn’t have a copy of Mine Cart Madness, and I wasn’t about to be tricked into doing Mario Kart again, so I just went back to the upper lot.

Universal Studio Tour

Pro tip: If you want to see the shark, sit on the right side of the tram.

The famous Studio Tour is why there’s a park here in the first place, and therefore the entire Universal park chain, so I wanted to check it out. You could easily forget it’s there, as it’s entirely separate from the park, with its own escalator. It takes an hour, which is much longer than any other ride here. It’s also weirdly lopsided, because it actually is a tour of the studio, so for long stretches, you’re looking at the outside of large, gray sound stages. Maybe that’s more interesting during the week, but it sure wasn’t on Saturday. The various lots for outdoor shooting should have been interesting, but because they redecorate them for every movie or show, you mostly couldn’t say “Aha, I recognize that!” In fact, most of the sets looked depressingly small and bland. I know, that’s movie magic for you, but I was surprised at just how little it all was. The two exceptions were the town square that was the city hall from Back to the Future, and unexpectedly, a winding “European” setting that I immediately recognized as the set of The Good Place.

The Studio Tour famously has set pieces, basically spots where the tram stops, and the tour becomes a dark ride for a bit. There was one section that’s just wraparound video screens, which I guess used to be the Kong encounter, because now it’s Peter Jackson’s Kong. The “Earthquake” set is entirely practical effects, so that was much cooler. And of course, there’s Jaws, which is apparently the same as when they installed it in the 1970s. Unfortunately, I was on the left side of the tram, and all the action is on the right. Oops. Fun fact: The Amity sets from Jaws were also the town of Cabot Cove from Murder, She Wrote. Maybe it was the shark committing all those murders?

There’s a strange dissonance between the actual behind-the-scenes segments, which I found very interesting, and the set pieces, which are supposed to be thrilling, but seem kind of pale when there’s an actual amusement park right there. The problem is that your ride vehicle is a four-carriage tram, which isn’t really meant for thrills. Don’t get me wrong, the Kong and Earthquake effects stop the tram on a platform that has more motion than I expected, but in the end, it’s still a tram car. And the poor tour guide has to swap from giving facts about moviemaking to a poor Jungle-Cruise play-acting when the set pieces start. I’ll give our guide credit, as he seemed to be suffering from a cough, and his script also forced him to spend way too much time on current Peacock offerings. He seemed to have particular trouble saying “alternate dimensions and multiverses,” in reference to Stewart Fails to Save the Universe, a spin-off that I don’t think anybody wanted or cares about.

By the time the tour was over, I was quite hungry, and the crowds had started to arrive in force. I probably should’ve gotten a couple more rides on Fast & Furious, but given the amount of park-going I’d stuffed into a ten-day trip, I was more than a little tired, so I tapped out. For enthusiasts, this is a half-day park at best, a couple of hours if you’re focusing on the coasters. But I do recommend going early, because having the place to yourself is a real treat.