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Old 14 Oct 18, 09:38 AM  
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bambikate
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The 1200 Mile West Coast Adventure - August/September 2018: Day 2: Donuts and Dodger Dogs

Day 2: Donuts and Dodger Dogs
Tuesday 21 August 2018

Voodoo Donuts breakfast, Universal Studios Hollywood and our first baseball game at Dodger Stadium

Index

My body clock hadn't quite got used to the new time zone yet and I woke up at 3:30am.

Unfortunately I wasn't just awake, I was wide awake so I decided I might as well update Instagram and start making some trip report notes!

I tried to go back to sleep and managed to drift off until we all woke up at 5:30am.

We made some coffee to have with our donuts for breakfast and we all showered and got ready.



Here they are!



We decided we would each have a quarter of a donut (roughly) so we all got to try every one.

Our first donut to try was "Butterfingering" Chocolate cake doughnut with vanilla frosting and Butterfinger crumbles.



It was really nice

Number 2 was ODB Raised yeast doughnut with chocolate frosting, Oreo cookies, and peanut butter.



This was even better

Next was Diablos Rex - Chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting, red sprinkles, a vanilla frosting pentagram, and chocolate chips in the middle.



Finally (yes we had 4! ) was Voodoo Doll - Raised yeast doughnut filled with raspberry jelly topped with chocolate frosting and a pretzel stake.



We weren't keen on the flavour of the jelly in this it tasted artificial.

Full of sugary-goodness and caffeine (Apple juice for the littlies!) We were dressed and ready to hit the park!



We had our Universal outfits we wore last year. Andy's Simpsons top, my Marauders Map top and Horcrux necklace and the girls in their Jurassic Park and Hogwarts tops. They also had their new Golden Snitch backpacks from Pri-mani! (£5 instead of £10, what a barg!)

Andy last year in his top



Andy this year



Me last year in my top



Me this year



We left our room with our vouchers and headed downstairs and towards the park.





The park officially opened at 10 but if you bought your tickets online you had early access to HP from 9am but then 99% of the people going booked online surely so it wasn't quite as "exclusive" as the Orlando perks

We stopped for some pics before joining the queue.





When queuing we noticed a woman pushing in up ahead. A lot of people noticed but everyone was too polite / confused to say anything. When she eventually got to the turnstile (in between a confused looking couple, one who had got through already and one who was about to scan his ticket ) it transpired she was trying to get in on an expired ticket... She left the queue looking rather sheepish.

Drama aside we scanned our printed at home tickets and were through. It was so so busy I started to worry we had made a mistake not buying express passes.







We had decided a few months before we wouldn't buy express passes because the crowd calendar said "hey, it's alright!" and the tickets themselves were already so expensive.

We headed straight for Forbidden Journey which had a wait time of 20 mins. We stuffed our bags in a locker and joined the queue.

















The ride was brilliant and the wait time rose to 110 minutes later in the day so it was well worth going straight there.

Next we went on the flight of the Hippogriff. It went down when we were queuing but the engineers came immediately and fixed it so we waited it out and were on within 20 minutes.



Next was of course, Butterbeer!

Imogen ordered it herself and we also bought a bag of the Backyard BBQ Kettle Chips we had last year that we fell in love with. (Which, incidentally we found out later in the holiday were the same price in the park for a small bag as a family sharing bag in Target )

They were both yummy!



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Old 14 Oct 18, 09:40 AM  
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Next up, Springfield USA for a little look around. The theming is brilliant! Even better than Orlando.

















This button was interactive and made so much noise









The thing we were most excited about today was the Studio Tour so we went there next.



The queue was quite long, it probably took around 35 minutes to get on the tour.

We grabbed our 3D glasses and finally we were off!





There are spoilers below if you are wanting to see the Studio Tour spoiler free skip ahead until you see Springfield pictures again

They have their own Fire Station!











Oh great!



The King Kong part of the ride was brilliant but looks terrible in pictures as its 3D...



Next some famous movie cars!







This special effects section was brilliant, it showed how they create rain and floods









Our tour guide reassured us that it all gets recycled and reused again (in Disney's drinking water) Oooh that was cheeky but I'll allow it.

Next was the Western set





They explained how different doors were different heights this was to create the illusion that the shorter cowboys were much taller so they would film certain actors in front of certain doors.

They also explained how they make it look like the Wild West when there is a concrete floor, they just cover it all in dirt! Easy

We recognised this area from Westworld so it was really cool to be driving through there.

We also went through the set where they had been filming The Good Place with Kristen Bell



The next part was the Disaster! section! I used to love this in Orlando so was super excited to be seeing it again. The girls thought it was brilliant.













Next up Jaws! Another one we miss from Universal, done slightly differently but still a lot of fun.









Next they took us to the sets where they film shows such as Desperate Housewives amongst other things

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Old 14 Oct 18, 09:41 AM  
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And where they filmed the Grinch



Next, the Bates Motel! This was super creepy and well done. Norman Bates is carrying his Mother into the trunk of his car He then realised we were watching and started walking after us with a knife! He stood and stared at us for ages, even when we went to the next section he was still stood there





Next was the airplane crash scene built for War of The Worlds



It was incredibly well done and we noticed some houses on the top of the hill in the background where people actually lived and we said how they look out their windows and can see a plane crash set! It must be so surreal!



Next, Fast and the Furious time







There were some spectacular views across LA



The Tour was absolutely fantastic and the highlight of our day at Universal.

We were getting hungry now and went back into Springfield USA to get some lunch.

"Excuse me officers do you know of any good eateries around here?"









The Simpson's Ride was an hour wait and with no express passes we decided to forego that ride this year.

Finally we made it to Krusty Burger! Yay!



We chose 2 Clogger burgers and a Krusty burger all with fries and a drink and went upstairs to sit and eat.



The restaurant was huge, clean and air conditioned and the burgers were really tasty and fresh. Our total came to $47.





They had the usual funny clips on in the background which ended up repeating after a while.

We left feeling really full but we all really enjoyed the burgers.

Our next ride was Jurassic Park! It was getting very hot and we needed to cool down.



To get there we had to get on the giant outdoor escalators built into the cliffs. These were just incredible!





The queue was huge for JP River Adventure but we all wanted to ride it so we just joined the queue. It ended up taking 45 minutes to get on.

Every so often there would be a tannoy telling us it was someone's birthday in the queue and the woman would say it in exactly the same tone every time. "We wanna wish them a happy birthdaaaaay, yaw!" After about the fifth one it got really annoying

This was Imogen's face after another announcement...



The ride was brilliant and helped cool us down. We did notice it was a little run down but I guess as they are going to be updating it for Jurassic World there's no point in repairing anything.



Next up, the Mummy!



Imogen had initially said she didn't want to ride the Mummy but after some gentle persuasion she agreed she would and she was glad she did!

Her initial reluctance was because the bit in the Orlando one where they trick you that its the end of the ride when its not but the Hollywood version is slightly different anyway!

Too scared to put our hands in here but the teenagers behind us did





After the Mummy we were lucky enough to be there just as Blue came out for the raptor encounter! Yay!

Oh my gosh this was brilliant! Just so clever and the girls were mesmerised.







We were done with the lower lot so got back on the escalators. Some people were crazy enough to walk them

It was sooo hot! We were parched and didn't have any water with us so had to buy one from the cart. It took forever and it cost $3.96 for a small water, the same price as a pack of 24 bottles in Target

Simpsons was still too busy so we went to Super Silly Fun Land and went on the spin ride.







They had carnival games here but they were $10 a pop so we left as we were planning on doing them at Pixar Pier instead.

We spotted that Gru and Stuart were setting up a meet and greet so joined the queue.



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Old 14 Oct 18, 09:41 AM  
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They had some interactive doorbells in a row of houses and different minions answered them, it was so funny.

Imogen really wanted to buy the banana minion cotton candy we had seen on Youtube but they had run out! Disney wouldn't have run out of their limited run food offerings!

We had planned to go and see the Waterworld show but the queue for Minion Mayhem was really short and we put it to the girls and they chose minions.





On the way out we saw King Julian and Alex the Lion walking around and stopped for a cuddle. The girls loved the interaction.









We were pretty much done with the park and we had tickets to see the LA Dodgers at 7pm so it was time to call it a day. But first! Squishees! (A la Kwik-E-Mart!) They were really nice and refreshing and very sugary







A fabulous day at the Studios!



Andy and I have been wanting to replenish his "Fierce" stock so a visit to Abercrombie was called for on the way back to our hotel.

The girls and I waited outside and they played in the water play area and got totally drenched through. They had an absolute blast and the water looked so pretty.







Andy returned with his purchase and decided on the 100ml size which was $90 incl tax but if he gave his email address they were giving 20% off. Bargain!

We walked back to the hotel to freshen up and get ready for the Dodgers game!

We were originally going to get Ubers there and back to save having to park and so we could have a couple of beers with the game but changed our mind to drive instead.

We went on to the Dodger's website and pre paid for our parking whilet we got ready. This saved $10 as it was $15 instead of $25 and meant we got to go in a faster lane on the way in.

There was an option to pay only $5 but it was miles away like not even in the same area and preferred parking was $40.

The Uber would have been $40 plus waiting time there and $25 back so it definitely made sense to drive.

We had bought our hats online a few months before so we looked the part!

The drive took forever, the traffic was the worst we had seen it so far.

We eventually got to Dodger Stadium, there was about 10 lanes to get in, some for preferred, some for pre paid some for pay on gate. Pre paid was much shorter which was a bonus. We just ha to show a screenshot of our booking from about an hour earlier and we were in.

The car park was immense, I have literally never seen anything like it!

We were directed to a parking spot and started walking towards the entrance.





It was almost 7pm and there was still loads of people arriving, it was so strange! I was stressing we were gong to be one of the last ones arriving but literally hundreds were going to be arriving later than us ad no one was rushing it was all very chilled.

I had been told that because it was such a long game people came and went all the way through.

We found the entrance to our section (11TD) and did security and bag check then scanned our print at home tickets and we were in by 7:10pm

We had chosen fairly cheap seats but we were so impressed by the view! They were $30 each plus tax. Section 11TD Row D seats 1-4

Before sitting down we thought we might as well grab some food to take with us. We already knew we wanted Dodger Dogs and ordered 4 hot dogs, 1 fries and 2 drinks in souvenir cups. It came to $49.75 and the dogs didn't look great but they tasted lovely. It's a good job we weren't drinking as each beer was $15

We had contemplated the all-you-can-eat section where you can literally go up as many times as you want but I just didn't think we would make good use of it.

We walked to our seats and sat down, the slope to get there was so steep I was scared we were going to trip and fall!











The atmosphere was brilliant, there was lots of chanting which we quickly joined in with "Let’s go, Dodgers! *clap clap clap-clap-clap*" They also did kiss cam which was hilarious and included an awkward pan to a pair of friends refusing to kiss each other and a guy choosing to kiss his beer instead of his girlfried



There was also dance cam and people had some great moves. The girls were delighted when some kids did some FOrtnite dances and were poised ready to crack out their best floss for the camera but it didn't come up as high as our seats. There was also some adverts coming up on the big screen and at one point Terry Crews came on the big screen chanting Let's Go, Dodgers! Then instead of the clapping he did his signature pec dance We love Terry Crews





The thing we found really funny was that each batter was announced with their own entrance music, it kind of reminded me of wrestling!

The Dodgers were playing the St Louis Cardinals. There were some lively fans shouting "You suck!" every so often.

The Dodgers started out OK but started to fall behind after a while and by 9:15pm I think it was evident there wasn't any coming back from their position.

We left around 9:30pm and I think it was only about half way through! It was enough for a first try and it made me feel like we wanted to live in America and come to games on a regular basis it was so nice. We would definitely see a game again.



We had a browse on our way out in the gift shop. I loved the jerseys but decided against buying any.

The view on the way back to our car was amazing! Beautiful twinkling city lights.









The traffic was much better on the way back and only took 25 minutes to get back to the hotel.

We had just enough time to sneak in some pool time before it closed for the night. The pool here was pretty average. It was small and had no lifeguard but the girls loved being able to have a late night dip. It was pretty cold outside the pool though and Andy and I wrapped up in towels to keep warm!



We went back to the room and watched our favourite - weather gone viral and called it a night.

We had planned a trip to Target on the way home and to get our bags packed ready to move to Knotts Berry Farm and get our outfits out but we were all shattered so decided we would just do it all in the morning.
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Old 14 Oct 18, 07:12 PM  
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What a great day. The tour at US looks fantastic. I love the retro neon universal sign.
Can’t belive your last years photos, You both look amazing!
Sounds like a great evening at the baseball
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Old 14 Oct 18, 09:05 PM  
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You guys AMAZEEEEE me!

When I’d be going to bed you’re going out to the baseball! Looks amazing though - what a great experience.

Fab day in US, the tour looks excellent. How did you find the HP area?

Love Fierce - such an amazing smell. We feelthe baby and body works mahogany teakwood reminds us of this too.

Great day, can’t wait for the next xx
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Old 14 Oct 18, 09:49 PM  
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Great day, I’d be shattered!
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Old 14 Oct 18, 11:00 PM  
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What a busy day! Those donuts for breakfast looked amazing and I really want to try a squishee!
Going to the baseball game seems like a really good way to get an authentic american experience.
Looking forward to day three!
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Old 15 Oct 18, 08:29 PM  
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Another full on day. The studio tour is the thing we want to visit Universal for it looks so cool. Voodoo Doughnuts is a must bit hadn't arrived on Citywalk Orlando last summer so that's another thing on our ever growing list.
The baseball game sounds like a fun idea for a taste of US live sport.
You and your other half look amazing. An inspiration to the many dibbers who want to lose weight ahead of a big holiday.
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Old 15 Oct 18, 09:24 PM  
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You guys are so full on! What a fab day- donuts for brekkie, universal, studio tours, baseball game! Fantastic 😆
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