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The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of {Universal Studios Hollywood}
Something that has been on my bucket list a long time was to see Grinch's holidays at Universal Studios Hollywood, and also just go to this park in general. We used a long weekend to pop over to LA and finally make this happen this year, and it was so fun!
We kicked off the trip on theme with the Grinch adult happy meal from McDonalds, and loved the pickle flavoring!
We made it to the airport, and thankfully had an uneventful 5 hour flight.
We we starving after picking up our rental car, so we made a pit stop at 3am Orlando time for a little In and Out!
We were staying with my friend Stephanie, who I met working in California 7 years ago! So thankful to her for letting us crash, and we had an awesome time getting to pal around in LA with her. She came with us the next morning to Universal Studios. The LA location is up on a big hill, and similar to Orlando, you walk through City Walk to get to the park entrance.
Their globe at the entry way looks a little different to the one here, but there was a lot of fun studio vibed things at this one that I really resonated with.
And the red carpet welcome of course!
We got distracted upon entry at the store and probably should have went straight to the Grinch meet and greet line but we had to get ourselves ready.
While we were in line waiting, Mike was given a private tour by Frankenstein and his bride learning about the joys of Santa hats. There was so much atmosphere entertainment in this park, and I really enjoyed it!
It was a Sunday, and the park got very busy very fast. It was one of those days where there are so many people around you can hardly get from place to place cause you're just swimming through bodies. By the time we got over to the cute little Who-ville area the wait time to meet the Grinch was 120 minutes, which was half the time we waiting last year in Orlando!
After closer to 100 minutes, we finally met the big man himself, the reason for coming, the the the...
THE GRINCH!
I am a tough Grinch critic and he was EVERYTHING! We screamed together, we directed together a short film together, he even said the classic "cut, print, check the gate" line and it just made my whole visit worth it.
We also got to meet the other star of the show, Max!
There were 2 shows moments that took place during the day in Who-ville, including Cindy Lou Who reading the story of the Grinch and the Fah Who 4 A'sm riffing their way through some familiar Christmas tunes. I even knew Abob, who travelled to the snowflake of Hong Kong with me a few years ago!
The decor in this area was just so cute. I literally could have stayed here all day. We did however miss the atmosphere Who's walking around because it was so crowded.
We finally left this area to explore the rest of the park, but knew we'd be back for the tree lighting in the evening. It was time for a snack, and while the food had seemed quite promising on the app, we were pretty disappointed with most of the food we had all day. We tried the Who Hash, which was tater tots topped with brisket, cheese sauce, green onion, and thousand island dressing. Stephanie had the Gooey Gobble Melt, which was a turkey and Swiss melt with slaw and cranberry aioli. Both were very disappointing unfortunately.
Next snack was the Mac and cheese spicy chicken bread cone, which was better than the Grinch themed food, but I liked the one at Epic more.
In the evening for dinner we had a chicken tender and minion tater tot snack, and the tots were so funny looking but they tasted like those frozen smiley potatoes.
In Mario World we popped in Toadstool Cafe for some drinks, and both were the tastiest thing of the day, especially the hot chocolate.
The super star lemon squash was also tasty- a honey lemon soda with mango stars and tropical boba
Transformers were still out doing their usual meet and greet, but my favorite was sassy Megatron.
The Mummy ride was very similar to the one in Orland, but it was missing Brendan Fraser's cup of coffee.
The biggest difference in this park from Orlando is that being that it's on a hill, there are 2 levels, an upper and a lower, and a whole lot of escalators to get from one section to the other, with sweeping LA views on the way.
This view was stunning and you could see WB studios down below.
The first stop is basically the King Kong ride at Orlando, where you go through the sound stage with 3D glasses on and watch the gorilla and t-rex battle it out in a screen fully surrounding you. Next you go through some of the office areas, and there is a video screen on the tram where there are some moments of directors and creatives talking about creating movie magic.
You then go through a few different studio lots that have been used in several different movies and tv shows. They take a vague looking area and fluff it up to turn it into Italy or Genovia etc.
We see another flash flood in the Wild West or Mexico or wherever you want this to take place like it did in the Liar, Liar movie.
One of the places I was most looking forward to seeing was Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives, and given that this is a generic house lot it's often being used and you don't get to see it, but we got lucky.
Things then get a little scary as you go past the Bates Motel and even a scare actor Norman Bates from thrillers like Psycho.
Another iconic moment on this tour is the shark attack on Amity Islands' Jaws set.
I personally loved the giant blue screen used to for special effects to sink a car or turn into space, etc.
We ended our night with the Christmas Tree lighting show back in Who-ville and it was really adorable, but I was obsessed with the twinkly tree! It was so beautiful. 
The jet lag was kicking in hard by this point, and we were ready to head out. I really, really loved my time visiting this park, but we will definitely have to return at some point and do it without the crowds.
Christian Bale sang Sante Fe in this alley in Newsies.
This is the school facade of Abott Elementary that we're in the middle of watching now.
There was a whole section dedicated to Harry Potter, which after doing the studio tour in London, this was pretty small scale, but we did do the sorting hat experience and were sorted into our correct houses, which was indeed wild.
We met back up with Stephanie for lunch, which was CoCo Ichibanya, one of our favorite Hong Kong places, and we were so excited to get to have it again in the States.
Next door was also an H Mart, which is the largest Asian supermarket chain in the U.S. and specializes in Korean products. There was also an Asian bakery across the way that had so many familiar smells and breads.
This night we had the best tacos I have ever had in my life. The al pastor was good but whoa this steak taco blew me away, and it was just in a CVS parking lot...
and dessert at the Wanderlust Creamery, which had amazing flavored ice creams like Christmas Cookie and Sugar Plum Fairy, but also a lot of twists on Asian flavors like Pandan tres leches, black sesame cookies and cream, and ube malted crunch.
Our last evening in Hollywood, we decided to drive around and check out some of the Christmas lights, and some of these displays went all out. We even met Jack Skellington!
We sadly said our goodbyes to LA, but I was so glad we got to sneak this trip in and check off this bucket list item! Thanks Stephanie for housing us and playing tour guide for us! See ya on the flip side Cali!
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