Help with Universal Studios Hollywood planning

cindyland

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jul 3, 2010
Planning one day over Spring Break (week of 3/25). We are huge DL fans, but we're finally going to see Harry Potter attractions before the last kid graduates. This is probably a one and done trip.

Our group will be mom (me), dad, and daughters (17 and 21). I'm concerned about motion sickness for hubby and me on rides. We stopped going on Star Tours years ago, but our daughters do okay.

I was thinking front of pass lines for our daughters, but not for hubby and me. Are there going to be any rides that won't make us sick?

Any advice for us when we get deserted by our kids? TIA.
 
I get motion sick on motion simulators, can’t ride Star Tours etc. My DH and DDs (13 and 11) can ride every ride at DL, including all the motion simulators multiple times in a row. We recently did a one day trip to USH on our January DLR trip specifically to visit HPW. I bought the unlimited EP (front of line for all rides as many times as you want; the regular EP is only once per ride per day and I wasn’t sure how many times they would want to repeat rides, price difference over regular EP was $40pp for unlimited EP). I could only ride the small ride in HPW, and after 2 rides on the big ride in HPW, rest of my family was a little unsettled. We went on, and they rode Mummy and Simpsons. After that, they were all very motion sick, rode big ride in HPW one more time since it would be our last, and we ended up not riding any more rides. I was surprised as they all ride everything over and over at DLR and have no issues (same at our local Six Flags and when we went to Busch Gardens in Florida, nothing bothers them). I think it is just too many motion simulators all at once. Due to space limitations, USH has no room for real rides.

I think you will be fine on the little coaster in HPW, but literally almost every other thing is a motion simulator. The other thing the EP can be used for is shows, for priority seating, so if you plan to do those, it might be worth the one ride per day EP for all of you. Note that the shows all seem to happen at the exact same time, so we could not see several shows in one day without staying very late into the day, which no one felt like doing after all of those rides (and we tried to do the rides early in the day prior to eating lunch to have the least chance of motion sickness, but alas it didn’t work, but that only left afternoon for shows). I think EP also gets you priority on the Studios Tour, so that can add value to the EP for all of you if that interests you.

If you can’t do Star Tours, you will have only 1-2 rides at USH. So only you can decide if it is worth it for you all. If your daughters are big riders, the unlimited EP might be a good option (the option to buy it only comes up on their website after you choose the regular EP ticket, then it pops up and asks if you want to upgrade to unlimited EP for an upcharge (ours was $40 pp at peak holiday time)).

USH was one and done for us, and frankly ruined the evening at DLR that we had that evening. I had us all scan into DL that morning before heading to USH so I could book all these evening FPs on MP from my phone while at USH waiting for them to ride. So we had awesome FPs set up at both parks that evening, but no one felt well enough to ride much after we got back from USH! Bummer.
 
Rather than the Express Pass, I would suggest that your daughters use the single rider lines. Forbidden Journey, Mummy, and Transformers all have single rider lines and we've generally found those to be very short. I assume you'll all want to go on the Studio Tour and Flight of the Hippogriff together, so the Express Pass wouldn't help there. That would just leave Despicable Me and Simpsons for them to do, which they could do early in the morning when wait times are low.
 
I get pretty bad motion sickness (which then cause vertigo problems) with simulators and especially 3D rides (I can no longer ride ST). I am only able to do a few things at USH and even then, I still feel a little dizzy and have a to wait a while until I can normalize again. I will say that the last USH trip, I took Bonine (so much better than Dramamine for me) and was able to ride FJ with no serious problems. My eyes were still closed during the screen portions but I wasn't near as bad coming off that ride as I had been in the past. I did not ride FotH because that amount of small turns is enough to make me feel horrendous. I was also able to ride the Mummy ride although going backwards did affect me a little bit (I was fine after walking around and getting something cold to drink).

I love the Studio Tour and watching all of the shows - go see Waterworld if you can. Yes, the movie is old but the show has really held up! There is also a Special Effects show as well as an Animal Actors show which are very good.

I love what USH represents (working studio, Hollywood history, etc.) but unfortunately, the lack of space has caused them to install rides that don't take up space, but also not everyone can ride. The only reason I have another trip scheduled for USH is because a friend and I are running the 5K in May and we got cheaper tickets. I hope with some of the major changes happening, USH will implement non-simulator rides and the park will be more than just a 1 day (or no day) option for people.
 



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