Disneyland vs. Universal Studios and other things I learned about Los Angeles

in travel •  6 years ago 

My apologies for not posting for a while - was on vacation in Los Angeles and decided to not take any of my laptops to get a fresh break from things. I'm back at it now though and will try to do multiple posts this week to make up for not writing (because I know how bad my writing can get if I don't write for a while).

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While in Los Angeles, I did quite a few things with my girlfriend including:

  • Eating hand rolls at Kazu Nori (awesome hand rolls)
  • Visiting China Town, Little Tokyo (multiple times) and Korea Town and eating at restaurants at each place
  • Going to Disneyland twice (two different parks) and experiencing an awesome Halloween experience
  • Going to Universal Studios and realizing how different it is to Disney (more on this later)
  • Experiencing the glories of downtown LA and what I think are homeless people antics (experiencing a partial fight on the Metro, seeing people yell at each other across the street, seeing a woman dig around in the garbage to break bottles, watching a man run in front of me to pick up a bottle and break it on the sidewalk (for a very brief second, I thought he was breaking it into a weapon)

In short, I had an incredible time getting away from things and bringing out the kid in me. I thought I'd start by exploring some of the interesting differences between Disney and Universal Studios:

At Disney, the experience is much more streamlined and designed to be fair compared to Universal Studios (in terms of access to rides)

At Disney, everyone gets access to something called FastPass - which is a way of getting to near the front of any ride line. For $10 USD per guest, you can get access to it on your phone which is a really convenient way of not having to visit the FastPass distribution areas (you have to go to the rides to get a FastPass ticket, which then tells you when you can come back to access the FastPass lane). I didn't physically go to the rides and decided to do everything through the Disney app but found the FastPass to be easy to use once I got the hang of it.

At Universal, you pay an extra $60 USD to get into the express line. Judging from the lines (and I didn't pay for the express pass), not very many people pay for the express access and at Universal, the line ups can be really long which makes the experience not as great as Disney.

Getting to Disney and Universal early is crucial

Getting their early means you can get on to 1, maybe 2 or 3 rides even with minimal wait times. Past 10 - 11, you start to experience longer and longer waits, especially for the more popular rides so it is key to get to the most popular rides first (do your research online ahead of time) and then when the waits get crazy, use your FastPass. The Express access is a 'pay-to-win' type model - you can get unlimited express access or express access for every ride once although in my experience, I think you can experience most of the rides at Universal Studios without getting express access.

Disneyland is geared towards kids, Universal is more geared towards adults

This is not only obvious in the rides but in the character actors that are throughout the park. The characters at Disney certainly stay in character - for example, I met Rey from Star Wars who pretended to have no idea where Canada is when she asked where we were from but thought that we took a long trip to visit her and that we could have a good race with her and Poe Dameron. I didn't get to interact with many characters at Universal Studios aside from some Transformers but more of the conversation and humour was directed at the adults when I did.

Both parks have excellent customer service

The attendants at both parks really go out of their way to ensure a world class experience for guests. Attendants dress up, get into character when appropriate, make sure that guests are getting into and out of rides quickly and make sure that all guests are safe and enjoying themselves.

My favourite rides were at Disney - Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters and Toy Story Mania Ride

Both rides are interactive in the sense that you have guns and you shoot at things as you go through the rides. The Buzz Lightyear ride used laser guns and the Toy Story ride used 3D glasses to simulate you shooting at things on screens. I think that if I could only go on a few rides, those would be at least two of my top ones.

Okay, enough about Disney vs. Universal Studios - I want to now talk about a few things that I learned while roaming around Los Angeles and some lessons:

  • Bring cash - some places only accept cash (for example, a ramen place we wanted to go to only accepted cash so we had to go to the ATM)
  • AirBnB can be a hit or miss even with great reviews and ratings - the first place we went to was a guest house near Disney and it was great; the second place we went to was a loft in downtown LA and while the location was okay (near skidrow no less), there were towels strewn about in the shower and bed linens piled up on the bed. We had no idea what was going on - did the last guest just leave it like that with the cleaner not having gotten around to cleaning it up? Was the host just negligent?
  • Visit some of the more 'dangerous' areas early in the day - although nothing happened, there were visibly more sketchy people around at night in some areas which you should probably avoid, not because something will happen but just in case something does happen
  • Plan things out well in advance - this goes without saying for most trips but there are a lot of events that you need to book tickets for in advance or that you need to plan ahead. We went to The Broad for instance and made sure to visit the Infinity Room - all of this was free but booking in advance means that you make the most of your time there.
  • Prepare to wait for everything good - while in LA, I think most of our time was spent waiting in line. We waited in line to get into Disney, waited in line to get into good restaurants, waited in line to visit different exhibits - I think that's a sign that you're onto something good but at the same time, I'm sure that other restaurants are just as good (I supposed you don't have a choice with art exhibits or rides at Disney).
  • Don't fall for the CD scam like I did - while on Hollywood, people come up to you and hand you CDs then ask for a donation. If they hand you a CD, refuse to give them any money and walk away. If you have the CD in hand for whatever reason, just hand it back to them - if they do not take it, put it at their feet and walk away.

Overall, I found that LA was just as expensive, if not more expensive - groceries for instance are the same price as Canada (but in US dollars), food was quite a bit more expensive (for the same reason, a meal might cost $50 USD and the same meal in Canada may also cost $50 CAD). The food was great - reminded me of Vancouver in terms of diversity and pockets of great restaurants everywhere. People were quite friendly though I didn't talk to anyone homeless. The transit system was quite handy in helping us get around, though not as ubiquitous as we would like. I would love to see how the rich people live the next time I'm there.

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Thank you for such interesting review, this is really good to know before planning the next holiday, with kids you always want some exciting events at least once a year and if in early ages I believe Disney is almost must then later Universal is an option. From reading your post, even myself I felt envious and you make me willing to go there and just feel that atmosphere of been a part of that of imaginary paradise. I can imagine that it may cost a lot but if to plan it ahead and if it is only a holiday in two-three years then it worth to enjoy the full 100% of it :)

Thanks ! Let me know if you need more info - lots more that I didn't quite share that would be useful for a future trip

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

howdy from Texas wcy! wow Disneyland and LA is such a fun place to visit! I haven't been there for years but they hold fun memories. Do you guys travel all over quite a bit or is this a one time thing?
Also, loved the details of your post and all the advice which will save people alot of headaches so great job and the comparison between Disneyland and Universal is very important and appreciated!

Howdy! We don't travel as much as we'd like but we are trying to travel more (and therefore have more travel posts). Think our next big trip will be to Japan (where there's another Disney) so looking forward to that!

howdy again there wcy! oh the travel posts are amazing! I didn't know that Japan had a Disney park but I guess alot of countries do, that will be very interesting and fun!

This is a great comparison of Universal studios and Disneyland. I've never been to any of them but I've heard many reviews. My brother in law visited both of them and he clearly preferred Universal studios but I think it's a very personal choice. You said that FastPass will bring you close to the attraction. But what happens when many many many people decide that they want to get the FastPass? I guess it won't be that fast anymore, no? :) We had this kind of priority pass in Florence and then we realized that hundreds people had the same idea. Then you spend long time waiting anyway..

Thank you for sharing your lessons from LA. I'm sure they will help people who plan to visit the city. For me, the most useful one is the one about CD's. This is really good to know in advance :)

Thank you for sharing!

The FastPass is interesting - there's some computer magic in the background that only allows certain people to go into FastPass and it categorizes everyone into specific hours (so at the most, you do not have everyone in FastPass at the hour that you are registered for). Again, think there's magic that happens to make sure that FastPass is actually fast for everyone that uses it :)

Ok, I understand :) It does make sense.. I hope they will find out this magic in other places too :)

Hi wcy,

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I was expecting to see many photos or videos of Disney and Universal but it looks like you really enjoyed the vacation "being there" instead of wasting time on cameras. Good going!

I have not yet been to the US but I kind of relate to the lessons you itemized most especially with that Airbnb and CD experience. My frends and I got the same hit and miss experience with Airbnb in Japan. We also experienced that CD thing in China though it was a bit of everything and not just CD. The good thing in China was that we had a tour guide who told us to ignore the sidewalk vendors. We are not even supposed to smile at them otherwise they will keep tailing us.

Very good sharing of your experience there. So which one do you prefer to be better, Disney or Universal?

  ·  6 years ago (edited)

Certainly prefer Disney - maybe it's just me but the experience is just more 'fair' (Fastpass vs. Universal Express) and with more kids around, it just feels happier! Would love to do both again though not in LA!

Oh and certainly have seen that in China though I just made a dumb mistake of picking up a CD. Should have known that it would be a scam!

I haven't seen Universal due to lack of time when we were in Japan but I already had the impression that Disney is indeed better. My friends even said that if we need to choose between the two again because of lack of time, they prefer Disney. I thought the child in me had a really great time when we were in Tokyo Disneyland. If you haven't been to Japan yet, maybe that is where you can see Disney and Universal again.

I am actually surprised that there are still CDs out there. It is even hard to find CD player these days.

Hey, @wcy.

Good advice here, particularly about planning things out ahead of time. Having a backup plan is useful, too.

My family and I have been to both Disney/California Adventure and Universal Studios, and I'd say they are as you described them. From what I remember about Universal Studios (have only been there once and this was 10-15 years ago) is they had more shows than rides. At least, what I went to. I think there was a Batman stunt show (or that's what I was remembering) that we never did get into because it was full for both showings, but there was a 4D Shrek experience that was kind of cool, and what I liked the best, the Terminator show.

That had actual Terminator robots and special effects.

I'm trying to remember what else we saw, but since it's a while ago, it's not coming to mind. I'm sure it's changed since then.

Disneyland we've been to a few more times. Getting in early is my wife's specialty. She with her sister and all the kids have managed to get there when it opened and stayed well into the evening. We've never paid for the FastPass, though, which I think would have been a good deal.

I'm not much for rides, so things like the Star Wars ride they had, the Captain EO 3D music video (Michael Jackson), things like that were fine. I was not fond of Space Mountain. My wife likes Splash Mountain and waited in line for over an hour and a half once. (It had just recently opened).

The times I've been to the California Adventure side there wasn't much there, but I understand it's been built up more since then.

Very good advice about doing virtually everything during the day. The areas in LA you describe would not be places to be around at night.

I hope you do get a chance to go back. We've been talking about making a trip down to Disneyland before next spring. My wife has family down in the Orange County area, so we would visit them while we're going to the different attractions.

Congratulations on the curie. :)

Thank you ! Would love to go back and knowing what I know now, would certainly have a better and safer experience. You're right - Universal Studios is more about the show than the rides - the Water World show (not sure if you've seen it) was one of the best shows that I've seen!

Space Mountain was also okay like you said - nothing really special about it other than the fact that you can't see what's going on in the ride. Splash Mountain was great but was completely soaked after and then had to walk around in wet shoes (probably should have known to bring an extra pair of socks but at least did so when I went to Disney California Adventure the next day).

Would you have any suggestions about other places / things to do in LA? Restaurants? Other events?

Maybe it was Water World and not Batman. No, we didn't see that one, either.

I'm trying to think what else there is the LA area. We've not been to many restaurants, really. We usually end up at some kind of Mexican food place, but like El Pollo Loco. :)

There's a Six Flags (Magic Mountain), if you like harder rides. It's up the hill before you get into LA. There's Hollywood itself, the Hollywood Bowl. Take in a game of some kind at either the Rose Bowl or the Coliseum.

If you want to go farther south, into Orange County again, they also have Knotts Berry Farm. It's been a long time since we been there, but they do have a lot of rides.

And if you end up in San Diego, they have Legoland, SeaWorld, a Safari and a pretty nice zoo. You'd probably want to check out the beaches anywhere from San Diego to LA County. We really like the Laguna Beach area, which is in Orange County. Problem is, so do a lot of other people.

There's usually some kind of flea market going on where you can find all kinds of things to buy. Then, of course, you got to lug it all back. :)