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The web site for members of 'The Lord of the Rings' fan club attending the party in Los Angeles on March 24th
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Ian's Web Log
Day 1 - Wednesday, March 20th - Flight to L.A. Day 2 - Thursday, March 21st - Universal Studios Tour Day 3 - Friday, March 22nd - Hotel Move and Fan Club Member Arrive Day 4 - Saturday, March 23rd - Exhibitions and Pub Moot Day 5 - Sunday, March 24th - The One Party Day 6 - Monday, March 25th - Recovery!
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Thursday, 21st March - Universal Studios

Bates Hotel from Psycho movie

 Aeriel View of Back Lot

 The abandoned communications centre from Jurassic Park movie
Whoville house from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas movie

    Amongst the many things seen on the Back Lot tour were buildings from Whoville ("The Grinch Who Stole Christmas"), and the first "Jurassic Park" move, although the highlight had to be the Bates Motel from Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" which still looks creepy, all these years on.

One of the key differences between the VIP Backlot tour and the standard one is that you can get out of the bus and examine things in closer detail along the route. 		   Bates Motel - House on the Hill from Psycho movie
The tour of the properties section was like viewing an incredibly large warehouse full of junk! The minimal rental charge is $35, and here they have everything from fake food to Egyptian artefacts to Victorian furniture, all laboriously catalogued and sorted into long corridors of shelving, with each aisle being labelled with the general category.
Properties Department sign

 The third floor of the Props department

 3rd floor aisle notices in the Props department
With the BackLot tour over, it was time to take our first "theme park" ride. And first on our schedule was the E.T. ride, receiving a lot of publicity all over Universal City because it is being re-issued with new scenes in cinemas this weekend.

Apollo13 ship and crew

 Amity Marina from Jaws

 Water World Set
Despite warnings about not taking the E.T. ride if you suffer from motion sickness etc. this proved to be a gentle ride, aimed mainly at young children. You are in a small vehicle made out to look like E.T.'s bike, and get to see some beautiful panoramic scenes at night. The most impressive part of the ride occurs when you appear to be flying over a large City from a great height. A real "Oooooooooh!" moment. The remainder, and by far the largest part of the ride, goes on to show you fly-bicycling to ET's home world, which turned out to be pretty standard theme park ride fare (mainly moving sculptures). The ride was pretty good but, as we later found out, was quite tame compared with the other rides and shows we were to see later - all of which just took our breathe away.

    E.T. ride
Jurassic Park ride entrance

    Next up, was the Jurassic Park ride. Most of our party backed out of this because of the ride's end: a 90 foot sheer vertical drop into water, with people seemingly getting very wet. This was a fantastic ride, with lots of animatronic dinosaurs en route, many throwing water at you, so that you really felt you were IN the movie. Plastic bag Poncho's are provided for the stunning ride end, for those worried about water. Despite worries from the rest of our party, I went with the advice of a couple of other studio guides and didn't wear mine because it was so hot - and the soaking I got soon dried off and was quite refreshing. Alas, because of worries about my camera gear getting wet I didn't get any photo's of the ride itself, but if you visit Universal this is definitely a ride not to be missed.

With 2 rides down, and three shows and another ride to come, it was time to break for a rather late lunch.

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