Do you LOVE the movies? Want to experience a world-class theme park exclusively? Love being fancy and having free bottled water? Then consider the Universal Studios Hollywood VIP Experience Tour! This article looks at what you receive with the tour, my experiences this past month, and our recommendations!

What is the USH VIP Tour?

The Universal Studios Hollywood VIP Tour is a small group tour of the theme park, film studio, and filming locations at Universal Studios in Hollywood, CA. The theme park tour lasts around five hours, with the studio tour being around two hours. The tour includes the following:

• Theme park admission
• 6-hour theme park tour
• Unlimited Express Pass
• Small group Studio Tour with up-close walking segments and prop warehouse tour
• All-you-care-to-eat breakfast and lunch with unlimited non-alcoholic drinks
• Free toiletries and items like sunscreen, lip balm, bottled water, and ponchos (for Jurassic World, the Ride of course)

What is the price of the tour?

Tour pricing starts at $350 plus tax on the Universal Studios Hollywood website, but we purchased tickets for $340 with tax on UndercoverTourist.com. Park admission and an Express Pass on the day of our visit would cost $285 with tax through UndercoverTourist (an unlimited Express Pass is offered on USH’s website starting at $209 per person). So, for an additional $55, we got a private tour of the park and studio, breakfast, lunch, free bottled water, and more. You could easily pay for the price of the tour with the savings on bottled water!

Our Experience

Our tour was slightly after opening on a Wednesday this past month. My party of three arrived at the park 50 minutes before our tour time, well ahead of the 30 minutes they suggested, because we wanted to avoid LA traffic. After navigating security (currently under construction), we found the VIP Lounge entrance to the right of the main entrance. After a quick check-in with a Team Member outside confirming our reservation, we headed inside the first floor of the lounge to scan our VIP tickets. At this time, we were given a lanyard to wear at all times and our tour guide assignment. Once fully kitted out, we headed upstairs for the free continental breakfast and drinks in the lounge space. On our trip, the lounge had an assortment of pastries, small sandwiches, yogurt, and fruit.

About 15 minutes before tour time, our tour guide came to our table and introduced herself, let us know the plan to tour the park, when our lunch time would be, and asked us if we had any questions. Our tour group, roughly 10 guests in total plus the guide, left slightly after our tour start time and immediately headed to the world-famous Universal Studios Hollywood Studios Tour! Normally, the tour is a 45-minute-long bus tour of the backlot area, stopping at several attractions and filming locations on the lot.

The VIP Studio Tour is a 90-minute tour that sees all the areas the normal tour sees, plus special locations only available to the VIPs, where guests debark their private trams to explore. The tour started on top of the hill and made its way down the hill, past a timeline of the studio’s history, and into the backlot soundstages. We started our tour with two of the three private stops – a real working soundstage and the props warehouse. The Soundstage (photos above) was home to the television series St. Dennis Medical. Inside, our guides showed us real examples of the sorts of things they’d normally only be able to describe: the quietness of the soundstages, set dressing to tell a story, how fake props like elevators move, and more.  Next up was the prop warehouse and its endless amount of knick-knacks, chairs, furniture, and more. Some items are recognizable, but others are nondescript, meant to be used as a background setting to set the story. We then boarded our VIP bus and saw several of the USH tour attractions: the Jaws attack, Earthquake: the Big One, Bates Motel, and more (King Kong was down for refurbishment during my visit).

Once the tour concluded, we broke into our smaller groups to tour the theme park and have lunch. The VIP tour has the guide backdoor us into the attractions and onto the next ride vehicles like a real VIP. We started on the lower lot with Transformers: The Ride, Mario Kart: Bowser’s Challenge, and Revenge of the Mummy. Our guide explained the attraction styles to us (fast coasters that do not go upside down, a ride that goes screen to screen, etc), asked who wanted to ride, and offered to hold our bags for us while on the more intense rides. Access to the Express

Then it was time for lunch at the Moulin Rouge, a buffet-style restaurant for the VIP tours. I am not usually a buffet fan, but this one was well stocked with unique items like California rolls, chicken tikka masala, seasonal ravilio selections (ors were mushroom), NY Strip, chicken breasts, vegetables, potatoes, salads, desserts, and much more. Food was high quality and frequently refreshed, service was prompt, and we all liked what we tried. Don’t worry, picky eaters – they have chicken tenders and fries. Unlimited bottled and canned non alcoholic drinks were located in a cooler in the main dining room; grab a bottle of water on your way out for the tour. While dining, we had a dinosaur handler and his velociraptor come around, plus Dracula welcoming us to his restaurant.

Following up after lunch, our tour guides figured we needed to digest and work us up to Forbidden Journey levels of intensity, so our first stop was Secret Life of Pets Off the Leash, followed by Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem. After a quick trip on Flight of the Hippogriff, we then tackled Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.  Our last stop before our guide departed us at 4:00 PM was the last WaterWorld show of the night. Once done, we rode several attractions using our Express Passes (our lanyard credentials acted as Unlimited Express Pass) then we left the park shortly before closing.

Final Word

We absolutely LOVED our VIP Experience at Universal Studios Hollywood. Laura, our tour guide, was fantastic (hi Laura!) and was on top of the whole tour, from phoning around to check what attraction should be next to holding bags and taking photos. The tour guides are the true standouts of the VIP Experience. Sure, you get to see Jaws pop out of the water and see some sets on both tours, but it’s the passion and love these guides have for the studio and the tour that really shines through. If you enjoy joking with folks while touring places, asking lots of questions, love movies, and/or love behind-the-scenes details, then a VIP Experience at USH is worth your time and money.

TouringTips

• To maximize your touring time, schedule the earliest booking time for the tour in the day if possible. Tours begin at 8:00 AM on select dates, depending on park opening time.
• Tour guides suggested meeting the characters after the tour. Make sure your group knows you’ll have time to Scooby, Donkey, and Hello Kitty after the tour.
• VIP Studio Tour Bus is a small, private bus just for your two groups. Feel free to leave bottled water, bags, coats, and other items in the tram when you walk the sets.
• Bottled water is available throughout the experience at the VIP lounge, VIP tram, and at the Moulin Rouge for lunch.
• Phone charging stations are located at the VIP lounge at the Moulin Rouge.
• Restrooms at the lounge and Moulin Rouge are single stalls, and lines can be long around departure times. Use early if you can.

Are you going to book the Universal Studios Hollywood VIP Experience in the future? Leave your thoughts on your experiences and questions in the comments below!