Where Are We Sleeping Tonight: Doubletree LAX Today is a day I have long been looking forward to - the deluxe VIP tour of Warner Brothers Studios. These tours only take 12 people a day so they book out extremely quickly so I had to book this months ago - I think it was the first thing booked after the flights... at least I think it was after we booked the flights... Anyway, when we were showed into a theatre of about 50 people, I was seriously worried. We watched a film about the WB Studios and then we were broken up into 4 groups. Groups A, B and C were VIP tours and the all left the auditorium. The remaining 12 of us (group D) were the deluxe VIP tour. We were all handed gloves and then a security guard came in with a locked briefcase. In it - a real genuine Oscar that we got to hold! Now that's what I call deluxe!
With the Oscar being escorted back to the vault, we all climbed aboard our deluxe tour buggy. Our destination: the backlot. We went through the swamp location where the exterior for the home in "Invasion" is (which also doubles as the diner in "True Blood") and where numerous scenes where shoot for "Chuck" and one scene from "Jurassic Park"; then we saw Lorelei's house from "Gilmore Girls (as well as the Stars Hollow town square), a street where Sheldon & Howard rode on a scooter in "Big Bang Theory", the house from "Gremlins" that saw an old lady flung out from her stair rider, the alleyway where Kirstin Dunst was kissed by an upside down Spiderman! I have learned so many movie tricks on the backlot - I can't wait to apply them!
We ate lunch in the very snazzy fine dining section of the commissary, which is where the producers eat and try to woo big name stars. The cast and crew usually eat next door in the cafeteria part :) The three course lunch was extremely delicious - we are going to gain so much weight on this trip! Next up we visited the massive prop store where we saw so many different props all stored in categories and we even got to go onto the "Friends" set (where they have stored the Central Perk coffee shop exactly as it was). Next up we visited the Clint Eastwood scoring stage before visiting several sound stages (i.e. the front lot). Although our cameras were forbidden, we got to stroll through the house from "Chuck" as well as the apartments from "The Big Bang Theory" - we will have to see if we can get tickets to a recording of an episode!
We visited the movie car museum and saw numerous famous cars, including the General Lee from "The Dukes Of Hazard". The annoying thing was that they had placed a giant orange magnet on the roof to cover the Confederate flag - obviously trying to be PC and not offend anyone. Next up was the film museum which had an entire floor dedicated to Harry Potter - I have never seen Clare so excited! I can't wait to see how she will be when we get to Harry Potter World :) All in all, the WB tour was brilliant and we got to see real film making, rather than just silly rides where a shark comes out of the water next to you...
Next we headed out to Vasquez Rocks, the location from so many films and TV shows, but probably best known as the place where Captain Kirk fought the Gorn. It was slightly further out of LA than I thought it would be, but it was well worth it. On our way back, we visited the Hollywood Bowl and the nearby lookout where we had great views of LA. Back into the city, we headed to the Universal Citywalk and did some more shopping before having dinner at the Bubby Gump Shrimp Company. Dinner was really nice but the shooter glass sampler dessert was evil - I really loved the 'red, white and blue' :)
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