Warner Brothers Tour - current itinerary? vs Ultimate HW Tour

Sydnerella

enough is as good as a feast
Joined
Mar 24, 2008
I searched and found older posts listing different stops on this tour and wondered if they had changed - has anyone done this tour over the last year or so? I am wondering what one currently sees on this tour. We arrive at LAX on Friday 8/23 at 8am.

We are staying in DTLA before DLR for 2 nights at the Intercontinental where we will drop off bags and head by train or uber toward Hollywood after arriving. We will be decorating cupcakes at Duff‘s Cakes in West Hollywood (for my daughter) at noon and then either doing a Hollywood bus tour or a tour like this Warner Bros tour. Then heading up to Griffith Observatory - early evening. Wondering what would be a better use of our time - Warner Bros studio tour or Ultimate Hollywood Tour by bus.
 
We did the Warner Brothers tour in June and absolutely loved it. We did the standard admission- not the VIP. This is a spoiler as I am saying most of what we saw- so if anyone wants to be surprised, quit reading. We saw the backlot and got to go in one of the houses (used for Gilmore Girls and in a few Friends scenes). DD is a musical theatre kid, and instantly recognized the street from the Music Man (her absolute favorite movie when she was a toddler which surprised us)-- seeing how excited she was walking on the exact spot where scenes were filmed was worth the price of admission right there. There is a DC exhibit with costumes and props from Aquaman; Wonder Woman and more. There is a Harry Potter area with costumes and props from the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beast movies. There is a room of Batmobiles. We were taken on the set of All American-- a CW show that I did not know, but it still was really fun to walk through the set. We got to go through the Warner Brother's prop warehouse. In the last building (the tourist building) we got to see costumes from movies like Crazy Rich Asians and a Star is Born. The Friends' Central Perk set was moved there after filming wrapped and you can take pictures on the couch. They were in the process of moving the Big Bang Theory set there as well since they have finished filming-- we missed that opening by a week or two. If you are lucky- you will be there when they have a real Oscar out-- DD got to hold it and get a photo with it. If you want to purchase it, you can get photos/ videos of yourself riding on a broom in Harry Potter's world or riding a bat-cycle. We got a great tour guide and learned a ton about the making of movies/tv shows, the different movies and shows filmed in certain spots on the backlot, and lots more. Be aware that it is a working studio so what you see can be affected by what areas of the lot are in use. We did not run into that issue at Warner Brothers, but we were at Universal the previous day and sadly did not get to see the Back to the Future Clock Tower/Hill Valley/Courthouse square because they were filming back there. We were diverted- which was sad as that was what we were most looking forward to- still a good time though!

They estimate the Warner Brothers Tour as being 2 hours guided and 1 hour self-guided, but I think we spent close to 2 hours in the last area after the guided portion of the tour. We did the 10:30 a.m. time (9:30 and 10:00 a.m were full by the time we bought tickets)- and we did wind up having a quick lunch at Central Perk before we left to go see Hollywood and we did pay for and do the photos/videos. The times do fill up so be sure to book online in advance.

We did the Hollywood area on our own. I'm sure a bus tour would be fun, but if I had to pick one, based on our experience at Warner Brothers, that would be my pick. We had a great time there.
 
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We did it back in May and had the same experience as @ktlm describes above. We also got to go on the set of the Ellen show, which was cool. It was interesting and we are glad we did it. One thing to note is that the majority of the tour is outside and as I recall, it was over 2 hours. It may be hot in August. Ironically when we did it, it was cold and drizzly. I will also caution that many of the sets and locations are unrecognizable as they were in the shows or movies, since they are re-used often. We definitely recognized the front of the house from Full House, but were a little disappointed to see its merely a front façade and nothing else! lol! I also was not all that familiar with many of the TV shows and movies referenced, so I'd recommend brushing up on your Warner Brothers productions so you can appreciate it more!

There's a link in my signature to my trip report. We also did a hop on hop off bus tour, which worked out well for us. We walked around the Hollywood area ourselves and got on the bus stop there, and rode it to Beverly Hills and the Grove/Farmer's Market. We loved both of those stops most.
 
The tour guide when you start the tour will typically ask everybody what their favorites are, and (in theory) will try to match people's interests as much as possible.


I was at WB Studios in June, and had similar, but not identical experiences. Standard tour, not VIP. During the tour, we were almost going to visit one specific thing, and the tour guide was told that we had to leave the area, so things get altered all the time. I believe some "producer/director" was there and was evaluating the location. I also missed the Big Bang Theory set by a couple weeks.


I haven't done any special hollywood tour (Beyond the Adventures by Disney one), so can't comment on how good the ones you are talking about are.
 


I was at WB Studios in June, and had similar, but not identical experiences. Standard tour, not VIP. During the tour, we were almost going to visit one specific thing, and the tour guide was told that we had to leave the area, so things get altered all the time. I believe some "producer/director" was there and was evaluating the location.

What day of the week was this, out of curiosity? The tour we took was at 8:30am on Sunday morning of Memorial Weekend, so everything was dead. No one around. I think this allowed us the flexibility to go where we wanted, but on the flipside, it would have been cool to see some action with people buzzing around.
 
It was June 15th (Saturday). It was still kind of dead, but there were definitely some things going on. It was really the only day we could do the tour (it was the day after our Adventures by Disney Backstage tour ended).

There were about 3 other tour groups around us throughout the tour, and I noticed that each tour did slightly different things (like one group would visit one "house" and not another.. nothing major), so there will always be some variety.
 

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