Universal Studios Hollywood (Oct. 31)

For Halloween, we spent all day at Universal Studios Hollywood. And it worked out great: hardly any lines, comfortable weather, and lots of costumes. We saw actual street sets, including one in Bruce Almighty. That very day, they were filming the sequel, Evan Almighty, in Studio 27. There were effects demonstrations and a few scares. We saw the crashed 747 scene created for Spielberg's War of the Worlds, and it was HUGE. The Desperate Housewives set was also visible from the tour tram. We had enough time to see everything in the park; the setup is nice in that you can walk from one end to the other in ten minutes. Our favorite attractions were the Revenge of the Mummy ride (3 times), Terminator 2: 3D and Water World. Rather than sit in L.A. rush-hour traffic, we hung around the Universal CityWalk. We saw the movie Catch a Fire and had crepes for dinner. The kids were out in full force, trick-or-treating through the shops and restaurants.