Los Angeles
Hollywood
Warner Brothers
Deluxe Studio Tour
Oct. 29, 2010
Description & Accessibility
Once you arrive at Warner Brothers Studio, the tour entrance is at the back of the building, the tour desk is inside where the gift shop is and you have to go thru a security check point that has a metal detector but you can bypass this if you cannot pass thru it for any reason such as a medical implant. Your bags will be checked. Inside is a gift shop and a tour desk where you can purchase tickets or if you already have booked a tour you can check in there.
The tickets will give the time of the tour and a group #, there are 2 or 3 doors in the gift shop and will have a video monitor above it with the next group number to enter on it, line up at the appropriate time and when the door opens enter the room. There you will be given a brief talk and be shown a short movie. Then be split up to different tour guides. Everyone in the room will have the same group number but that is followed by a letter, each letter goes with a different tour guide when they exit the room.
You have two choices when buying tickets for the tour, one is the basic which I believe is a 2 & 1/2 hour tour (cheaper), and a deluxe 5 hour tour (more expensive). What is the difference between the two tours? Well the 5 hour tour you are not as rushed you do get to spend more time in places, take in a bit more and it includes lunch (around 1 hour in duration). We took the 5 hour deluxe tour.
The tour guide we had was very good and knew it well, the one item that may drive you nuts is that you where not allowed to take pictures of what was considered live working sets, and therefore at several parts of the tour, the driver would lock everyone’s cameras in a box that only the tour guide had the key, then you would get your cameras back only to have them locked up again in another section, this went on multiple times during the tour, and they did not have to even allow pictures at a time when the so called live set was not actually shooting for example we went into the Ellen set, but no one was there except a security guard as they where not taping at the time, and no cameras allowed, the only picture we could take was the Ellen sign on the outside of the building.
Accessibility: Yes
But you must let them know in advance so they have the correct tour vehicle that will allow you to take your wheelchair or scooter with you on the tour. You will be getting off and on at several locations during the tour, the tour guide will get you on and off – see picture to the left.
Some outdoor set areas may have steps that you will not be able to go up but usually it is for people who wish to get on the steps to take a picture and not part of the tour itself that you have to go up steps. You may have sidewalks that do not have a ramp but this happens only on street sets and there is no necessity to go on them as the streets are not public streets it is part of the set and you can easily use a wheelchair on the street part.
By: Donald Kerr