Our family love returning to the "old" favourites of Back to the Future and the Men in Black. The trip into the mouth of the dinosaur in Doc Brown's De Lorean is a highlight of any visit, and the whole family enjoy the competition of finding and shooting the aliens in the backstreets of New York. (Well, ok, maybe I do take it just a bit too seriously, but these are A L I E N S for goodness sake!).

Jaws is fun, and Terminator is thrilling the first couple of times - especially for older children - but for me the Revenge of the Mummy was a slight disappointment (too rushed & disjointed with no flowing narrative) but this year I will be back to try it once again. The best, most wonderful and side-splittingly funny (and scary!) place here though is Shrek 4-D which is always a hit and has some ticklish surprises... One downside here though is the length of the queues to get in, and in the heat of the August sun it is very noticeable that there is not enough shade nor mist fans here....

That leads neatly on to another slight quibble. The price of the Universal Express tickets is hefty - for us almost the same price again as the regular tickets. That hurts. We did it once but in the future will just try to plan our visits better...

We still haven't yet tried the Animal Actors, nor Twister, or several of the smaller attractions, which all goes to show that there is never enough time... The layout of Universal Studios Florida - around a lake and meandering through landscapes and timezones - is a good one but not as easy to navigate as, for example, Magic Kingdom or Islands of Adventure. Plan your visit!

Islands of Adventure

Islands of Adventure is a relatively recent addition to the Universal stable (?2001?) and it has a host of thrill rides full of Marvel Superheroes and cartoon capers. My personal favourite is The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman as a 3-D projection of Spiderman joins you on a chilling chase after evil Doc Ock... This one took my breath away as we lurched in and out of buildings at a thunderous pace. The lesson here is to expect the unexpected....The Universal website mentions a virtual 400 foot freefall though, so don't say I haven't warned you...

The Hulk ride is a neat one - though a pretty standard coaster - but one ride I haven't yet plucked up the courage to do yet is Dr Doom's Fearfall. I know it looks just like a big bungee jump, and I am sure that really there is nothing to be scared of, but, you know, maybe not quite yet.... I'll definitely do it, but would you mind going first...?

The Pteradon Flyers are a gentle flight for young children, though over very quickly, and there always seems to be a huge queue for the Jurassic Park River Adventure. The Duelling Dragons are cool, but to be honest (and this is probably sacrilegious in some quarters) I find that coasters are pretty much coasters and that the difference between them is pretty minimal... I'm sure it is just that I lack the ability to distinguish properly, but I have done Fire and Ice now, and, well, I forget which one was which... Up, down and all around...Oh well.

Children of all ages though will definitely enjoy standing on the bridge over the Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges and using the water guns to aim and hopefully soak the poor unsuspecting passengers below. Yes, lady in the yellow T-shirt and child with the Spiderman hat, sorry. It was me and I don't think I have spent a better 25 cents. Ever.

One "tip from the top" is to try to get the last session of the generally quiet character greetings at the Confisco Grill. When we went, we found that we had Spidey & Wolfman almost to ourselves and the guys seemed happy to chat and pose for pictures with none of the usual time pressures that we have found at other famous parks not so very far away... This was a lovely experience for our children and as you know....happy children make happy parents!

David Evans

Email : FloridaVillaWithSpa@hotmail.com