Disney has been tremendous fun, but thrills, not so much. A slow start to the day saw us getting into Universal Islands of Adventure by lunch time. Straight out of the block it is awesome. Hulk - my first propoer grown up coaster in 20 years. Gab and I tagged on single rider queues all day long.

I did Dr Doom's Fear Fall - pretty much the Batman ride from the Gold Coast so Gab didn't bother with this one. All four of us went on the 3D Spiderman movie, Emerson sat covering her eyes for most of it. I love these rides that mix film and physical, I felt like I was free falling through New York. Next we hit the water rides!

On the Universal version of a Rapid Ride there is not a question of if you get wet, just how much. All four of us came our soaked. Gab got the kids dry in the family dryer while I went and embraced my soaked clothes with a follow up ride the flume - again, Awesome!!! Universal love extending their rides, each finished a good minute after I thought it had lost all the puff.

Soaked to the bone we found the one shady windy spot in the whole park to queue up for the dinosaur flying ride, fantastic time with Fiddy. He felt guilty about us queueing for so long, every 10 minutes "Dad rememebr the longer the queue the more fantastic it is going to be!"

Next up was Harry Potter rides. I can't describe it. Thought Spiderman was the best there was, Harry Potter wins hands down. The set dressing is astounding. In one of the pre-ride chambers they've messed with the LCD screens and the video imagery to make it look perfectly like a painted portraint, reflective paint and everything, then just as your ignoring it, the image comes to life, continuing to look like a painting as it gives you a pre-ride briefing. You soar around Hogwarts, battle some baddies and get spat at by a dragon, proper scary stuff - I loved it. There is a Dragon race coaster with two slightly different coasters intertwined, lots of banks and flips. Even a kiddy coaster all four of us went on, Flying the Hippogriff.

So its leaving time, the kids have had half an hour in the Dr Seuss land before I drag the whole family over to The Unversal Studios park to try and get a single ride on the Rock'n Roll coaster. There is a mardi gras parade blocking the road and its followed by a Cyndee Lauper concert. I think I have no chance then remember the Roman Freestyle, elbows out and jab people. All of a sudden I'm through and about to get on the ride.

A few turns in and I'm petrified. Climb high into the night, I'm suddenly worried this ratchet lock isnt' going to hold me as we plummet at straight to earth - banks, flips, drops the whole deal - I thought Hulk was an adult coaster - this is awesome. On the way up I was chatting to a 20 something who had been on five times already today. She wouldn't shut up about how insane it was, now I understand why. You get to pick your own sound track for the ride - the "awwwwwwww" at the beginning of Sabbotage was perfectly timed for the first drop away - awesome!

If you care about these things, save your money and get over here.