This morning I took the bus to Movie World, which turns out to be right next door to Wet N' Wild. As I got off outside the entrance, the bus driver called after me that I needed to be back at the bus stop by five in the afternoon otherwise I'd be stuck there all night - she then laughed as the doors closed in the best impression of a HammerHorror evil laugh I've heard in a while, so I started my day already pretty freaked out.

I had big expectations for a theme park run by Warner Brothers, especially as they've been harking on about the place before every film at my local cinema for the last few months, so I was looking forward to another relaxing carefree day like yesterday. A small child did try to convince me at one point that Bugs Bunny wasn't actually a real rabbit but just a man in a suit, and he did look at me quite strangely when I said I didn't believe him, but all in all I don't think I came away with too many illusions shattered. There were the requisite amount of shops selling tacky merchandise, and you certainly wouldn't want to do anything outrageous like try to compare Movie World to Disney World - but because of the amount of shows and the times they schedule them, the day seemed very full and before I knew it everything was starting to shut up for the day and there was still plenty I hadn't had time to do. The park is built rather smartly on a Tee-junction with the entrance at one end of the main street and all the attractions across the Tee, which meant that it was virtually impossible to get lost and I was always a few minutes walk from whatever I wanted to do next - this is certainly one up on any of the Theme Parks in Florida where you usually need to catch a shuttle bus to your next destination!

I've tried to find photos of some of the latest rides, as of 2008, to put in this book - so hopefully the photos may be a little more up to date than this review. Among the shows scheduled during my day was the Police Academy Stunt Show - an open air spectacular full of explosions and people being blown up, and a great bit at the end where everyone got into a helicopter which then rose over the buildings, fell behind a building and exploded in a fireball. There was also a slightly less impressive Maverick Grand Illusion Show which was obviously based on the film with Jodie Foster and Mel Gibson and which seemed to contain absolutely no illusions of any kind - both of these attractions, I gather, have now ceased to operate. Batman also gets the Movie World treatment, with a tour of the Wayne Household being interrupted by the arrival of The Penguin and a resultant ride through Gotham City on a motion simulator as he tries to get away - but the park's crowning glory at the time of my visit was the Lethal Weapon - a spectacularly big and evil looking corkscrew roller-coaster which took great pleasure in shaking me about so much that I didn't think I'd be able to stand still for a week. I don't quite see the connection between anything in any of the Lethal Weapon movies and a rollercoaster (unless Mel Gibson makes you sick, of course), so the connection is just about non-existent here, but it doesn't stop the queue stretching round the block.

For the kids there is the Loony Tunes Village - a fun park with themed roundabouts and trains, and a tour of the Loony Studios where Bugs has gone missing and the kids get recruited to find him. Meanwhile the adults can be going on a tour of an actual working WB studio and seeing how all the special effects and sound stages work, touring the set from Batman, flying like superman and perching on a ledge 18 storeys above ground level. Naturally, the staff then try very hard indeed to flog you a copy of your performance on video to take home and treasure for ever. Well, until you've shown it to everyone and realise that nobody else cares what you did on holiday, anyway. I have to confess that I did cave in to one small piece of commercial exploitation, though. I just couldn't resist the temptation to purchase a framed photo from the special effects shop of myself lusting over Jennifer Aniston in the bath with the rest of the cast of Friends. This took pride of place on my wall for several years. Of course, with technology being what it is today, the reaction has changed during this time from early gasps of "Wow, you met Jennifer Aniston!" to recent passing comments along the lines of "I see you've got a copy of Photoshop, then!"

The only downside to my day at Warner Bros. Movie World was that it poured with rain from start to finish. Warner Bros. sells you (Surprise, Surprise) Poncho's for £3, but they were remarkably tacky and it was quite amusing to watch hundreds of Japanese tourists clicking away with their cameras from beneath little white raincoats with "Warner Village" written all over them. They looked like a crowd of ET's.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.