Teenage kicks: Why fun-packed Florida still offers thrills and spills aplenty for a family six years after their first visit

I'd been flung upside down, plummeted down a sheer drop at 60mph, been scared out of my wits by a giant CGI spider. But nothing had prepared me for the most terrifying experience of our Florida holiday - and just when I least expected it - the over-officious refreshment vendor.

‘Sir, please step away from the beer.’

‘You’re kidding right?’

‘No sir, you need to put down the second beer and step away. Now.’

She wasn't kidding. She was pretty cross. Out of the corner of my eye I could see another Universal Studios employee peering in my direction, perhaps to ascertain whether I needed to be Tasered.

My crime? Picking up my wife's beer - as well as my own - from a refreshment kiosk while she struggled to put her purse back in her bag. It turns out in this land of thrills and spills, holding two beers at once is simply living too dangerously. 

Scroll down for videos 

Green machine: The Incredible Hulk rollercoaster is high-octane from the word go

 

Life's a beach: The Loews Royal Pacific resort, where the Jacksons stayed during their week at Universal

We laughed of course. Who else can say they've been told to 'step away from beer'? 

And we were having so much fun I really wasn't going to argue about forcing my wife to carry her own beer. It was about time she started to pull her weight. 

'Beergate' occurred midway through the Jackson family's two weeks of stomach-lurching, scream-inducing, gravity-defying fun by way of a holiday in Florida.

When we last visited six years ago, daughters Mary and Lucy were aged eight and six respectively - and their young ages meant we kept almost entirely to Disney parks for the duration of our stay.

UNIVERSAL: TOP TIPS 

Book at least two days in one of the three Universal resorts that qualify you for unlimited Express Passes, then move somewhere cheaper if you wish.

Tick off the Minions ride first

At Harry Potter World do Forbidden Journey & Escape From Gringots first as they have no Express Pass provision

Do NOT bother with Twister

As with rides, queues to meet superheroes only get longer in the afternoon 

This time we were visiting with a pair of teenage speed freaks who had graduated with flying colours in the intervening years with regular visits to Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and Chessington. It was obvious Disney alone was not going to cut it.

So we decided to split our fortnight in half, with one week staying at a Universal resort, and one week returning to Disney to see if it could still hold the kids’ (and the parents’) attention, with day trips to Discovery Cove, Sea World and Tampa’s Busch Gardens interspersed along the way.

Universal did not disappoint. From the first ride of the first day when we dashed straight for the Incredible Hulk coaster we had heard so much about, through multiple soakings on the wettest of wet rides and on to the wizardry of their Harry Potter land, we felt like we were in our spiritual home.

It helped that we were staying at Universal’s Loews Royal Pacific resort, which was literally five minutes’ walk from the entrances to the two parks – and it also helped that we were in a resort that came with unlimited Express Pass access.

For the uninitiated, an Express Pass - or Fast Pass at Disney - is a means of bypassing the regular (or ‘standby’) queue for a ride. 

In the UK, parks such as Alton Towers sell them to visitors. At Disney, everyone can use them but their numbers are limited (more of this later).

Reporting for duty: A trip to Universal gives you the chance to meet your (super) heroes

At Universal, once you have your park ticket you can then buy either the unlimited option which we were lucky enough to get with our hotel package, or the cheaper version that allows you to go Express once on each ride during the day.

They’re pretty much essential if you want to make the most of your day, as is getting to the park as soon as it opens and trying to plan ahead to make the best use of your time. The earlier you get there, the more you can get through as the queues are inevitably shorter in the mornings.

Universal’s new-ish Despicable Me Minion Mayhem ride, for example, is insanely popular and the standby queue would reach two hours by the afternoon without fail. 

A second bonus of staying at a Universal resort was that we were able to go into the Harry Potter section of the parks at 8am, an hour before official park opening.

This was well worth taking advantage of as both the Hogsmeade village centre – with its snow-capped gothic rooftops looking slightly incongruous in 100F heat – and the lovingly rendered Diagon Alley get insanely busy.