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Few visitors would contest the claim of this Universal park to being king of the Orlando thrill-ride circuit.

Part studio and part attraction, the movie-themed rides and shows here really let visitors step inside the movies.

It’s hard to out-do Disney, but Wet ’n Wild is arguably Orlando’s best sun-and-swim water park attraction, with plenty of slides and rides to amuse.

Anheuser-Busch’s Orlando outpost offers animal attractions and a refreshing change of pace to the fast rides and cartoon characters overrunning the other parks.

You might be in land-locked Orlando, but you can still fulfil those tropical island fantasies of swimming with dolphins and snorkeling over coral reefs if you check in to Discovery Cove. The dolphin swim is the biggest draw (each session lasts about one hour), but the white-sand beaches, snorkeling opportunities in fresh and salt-water lagoons, and soothing beach-resort vibe elicits just as much praise. Admission is not cheap (largely because there are never more than 1,000 visitors daily), but you get almost everything you need for the day thrown in, including sun block, lunch, and snorkel gear, as well as a seven-day pass to SeaWorld. This secluded oasis is not for everyone – kids might miss the lack of thrill rides – but for a unique beach escape that doesn’t require leaving Orlando, this is the place.

This arcade-cum-amusement-park has something for everyone who has a little bit of the child in them. The park has four go-kart tracks, with corkscrew and banked turns, 30-degree descents, bridges, and more. In addition, there are bumper boats and cars, a 100-ft (30-m) Ferris wheel, 100 arcade games, and a kid zone that has swings, a train, spinning tea cups, and flying bears.

If you’re a fan of the bizarre, you’ll love Ripley’s. This worldwide chain of attractions displays the unbelievable finds of Robert Ripley’s 40 years of adventures, the reports of which were published in more than 300 newspapers and read by more than 80 million people. The Orlando branch has a full-scale model of a 1907 Silver Ghost Rolls Royce (with moving engine parts) built out of 1,016,711 match sticks and 63 pints (36 I) of glue; a flute made of human bones; a mosaic of the Mona Lisa made out of toast; shrunken heads; a five-legged cow; and a portrait of Van Gogh made from 3,000 postcards. You’ll also encounter a holographic 1,069-Ib- (485-kg) man, plus films of strange feats such as people swallowing coat-hangers.

Marvin J. Rosenthal, a Christian convert and Baptist minister, created quite a stir when he opened this religious theme park in 2001. Set in a half-scale reconstruction of the Temple of the Great King, which stood in Jerusalem in the 1st century AD, the park aims to take visitors 7,000 miles (11,200 km) away and 3,000 years back to the ancient Jerusalem of biblical times (BC 1450 to AD 66 to be exact). The attraction has models of the limestone caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered and Jesus’s tomb. It also has displays of rare antiquated Bibles and biblical manuscripts, an outdoor stage where actors portraying biblical personalities tell stories from the Old and New Testaments, and a café that serves Middle Eastern food.

You can’t miss this attraction from the outside: it looks as though a classical building has landed upside down on top of a warehouse. Inside, there are 85 hands-on exhibits. Highlights include an earthquake simulator; a Bridge of Fire, where you can literally experience the hair-raising effects of 250,000 watts of static electricity; and Virtual Hoops, which uses some of the latest cinema technology to put you on TV to play basketball against one of the NBA’s top players. You can also try Virtual Hang Gliding, which sends you soaring like a bird through the Grand Canyon, and WonderCoaster, which challenges your roller coaster-designing skills and then your nerve to ride your creation in a simulator. WonderWorks also runs a laser-tag venue and a twice-nightly magic show, both of which cost extra.

This exhibit’s 200 artifacts include a real life jacket and an old deck chair, which were both recovered from the wreckage of the fateful liner, as well as the Titanic’s second-class passenger list. The attraction also has full-scale re-creations of some of the ship’s rooms, including its grand staircase, as well as memorabilia from three major Titanic movies – including one of the costumes worn by Leonardo DiCaprio. Actors in period garb play out events that occured on the fateful journey, telling the story of the White Star Line’s supposedly unsinkable ship. Most of the artifacts came out of private collections from both the United Kingdom and the USA.