Florida is home to many of U.S.'s top attractions

THE SIMPSONS RIDE AT UNIVERSAL, www.universalorlando.com/usf-attr-simpsons-html. Welcome to Krustyland, home of "Krusty's Wet and Smokey Stunt Show," "Captain Dinosaur's Pirate Rip-Off," and ATMs with user fees hiked from $2 to "double however much money you're taking out."

Luckily, you don't have to go there, but you can tag along on the Simpsons' trip to Krusty the Clown's fictitious theme park at Universal in Orlando and Hollywood. The Simpsons Ride, a roller-coaster simulator, replaces Back to the Future at both locations with original animation, plot lines and jokes from the smash TV series.

The attraction is part thrill ride, part TV show. Want to see bare cartoon bottoms or Barney get knocked out by Sideshow Bob with a day-old churro? This is the place for you.

Greeting guests is a 32-foot-tall Krusty head (look for the punching bag uvula) and then a carnival midway, where Apu runs a snack stand and the ring toss actually advertises it's impossible. There you wait in line with Homer, Marge, Bart, Maggie and Lisa as Krusty shills his new "upsy-downsy, spins-aroundsy" ride.

Guests board vehicles that carry eight people and watch a safety short of Itchy and Scratchy. But things go awry when Sideshow Bob takes over Krustyland to finally avenge his long-standing grudge with the cartoon family.

It carries more thrills than you might expect out of a ride that doesn't actually travel anywhere, including what the park calls "the first 360-degree barrel role ever attempted in a simulator."

Powering the enormous dome screen are state-of-the-art digital projectors that blast 18 gigabytes of information per second. Emptying your wallet is a real-life Simpsons gift shop themed after the Kwik-E-Mart.

TOY STORY MANIA! AT DISNEY, www.wdwmagic.com/toystory

mania.htm. Walt Disney parks on both coasts, Anaheim's Disneyland and Orlando's Disney World, are beefing up their Pixar presence with a new 3-D video shooting gallery with a "Toy Story" movies theme.

Guests enter the world of Andy, the cartoon boy whose come-to-life toys have created their own carnival while he's away. Visitors are made to feel "shrunk" down to toy size by giant dice, checkers and other oversize toys lining the ride queue.

At the front is an interactive Mr. Potato Head carnival barker that Disney calls one of its most ambitious audio animatronics ever. He sings, dances, tells jokes and even removes and replaces an ear.

And he's not even the main attraction.

Down the stairs, guests step right onto a platform in the middle of the ride track. Each car seats four people, and each rider gets a spring-action shooter and an on-board computer to ring up scores. The gun is operated by simply aiming and pulling a string on the back. If you want to be successful, pull it very, very fast.