It is billed as a leisurely boat tour. The shark surfaces, its fin slicing through the water. The boat's captain, armed with a grenade launcher, blasts away at the bloodthirsty monster. Nearby gas lines explode and a column of fire erupts into the blue sky. We feel the heat from the flames, hear the shark's body churning in the water. A child hides her face in the crook of her mother's arm and whimpers as chilly water sprays everyone on the boat. Of course, it isn't real. It's the “Jaws” ride at Universal Studios in Orlando, an attraction that runs hundreds of times a day. Orlando is billed as a nonstop adventure capital, ground zero of thrills and chills and action-packed fun — all during family friendly hours and with a $3.99 breakfast buffet to get you going. There's Congo River Golf — which takes one of the world's most dangerous countries and turns it into a putt-putt course. At Disney's Animal Kingdom, you can “climb” Mt. Everest in a rollercoaster car. A little ways away, for the really adventurous, there's indoor skydiving. And it's not just Orlando; across the globe, manufactured thrills entertain and amuse. Yet every once in a while, something goes wrong. A roller coaster jumps the tracks, or a tiger leaps out of its pen, or a killer whale attacks a trainer, and that sense of safety is shattered. When danger is packaged for our consumption, what does it do to our perception of reality? What happens when there's a real instance of tragedy in the safe tourist cocoon of Orlando? Orlando specializes in fantastical, magical storytelling. During Saturday's first killer whale performance at SeaWorld since the trainer's tragic death, the audience was treated to a memorial of Brancheau — and the choreographed show “Believe,” about a boy who encounters a killer whale in the wild and becomes a whale trainer himself. Soaring music, leaping whales and a trainer placing a whale tail necklace around the neck of a little girl from the audience complete the inspiring story. Meanwhile, over at Universal Studios in Orlando, we're implored to “Jump Into the Action,” to “Live the Adventure.” And that's before we even walk out of the parking lot. As we stroll into the park, grand music fills the air from invisible speakers. We imagine that we are entering our own movie — and that's exactly how we're supposed to feel. Maybe all this isn't surprising in a world where on-demand entertainment is not only available but expected, where a few keystrokes and a mouse click can call up video on just about anything — including a clip of the final moments of an Olympic luger, or the topic “killer whale trainer death.” Take the “Twister” adventure at Universal, for example. It's supposed to allow visitors to “experience what it's like to be a real storm chaser, looking a tornado right in the eye and braving the worst nature can throw at you.” Waiting in line, you shuffle past piles of cinder blocks, stacked to look like rubble. You can read about the Fujita tornado scales, and figure out that an F5 tornado is the worst Mother Nature has to offer. People with heart conditions and those with a sensitivity to “fog effects” are ominously advised not to participate. Then there's the nearby Revenge of the Mummy ride, which combines a roller coaster, total darkness and the undead. “You're all doomed,” said the young guy directing folks onto the roller coaster car. People in the car whooped and squealed as the mummies lurched toward the car. “Now that was a good ride!” one man declared at the end, then promptly walked into the adjacent gift shop, past the blinking beer mugs for $9.95. It begs the question: why do we want to be scared by fake, rotting mummies yet can't handle watching more than a week of Anderson Cooper's coverage of the Haiti earthquake? And speaking of earthquakes, there's the quaint “San Francisco” area of Universal Studios. The fake neighborhood is packed with replicas of buildings in Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square. Sandwiched among all of this is a ride — “Disaster.” The description on Universal's Web site sets the scene: “You'll experience a cataclysmic earthquake that causes the ground above you to open up and rain down huge chunks of concrete debris. Pillars crumble, trucks crash and explode in flames, a runaway train heads right for you and 65,000 gallons of water flood the underground station.”
