Trip Report for Bush Gardens Tampa
6/18/04
Crowds/Weather: Crowds were light

Park Rating
Mike: 4 out of 5
Mike’s Park Comments: Busch Gardens Tampa creates many conflicted feelings for me. On the one hand, this park offered us one of the best collection of coasters on the trip (and that’s still true as I type this in 3 months into the trip.) On the other hand, the park’s ride operations, treatment of the animals, and general “vibe” was just depressing.

But let’s stick with the positive. BGT’s Montu, Kumba, Gwazi and Scorpion are nothing short of one of the best coaster lineups in the country. I’m not sure if there’s a better lineup of 4 coasters of this caliber anywhere else in the country.

Montu, the best of the 4, is one of the best steel coasters of the trip (again, still true 3 months in) and absolutely the best suspended coaster out there in the US.

After Knoebels, this was the second park this trip that have 2 coasters I’ve given a 5 out of 5 rating (I think the only other park subsequent to this one has been Magic Mountain with it’s X and Déjà vu). This is why the rest of the park experience was such a disappointment.

In short, Busch Gardens Tampa feels like a Six Flags park in almost every respect. The majority of employees let you know they are not enjoying their job. Ride operations are slow and trains stack for long periods. Animal attractions are seriously understaffed, if staffed at all, and the animals seem listless, with often unsupervised children throwing objects or otherwise taunting the animals. Unlike at Seaworld Orlando, Busch Gardens Williamsburg, or Six Flags Marine World, BGT failed completely at projecting any sense of caring at all about the animal attractions, and the park should consider abandoning them altogether if they are cannot finance keeping them in a state that is above an appearance of disrepair. As of right now, the animal attractions felt like a failure to me.

I will probably have some fights with Cla in the future about BGT. Cla does not want to ever step foot in the park. I, on the other hand, could really give a shit about the animals at this park. While thinking it was noteworthy enough to mention, personally I could care less about it. I don’t particularly like animals or animal attractions. The fact BGT doesn’t do it well was only noteworthy to me because I was forced to experience them at all these parks because of Cla. BGT could have a live slaughterhouse on property, for all I’d care. With coasters this good I will absolutely be back. Now if they could only “de-Six Flags” themselves a little and start running both sides of Gwazi again….

Clarisse: 2.9 out of 5
Clarisse’s Park Comments: Busch Gardens Tampa is a sucky park that happens to have a few good rides.

Busch Gardens Tampa was one of the first parks that we went to where they broadcasted the ride schpiel in both English and Spanish. There were many other parks where they did this, mostly in parks in Florida Texas and California all (and maybe a few others parks too). Another nice feature that this park offered was the Hospitality House. We’d heard of this fabled hospitality house, we seeked it in Busch Gardens Williamsburg only to be disappointed. However, we found it in Tampa! Mike got to drink some obscure beer and I got myself a raspberry flavored malt beverage. Don’t drink alcohol when you’re dehydrated and hungry on a rollercoaster trip. That’s all I’m going to say to avoid embarrassing myself.

I found many examples at Busch Gardens Tampa that illustrate the low level of respect for animals in our culture. Here more than anywhere else the animals appeared listless, depressed and stayed at least partially concealed. We witnessed kids throw turtle food on alligators’ heads for fun. No parents and no staff corrected their blatant disrespect. Only a handful of guests are actually interested in learning anything about them; instead they gawked, pointed and stated the obvious “Look it’s an alligator!”

Staff were mostly absent from the animal areas. For all of the animal exhibits there are, we only saw 3 employees that worked directly with animals. One of the staff was actually talking about the primates in her care. The other 2 were in the aviary where people were smoking and having loud discussions around the birds.

There were 2 aviaries in the park. One of them had sprinklers for the birds to bathe in, and I enjoyed seeing them flit in and splash the water. Patrons could also buy food to attract the lorrys to them. They also had a giant blue Parrot that came to sides of the cage but was obviously wary of fingers. The smoking area is right near the second aviary and there were no employees there.

We got on line for the flume during the day. There was only a 20 minute line but it infuriated me so much I couldn’t take it and had to leave. There were extremely close quarters on the queue. I felt like livestock, and most everything that disgusts me about humanity was on that line. Parents were whining at their kids and people were getting on and off the line. In front of my face on line was a big pink blubbery sunburnt arm with unevenly applied sunscreen on it; which was melting down her arm (possibly with sweat).

We both agree that the Orlando crowds are much preferred to the crowds in Tampa. Though Orlando is more crowded, there were different kinds of people both good and bad. Tampa’s crowds were more homogenously bad.

Kumba

Mike: 5 out of 5
Comments: I never thought I would give a non-launched, sit down, steel mutli-looper a 5 out of 5 rating. Well, Kumba has happily proven me wrong. It’s hard to explain what makes this steel coaster exceptional. Just get your ass to Tampa to find out.

Clarisse: 4.87 out of 5
Comments: This coaster features 2 tunnels, loops and inversions. It only has just a little airtime. Thankfully it has minimal to no head banging. Its fun and its fast.

Python

Mike: 2.55 out of 5
Comments: This ride gets the requisite points for turning me upside down, but I’d actually rather ride an SLC over this ancient piece of shit.

Clarisse: 2.1 out of 5
Comments: This coaster has a very short ride time. All the coaster really does, besides headbang, is invert you with 2 corkscrews. It almost wasn’t worth the 2-train wait.

Montu

Mike: 5 out of 5
Comments: This thrill monster beats Talon as my favorite suspended coaster of the trip so far. Long, forceful, vicious and fast as hell with 3 tunnels. This thing is fucking fantastic.

Clarisse: 4.85 out of 5
Comments: This one is a fantastic suspended multilooper. This coaster has a tunnel with several inversions and a long ride time.

Gwazi

Mike: 4.95 out of 5
Comments: Holy shit! This park almost had 3 coasters I would give a 5 out of 5, but Gwazi falls short for 2 reasons:

1) A dueling coaster is meant to do just that – duel. A coaster with 2 sides that only has one side running is simply depressing and a waste of potential. Shame on Six Flags Over Florida, I mean Busch Gardens Tampa for only running one side of Gwazi. I mean, seriously, is this a Florida park or a Six Flags park?
2) Ride operations on this coaster are only slightly better then a bad Six Flags park. It was routine on my visit for trains to stack for so long it may as well have been single train operation. Ride ops looked like that special combination of depressed, bored, lazy and annoyed that I had only previously witnessed at Six Flags parks.

With that out of the way, let me say that Gwazi is absolutely one of the top wood roller coasters. It’s too bad poor park management hurts it.

Clarisse: 4.75 out of 5
Comments: I loved this ride. I was getting tired of the, lets make it really smooth and pretty so the public wont be upset, wussy shit that Orlando offers. This is a rough riding woodie. Women will definitely want to wear their sports bras for this one. When we rode it, the ride ops were wearing leis and the coaster was decorated with balloons and streamers according to the rides ‘colors’. It was sweet. A banner that said Happy birthday Gwazi and a giant number 5 helium balloon were positioned at the front of the loading platform. You’d think that they’d have both sides running for its special day.

Scorpion

Clarisse: 4.4 out of 5
Comments: I love Schwarzkopf! The forces on this puppy are strong and scrumptious. The loop and helix rushed so much blood to my feet in such a short period that it may have created spider veins.

Mike: 4.75 out of 5
Comments: Go Anton go Anton go! Rockin’ G forces make the world strobe by you. Not as intense as Dorney Parks’ Laser, but still a massive amount of fun.

Stanely River Falls

Clarisse: 2.7 out of 5
Comments: this flume is not bad but it is unexceptional. There are two lift hills, and I was seriously damp when I got off the ride but nowhere near soaking wet.

Mike: 2.5 out of 5
Comments: Log flume that’s slightly better then average due to having a bit of speed during it’s “scenic” section/course.

Rhino Rally

Clarisse: 3 out of 5
Comments: This ride is a bad cross between a chintzy animal show and an off road truck ride. I did end up learning some stuff about animals through cheesy narrator/driver (who wore lots of gel and slick sunglasses). I forgot the info, except for white rhinocerouses aren’t really white. We drove by one.

Mike: 0.5 out of 5
Comments: A ride for kids that is painful for adults in how painfully hokey it is.

The few visible animals look listless and depressed, like all of BGTs animals. Also, like most of BGT’s animal attractions, it is almost completely lacking in any educational value, making it truly pointless.

Hospitality House

Mike: 5 out of 5

Comments: Finally, some free beer. BGW is evil scum for denying my God given right to free Duff beer! I mean, um, Budweiser. I rode this attraction a few times during my visit and recommend it highly to everyone.

Cheetah Chase

Mike: N/A out of 5

Comments: The line stayed huge all day for this mouse I’ve heard nothing but tepid comments about while Kumba, Montu, Scorpion and Gwazi had very short lines. So when, with one hour to park closing, we continued to see a huge, slow moving line, we decided to pass. Having now ridden an enormous amount of mouse coasters in this 3 months as I type this, I’m comfortable with this decision. The only mouse that I feel is worth any significant wait is the Wild Chipmunk at Lakeside in Colorado, which, by the way, is fucking fantastic.