Jump to content
  TPR Home | Parks | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram 

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay (BGT Discussion Thread)

p. 375: Phoenix Rising family inverted coaster announced for 2024!

Recommended Posts

Went to the park again today and the crowds were pretty light. Park operations were great and they had Cheetah Hunt running right on time. I was able to grab the first train of the day in the front row and a second ride with only a 5-10 minute wait! As a heads up, Montu is also open during the passholder ERT and since no one seems to notice you can get a lot of quick rides in with no wait.

 

ERT: 8-9AM

Cheetah Hunt 2x (1 front row, 1 second-to-last row) - I think the back of the train gives a slightly more intense ride. Overall still pretty fun for a kid's ride (don't lynch me, I'm only joking)

Montu 4x, walk-on (3 front row, 1 back row)

 

Rest of the day (in order): 9AM-12PM

Gwazi 3x, walk-on (2 front row, 1 back row) - I actually think I prefer the back row for Gwazi now... you actually get airtime on the first drop !

Sheikra 10x, walk-on (2 front row, 8 back row) - There was pretty much no line and I only had to walk around once every other ride.

Kumba 3x, walk-on (though it did break down at one point for 10-15 minutes) (1 front row, 2 back row) - Wow, I can't believe I never tried this ride in the back row before! It was actually smoother than the front and you get an insane jolt of air (first time I ever actually felt like I was standing on a roller coaster) coming off the barrel roll.

Cheetah Hunt 1x, 30 minutes - Used the single rider line which was being run today. The posted wait was 90 minutes, but I think it was actually only about half that according to other guests. Unfortunately, while I like the idea of filling every seat, I think the single rider line is actually bad for operations. They only had on average 1 empty seat per dispatch, and it added around another 30 seconds to bring the person over and strap them in after everyone else has already been seated. I think that overall they would get a better throughput without it.

 

 

I only had one minor complaint for the day. While waiting for Kumba it broke down due to someone's seat belt (not harness) coming loose during the ride. It was clearly a minor problem and all they had to do was send the trains around a couple times to make sure it was just a fluke. Strangely though they still gave the (I guess) standard spiel: "Kumba is down and we don't have any idea how long it will be closed for." I understand that they don't want to misinform guests as you can never predict ride closure length, but surely if the problem was minor they could have said something like: "While we can make no guarantees, we are only expecting a short delay." If it turns out to take longer than expected, just let the people know when it is clear that it will be down awhile. The only reason I even bring this up is since a lot of people left the station as soon as they made the announcement since they thought it would probably take a while to fix.

 

Anyway, minor issues aside I had a great day and the park looked really nice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was at the park yesterday and Cheetah Hunt was running on time for the morning passholder ERT as well. Only got one ride in though as for some reason even though they had 4 trains on the track, they were really slow dispatching them. 2 trains would be on the loading platform and the other 2 would be waiting to unload. Made me wonder if they brought over Gwazi's load ops. By the time my ride was done, the line was only about 30 minutes, but I was only staying at the park until around noon as I had to go to Orlando for the rest of the day), so I went to explore the rest of the park.

 

Hit both sides of Gwazi with no wait. After I rode Lion, next train out got stuck at the top of the lift hill! I was ALMOST on that train too, but decided to sit one row further back than the line I was in instead. Good thing.

 

Rode Sheikra with no wait. The first drop still freaks me out (my fear of heights & looking straight down into open spaces), but after it's past I'm good & love the rest of it.

 

Skyride on the Stanleyville side was a walk-on, but over by Cheetah Hunt the line was pretty long.

 

At the 11:30am cheetah presentation at Cheetah Run, they brought out Kasi and Mtani. Kasi is so stinkin' cute I can't stand it. He's getting so big!

photo.JPG.767d5a5b537ebf4eac0470e2157b2285.JPG

100_2867.JPG.2c17e29bc49a8a715eaaec7adcdf839e.JPG

100_2888.JPG.8f1746ba7c1f12aa0e9d2b48e6e06ffa.JPG

100_2887.JPG.46fa60527a54d2052e1f75ca240a30da.JPG

100_2892.JPG.abb96379cd8ea59063fcb51475af53c7.JPG

Ain't I the cutest thing???

100_2901.JPG.362e7912d628a01a0c1820fbb941ed98.JPG

BONUS PHOTO! I saw this car on International Drive in Orlando yesterday. I've dubbed it the "Jesus Mobile".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yea, I was there during ERT yesterday too. I agree the dispatches were slow for the most part, but some of that had to do with seating a couple of handicapped people. That's always going to take a little longer. I was still able to get 2 rides on Cheetah Hunt (front, back) and 3 rides on Montu. ...Along with 6 rides on Kumba and a couple on SheiKra before bolting at 10:30.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Visited the park today, not too awfully crowded. First thing in the morning Cheetah Hunt was packing a 90 minute wait, but as the day progressed the guests dispersed and it held between 30 and 45 minutes until closing. Montu was down for a very good majority of the day so I didn't manage any rides on it this trip.

 

Now, onto the real reason for me posting this, Kinetix, what did I think?

Holy crap it is AWESOME! Sadly due to some mechanical issue with the ceiling lowering/raising mechanism they were unable to perform the seesaw act, but everything else was presented. First thing I have to comment on is the music. The live band they have for this show is actually really good at making these almost rock covers of the pop songs, to the point where they sound better than the original version. Also, the sound system on this stage is incredibly powerful, almost felt like I was back at Warped tour .

 

Now, onto the acrobatics, the bread and butter of this show if you will. The acts presented are a hulahoop act which includes balancing and juggling, a BMX act, a cube twirling act, and a jump rope act. Out of these I saw tonight the best were definitely the hulahoop act and the jump rope act. The jump rope act was actually so amazing and insane I'd say it's better than the new act that was put into La Nouba! This show was also surprisingly long, the shortened version I watched was well over 40 minutes in length!

 

Overall this is an extremely good show and something I will definitely be watching again (need to see the seesaw act!). If you are in the area or are planing to be, do not miss this show!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

BOOST!! This ride looks awesome... cant wait to get on it!

Wikipedia failed me, it quoted the ride duration at 3:30 and got me all excited at riding such as cool coaster for so long... turns out it lied and now im a lil depressed!!

 

p.s. can someone who knows how, please change the WIKIs duration time for this ride. Wicked!!

 

Cheetah Hunt WIKI

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cheetah Hunt actually feels longer than it is... at least to me. I've only ridden it 3 times so far but because the track is so long, to me it feels a little longer than a minute and a half ride. regardless, it's SO MUCH FUN. Can't wait to ride it again... probably next weekend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cheetah Hunt actually feels longer than it is... at least to me. I've only ridden it 3 times so far but because the track is so long, to me it feels a little longer than a minute and a half ride. regardless, it's SO MUCH FUN. Can't wait to ride it again... probably next weekend.

 

Agreed!... Its just such a well rounded coaster... Just rode it for my third time this afternoon... and it was just as amazing as the first time I rode it... Its just an all around treat to ride (and watch!...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I rode yesterday 7 times and it really is a fun ride. Finally got rides in the front and I like it a lot. It feels more frisky up there.

 

A TPR trip n October could mean some awesome night time ERT. I rode at night in the front and it is pretty cool for sure. One thing though, the water in the canyon was not as forceful as it was before. It looks much cooler when there is some good flow through there.

 

Gwazi Glders were taken apart, could be normal rehab I don't know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quick Report from my day at BGT this past Saturday.

For a Saturday in June it was a pretty decent day. There was a little rain throughout the day that kept the temperatures a little more tolerable than normal. It was very crowded but the longest wait I had was probably 35 minutes for Sheikra (Cheetah Hunt had a posted 75-90 minute wait all day but I caught it after some down time and only waited about 20 minutes).

 

My thoughts on Cheetah hunt: I read a lot of reviews of the ride and knew not to expect a top 10 coaster or anything but honestly it was still a little disappointing. It was a fun ride, very smooth, decent speed, but really tame and to me a little boring. I do think it's a great addition to the park and addresses a huge need for a solid family coaster (take note SeaWorld) but personally I found it to be a little boring. I only got one ride in the back seat so hopefully a few more rides and Ill change my opinion.

 

The Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy show was just okay. Had a few good acts in it but the show as a whole really didn't seem to flow that well. Worth watching if there is nothing else to do, but not worth seeing again.

 

One of the best attractions at Busch Gardens is the "Meet the Keepers" exhibits they do throughout the day at different animal exhibits. We saw them feeding the elephants, lions, and cheetahs and all were very cool.

 

One of the biggest surprises of the day was Kinetix, the night time show during Summer Nights. I really didn't know what the show was about and had no expectations but it turned out to a lot of fun. Really cool acrobatic acts mixed in with live music live dancers and a great stage set up. I would definitely see this show again if I'm back at the park again this summer and highly recommended it to anyone.

 

Rode Gwazi Lion at the end of the night, front seat, sad and pathetic style by myself (my wife was done for the day). While the Millennium flyers do help a little, the ride to me still felt like one of the rougher GCI's out there. I still like the ride, but don't expect it to be Thunderhead or Rumbler smooth. It's tolerable and a lot of fun but does has that rough out of control feel that most GCI's don't have. Maybe it's just me but it seems like every GCI coaster built after Gwazi has been really good but Gwazi and all the GCI's before it (Roar's and Wildcat) haven't aged very well. I don't know if they just really figured out their designs after Gwazi or if they started using some new construction techniques or something but the new rides are amazing and the older ones are not as good as they maybe once were. I still love Gwazi, and the trains are an improvement, but it is a little rougher than I expected it to be. Operating 12 months a year in Florida weather probably doesn't help that much either.

 

Sheikra is still a bat shit crazy ride. Great air on the drops, great visuals, great ride.

 

Montu is still really good, not my favorite invert but awesome. Anyone remember when they used to have Alligators under the track between the station and lift? Or was that just my imagination at one point.

 

Kumba is still King of the park in my opinion. One of the best coaster B&M has ever made and one of the best steel coasters anywhere. I love old school forceful B&M's WITH the roar, and the layout is perfect. One of my top 10.

 

Awesome park, can't wait till Halloscreams.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^

Kumba is still King of the park in my opinion. One of the best coaster B&M has ever made and one of the best steel coasters anywhere. I love old school forceful B&M's WITH the roar, and the layout is perfect. One of my top 10.

 

Well said, I couldn't agree more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^
Kumba is still King of the park in my opinion. One of the best coaster B&M has ever made and one of the best steel coasters anywhere. I love old school forceful B&M's WITH the roar, and the layout is perfect. One of my top 10.

 

Well said, I couldn't agree more.

 

I agree more.

 

Guy "So there." Koepp

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use https://themeparkreview.com/forum/topic/116-terms-of-service-please-read/