Busch Gardens Tampa Bay Trip Report

The first leg of our Florida adventure saw us on the gulf side of the state just outside of Tampa. I’ve never been anywhere in Florida aside from Orlando so it was interesting to see what the non-touristy life is like. Overall it was nice there is a good mix of beaches and trails to explore amongst the various keys dotted along the coast line.

On Monday we went to Busch Gardens Tampa, my first Seaworld owned park and one I’ve been looking forward to since we booked this trip. For those unfamiliar Busch Gardens has two theme parks formerly owned and operated by Anheuser-Busch. One being located in Tampa with an African theme and the other being located in Williamsburg Virginia with a European theme. The main draw for me here was unsurprisingly the very solid coaster collection.

The Florida rain gods decided to show some mercy to us. While there was some rain and potential thunderstorms forecasted for the afternoon we ended up getting good weather. It was slightly overcast and drizzly in the morning but the afternoon was sunny and around 26. I’m not sure if it was because it was a Monday or due to the forecast but the park was pretty quiet. Almost every ride aside from Cheetah Hunt was 15 minutes or less. We went in with Quick Queues (the fast pass equivalent) but they were never really needed especially in the morning.

Overall it was a really fun day. We got pretty lucky and were able to get on all nine coasters. So without further adieu here are my thoughts on the lineup at Busch Gardens Tampa (aside from Air Grover the kiddie coaster).

Coasters

Scorpion

The oldest still operating coaster in the park and my first Schwarzkopf. I enjoyed this one. It's not huge in scale, definitely something that I could see at a fair or something of that nature. But the layout is pretty fun, you have a decent first drop directly leading into a vertical loop followed by a decently forceful helix. I also like that just a lap bar is the restraint with some knee padding (much appreciated as a taller rider). Especially compared to the Arrow over the shoulder restraints that usually kill my shoulders.

Cheetah Hunt

Speaking of terrible restraints Cheetah Hunt has the last comfortable restraints I’ve ever had the pleasure (or displeasure) of experiencing. I expected this to be like a more tame version of Maverick and it was basically that however when I think back on this ride I find it hard to think of anything aside from the crippling shoulder and back pain this ride gave me. If you are over six feet tall beware. Unlike Maverick this has the hard over the shoulder restraints which progressively dig deeper into you as you progress along the course. If you're on the shorter side you’ll probably think this is a pretty fun ride which Jayme did.

Cobra’s Curse

This ride is kinda meh. The theming is ok and it tries to tell a story which I think is the only ride in the park to do so but it just kinda falls flat for me. The elevator lift is cool but I found the spinning element disappointing. You kinda just lazily turn around the last third for the course, it's not very engaging. I got a much better spinning experience on the new Wild Mouse at Cedar Point than on Cobra’s Curse. I get what this is trying to do but I kinda feel like if you want this kind of ride then just drive two hours to Orlando.

Tigris

My first of the oft-cloned Premier Sky Rocket II. It's a fun, albeit short ride. The standout moment on this ride is the hangtime you get on the zero-g roll. You really feel like you're going to fall out of your seat. Unlike a lot of zero-g rolls I’ve experienced, this one happens slow enough to really allow the effect to sink in. The launches are good however I alway find the launches from a standstill to be the most effective especially when they catch you off guard. For example the launch on the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster I find that much more impactful than the final launch on Tigris despite the Tigris being faster. The trains/restrains were as advertised not horrid but definitely clunky.

Kumba

My second B&M sitdown looper I found this one good but left a little disappointed. Don’t get me wrong this is still a fun ride but before going in I often saw this compared to the Hulk at Islands of Adventure and it was definitely not as good as that. I’m not sure if it was because we rode this with a nearly empty train in the back row but it felt kinda slow and janky. I’d still ride this again but this ride almost ko’d Jayme and I had to perform emergency Chick-fil-a based resuscitation to revive her (double dose of ranch required). Spoilers for my IoA trip report but Hulk > Kumba easily.

SheiKra

It’s a dive coaster, they are different but once you’ve ridden one you kinda get the gist. Big vertical first drop, Immelman, some decently forceful turns, mid course breaks, lackluster second half. This is my third dive I’ve ridden. I like this one more than Valravn but not as much as Yukon Striker. This is also the first one I’ve ridden with the old school B&M over the shoulder restraints which I kinda like. They're comfortable but you get enough of a gap that you can still get a little airtime which is especially fun on the first drop. The splash down is cool as well but that's more something for off ride you don’t really notice it happening as you're riding the coaster. Also this has the best second drop of any dive I’ve ridden dropping into the tunnel is a cool effect.

Montu

Easily the second best ride in the park in my opinion. This thing is absolutely relentless. There are like three times when you think this is going to wrap up but then it hits you with some crazy inversion. The first drop isn’t huge but that first vertical loop hits really hard finishing with you flying through an underground tunnel. Then this thing just throws inversion after inversion at you. Like I mentioned, the pacing on Montu is a bit strange. The mid-course breaks hit hard enough that you kinda think the finale will be less intense but no no. This is especially evident with that awesome whippy zero-g roll right at the end. Raptor at Cedar Point is the only other B&M invert I’ve ridden. I really like Raptor, it’s my favorite B&M at CP. This is way better than Raptor. Fantastic ride if they were running more than a single train I’d probably have gone back for more.

Side note operationally this was by far the worst run ride. Single train operations with absolute chaos in the station, not sure what was going on here.

Iron Gwazi

The star attraction and the main reason for wanting to go to Busch. Going into 2024 this was my #1 most anticipated ride and boy oh boy it did not disappoint. We got on the second train of the day right when the park opened and while I enjoyed that ride I got off debating if I like it more than Millenium Force. However when we went back for a re-ride in the afternoon once it warmed up things changed.

Wow just wow. It was like all the elements from the first ride got turned up to 11. Everything hit faster and harder, especially the famous death roll. Iron Gwazi is truly an elite ride. It does a fantastic job of chaining huge elements together with no dead time at all. I think the best comparison for this is the Steel Vengeance first half but more grand. SteVe still has the rapid fire second half which ultimately makes me prefer it overall but Iron Gwazi is still amazing.

This was also a station wait basically all day which you can’t beat. This ride is good enough that if it’s running it's worth going to Busch just for it.

Non-Coaster Stuff

We had meal plans so we got to eat every 90 minutes and drink every 15. The park has a Chick-fil-a which is awesome. We ended up eating there twice, once for lunch and once just for ice cream. We didn’t eat anywhere else so I can’t really speak to the quality of the park's food offerings.

One unique thing about Busch Gardens Tampa is it has a fairly cohesive theme throughout particularly for a regional park. A lot of similar quality parks will go for a more scattershot approach with a bunch of themed lands (usually featuring a frontier town of some kind) of various qualities. It was definitely unique to see all the theming be centered around one central idea. Now I think there are supposed to be three (?) different subsections of the park with more specific theming to a part of Africa but the only one that I could tell was different was the Egypt section.

The park has a ton of animal exhibits as well. We didn't really engage with them too much but if you were not into rides you could treat the park as a large scale zoo.

Aside from that the park is well kept and the staff/operations were decent (aside from Montu). Although I will say it wasn’t a very busy day so your mileage may vary depending.

Conclusion

This is a very good regional park. I would definitely recommend coming here if you're in the area.

To me this is very similar in quality to Wonderland. It was hard for me to pick between BGT and Wonderland but ultimately I think BGT has the edge slightly. Iron Gwazi very much carries the coaster lineup here. I really like Montu but it isn’t really even that close in terms of quality between the parks top two. BGT has a more even group of supporting coasters than Wonderland's top heavy lineup but without Iron Gwazi I would definitely prefer Wonderland.

Anyway we had a great time and definitely look forward to coming back to Busch Gardens Tampa at some point!