The furthest drive on our Focus on Florida tour would be to visit Busch Gardens Tampa Bay on September 3, but for anyone concerned, the slightly longer drive is definitely worth the effort. Busch Gardens is the perfect hideout for the thrill seeker with no fewer than five major roller coasters and plenty of other thrilling experiences along the way.
The African themed entrance plaza looked fantastic, with its Moroccan styled markets selling all sorts of food and drink, pots, wind chimes and even drums! A stop at the themed Starbucks for a colossal cup cake and iced coffee helped prepare us for day ahead and with that we were off.
We headed straight for one of the parks newer coasters – Cheetah Hunt. This massive Cheetah themed, multi launch Intamin coaster looks great and hurtles riders at speeds of up to 60mph across a living Serengeti Plain full of wildlife in the style of a Cheetah hunting its prey, wow!
Still with the excitement of our ride we headed straight for the neighbouring area of the park; Egypt, to ride another one of the parks iconic roller coasters. Montu is a high speed inverted roller coaster with 7 adrenaline packed inversions. Within the Egyptian zone, the coaster flips, drops and dips riders through a temple entrance and ditches before slowing to a stop right alongside the park's perimeter providing arriving guests on the outside of the park the chance to see the fear and excitement on the rider’s faces!
With all the excitement we had already had we thought it best to take in one of the parks more gentle attractions. Boarding the Skyride at the Edge of Africa entrance, the journey would take us high across the Serengeti Plain giving us a fantastic, and much more relaxed, view of just some of the great animal inhabitants that Busch Gardens has to offer. Giraffes, Lions, Elephants, Zebras (and even Penguins!) can be seen as the ride gently carries guests to the opposite end of the park. Through a disused station at the foot of Kumba – more on this shortly - the carriages continued their journey over more of the parks attractions before finishing at the second stop at Jungala.
It was here in Jungala that we took some time to explore the animal exibits of both the Orangutans and our personal favorite - Tigers! These beautifully themed exhibits allow the guest to get what feels like millimetres close to some of our planet's most loved, and unfortunately most vulnerable creatures and is certainly worth spending time doing.
After our time with the animals we were ready to get back to more rides, and next it was one of the park’s oldest operating roller coasters – Kumba. This huge sit down roller coaster has 7 massive inversions, and considering the ride is now 23 years old, it still packs an incredible punch! In fact we enjoyed Kumba that much that we rode two times back to back, once in the front and once at the back, with both offering completely different ride experiences. If a coaster with quite so much doesn’t appeal to you, the Congo River Rapids will prove to be a far more family friendly attraction situated next door within the Congo area of the park.
A short stroll towards Stanleyville is where we headed next where the park's gigantic dive coaster SheiKra is situated and ‘sheik’ is certainly what the ride makes each of its passengers do! Standing at a whopping 200ft, SheiKra has two vertical drops either side of an Immelmann inversion, before finishing with the coaster flying through a splash down element. Stanleyville is home to another one of the parks water attractions, Stanley Falls Flume, which is perfect for the whole family to enjoy. The flume itself is raised on tall stilts where it snakes over the surrounding hills, however due to its design doesn’t hide much of its journey for guests waiting to ride.
Before heading to lunch, we thought what better than to head for Pantopia to ride the Falcon’s Fury tower drop ride with a difference. If its enormous size, standing at 335ft, wasn’t enough, Falcon’s Fury tips each of its riders onto their stomachs (yes, lying down!) before plunging towards the ground. It was by far the most exhilarating tower drop experience we had ever encountered and one that will prove to knock the wind out of any daring thrill seeker. The area of Pantopia itself is another one of the park's beautiful areas which has recently received regeneration, however some of the attractions within it seemed not to completely fit the theme.
A brisk walk back to the Edge of Africa was next, where we stopped for a spot of lunch in the Serengeti Overlook Restaurant and Pub. The unique 2 in 1 food outlet doubled up as both a ‘pub’ serving fast food options such as pizzas, burgers, and fries as well as a ‘restaurant’ with buffet option or table service meals on the upper floor overlooking Cobra's Curse and the Serengeti Plain. We elected for the ‘pub grub’ which tasted great and still offered decent views of the animal enclosures.
Once our lunch had gone down, we decided to take on the park’s newest addition – Cobra’s Curse. This free-spinning family coaster is incredible and starts with a unique vertical lift system before cars proceed forwards towards an enormous stone cobra at the rides full height. Everything about this ride looked great, the way it snaked through, under and over pathways, the Egyptian themed ruins and even down to the ride's paint work of purple and turquoise. The queue line itself, although our longest of the day, made good use of a previous walk through attraction and even had live snakes!
We opted for the Busch Gardens Railway next. Although the attraction itself navigates riders around the entire park, it does it taking a very different route to what we may have come to expect from other theme-parks. Instead of transporting guests around the park perimeter it instead cuts through its centre, almost ‘double backing’ on itself after stopping in some of the park’s areas. The railway also offers guests another opportunity to travel through the Serengeti Plain, again providing different views of the park’s animals. We enjoyed the ride so much we stayed aboard for 1 and a half complete circuits which took around 40 minutes to complete.
With the sun now setting we made another quick dash around the park riding all of our favourites again in the dark. Kumba, SheiKra, Montu, Cheetah Hunt and Cobra’s Curse all got additional rides with each of them looking fantastic at night. We made sure to take our time walking around Cobra’s Curse to take in the rides imaginative lighting and we weren’t disappointed – it looked great!
For our final rides of the day we headed back to Pantopia and conquered Falcon’s Fury two further times in the dark! We must be mad, but it was the perfect end to what had been a truly exhilarating visit to Florida's coaster capital. We were so pleased to have visited on a day with a late 10pm close, which gave us so much time to enjoy the park.
A slow walk back towards the entrance, where we made sure to visit each of the Moroccan stalls and shops, carefully browsing the park's distinctive merchandise.
Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is a must do theme park with some of the most thrilling rides and roller coasters that Florida has to offer. But even if these aren’t your thing, there are plenty of rides, attractions and animal enclosures to keep the whole family entertained.
