Beast1979

Hey All! Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting Busch Gardens Africa in Tampa, Florida. It was a wonderful experience and I really enjoyed the park and all it had to offer! I don't write too many PTR's, but since this is a park not many of us have visited, I thought I should share. For our vacation this summer we stayed, as usual, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, due east of Orlando. On the 13th, we woke up bright and early to the sight of sunrise over Cocoa Beach. Florida is usually perceived as a relatively small state. So really, how far could a drive from the Atlantic to the Gulf be? Farther than you'd think, actually. It was quite a relief to finally see signs for Busch Gardens after hours of swamp land! We navigated our way to the entrance to the parking lot, showed them our online parking ticket, and drove to find a spot. From the parking lot, the only ride you can really see is Montu. Needless to say, Montu did a good job of teasing me as we found our spot and walked closer to the entrance! We found our tram stop and waited in line for about two trams before we boarded ours. The tram took us from our section of the parking lot to the main gate. Behold, our first glimpse of Busch Gardens' excellent landscaping and garden work. The entrance wasn't much to behold, but this was very cool. Like I said, not much to behold. But, I do give them points for actually theming the buildings, something a lot of parks I've been to have trouble with. We navigated security easily and got through the gates with our tickets easily as well. Wild Surge, which I believe is one of the rides in Jungala, was the only ride closed for the day. Good to see! We went and got our Quick Queue Unlimited wristbands and tickets when we walked in the gate. To our great fortune, Cheetah Hunt had just been added to the list of rides on the Quick Queue system! The park only just announced this on their Facebook page earlier this week. After a bit of searching, we finally found our first attraction of the day. Gwazi. Gwazi Lion was temporarily closed, so we boarded Gwazi Tiger as a walk on with our wristbands. Now, after hearing about the roughness of the ride, I was a bit hesitant to ride, but as the sign on the entrance reminded me, new this year are the Millennium Flyer trains. After riding it, I can tell how much of a difference they would make. The Millennium Flyer trains make the ride violent, fast paced, but not rough. I found it very enjoyable and loved it from beginning to end. Overall, Gwazi - 8/10 Every park has to have one. Loving the landscaping that comes standard with Busch/Sea World parks! From Gwazi we wondered ourselves to Walkabout Way, Busch's intimate exhibit with several Down-Under animals Contrary to popular belief, kangaroos seem to do more sitting than hopping If you have food, smell like you have food, or look like you have food, there's a good chance the 'roos will come and beg. Here's my brother Joe getting up close with a kangaroo. Kangaroo: See my hole? I like my hole. It's a good hole. Albino: Whatever dude, I think there's a squirrel back here. Exiting Walkabout Way, we came to find Busch's collection of Caribbean Flamingos. I haven't seen so much pink in one setting since my mom made me watch Legally Blonde! We were already really enjoying the animal aspect of Busch Gardens! Wait a minute, when did we get to Dollywood? On our way to SheiKra, we passed several animals, including this lizard (Can't remember if this is a Komodo Dragon or a smaller one) And a bird exhibit just north of Sesame Street. Finally, we found our next ride. SheiKra. We passed under one of these tunnels on our way, and we all had brief moments of nostalgia as we remembered Kings Island's. SheiKra is one of the more dominating rides at the park (At 200 feet, who would have guessed?), so we found SheiKra well before we could find its entrance! Woa, man. Going through the dive loop. Prepare to drop! Turning right Sploosh! Clearly, Diamondback has a better splashdown effect, but this one can get you wet if you're close enough on the midway! SheiKra is a tangled mess of track that intertwines itself directly over the midway, so we had a lot of time to stare as we walked to the entrance. How's that for a weird angle? A mess of supports and track, with some riders in there somewhere. Dropping... ...and flying past. That is one helluva loop. We finally found the entrance! Joe and I entered and waited about five minutes for the front row. Joe got a seat towards the outside, I did not. SheiKra was a very fun ride. Extremely smooth (No, seriously, like, ridiculously smooth) and fast. While it's very gimmiky, relying on the two vertical drops and splashdown, it has it's moments, like the pop of air before each drop, the hang time on the dive loop, and the misty tunnel under the splashdown lake that make it a better ride then I was expecting. Overall, 8.5/10. Next up was Jungala. The question is not what is Jungala, but what isn't it. It's a giant play place, an animal exhibit, a place to eat, a place with rides, a place with live shows, it's got everything packed into a four-acre area. What a place. I see tigers! The tiger exhibit, with the observation areas to the left. My little brother, being the sugar crazed kid he is, spent a lot of time in the play area, and dragged me up there too for a while. A pretty crazy area, it is. You get a nice view of some rides from there, though! Rope bridge POV! Joe, being a kid. More in the next post...

Throw practically everything possible at the wall, and when the true events unfold, delete everything that you said otherwise. Pretty standard Screamscape practice.

The Quick Queue system I used at Busch Gardens earlier this week was very efficient and a huge time saver, I may not have gotten half as many things done without it. This sounds to be more like the system at Dollywood, which also is a big time saver for infrequent visitors. Both systems were pretty expensive...worth the cost for people who dont go often, but for people like us who go dozens of times a year, I can't see it being helpful, especially since we already know the ideal days to go anyway At any rate, I think with the crowds Kings Island draws it would be a good idea, and it could probably generate a sizeable revenue if the price is right. I can't see this being a Kinzel move, what with him and his Cedar Fair removing the Gold Pass lanes at Kings Island, plus it just makes too much sense from an in park spending standpoint to be Kinzelish

*Sighs*.....no, the park has made very clear that they are not adding a steel coaster for 2012, and they are considering the option for future years.

We saw survey markers and clearing in October of 2007. Long, long before May. In fact, there was quite a hubbah about illegally captured pictures that surfaced in February 2008 of Swan Lake drained (Yeah, that old pond that used to be there, remember?...No?....Oh, well, moving on then...)

Leave it goodyellowkorn to completely overlook the B&M Invert, and go instead for their top spin, a type of ride we already have.

If memory serves he was Public Relations man, like Don Helbig is now.

For those looking for the exact article: http://www.fox19.com/story/14906315/kings-islands-WindSeeker-debut-delayed-due-to-weather Later in the article.... Has Cedar Point's really opened or not?

Already being discussed here: http://www.KICentral.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=23952

I was there all day today and really only saw it move once, where it slowly went to the top of the tower then slowly went down. When I rode Red Racer I saw that the backs of many seats were removed, among other pieces scattered about.

Sorry, but after Jack Falfas and now Peter Crage, this song popped into my head instantly.

It's not a steel coaster. "Will it happen next year? NO!" I'm timid to think it's a large-scale attraction for now.

Exactly. Not to mention the coasters that are ridiculously taller than 80 feet and still work fine, see also, El Toro.

Cough.... 181 Feet tall.... Cough....

If you sit on a back row of a car, you're sitting on top of the back wheel, and usually you find the experience much more rough. Front seats on cars aren't as bad since the front wheel is more under your feet than your seat, but for the best ride, sit in a middle row of a car, since there's no wheel there.

How does one manage to get an anamatronic dinosaur to catch fire, and two days before opening? I don't know whether to laugh, facepalm, or be worried.

It just went vertical recently.

This conversation isn't very punny anymore...

Congrats, Jessie!

Now That's a lighting package! I love it!

What caught my eye most was this: http://projects.pulsejournal.com/cache/galleries/photos/5248673/

Celebrating 9 seasons of fun in 2011.

Sounds pretty straight forward to me. Arms go on Wednesday or Thursday, followed by the seats Friday or Saturday, and the next week is spent testing while the queue and landscaping are completed. It can be done, don't worry guys. I trust these people know what they're doing

It may be slightly, but I'm not sure.

They're giving out maps at Pass Processing. I got one today