PKI Jizzman

Day 2 at Busch Gardens! We planned on doing the safari where you can feed giraffes, get close to rhinos/nyala/many other African animals! With Alex's pass discount I think we paid like, $40? We weren't able to reserve our spot online, you had to show up when the park opened and get a spot (if it wasn't sold out already). I can't recommend this tour enough, it was so much! Our guides were really friendly, informative, and helped give us tips on how best to feed the giraffes. You get a great view of Cheetah Hunt, Cobra's Curse, and Montu as well. We were able to get on the first tour of the day around 1030am and there were only 6 other people with us so it felt private! Oh good, Cheetah Hunt is working today! Spoiler, it still had a 2.5 hour wait for the general queue. Let's get this tour started! I love this hidden barrel roll, I really wonder how many people would skip Cheetah Hunt if that inversion was front and center, it's like a little surprise for those who don't know it's coming! The supports are pretty unique too. Maverick-lite hill produces some solid airtime! Mr. Nyala is on the left and 2 of his 8 girl friends are on the right. They said he's very happy and keeping their population up! They had a newborn a few weeks ago. This rhino is very emo and likes to be alone. Also poops a lot. Pretty sure these are real animals. There are 2 baby giraffes on property and on the day of our tour it was one's birthday! There's the 2 babies in the background. I think they know we've got the good green stuff. Yoohooo over here! Some sort of largest deer typa animal, very cute 7/10. Eventually, we had this 'ol gal come over. Sometimes you will get more than 1 giraffe, but this girl doesn't like competition since she's older and the other giraffes know to let her do her thing and they'll get a snack later. Giraffes are cute. Giraffes have long tongues to pick leaves. Cute! Not cute. They're really textured and super slimy so imagine you're getting a crusty yet slimy handshake hahaha Make your arm like a branch and hold it high for her! It's amazing to see them so close. Look at those big eyes "I want one" Alex. Video_1.movVideo.mov And there's a nice view of the 'closed' corner of the park. Cobra's Curse never opened, and went on to be down for over a month in June/July. Montu was closed almost the entire day and thankfully re-opened. Whew. Cmon BGT, do better! More to come shortly, I had never added videos so wanted to get those uploaded. Video_1.mov

I haven't visited a park this year that's doing cleaning on attractions unless there's a protein spill. Hardly any of the sanitizer stations are full at KI anymore so bring your own if you want to use after every ride. The masks indoors must be new a new rule but at this point I'm just going to keep a mask with me at all times since the rules change often and it's nearly impossible to not have kids/people bumping into you in line.

How's Great America these days? Flashback to December 2019. In town to visit a friend for his 30th and planned to have a perfect 3 hour window to get to the park to ride Railblazer, Flight Deck, Goldstriker..... and then the Bay area had historic flooding and the park was under water. Now I'm back for his wedding and I'm looking at visiting on Sunday September 12th. Any notable rides closed? When it's open for weekends only on a Sunday how are the crowds? or is it just packed like every other park? They're open 11-7. thanks!

Glad we have a date. I just hope they have a great opening. The surrounding area is pretty and it's looks amazing.

Soooo how aboutttt Pantheon's opening date?

Rode Corkscrew for the first time in probably 10 years and man those old Arrow trains are brutal! I can't imagine how crunched anyone over 5'8" is in those things. The airtime on the first drop and the hill before the loop is pretty nuts though!

Nick U/Mall of America in Jersey. Valleyfair (I love you Renegade) doesn't have much to offer. Holiday World is another one that could fit. There's the coasters, a meh log flume, and a teeny S&S tower. If they coasters aren't in great shape you're going to have a very quick visit.

The seats are huge and the train is comfortable, I agree with above that the most suspect part of the ride is the transition to the loop. But it's not near as bad as like, Raptor's snap into brake run. This coaster is an absolute gem and treasure, I really hope it continues to run for many more years.

Really hope by the time Gwazi opens they are up to the usual quality standard. It was a Saturday and Sunday visit and they still didn't have their featured summer specials available for food. The worst part is that the summer special food was actually healthy ish and sounded super good one was a shrimp and rice bowl.

Lines, yeah..

Hey everyone! After 2020 ruined Alex and I's trip to Disneyland, we started to put together fantasy European trips for when the pandemic ended but we realized we would probably have to settle for something in the USA for 2021. Between WDW, Gwazi, Ice Breaker, and then Velocicoaster, Florida seemed to be the unanimous destination when we could travel safely in 2021. I haven't visited Disney World since a kid in 2002, and we all love Disney, but now does not seem like the time to go. After looking at the (lack of) available parks to visit for our time frame, limited hours, no shows/fireworks, etc we just ended up putting it off for another time. I have so much to do in Orlando, haha. So then the plan became clear - Busch Gardens, Sea World, and Universal over a week. We had slight hope for Gwazi, but we know how that turned out. Ice Breaker seemed real with the employees riding, but we know how that turned out. Despite that, who cares, it'd be nice just to see a friend I hadn't seen in 2 years and go to a new theme park. Day 1 Tampa non park day. So what do you do in Tampa when there's no sporting team in town? Bar hop, I guess. I had looked into some 2 hour boat tours around the city or to see dolphins but the cost + weather risk wasn't worth it. We stayed at the brand new Hampton Inn & Suites Tampa Busch Gardens right across from the park. and OF COURSE our window perfectly framed the closed Gwazi Even though I had blocked it from my mind months prior to the trip seeing it in person, closed, yet ready to go was infuriating. Don't worry, BGT had many more ways to piss us off. I highly recco the Hampton Inn & Suites Tampa Busch Gardens, they were really friendly and even though they hadn't opened up the full breakfast spread they gave you as much food/drink as you asked. Rooms were clean, shuttle to the park, but honestly you could walk too and from the park. BGT is in a rough looking neighborhood but we didn't have any issues walking back after park close and getting some delicious stuffed pitas at Zeko's Mediterranean Grill. Of course this is our hotel view. We had lunch on the water at Jackson's Bistro, very solid spot for a fish sandwich and then headed over to the convenient cable car/lite rail to check out Ybor City. Tampa's TECO Street Car is free and vintage cool. For a Friday happy hour, Ybor City was absolutely dead. Probably more chickens in the street than people haha. We had some good drinks and bounced around, but the whole area seemed more industrial like. It's a big port city but whenever I visit BGT next I won't bother spending any time outside the park. Day 2 (BGT Day 1 of 2) Busch Gardens Tampa/Africa had been on my list for so long. It's got the legendary B&Ms of America! Not only that, the surplus of animals, encounters, an INSANE looking drop tower, Cheetah Hunt, Tigris, Cobra's Curse, these pretzels everyone raves about, and a beer/cocktail lounge overlooking the Serengeti! Needless today I was absolutely hyped. Of course being Florida in mid June, we knew it would be hot. We were prepared with Quick Que for both days. Right away we saw that the sky ride is down, which is a mega bummer considering the park's layout and the heat. Headed over to Cheetah Hunt first, but it was down. Cobra's Curse! Oh, it's down. But at least they had 4 employees out there giving mixed messages on if the ride would even be open the next day. Okay Montu! Hooray, it's open! Montu absolutely tore down Banshee, Afterburn, Batmen, Alpengeist, Raptor, and the rest of the inverts I've been on. Having had some of the best Banshee rides a few days before, they're just built differently. I'll gladly trade those slow barrel rolls for the original B&M invert trains. The drop had a nice whip, the loop and immelman had me seeing spots, the zero g roll is absolutely perfect, the batwing underground is taken incredibly fast and then you're treated to a mix of inversions, dips, and turns underground until the end. Amazing. Loved front and back equally. We checked out some nile crocs, lions, hyenas, and tigers on the way to Falcon's Fury. Falcon's Fury is probably the only attraction on the planet that gives me anxiety waiting in line. 1) because it's a crazy Intamin tower, it will breakdown throughout the way 2) it's way taller than I ever thought, I guess I didn't see the stats! it's 330ft!!! Holy shit Falcon's Fury was absolutely incredible. It feels like you're being shot down AND the pull out (don't be nasssssti) is super smooth. Next to DoDoDonpa, I've never experienced the sensation of fear + adrenaline + euphoria like that. It only took 2 rides for us to notice not the lack of staffing, but the lack of good staff. These ops were not happy at all. Montu's capacity should be 1,500 per hour and the ops weren't really interested in checking your restraints until a train stacked. Falcon's ops were so miserable we thought the ride broke down every cycle because they'd kinda point and look at something in the op booth or on the ride and we people would ask "did it break?" they'd just laugh, as if the ride needed a smoke break every time it ran. Even the automated voice over was mixed up. The welcome back would play as you go up, visa versa. I'm sad to say those Twisted Tails pretzels didn't live up to the hype, but with the lack of quality food in the park, I think we had those for 3/4 of our meals. They were good, not great and you had packetted mustard and cheap nacho cheese (upcharge) to pair. Disappointing. Scorpion was a fun Schwarzkopf. Stanley Falls was up next and 3 of us in 1 log got absolutely SOAKED head to toe! Thanks to the florida heat I think we dried off in an hour. We checked out the cool avian exhibit and completed a lap around the park to see if Cobra's Curse or Cheetah Hunt were open. The crappy service continued as our friend with us who needed to use a breast pump was run back and forth across the park trying to find the right nursing station, and when she finally got to the right place the quality/privacy was not good. Cheetah Hunt even with Quick Que was almost an hour wait. Stand by was 2.5. Only 1 station was being used and boyyyy were they taking their sweet time. They also didn't care to tell people not to smoke in the queue or on the ride and let people take as many on ride photos or videos as they wanted. Cheetah Hunt was a ton of fun! The front provided some great pops of air while the back gave the best experience coming off the tower. Is there supposed to be water back in the canyon section? Was there? It is a great family coaster and gets even better at night! After that long wait for Cheetah, we took some time to relax at the Serengeti bar. Apparently there's a restaurant opening on the 3rd floor ...eventually. It's a really great bar for beer or mixed drinks, you can even get a beer flight or two! Yes, multiple beer flight options! We also experienced the only employees with life here today, great bartenders. Another ride on Falcon's Fury, another pretzel, and it was time for Montu! Montu doesn't have the most impressive stats on paper, but man this thing looks huge in person up on the hill. It absolutely lives up to the hype, great intense inversions and even a dope B&M lite stengel dive into the tunnel that spits you out into the helix. BEAST! So that's two old school B&M's that have OTSRs and don't touch your ears. Sheikra blew all of the other dive coasters I've been on out of the water, especially the ones with vests. It's beautiful, feels bigger, has airtime on the inversion, man this park has amazing coasters! Alright that's enough for right now, I'll update again soon! -Zach Free booze samples and it's good booze? Sure go here if you must stay in Tampa! Mmm, good beer. It will terrify you, but you will be rewarded. Wow wadda thrill. The pop up bubble in the tiger exhibit must be visited. LOOK AT EM! Pawb. Some beautiful bird friends in the open air aviary. My favorite animal. Look at these dino-bunnies. Goofy, weird, stupid. Derpy, lazy, friggin cute. Your plumage is stunning ma'am LAZY!!! You walk into the park and are greeted with this. OPEN IT!!!!! Cheetah Hunt has a 3 hour wait! There's no ride in the area of the park too! So frustrating. What. A. BEAST! rippin' Your gradeschool science book Absolutely HAULING The train ride is incredible, but they were only running 1 train. 30 minute dispatches. Fuck. After sleeping in and most of the day with the kangaroos, Cheetah finally woke up. Thanks for scaring me, Intamin. Montu sunset rides gah, so good! After walking 12 miles in the 95* heat because the park's transport rides are broken, we were as sleeby as this yeen.

The swings over the water used to have a trick where they would sharply slow down, making you kinda scoot forward in your seat as if to throw you in the water, but I haven't been in 10 years. Bummer to hear Cornball is getting rough, that was some amazing stand up airtime..

Love this trip report! Man SF STL has gone down hill since I visited. No more Intamin drop, Xcalibur closed, at least Freeze was running. If you've been on more than 100 coasters it's really difficult to get excited about STSTL. Sad to hear Outlaw Run is in that shape during the day, man I have such fond memories of that coaster. What a great supporting cast of Wildfire, TNT, Powder Keg and now there's TT. Can't wait to get back to that park!

Dragster ran all day Monday and Tuesday with no issues and the new FL+ line takes you right to the station. It was a walk on at different times of the day! Got 3 walk ons when it opened at 10am, some throughout the day, and 3 at night. Millennium had the most issues, it was only Monday I got rides on it. Broken most Tuesday, Wednesday I believe all day, and Thursday it broke down 2x when I was in line. Maverick was the most consistent, it ran flawlessly! FL+ for FL price is only available in the park, yep, but again if you want it secured for your visit just get it now because it likely won't be available the day of. None of the employees had any rationale, even before I could complete my sentence "Do you sell Fa-" they quickly let me know FL+ was sold out. No you do not get a discount on Regular FL with your platinum pass. Regular FL is still fine, like for example my last day on Thursday - Millennium and Dragster down all day. So FL+ only added Maverick and Steel Vengeance. I still crushed Magnum/Raptor/GK/Val/PowerTower/Skyhawk all day and rode Maverick when it had 30 minute waits and rode Steel Vengeance 3x between 9pm and 10pm [got in line at closing] it only had a 20 minute wait. Valravn had the longest FL line, consistently spilling out to the midway making it a 30ish minute wait, mainly due to a slow crew. CP is definitely struggling with the lack of ops/good ops and I know a few ops whos crews can barely rotate during a shift because people don't show up/come in late/or they can't get enough staff scheduled.

I was at the park Mon-Thurs. Monday and Tuesday I was able to get in the park at opening, buy FL+ for FL price with my platinum pass. Wednesday morning upon entry FL+ was already sold out. Thursday morning FL+ already sold out, so they sold out the night before or they weren't allowing you to upgrade in park. Wednesday and Thursday were less crowded than Mon/Tues, and there was also the threat of storms, and Millennium/Dragster were down Wed/Thurs so I'm thinking they really cut the amount of passes down? Not sure. Long story short if you want FL+ for your visit, get it while it's available. I had a great time with FL+ racking up 11 rides on Dragster on Tuesday alone!

Great start to the trip report! I had wanted to this KC + Branson combo in 2020 so it's fun to see your perspective! Love that the Prowler ops had guests making cat noises

This is also an issue at KI. Crank the volume up around Orion/in the station along with Mystic!

$109 during the week. Easy buy. I had Maverick and SV ERT this afternoon. The price jump has really scared a lot of people (mainly teens/kids with daddy's credit card?) Away. A lotta chatter about "did you see how expensive it is nowwwwwwww?!". There a million places to buy it in park. Just show your plat pass and you get FL+ for FL PRICE.

They ran Steel Vengeance and Maverick in the rain last night, I was absolutely shocked. All trains, too! The ops said depending on the coaster they can run in 'light to mild rain' Hey uh, improvement! Fast Lane made the day a breeze yesterday. Waiting 30 at most for SV and Millennium. 3 front row rides on Dragster, wowwww. The common phrase you will hear around Wicked Twister is guests talking about how they forgot how fun it is, and now they don't want it to go hah! Thirsty Pony will forever be in my heart as a dumpy yet better than normal cheesy bar, but prices have gone up this year for sure. I know meat prices are up, but I don't remember paying over $7 a beer before. Sandusky seems to be really investing in this 'Cedar Corner' which is Cedar Cove, Castaway, Thirsty Pony, the revamped hotel next to it [ex Rainn] and the new Holiday Inn. Keep improving! I'll be at CP today, tomorrow, and some of Thursday if anyone wants to say hey let me know!

On a Wednesday it likely won't sell out so yes you can wait until the day of to buy. I posted about my spontaneous trip on a Wednesday a week and a half ago and had a good time, but the big coasters will still have a 20-30 minute wait and that does add up. It also helps you get in multiple night rides. If you aren't getting fast lane, do Flight of Fear first, then Stunt Coaster, Invertigo, Bat first since they have the worst capacity. The app's wait times have been pretty accurate during my visits.

Just seems like a lot more downtime than usual on all the coasters at CP. Tony says there's an announcement later this afternoon at 430, I just hope it's not news reducing hours. It's probably just an announcement for a future announcement.

I'll be at CP, hope you have a great day at KI! Most coasters and thrill rides have test seats, just try them out before you commit to a line. With the B&M clamshells it's usually thick thighs that deny rides (but thick thighs do save lives).

Beast reopened last night.

There are drone photos going around showing some track work on Beast. Looks like before the 2nd lift. Last week was pretty stormy so it might have been damaged from a tree. Orrrr they could have found something that needed immediate repair during morning walk throughs.

You can still see the supports! Dm me if you want a tour of the park! Beast was still down today. Rode it Wednesday and heard it closed then. Honestly I rode in the front that day and it was way more rough there than it should be. Wonder what's up with it. All trains were off the track, unlike Coasterstock when they had 2 off 1 on.