Tikifire

Very cool TR! IOA has long been one of my favorite parks!

Isn't the Great Escape where Opryland's Rock N Roller Coaster ended up? I must have ridden that ride a hundred times when I was a kid.

I've always heard good things about this park. From your pics and the awesome TR it sounds like a place I need to take the family someday!! Thanks!

I haven't been to USH since 1989 so the park actually having rides is kind of cool to me. However, I can see why people would grouse about the lack of rides when it is compared to Disneyland for instance.

I wondered also why they didn't mention the lawsuit. The diluting of their brand is the only reason I could see Disney not buying them, but then again, who knows. It would be interesting to see what Disney would do to the Gardens and Sea World parks either way.

This will be interesting to watch and see what happens with the Busch Parks. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they are sold to Disney. It would give Disney parks in Texas (rumored building site for Disney for years now) and in Virginia which was the site of Disney's failed America park concept. Plus they would now own several more parks in Orlando and central florida... I could see it working

Cool pics. I've gotta get to Pittsburgh and get to Kennywood sometime. I noticed in that one car shot you had a sign for the Monroeville Mall right in front of you. That's where the original Dawn of the Dead was filmed way back when and I guess I've gotta go check that out sometime too.

I made two trips to Busch Gardens Africa in June. Once with just me and my better half Paula and the second trip with Paula and my daughter Sarah. She's only 6 but she's already 51.5 inches so she'll be hitting the "54-inch" coasters like Kumba and Sheikra soon enough but she can still ride the "kiddie" rides. The pics are from both trips! Here's my thoughts on the coasters... Kumba - I didn't ride it but Paula seemed impressed with it. Granted, she's never ridden anything like it so has nothing to compare it with. Sheikra - I rode this before it was floor less and the gimmick is pretty good in the front seat. The way Busch runs this ride it's pretty easy to get a front seat without waiting much longer than the other two rows. Some say it's force less but I still like it and I think there are plenty of forces. Perhaps different forces than on most coasters but they are there just the same. When I see people putting down this coaster I wonder if maybe they're spoiled a bit by other rides. Scorpion - This little ride still kicks a lot of butt. It was great to get Sarah on it for the first time and see her reaction as well... she loved it of course. It's too bad the Schwarzkopf company isn't still around and producing these for smaller parks especially. Cheetah Chase - This little guy is great, though they do brake him a little bit too much. Really scared Paula the first time we rode and I had to beg her to ride again. She did and loved it the second time. Montu - the surprise of the trip, for me at least. I've ridden this over the years since it opened and it seemed that they kept braking it more and more aggressively as time went by. The mid course brake used to grind you to nearly a dead halt a few years ago. Not so anymore. It seems they've taken to running this beast the way it was meant to be run again and it's returned to fine form. It's still not as wild as it was originally (the best inverted bar-none) but it's still one of my faves now that the braking has been lessened. We also rode a lot of the other rides, and Sarah loved all the water rides (Stanley Falls Log Flume, Tanganyika Tidal Wave, Congo River Rapids). She especially seemed to like Rhino Rally. I made them ride the sky ride several times, of course, as I love those! Cheetah Chase had fun!!! I had fun! Sarah had fun! End of the day on the skyride... Paula had fun... Looks like a bengal tiger in there as well... Over in Jungala the white tigers have a huge enclosure and there are lots of viewing points on both sides... very cool addition... Back through the loop! hi g's! Loopage! Scorpion's first drop! Scorpion goodness...Sarah was tall enough to ride this and was scared at first but after we went once she wanted to do it again... I love this old Schwarzkopf! The Tanganyika Tidal Wave splashing down... that water hit me right in the crotch so I walked around looking like I'd peed myself for an hour or so... Sheikra splashdown aftermath... Seen this before but a cool visual... I like this shot, though I've surely seen it before... Driving the dragon car... I once fell into a boat ride like this at the mid-south fair in Memphis... that kid on the right looks like he's really happy to be riding this ride... he looked like that the whole time he was on it... The eggshell wonder wheel... or something like that... Let's ride a dragon... cue Eragon joke... Mini log flume lift hill... Land of the dragons! The mini log flume is the bomb... I once sank one of these at Wild Adventures... He kept getting near the edge and mama finally got mad and fussed at him and scooped him up onto her back... Back to Myombie Reserve to see the baby... Hippo butt!!! I like to move it move it... I had to keep telling her not to feed the animals... Yeah... RR photo op part deux!!! Come on rescue us!!! Jeez that looks dangerous... except for the track I can clearly see under the water... hmmm... Don't go chasin' waterfalls... The bridge of DOOOOOMMMM!!!! Zebra butt!!! Did I mention I love the skyride? A cave... that's ominous... She likes having her pic made obviously... Over to Rhino Rally... photo op!!! Kumba... man that's a beautiful coaster... even with the fading paint... Interestingly enough, there's some sort of generator sitting on top of the train. I wonder what that's for? Steam train at the station near the bumper cars (Congo station?) Sarah and I were waiting while Paula rode Kumba for the first time (yeah she's a coaster lover but a newbie for most rides as she's never been anywhere). Notice the paper straw. A big improvement as they used to not have straws at all at BGA. I was trying to get some different viewpoints of Kumba than I usually see in pics... Kumba! KUMBA! Kumba!!! Cool shot of of the CC with Phoenix and some other stuff and junk... The train at Nairobi station... anyone here remember right after they opened Montu back in '96 and they closed this station and had a new one in Egypt for a year or so? More skyride and female companion goodness! Obligatory Alligator pond picture Obligatory Myombie Reserve picture #2 Obligatory Myombie Reserve picture #1 I know she likes big gorillas like me but... Nope, no one has ever taken this picture before! Still a fun ride though I often see it derided for being force less and short. Are they white with black stripes or black with white stripes? How many licks does it take to get the center of a tootsie roll zebra? The world may never know. Paula on the train... the guy behind her was some Australian sounding guy who knew "everything" about the park. Evidently he worked in maintenance or something. The annoying factor was that he talked constantly all the way around the park to the ladies next to him who were severely impressed with both the conversation and everything they saw. "AWWWW A BABY RHINO!!! AWWWWW AWWWW AWWWWW!!!!" Jeez they were annoying. Congo river rapids... old school rapids through the jungle with a... concrete block wall... Stop monkeying around... ummm.... that monkey looks stoned... errrr... I got nothin... Goodbye cruel world, it's over... walk on by... Sheikra from below. Ready to drop! Paula and her BBQ chicken. It was tasty! Eating at the BBQ place under Sheikra! Those were the toughest ribs I've ever eaten. I guess I'm spoiled by ribs that fall off of the bone at one of my fave local restaurants. I also didn't realize until after I'd gotten them that they were beef ribs. The Amber Bock sauce was delicious, though! One of my favorite shots of the day... how many rides can you pick out in this picture? I can see four coasters and the log ride! The newish walkway between Stanleyville and Timbuktu is at the bottom of the picture Another shot of Sheikra behind the Pirates! theater plus more skyride goodness!!! The back side of Cheetah Chase... fun little coaster... I think it fooled Paula because she didn't want to ride again at first... something about the feeling of falling out on those curves at the top... Ahhhh Kumba... I think I have a hundred shots just like this one (many in old paper, (GASP!) photos) More Rhino Rally from the skyride Rhino Rally load point. Some people don't like this ride but I dig it, and besides, where else can you ride an "underwater" rollercoaster? Sheikra from the skyride. As tall as it is, it's surprisingly hard to get a good shot of the whole thing with all the trees and buildings surrounding it. The skyride! I love the old Von Roll skyrides, though few parks keep them anymore it seems. I think this goes back to my love of the Opryland skyride when I was a kid and it was my home park.

Nice... I went to Walt Disney World for my honeymoon with my ex back in '96 so I still feel like getting drunk everytime I go there... although that may have more to do with the fact my daughter loves to ride "It's a Small World." Back on topic, I'm a bit sad I never got to "experience" this attraction being a Trek fan but from what I read about it, it was themed largely around the Next Generation which was never really my cup of tea.

Jeez... I feel lacking... heh... Busch Gardens Africa (the park formerly known as Busch Gardens Tampa formerly known as Busch Gardens: The Dark Continent!) Heading to Disney's Magic Kingdom and Disney's Hollywood Studios in a week or so though...

I have an old VHS copy of this... great stuff... also has the Cars singing "Dontcha stop" to the Mindbender at SFoG...

Thanks for sharing all these pics and memories everyone, but esp. Montezooma! These are great! I actually have a copy of that Six Flags over Mid-America brochure as well... still has the price sticker on it too!

You heard correctly. I rode Boss back in 2003 (unless my memory's failing) and it was terrible. Gave me back aches that lasted the rest of the day. I love wooden coasters but that one was just atrocious.

Wow these pics from this trip looked like a ton of fun... wish I'd kept up with this stuff, I'm only 2 hours from Orlando and would have loved to join you guys... maybe next time BTW... if you want some authentic Japanese food you should try Ran Getsu on International Blvd. in Orlando... that place is awesome!

Red Devil at Ghost Town in the Sky in Maggie Valley, NC... That thing was scary... the workers running the ride and the park that day were drunk and the whole ride was shaking like mad as we went through the loop and around the curves that hung out over the side of the mountain. The train had duct tape all over it and as we went up the lift back into the station I noticed the second train had been cannabilized for parts for the one I was riding that felt like it was shaking apart. I've never been so scared in all my life, so of course I had to ride it 2 more times! Hahahhaha