YoshiFan

It's bad when even non enthusiasts notice so many things wrong. The latest money grab is Kumba and soon to be Iron Gwazi and Sheikra have switched to a new on ride photo provider, if you bought the annual photo key or it came with the annual pass, those rides are no longer part of photo key and cost $5 each for a digital copy.

I definitely agree. I visited the park on the Friday later in the day. Sky Ride and Carousel are closed for annual maintenance. Falcon's Fury has been closed for weeks but may have reopened since then (the app shows a 5 minute wait but it isn't accurate with closed and open rides). That left the train, Serengeti Flyer and bumper cars as the only non coaster rides open while I was at the park. The rapids are open but close at 4, 2 hours before the park closes for the day. Same with the new Wild Oasis area, closed at 4. You would think that with the log flume closed, they would keep the 1 water ride they have open until at least 5 or even closing time. In addition to Iron Gwazi running 1 train, Sheikra was also running 1 train even with the wait up to 70 minutes earlier. The computer systems were also down meaning no way to get Busch Bucks or any other rewards that can't be accessed on your phone. They tried the mandatory lockers earlier last week at Iron Gwazi and it didn't go so well with not enough lockers. When I walked past the ride when leaving the park, they had the old loose article policy signs out and the metal detector was off to the side near the entrance but not in use. Even with the operational issues, for a 75 minute visit and being able to ride Kumba twice, Phoenix Rising twice and Sheikra (Quick Queue) is still good. I stayed in the back of the park because Howl O Scream visitors were allowed in at that point and the rides in the front of the park had longer lines.

There is a rumor that Iron Gwazi is getting metal detectors. Unfortunately that means having to pay $4 for a 2 hour locker or $12 for an all day moveable locker unless they unexpectedly make the lockers free.

Yeah, I guess it was just wishful thinking. Kumba is finally re-opening after being closed for over 10 months. Pass member previews start tomorrow and opens to everyone else on Saturday. From the e-mail the park sent out: " Be the First to Ride – Kumba Returns! Wednesday - Friday, Sept. 24–26 Ride Kumba before the public re-opening on September 27! FREE Ride Photo for all Pass Members Platinum Pass Members skip the line with Quick Queue access"

I'm going to be cautiously optimistic although not having too much of an expectation for how good it might be. Another dark ride will be good for something else to do when it rains.

I agree. Iron Gwazi has been getting up to 2 hour waits on the weekend because of the 1 train operation. I thought the whole point of having 3 trains when the ride can only run 2 is so 2 are always available while 1 is undergoing maintenance. The thing I find interesting is they trying to save money wherever possible with the cutting hours, closing rides, 1 train on too many coasters yet they are giving out park spending money like crazy. This month alone there has been $40 in Busch Bucks and $30 in Island Bucks for Adventure Island. That's in addition to similar amounts of park spending money the past few months and over the summer they were giving 2 bonus guest tickets out almost every week. I'd rather see less Busch Bucks and extra guest tickets and instead see better operations. I guess they expect people to spend more with the Busch Bucks and guests with the bonus tickets will buy food and merchandise. I wouldn't mind seeing that happen, at least an annual pass would be a lot less than the current costs.

Cheetah Hunt reopened today.

I visited the park on Tuesday to get my final flume rides in. Even with the ride closing, it wasn't more than a 5 minute wait. I was planning on getting more than 3 rides in but I was soaked and had enough after that. I will miss the ride as it's my favorite non coaster ride in the park and hope a new water ride is added. With tidal wave removed around 8 years ago and now the flume going, 1 water ride is not enough for a park in Florida. Sheikra was closed and the person at the entrance said it was unlikely to open the rest of the day. It's been having some more downtime than usual over the past week. Cobra's Curse was only running 3 trains. The posted wait was 5 minutes but it was probably closer to 20 with the line barely moving. Not that 20 minutes is bad for Cobra's Curse but it was the same 2 weeks ago with a 10 minute posted wait and probably a 30 minute actual wait so I would not trust the wait time sign (that could also be said for most rides in the park). Iron Gwazi is running 1 train and had a posted 45 minute wait 15 minutes before closing. I didn't wait as I was concerned by the time I exited the ride, the stores would be closed and I had another $20 in Busch Bucks to spend. From the Sky Ride, you can see 1 of Cheetah Hunt's trains stuck on the MCBR. It had been like that for a while but supposedly was moved yesterday. 2 of the kids rides that were removed from Pantopia for Phoenix Rising are being re-installed where the RC boats and monster trucks were, next to the bumper cars.

Unfortunately with the closed rides page no longer being updated, we probably won’t know until it starts testing before opening. The page was really helpful as it had the closing and reopening dates for all planned closures. As of 6 days ago, outside the ride entrance there was a sign just stating it is closed for maintenance. Kumba should hopefully be open for your visit, it’s been testing a lot this week and there are rumors it may be open this weekend. Also unrelated to that but for you and anyone else visiting the rest of the year, you might want to check the operating calendar as hours were recently cut and could affect your visit. A lot of 5 pm closings in September, October and November. No more 8 pm weekday closings for Christmas Town in November and early December either. The water park also cut Monday’s in September other than Labor Day and is closing for the season the first week in October instead of the end of October.

Wasn’t Barnstormer recently reinstalled after being removed when Looney Tunes Seaport closed? I’m surprised about that and the log flume being removed after it just was refurbished.

Even though it’s disappointing to see something that was once including costing extra now, I much prefer this as an alternative to what some other parks do where they close the park at 5 or 6 and you can’t stay for the rides without an event ticket.

I never get food at the park unless there is a pass holder reward for a free item during a food festival but you may want to reconsider eating at the park. Dragon Fire Grill was shut down by the health department and the report is not good: https://www.myfloridalicense.com/inspectionDetail.asp?InspVisitID=10899193&id=6133177

It’s a shame to see HITP gone. It was always my favorite time of year to visit with the lights everywhere, most of the coasters open and lower crowds compared to Fright Fest. Christmas Candylane at Hershey was already very crowded and now I guess more people will be going there if they want to ride coasters in December.

It feels like it. other parks are having problems too. The new Expedition Odyssey at SeaWorld supposedly already had the air conditioning break a few weeks after opening. Wild Oasis had another delay with no new opening date announced. Iron Gwazi is running 1 train for now with the other 2 trains having maintenance done. Hours were cut again this week for both Busch Gardens and Adventure Island. Over in Adventure Island they didn't have enough tubes for the lazy river so they took the single tubes from Aruba Tuba and Calypso Coaster and moved them to the river (lazy river tubes are green, slide tubes are blue). That left about 10 double tubes in use for both slides. It's frustrating to see knowing how their parks used to be run. Now the parks feel like they are run like a bad Six Flags park but not at Six Flags prices.

If you have a trip planned this month, check the park hours before going. They cut hours for the 2nd time in the last 10 days or so. Every day in June was originally posted as the park closing at 10 pm. Then Monday - Thursday were changed to 8 pm closings. Today hours for Tuesday - Thursday for this week were cut back to 7 pm closings. I also think there is a good chance the hours for July will change soon as well with weekdays having a 9 pm closing instead of the 10 pm currently listed as for the past 2 or 3 years, they cut hours without much notice and last year they closed at 9 on weekdays in July. Wild Oasis also had it's opening day moved to June 11th with pass previews from the 6th to the 10th. Originally pass previews were supposed to start on May 30th. https://buschgardens.com/tampa/kid-friendly/wild-oasis/ On a more positive note, they are really generous with the rewards this month. There is a free stuffed animal worth $24.99 in the pass holder lounge until Thursday, a free cell phone fan, then Busch Bucks and 2 extra guest tickets later in the month. Over in Adventure Island, there is $10 Island Bucks/$20 Platinum Island Bucks.

Small update from today. Everything was open except Kumba, Iron Gwazi and the rapids. The rapids reopened a few days ago but had a breakdown yesterday or Sunday and was closed all day today. Iron Gwazi has a sign at the entrance that the ride is closed for annual maintenance. Whether that is really true or it was just closed for the day is unkown as they sometimes leave those signs out for a temporary closure and there is no way to find out with the closed rides page removed. Sheikra was running 2 trains, rare for a day besides Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They also are being more strict about re-rides. You can re-ride once and then have to walk around even with rows going out completely empty. I noticed the same at SeaWorld earlier this year. I found out that the log flume and bumper cars close early when the park is open past 6. I knew they opened late but didn't know they closed early too. Platinum Passholders were supposed to get $20 in Busch Bucks this month. It was lowered to $10 after showing $20 as an April reward for months. That's not the first time they changed or removed a reward at the last minute, last summer there was a free guest ticket for Adventure Island in July that they also removed as a listed reward at the end of June.

Good to see a new coaster being added to the park. I hope that it can run 2 trains. I visited the park for the first time in January and was surprised how many low capacity attractions there are. It was a weekday and crowds were very light so it wasn't really an issue except for Pirate River Quest and Coast Guard Academy but on a crowded day it probably be frustrating.

I think they are trying to save money with cutbacks anywhere possible. They removed trams on weekdays a few months ago until they got so many complaints they brought them back. Most rides did not have anyone at the entrance since around September except during more crowded times. Scorpion closed 6 months ago and the train is still on the tracks. Park hours have been cut back with little to no notice. It's not much better at Adventure Island. Today 4 out of 9 slide towers were closed and some of the open slide towers had half the slides closed. They are selling Quick Queue but some of the Quick Queue lines are closed. They advertised they would be open year round and how the water is heated. I don't blame them for giving up on the idea of being open year round as the times I have been there in October and November, it was empty. Today the water was very cold and I'm guessing they are not heating the water to save money. They also ran out of the pass holder towel clips and it's the 3rd day of the season that they are open. On a more positive note, from the water park I could see Sheikra was testing. Serengeti Flyer was also using both swings, I haven't seen that in months. ^ I agree it can still be fun on a low crowd day. It is nice to be able to stop in for a 2 hours and get a bunch of coaster rides when everything is running.

When was it open? As the train passed the coaster today, the person at the microphone didn't say anything about Kumba (it was closed) compared to rides like Sheikra and the rapids where they stated they should be reopening again in the next few days. I hope it is open again but thought it hasn't reopened since being closed in November. In addition to removing the closed rides web page, the park also removed the closed rides board at the entrance. They say to check the app but it's not accurate at all. Iron Gwazi has been running 1 train and Cheetah Hunt has been closed on and off since Thursday or Friday. The Sky Ride also re-opened last week but was closed today due to wind. The parking lot wasn't that full but Cobra's Curse, Cheetah Hunt (when open) and Iron Gwazi all had long lines with the closures and other breakdowns. They at least were running 2 trains on Montu so that was a 5 minute wait most of the day.

Wow, that basically erases the annual pass discount for the lower tiers. Now with them being strict about combining SeaWorld Bucks as well, it makes it a lot more frustrating.

The park got rid of the updates for closed rides, with what is closed and scheduled to be closed: https://buschgardens.com/tampa/park-info/ride-attraction-schedule/ I guess they didn't want people to see that 40% of the non kids ride in the park are closed.

It's not open, the app is wrong as it often is unfortunately. It also shows the flume is open and that is closed. Right now the following are closed: Sheikra, Kumba, Cobra's Curse, Falcon's Fury, Skyride, Flume, Rapids. Falcon's Fury has been closed for around a week.

I agree, it gets frustrating to visit both parks because of the operations and lack of rides. I was recently looking at BGW's ride collection and saw they had almost twice as many rides (not counting kids rides) as BGT. BGT could use some flats and a dark ride to help spread out crowds. Kumba and Congo River Rapids are still closed and not supposed to be reopening anytime soon (rumor is Kumba has a broken lift motor and the rapids needs a new pump) and now Sheikra and the log flume are having their annual maintenance with both supposedly closed until March. Even with those 2 rides open until today, these past few weeks had some of the highest wait times ever for some coasters with Cheetah Hunt and Iron Gwazi both having up to 4 hour posted waits.

Kumba has been closed for a few weeks now, Montu and Cheetah Hunt are now on the closed rides list: https://buschgardens.com/tampa/park-info/ride-attraction-schedule/ To have 3 major coasters down right as it's about to be the most crowded time of the year is going to be interesting. That leaves a total of 10 rides open in the entire park that aren't kiddie rides. Unfortunately, they aren't adjusting operations to run the open rides at a higher capacity. There could have been more than a few hundred cars in the lot this afternoon yet Sheikra still was close to a 40 minute wait because they were only running 1 train.

Serengeti Flyer has re-opened. There was a sign at the train stations on Friday night that they are planning to re-open it soon as they are still dealing with damage from the hurricane. It was also a nice surprise to see the Skyride operating until park closing at 8:00. Usually it closes a few hours before the rest of the park. Montu and Sheikra were also running 2 trains, I can't remember the last time I saw Montu running 2 trains on a weekday.