Maximo37 Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 Hello All... Wanting to take my new camera for a spin and having an extremely strong itch to ride some rollercoasters, decided to head over to the west cost of Florida to Busch Gardens Tampa (which is roughly 1hr 20min from where I live, in Davenport).. Also wanting to contrast some of the BGT rides, seeing that I'll be making a trip to Busch Gardens Williamsburg (not visited BGW in nearly 15 years) in just about 2 weeks time.. What started as a "lets go ride 2 coasters and then hit Adventure Island" (Tampa's Waterpark) turned into a 6 hour journey of coaster riding, picture taking, animal viewing and tons of sweating... yeah, it was nearly 7000 degrees out... Mmmm... maybe not quite, but almost... Never did get to hit the Waterpark that day. No regrets as the coasters and overall experience was AWESOME, as I'll document further down the line. Well enough babble and lets get to some pictures... (Oh and please bear with me as I've not done one of these before... I apologize in advance if this is painfully bland...) (And still re-sizing the remaining photos, so only 1/2 will be posted today. Will finish tomorrow after work hopefully...) Enjoy! On a hot steamy day, you can get an icecream cone like the man pictured... or grab an icy cold beer from the magically floating Bud canoe... (we see you canoe supports hidden by the potted plants... you can't fool us...) More incredible stone work... Some great stone work leading in from the Stanley Falls entrance of Jungala... By the waters edge... I love Jungala and am glad Busch Gardens did such a great job with it... Sorry they had to remove Python for it, but to me, the space was put to very good use! Miss you Python, but you should be proud of what became of your space... Perhaps you... One of these crafty creatures escaped its containment area last year... which one of you was it?! Some seemingly great habitats for its inhabitants... ...complete with tigger slobber on the glass... (look closely, you'll see it!!) Pretty kitties... Jungala is the newest addition to the park, which is just beautiful... Another Kumba photo, which didn't turn out like I planned it to... it was through netting on the bridge, and my trigger finger wasn't quite quick enough to grab the front of the train as planned... Kumba still stands as one of my favorite coasters. From the first time I rode it back in 97, there is just something so amazing about it. Here is a photo of one of my favorite parts of the coaster, taken from the bridge leading to Congo River Rapids (and Jungala)... Hard to tell, but there was lightning off in the distance, which we could see while climbing the lift hill... AWESOME ride!!! Was also VERY impressed with the 3 train operation on Kumba today... nearly NO wait time except for the first and last rows... WAIT... what's this?!... is THAT a T-Shirt to commemorate the coaster that is Scorpion... hmmm... well, thats unexpected... I'll pass... ...Scorpion in the loop... with the inevitable approaching storm, we grabbed these pictures, an icecream from The Oasis and huffed our way towards Kumba... While I love Scorpion, we did not get a chance to ride today. The line was about a 1/2hr or better and storms appeared to be brewing in the distance... A nice little tribute of BGT from the past 50 years. Hard to believe that the park has been here for 1/2 a century, while ever changing and evolving, still going strong! Thanks for the memories and history lesson! Aaah.. A little tease of Howl-O-Scream... one of my favorite times of the year... First coaster of the day... Gwazi... Usually an incredibly tough rollercoaster to ride, but today for some reason she was behaving MUCH better than usual... and much to our surprise, they were running BOTH sides of the coaster... having only ridden Lion recently, we went in to "punish" ourselves with some Tiger love... (blue train pictured)... believe it not, Gwazi was the surprise of our visit... while still rough, it just seemed a lot less violent today.. Rode it 3 times actually (once now, and two more times before leaving..) Additional photos later.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximo37 Posted August 7, 2009 Author Share Posted August 7, 2009 More pictures to follow shortly (more than likely tomorrow)... I have to run to work soon... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximo37 Posted August 7, 2009 Author Share Posted August 7, 2009 Have a few extra minutes... so I'll add the SheiKra photos we took... And I'll leave this off for now, with what only I can describe as the largest ceiling fan I've EVER seen!!! Is that really necessary?! One more try... too late... Okay, truth is, while I love video games, I suck at the rhythm based ones like Guitar Hero... so my timing is off in those games, as they are with my quick photo trigger finger... Okay a little better, less tree this time... I so wanted this picture to come out... but the tree got in the way... Could this be considered the "backside" of water?! Dropping into the unknown... Another point of view... Water feature anyone?! Some fun stonework of SheiKra... On the edge... Some SheiKra Photos... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjeerr Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 It's a big ass fan. Really. (or at least a similarly huge fan) http://www.bigassfans.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King_K. Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 In Florida, that gigantic fan is a wonderful slice of heaven during summer...or any season for that matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jkwan Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 You know, out of all the times that I've been to BGT, I've never seen that Sheikra statue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximo37 Posted August 8, 2009 Author Share Posted August 8, 2009 Okey Dokey... I'm pushing my time limit to get ready for work, eh, but what the hell... Here are some more pics... Okay, so the true reason we double backed through the park after Sheikra is because my partner said that I couldn't live without the Scorpion T-Shirt... and he was right... I secretly love my new threads... please don't be jealous of my new shirt... Oooo... Dinosaur World... maybe next time... I think you can see it a little better here... Hard to see, but there is a partial rainbow in this picture... On the otherside of the Highway we have Air Streams going into the ground?! Wait a minute... are we at Trailer-hendge?! On our way home, took a couple of more pictures... if I were heading TO the park, this tree usually lets me know I'm close... with-in 20 minutes if no traffic... I like to call this "scary tree"... cause its scary and stuff... nevermind... Just a very cool palm tree outside of the kennel... End scene... ride over... And down you go... The adventure is about to begin... Nearly hitting the wall... And no, we didn't forget about Montu... it was the second ride we rode (it was broken down last time I visited, so we rushed over to it this time...) I feel that Montu is a tough coaster to grab photos of inside the park, so I got some while walking back to the car... okay, the truth is I forgot to photograph it, so I took THIS opportunity to do so... We attempted to ride Lion for our last ride, but two trains before we were to ride, that track shut down for an unforseeable amount of time... so we ran back to Tiger for one last ride... (not pictured, but the techs came out and they seem to have removed the troublesome Lion train... it remained closed prior to us leaving...) One more ride on Tiger, just because its usually not open when I visit for some reason... More Gwazi love... Okay, so I didn't really see where the otters fit into the African theme, but I don't care... SO CUTE I TELL YOU!!! One was chasing a little lizard while we were watching... Tell me this isn't cute!!! Go ahead, TRY!... These otters were in the Jambo Junction area, in the tank where the enormous crocodile used to be... while the croc was impressive, these otters were just too cute to say I miss the croc... Lonely rhino... he (or she) seemed to be sad... Rhino Rally, which we passed on today... (tends to be a very slow moving line even on slow days)... Also Kumba in the background... And it was at this point we discovered that Cheetah Chase (wild mouse) re-opened after being closed most of the day... we could at the very least see cars testing... Double backing through the park to get more picutres, the elephants were out... (oh, and that storm never did hit!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrguy606 Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 Oh, I will try my hardest to not be. thats some sweet work there, man, and your guy must be happy knowing he has the most stylish guy around, hahahaha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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