Busch Gardens Tampa Bay (BGT Discussion Thread)

[cal1br3tto]

At least they're not orange! Still, it's too bad they're switching from what looks like a pretty and well-matched color.

[angryemobeaver]

I just found out I am going to Clearwater Beach on spring break. My spring break starts March 31st. and ends April 8th. Being near Tampa we will for sure be going to Busch Gardens. I have been once, in 2006 when SheiKra was still fairly new. I remember it being pretty empty, the longest we waited was around fifteen minutes for Python. So I am wondering if that is usual for this time of the year.

 

What is the best day to go between April second and the sixth? What kind of crowds can I expect? Tips? What rides should I ride in what order? And lastly, rides aside, what are the best attractions there? When we went, we only saw a few animals, this time I would love to experience everything. Thanks!

[netdvn]

BGT announces Christmas Town

 

Busch Gardens Tampa is getting ready to launch the biggest Christmas celebration ever!

 

Christmas Town will transform the park into a nighttime holiday wonderland of wintery surprises and all things Christmas, filling guests’ senses with seasonal sights, sounds and flavors, and creating a beautiful new tradition for Tampa’s families. For the first time in the park’s 53-year history, visitors to Christmas Town will experience all-new evening attractions, shows and shopping every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, Nov. 30 through Dec. 23. Guests can look forward to special entertainment, live music, festive treats, holiday shopping and thousands and thousands of twinkling Christmas lights around every turn. Similar to the park’s popular Halloween event, Christmas Town will be a separate-ticketed night event, and regular daytime Busch Gardens admission is not required or included. Discounts will be available for annual pass members, and families with children ages 3 to 9 will enjoy special ticket prices for their youngest members.

 

Since Williamsburg's event has been pretty popular, I'm not surprised to see more of these popping up. I can see other Busch properties making their own Christmas celebrations in the coming years as well.

[Skycoastin Steve]

^Awesome! Christmas Town is amazing at BGW, I'm sure it'll be just as good in Tampa!

[Hilltopper39]

The Christmas event sounds nice, they do a really nice job at Seaworld too so I would expect this to be a similar level of quality.

[triggernel]

The Christmas event sounds nice, they do a really nice job at Seaworld too so I would expect this to be a similar level of quality.

 

Amen to that! SWO does the best Christmas Celebration out of all the Orlando parks. Love seeing other parks jump in.

[dragonskeep]

^ Totally agree about Seaworld at Christmas. I will check out the festivities at BGT if it isn't too expensive. Seaworld's is pretty good and free.

[The SETGO Guys]

I just found out I am going to Clearwater Beach on spring break. My spring break starts March 31st. and ends April 8th. Being near Tampa we will for sure be going to Busch Gardens. I have been once, in 2006 when SheiKra was still fairly new. I remember it being pretty empty, the longest we waited was around fifteen minutes for Python. So I am wondering if that is usual for this time of the year.

 

What is the best day to go between April second and the sixth? What kind of crowds can I expect? Tips? What rides should I ride in what order? And lastly, rides aside, what are the best attractions there? When we went, we only saw a few animals, this time I would love to experience everything. Thanks!

 

I think that week is still Spring Break for local schools (I know my School District is off the week before). Since BGT Is a mainly locals park, Crowds will be higher than usual especially on the weekends. (If you go mid-week crowds I'd imagine the crowds wouldn't be too bad).

 

Go for opening. Ride Cheetah Hunt first, than either go ride Montu or take the Skyride to the back of the park and ride Kumba and work your way over to Sheikra.

 

Defiantly spend some time looking at the animals. All of the exhibits are really well done, defiantly take the train to see all of the Animals in the African Veldt.

 

-Zach

[Nozzy]

I'll be visiting next week and had two questions:

1. Does anyone know about when the Busch Gardens Shuttle from Orlando arrives at the park (it just says 11:30 at latest), and around how long after closing it leaves?

2. I'll have a back pack with all my stuff in on my last day after checking out of my hotel. Are the single-use storage bunnies outside of rides big enough for backpacks, and is there any sort of time limit on them? (If you can tell me about Seaworld's single use lockers as well I'd appreciate it, I'll be there before checking into hotel).

 

Thanks!

[anonymouscactus]

Are the single-use storage bunnies outside of rides big enough for backpacks, and is there any sort of time limit on them? (If you can tell me about Seaworld's single use fluffy, fluffy bunnies filled with medicine and goo as well I'd appreciate it, I'll be there before checking into hotel).

 

There are single-time-use lockers at all of the rides that require them. They are $.50 each (quarters; there are change machines at each location), however, there is no time limit. Once you insert your key, you will need to pay again to lock it. -- At SeaWorld there are larger/family-sized single-use-lockers for either $.75 or $1.00, I forget which. Both parks also offer all-day use lockers at the front of the park (at the very least), but I do not know their cost. It always made more sense to just use the single-use lockers and keep your stuff in there as long as you needed and just pay each time. As long as it's not a giant hiking backpack the small ones should be just fine. Remember at SeaWorld that Kraken and Journey to Atlantis are pretty much right next to each other, so don't take your stuff out right after one or the other! Even Manta isn't that far of a walk... then again... it's only $.50...

[jedimaster1227]

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay has sent us a press release regarding the launch of Christmastown: A Busch Gardens Celebration.

 

Busch Gardens Tampa is getting ready to launch the biggest Christmas celebration ever! Christmas Town will transform the park into a nighttime holiday wonderland of wintery surprises and all things Christmas, filling guests’ senses with seasonal sights, sounds and flavors, and creating a beautiful new tradition for Tampa’s families.

 

For the first time in the park’s 53-year history, visitors to Christmas Town will experience all-new evening attractions, shows and shopping every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, Nov. 30 through Dec. 23. Guests can look forward to special entertainment, live music, festive treats, holiday shopping and thousands and thousands of twinkling Christmas lights around every turn.

 

“When Christmas Town opens in November, it will be the beginning of a unique holiday tradition for Tampa Bay area,” says Jim Dean, Busch Gardens Tampa’s park president. “We are creating a season-long celebration for family and friends unlike any other event our guests have ever seen – the kind of Christmas fun only Busch Gardens can provide.”

 

Similar to the park’s popular Halloween event, Christmas Town will be a separate-ticketed night event, and regular daytime Busch Gardens admission is not required or included. Discounts will be available for annual pass members, and families with children ages 3 to 9 will enjoy special ticket prices for their youngest members.

 

The new event will also offer some magnificent new opportunities for groups looking to book a unique holiday party. For additional information please call Busch Gardens’ Group Sales team at 813-987-5523.

 

For park news, updates, photos, “Like” Busch Gardens Tampa Bay on Facebook.

[RFV94]

A drop tower at Busch Gardens! (2013)

 

"According to a report at Park Rumors, new plans filed by Busch Gardens Tampa show off a new drop tower style ride in place of the Sand Storm ride. If you look at the close-up of the diagram of the ride itself what appears at first to be a square ride pod is really an octagon, which each side holding 4 riders, for a total of 32 per cycle.

 

f this layout holds true, this is a different layout frolm the circular carousel used by Moser on last year’s Mach Tower at the Willamsburg park, which held 30 riders. The layout also doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before from Intamin, S&S, Huss, Zamperla, Fabbri or even ABC. So we may be looking at an entirely new animal here."

 

-From Screamscape.

[chargersmichael]

Here are some pictures of the plans! It seems that there will be a renovated entry to Timbuktu also according to these pics.

 

Plans Confirm Drop Tower for Busch Gardens Tampa in 2013

 

 

Plans filed with the South West Florida Water Management District last week confirm the rumors that Busch Gardens Tampa will be adding a drop tower style attraction for the 2013 season. The plans filed are just for the preliminary ground work, so they don’t tell us much, but we can still pull a few bits of useful information out of them.

 

For starters, we can make a pretty educated guess about the ride’s manufacturer, which has been thought to be either Moser Rides, (BGW just worked with them on Mach Tower) or Intamin (BGT just worked with them on Cheetah Hunt). Looking at the tower’s footprint, we can see it has eight sets of four seats, for a total of 32 riders. Intamin appears to only offer drop towers that seat 24, 30, or 40 riders, while Moser Rides offers a Gravity Tower model that seats 32. This certainly doesn’t confirm Moser as the manufacturer, but it does make it seem much more likely.

 

Another interesting item to note is the new entry plaza into Timbuktu that Busch Gardens will be adding. Gone will be the canvas overhangs and outdoor market, creating a much more open, and likely incredible view of this new attraction.

 

Pics from ParkRumors

 

 

 

 

[ernierocker]

Am I missing something or is there not only 16 seats showing up on those plans as opposed to the 32 that are claimed in the quote???

 

Either way, another great addition appears to be on the way to BGT!

[Moose]

It looks like there may be additional seats in the "squared off" sides. If the seats are around an octagon rather than a square it would brign the total to 32.

[coasterfreak101]

^You can see the diagonal rows in the last picture really well. It looks like 16 from far away, but it's actually an octagon!

[DarkStitch626]

Looks pretty cool to me, though I wonder. How many seats does "Acrophobia" and "Hangman" have?

[ernierocker]

^Acrophobia has 30 I believe.

[jjune4991]

Very nice. Very, very nice.

[SoCalCoasters]

TimbukTower? At least we know it'll be more reliable than Timber Tower.

 

Looks like a great new addition to the park! Loved the whole place when I went this past summer. Montu, Kumba and ShieKra all landed top ten positions in my coaster list, and there was just so much in the park! The only thing I wasn't a fan of was the rather odd park layout...

 

Looking forward to seeing this rock the park's skyline in 2013!

[vacoaster09]

TimbukTower Would be an awesome name

[dragonskeep]

^^ As many times as I have been to the park, I still get turned around a little. I went yesterday and it was a great time as always but the Jungala detour makes the flow even worse. I have to admit though I spent more time in Jungala than normal. All the rides were running great, well except Gwazi of course.

[coasterfreak101]

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I rode Gwazi Tiger (Lion was down for trackwork) back in January and loved it. Especially the first half - absolutely crazy! Operations were terrible, but the ride wasn't nearly as bad as everyone says it is.

 

Also, I can kind of see why they would detour people through Jungala, considering that my second day there I had a really hard time finding it... granted, I didn't have a map on me, but still. It's off the beaten path and definitely not something everyone is going to go search for themselves, so they might as well send some people there!

[The SETGO Guys]

In the last picture of the blueprints it looks like the drop tower may be partially enclosed inside a building (simular to Dr.Doom at Universal) That might be cool if they throw some theming on it.

 

Nice to see them adding another flat.

 

Personaly I hope that in a few years we may see Busch try and do another Dark Ride. After seeing all of this Verbolten stuff I'm pretty bummed that BGT hasn't really gotten an attraction with a "Story". I'd like to see more of that.

[Hilltopper39]

A drop tower would be a great addition to Timbuktu, I've always liked that section of the park but also find it's collection of attractions to be a bit dated and uninteresting. A drop tower would be a perfect addition.