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Busch Gardens Tampa Bay (BGT Discussion Thread)

P. 377: Wild Oasis realm in Jungala announced for 2025!

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I almost exclusively fly Southwest.  I love their boarding procedure, lack of bag fees, and all the flights I've taken with them have been on time.  It doesn't hurt that I basically fly for free with my CC rewards points.

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11 hours ago, coasterbill said:

Frontier, the greyhound bus of the sky. Sometimes they raise prices artificially and issue promo codes so sign up for the email list and then just watch that and the website. Like today flights from Providence to Orlando in March are "expensive" at $27 (lol) but it'll drop.

Spirit has $37 round trip flights between Hartford and Orlando almost all winter. And I've never had a problem bringing a normal sized backpack on a Spirit flight for free.

At that rate I would even be willing to fly down to Orlando for the day just to go swimming and fly back.

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^Definitely an "attempt at your own risk" thing. I have a large laptop-style bag that barely fits within Frontier's personal item requirements, and though I think it'd pass if they checked, it's nice not to have had that hassle yet. Don't know if I could say the same for a backpack. I use it for all my Frontier flights, and fortunately I haven't had many issues with them, so I like to take advantage of the low costs ($75 for my upcoming Denver to San Antonio round trip 🤯)

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So we went to the park on Sunday and had a great time. We also checked out the hippo insider tour and the sloth tour which we had never done before.

We really enjoyed both and thought they were both absolutely worth the money, especially the sloth tour where you get to pet them and (for obvious reasons) can get much closer than you can to a hippo.

You can’t get quite as close to the hippo obviously but the trainers there are amazing and have some incredible stories and information about their three hippos. The trainers alone made it worth the price of admission. They actually had to cut them off because if not they would have been there excitedly telling us hippo stories until midnight.

 

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59 minutes ago, coasterbill said:

So we went to the park on Sunday and had a great time. We also checked out the hippo insider tour and the sloth tour which we had never done before.

We really enjoyed both and thought they were both absolutely worth the money, especially the sloth tour where you get to pet them and (for obvious reasons) can get much closer than you can to a hippo.

You can’t get quite as close to the hippo obviously but the trainers there are amazing and have some incredible stories and information about their three hippos. The trainers alone made it worth the price of admission. They actually had to cut them off because if not they would have been there excitedly telling us hippo stories until midnight.

 

That's awesome to hear, we're going in a few weeks for spring break and my oldest loves sloths so we're going to take her on that tour and she's going to freak out lol. Although I did find it odd the the age minimum for the Sloth tour was 8 years old and the minimum for the penguins and flamingos was 5 so we have to split the kids up into separate animal tours. Kind of funny considering a sloth is like the tamest animal on planet earth lol.

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  • 1 month later...

Family decided to take an unexpected Spring Break trip to Tampa next week.  Is it worth it to visit the park right now?  Saw the In the Loop update video from a few weeks ago, seems like quite a few things are either not running or closed.  Family of 5, so I'd hate to pay all the $$ and feel ripped off.

 

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On 3/13/2021 at 6:26 PM, bachir said:

Family decided to take an unexpected Spring Break trip to Tampa next week.  Is it worth it to visit the park right now?  Saw the In the Loop update video from a few weeks ago, seems like quite a few things are either not running or closed.  Family of 5, so I'd hate to pay all the $$ and feel ripped off.

 

It looks like the only noteworthy attractions scheduled to be closed this week are the sky ride and the rapids, according to the website atleast. 

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Thanks for the responses.

From the youtube update from approximately 2 weeks ago, here is what was closed either due to COVID or budget:

Congo River Rapids

Komodo dragon exhibit

Treetop trails

Skyride

Montu

Phoenix

No shows (indoor so I can understand this)

Not to mention Gwazi.  I just don't know if it makes sense to leave the beach and pay full price, if this many rides/shows/attractions are down.  Our trip 5 years ago was a blast, but this would seem like a huge letdown.

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9 hours ago, monotone said:

Flying out one month from today. Praying Gwazi is open by then.

I think all of the free months of passes from Covid closures are expiring soon, either now or in April, so I'd be willing to bet Iron Gwazi and Ice Breaker don't open until after that period and the time after that they promote renewals. Just my guess but I've been getting an email like every day to re-new my passes.

 

I posted about this in the TPR facebook page but just a heads up to anyone visiting soon, but we were there last Thursday and they had several rides closed throughout the day for high winds, which I don't really remember hearing about much of at this park in the past. A team member told me that every coaster closes for gusts of 40mph, and sure enough throughout the day pretty much everything was closed at various points. Even the wild mouse, Schwarzkopf and long flume which was kind of funny. A 40mph gust can be pretty regular in Florida so just be ready for closures if it feels windy outside.

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I was looking into buying a Platinum Pass and had 2 questions after reading their website.

The bring a friend free tickets states "Free Guest Tickets: Valid for Silver, Gold, and Florida Platinum Passes. Limited per Pass Member per initial term to your choice of Florida park(s) of membership excluding Discovery Cove. Parking not included. Valid for one-time use per ticket for one Single-Day admission. Pass Members must accompany guests for entry."

Does anyone know if that means you get them every year you renew or just the first year? Intial term made me question if it was just a one time offer the first year.

I also saw you can't reserve 2 parks for the same day.  Has anyone been able to visit both Adventure Island and Busch Gardens Tampa on the same day if it was a low crowd day? I thought they might not turn you away from the second park if there was plenty of capacity.

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If they change perks again next year, they will switch people over after a certain date.  So yeah, renew again, you'll get next year's perks.  If they keep it the same, you'll get a fresh batch of tickets when you renew.

Yes on both parks. Looks like plenty have gone to multiple parks without issue.  Almost remember seeing you can reserve a 2nd park on the morning of your initial reservation.  Almost like it's processed and you're cleared to reserve again.  Perhaps after they scan it.  Either way, you wont have a problem.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

With Velocicoaster opening on June 10, I wonder if we will see an announcement for Iron Gwazi soon? Or maybe BGT doesn't care at all?

I imagine they are still dealing with the financial issues with RMC that were brought up last year. I can't think of another reason they're holding off opening such a highly anticipated coaster.

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23 hours ago, tndank said:

Parks are packed right now.  Why open something new?  I would imagine it ends up being mid/end May.

 

This.  Is Buch Gardens hitting their attendance cap?  If so, there's no incentive to open the ride right now if their attendance is already maxed out.

It stinks for people planning trips and it's a tease knowing they probably are ready to open, but it's in the park's best interests to ensure they get a proper ROI on their new attraction.  In the long run, it's better for us too since it'll help fund future additions.  I have to admit I am a bit skeptical of the "Anticipated 2021" wording.  I get not opening the ride in spring, but the fact they used anticipated instead of just saying 2021 makes me question how long they want to hold off.

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Tease indeed. Planning has been quite a pain and when I finally pulled the trigger assuming this will be open....not so sure now esp with Universal doing a June opening : / Thing is I got limited income so if IG isnt gunna be open when I'm in FL I aint going. If Ice Breaker isnt open Im nixing Orlando fully to save time/$  but yeah the park has to do what it feels best, and the loss of my single admission isnt gunna break them XD

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