Busch Gardens Tampa Bay (BGT Discussion Thread)

[Zand]

11 hours ago, tndank said:

Giraffe bar is now open.  

Everything else was running last weekend outside of Falcons.  Pres said Falcon started having problems after some storms about a week ago.  Been trying to get it back up quickly but I guess they need another week or so.  Park is still not running 100% with several food stalls still closed.  Pretzel place next to Falcon was open and smelled great.

 

When I was there Giraffe Bar was open but the new restaurant in the same building still said "coming soon". Not sure if that's what he was referring to. The only food in there was the pizza place.

I still can't believe BGT only has 3 air conditioned restaurants that aren't Chick-fil-a. F*cking SFNE has 3 air conditioned restaurants and is like 1/3rd the size and hits 90 degrees about 250 less times per year.

[tndank]

It's still the same.  Just pizza and beer.  Sorry about that.  Still has a coming soon on the restaurant.

 

[PKI Jizzman]

Thank you Lahey @tndank, yes was wondering about the 'coming soon' restaurant above Giraffe bar, since it's been coming for the past 12+ months. What gives BGT. It's astounding this park doesn't have a full service sit down restaurant (and the Garden Gate is the perfect space already built).

 

Oh @Zandthat Garden Gate Cafe did have food in it last year when I visited!

 

....3 varieties of foot long hot dogs. In a place called Garden Gate Cafe ..

[SharkTums]

The pretzels have been a let down lately...so go in with low expectations and hopefully they are back to making them fresh and delicious! 

[PKI Jizzman]

20 minutes ago, SharkTums said:

The pretzels have been a let down lately...so go in with low expectations and hopefully they are back to making them fresh and delicious! 

They were good not great last year, so continuing the low expectations theme haha.

BGW's by Mach Tower were amazing and buttery! 

[Zand]

When I had my pretzel at BGT I had to keep looking down at the paper with the logos on it to remind myself I was actually at a Busch Gardens. They were decent, but I set my expectations way too high after BGW lol.

Garden Gate not having food was pretty lame. Even worse was looking for an alternative to Zambia Smokehouse, then coming across a food place near the Log Flume which had a menu of...Chicken Fingers. That's it, that's all. Same chain as Williamsburg. Sure.

Sure was hungry for convenience but BGT was more hungry to have me stand in a hot as balls 40 minute line instead.

[teacherkim]

So we were at the park 6/6 & 6/7 for the ACE Spring Con. Probably not fair for me to give a lot of opinion on operations since we had most everything at some point on ert and had just been there over Christmas so not like we were trying to get on everything in one day. It was busy enough on Sat that with no evening ert we left about 5 since we had to drive on into Orlando. The only thing I am aware of that was down both days was Falcon's Fury (and for you Lorikeet aficionados the interactive part of the exhibit was down due to caution over the avian flu that has been spreading in the wild). IG was insanely fun and exactly as expected and our meal in the big, and wonderfully air conditioned tent, near IG was pretty good. Lots of the food festival stuff was pretty good too, but I tend to enjoy that sort of thing.

The bigger news is for anyone that might stay at the Hampton Inn right across the street. As has been discussed the area around the park "ain't the greatest of neighborhoods", but I thought Hampton Inn, known entity, fairly secure. And several of the other attendees were there as well. Most of you are probably familiar with the typical free hotel breakfast you get there. Came down to eat, nothing special UNTIL about 5 women came storming in all at once through the lobby and were grabbing food left and right. Immediately the ladies that ran the breakfast area started screaming at them that the police were being called and 3 of the women bolted for the door, the fourth grabbed a few things but got out quick, but the fifth casually kept eating and claimed she was being harassed even though she was clearly stealing food. Turns out the 5 "ladies" were local prostitutes that are sent in by their pimp on a regular basis to steal food. Not exactly high priced call girls either since the brazen one that stayed had some open sores on her neck and she preceded to eat right out of the pan of eggs over and over which of course then had to be dumped. In the end she took about 5 plates of food out to said pimp, yes I saw him, and caused a ton of wasted food since she touched about everything. Thing is if she had quietly come in an just gotten a plate of food I'm not sure most of of us would have noticed. 

Anyway if you like a show with breakfast apparently this is a regular thing, if not you might want to avoid. Since it was during an event I've dubbed it the "Thoosies and floosies variety hour"  

 

AND this was the day after a strange meatball incident at the Tampa airport involving a man dropping a whole crap ton of meatballs from a carryout container all over the jet way as we exited the plane which happened right in front of a man exiting with his service dog. Needless to say said dog was completely incredulous that his owner expected him to bypass free meatballs that were all over the floor and available for the taking. Use your imagination for the chaos that ensued.

[PKI Jizzman]

The pretzels are hand made in front of you and delicious! Gwazi is incredible and so powerful. What a beast!

[PKI Jizzman]

Over or under 10 days before Gwazi gets closed for the current wasp situation at the top of the lift?

 

Has anyone that's been on it recently and months ago comment on if this is a newer issue? Every ride people panicked at the top with all the wasps. One ride a few got pull down the drop with us but not cool.

[YoshiFan]

I have ridden Iron Gwazi on 11 separate days since pass previews started and this past Wednesday was the first time I saw any wasps at the top of the lift. I hope they can find a way to deal with it. The coaster has been having enough down time already without the wasps.

 

[Zand]

1 hour ago, PKI Jizzman said:

Over or under 10 days before Gwazi gets closed for the current wasp situation at the top of the lift?

 

Has anyone that's been on it recently and months ago comment on if this is a newer issue? Every ride people panicked at the top with all the wasps. One ride a few got pull down the drop with us but not cool.

I noticed a few flying around on my one ride 2 weeks ago. I'm surprised but not surprised that they haven't done anything to mitigate the situation.

I'll be back in 3 weeks so it better be running, wasps or not lol.

[Manic Monte]

Noticed the wasps and also the mosquitos that ate a lot of us alive.

[KBrylczyk]

Are wasps protected in Florida or something?  They're wasps.  Kill them all.  They bring nothing to the world except hatred and pain.

[anonymouscactus]

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-good-are-wasps-1968081

But... But...

"without wasps, we would be overrun with insect pests, and we would have no figs—and no Fig Newtons."

Made me LOL who the hell cares that much about figs and fig newtons.

Most parks mitigate the situation by closing the rides...

[cpfanatik77]

I noticed them the last week of April swarming all around the top 1/2 or so.

[SharkTums]

Have they moved from SheiKra to IG or do we now have warring factions of wasps at BGT?!!?

[bert425]

 

 

this show is AMAZING if  you haven't seen it. . tho it got renewed for Season 2 way early in the run, and so it was a given they wouldn't resolve much in the finale.

but Christina Ricci is gonna get an Emmy nod for it most likely, and even Juliette Lewis is fantastic  in it.

[coasternut]

1 hour ago, SharkTums said:

Have the moved from SheiKra to IG or do we now have warring factions of wasps at BGT?!!?

I remember seeing traps at the top of Sheikra's lift hill, right before the drop.

[tndank]

Perhaps a little roof on the top like Lighting Rod is the answer. 

Also agree that the show Yellowjackets is good stuff.

 

[Bamwa]

Planning a trip. Any idea how long Falcon's Fury is closed for? Thanks

[Zand]

At the airport now for my 1 day jaunt to Florida. Was also hoping Falcon's Fury would be open by now, but guess I shouldn't be surprised that 5 weeks later it's still not running.

Just want to get a bunch of Gwazi laps in, hit the B&Ms/Cheetah Hunt a couple times, and then not bother going to Tampa again until this place shapes up a little bit (or adds something new). It's going to be murder seeing Universal tomorrow but not being able to go.

Queue Times has looked pretty tame the last few weeks and usually in the 30-45 minute range for Gwazi so hopefully a good day tomorrow.

[Zand]

Funny that the timers stop at 299 seconds. They could use more digits here. 40 minute line for 3 switchbacks.

Anyway, got that coveted back seat ride that was the reason I travelled all the way back here. No doubt a better ride than the front with a few spectacular airtime moments. But I still can't help but feel a bit underwhelmed still, especially when people were putting it ahead of Steel Vengeance. I'm still not sure it's even the best coaster in the park. The death roll is incredibly overrated...basically just a high speed barrel roll and Kumba just laughs at it. Best moments are the last two airtime hills before the brake run.

Park seems reasonably dead so should get a few rides on all the other essentials plus a few more here. Was going to stay till closing but I'm staying at the "Hotel Breakers of Old Town" (aka the Comfort Suites right next to Mine Blower) and I need to go get a few rides on the 2nd best coaster in Florida tonight.

[Comeagain?]

46 minutes ago, Zand said:

Funny that the timers stop at 299 seconds. They could use more digits here. 40 minute line for 3 switchbacks.

Generally at more than 5 minutes of waiting there's something else going on (guest with a disability, bio, etc) that you might not want to highlight how long its taking. Although I'd usually not display the time at that point, instead of leaving it there not counting.

[Zand]

48 minutes ago, Comeagain? said:

Generally at more than 5 minutes of waiting there's something else going on (guest with a disability, bio, etc) that you might not want to highlight how long its taking. Although I'd usually not display the time at that point, instead of leaving it there not counting.

Maybe sometimes, but that was far from the only time I saw it there. Currently in line for Cheetah Hunt, running 1 station with 3 trains and they've been consistently waiting for the train to be sitting on the brake run before even opening the gates. And it's not a short ride. I havent seen a dispatch under 4 minutes yet. It has 16 f*cking seats. 

Just starts to drag on you after a while. Same reason I never go to SFNE more than twice a year even though it's 45 minutes from me...they operate like this too except on Superman.

Actually sorry that was an accidental exaggeration. The screens here are in mm:ss. So a lightning fast 2:40 is the benchmark apparently.

[YoshiFan]

At that point, I’d rather see 2 trains on a Cheetah Hunt since I hate waiting on the brakes in the sun when they double stack.

A 40 minute wait for 3 switchbacks at Iron Gwazi is terrible. During previews, I waited 25 minutes with the station full but that was with 4 people checking restraints. I have only seen that once or twice since the ride opened to the public.