Busch Gardens has released a first person rendering of what it’ll be like to ride their new Phoenix Rising family roller coaster later this year. It looks like a fun little ride by B&M in the spirit of similar family inverts like Dragonflier at Dollywood, Freedom Flyer at Fun Spot Orlando and Swamp Thing at Wild Adventures. It’ll also feature onboard audio which can be awesome if you’ve ever ridden something like Big Bear Mountain.
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The eclipse on April 8, 2024 was spectacular with many theme parks hosting eclipse events. The next major total eclipse in the United States is scheduled for August 12, 2045 and it’ll hit some huge Theme parks in Florida including Busch Gardens. Animals also tend to do crazy things in an eclipse too, so Busch Gardens Tampa could be fascinating from that perspective. The park will get 5 minutes and 17 seconds of totality which is huge! If you’ve never experienced totality it’s a “bucket list” experience where you see stars in the middle of the day, temperatures drop and crickets chirp. It’s marvelous, amazing, weird and just hard to describe.
Continue readingI saw the above video where YouTube star Mark Rober tested the fastest seat on a coaster, but subsequently got kicked out of a park for having his cell phone out on a ride. As a big fan with a 7 year old son who loves him too it was honestly disappointing to see. The parks though have good reason to take this seriously though as there have been a number of major injuries caused by foreign objects on rides with lawsuits looking to hold the parks responsible.
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This month, April 25-27, 2025 is Scout Adventure Weekend at Wild Adventures in Valdosta, GA. The event features two nights of camping, 2 days of theme park fun, unlimited soda, an all-you-can-eat buffet, a bonfire and a special patch all for under $50! My son is now in cub scouts with me and my wife as his fearless den leaders and he’s all about the badges and belt loops. It would be the great to add the special Wild Adventures patch to add to his collection, but there are so many more adventure loops and badges you can easily earn at the park, especially with the animals. One of the easiest is the Wolf Elective Adventure, “Digging in the Past” related to dinosaurs through the park’s new Dinosaur Explore attraction.
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The eclipse on April 8, 2024 was spectacular with several theme parks hosting eclipse events. Now it’s time to prepare for the next one! The next major total eclipse in the United States is scheduled for August 12, 2045 and it’ll hit some huge Theme parks including Disney, SeaWorld, Universal and Busch Gardens. Heck, Epic Universe will be a 20 year old park by then! However, I’m hoping to watch it from Wild Adventures in Valdosta , GA
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Busch Gardens and Wild Adventures both offer what is essentially a free season pass for your 5 and under kids. It’s literally as simple as registering online and then activating it at the park. This can be a great way for a family to have a year of fun on the cheap when coupled with season passes for the older kids and adults. Just see the links below for registration with the expiration date in parentheses.
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There are a lot of coaster clones out there from the numerous iterations of “Batman” at the Six Flags parks to the Sky Rocket II rides across Busch Gardens and SeaWorld. However, the one that may be the most numerous is “Spinning Coaster” by Italian manufacturer SBF-Visa. This simple figure 8 spinning coaster seems to be everywhere from family entertainment centers to small amusement parks. By my count on Caosterpedia there are at least 66 installs of the several different variants of this ride all in just 10 years from its 2014 debut.
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Penguins can be the stars of an animal exhibit as they are cute, active and playful. Many guests would love an up close encounter with these “cool” animals and you can do just that at SeaWorld San Antonio Penguin Encounter. Most people only ever see the main exhibit below, but the Penguin Encounter Tour lets you go backstage to see the animal care areas, meet some trainers and even pet a penguin! At just $45, this animal encounter is a great value too.
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March 31, 2024 was the last show of Turn it Up at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. This long running show opened on May 26, 2017 and transitioned to the “Remix” version on January 22, 2023. It played in the beautiful and nicely air conditioned Moroccan Theater displaying singles, pairs and group ice skating routines. The park teased the closing the last couple of weeks on social media, but it was pretty obvious that although this particular show was going away that ice skating in the park was not. In the final performance it was announced that Turn it Up would be replaced with a new show called Rhythm of Nature. (thanks to @ThemePark_Dan for the pic and info)
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It’s not uncommon to have a playground type area at a theme park consisting of slides and suspension bridges. There are some huge outdoor play areas like Elmo’s Treehouse Trek at Busch Gardens, but Dollywood is in a league of their own with a massive indoor play area in the Wildwood Grove area of the park called Hidden Hollow. However, “Hidden Hollow” is a very appropriate name as the building it’s in is very nondescript and without obvious signage, so you could easily pass it by thinking it was a shop, restroom or something else. The indoor space is well air conditioned with seating for parents and is a great place for families to refresh on a hot day, get out of the rain or cold or just give kids something to do with zero wait.
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