Was a Small Fire the Reason Wild Surge Closed at Busch Gardens?

So ran into a ride operator from Busch Gardens at another park and I asked him about what happened with Wild Surge. He said the ride had a fire (which I normally would have been skeptical of since there’s been no news of that), but then he showed me a picture on his phone! He said it happened around December and it appeared pretty heavily damaged, thus the reason why a temporary refurbishment turned into a closure.

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RIP Wally Crump. Although you’re best known for what you did for Disney, thanks for your work at Busch Gardens too!

Disney Imagineer Wally Crump passed away this week at age 93. Although he’s probably best known for his work on It’s a Small World, The Haunted Mansion and the Enchanted Tiki Room, he also consulted on projects for Busch Gardens Tampa too. There are several Disney+ shows featuring him. He was a genius and will be missed.

A Busch Gardens Tampa Resort Hotel Coming in 2025 or 2026?

A slide from a 2015 investor presentation showing potential development sites on SeaWorld’s Park Tampa resort.   Image via SeaWorld

In a recent investor call, SeaWorld CEO Marc Swanson brought up their plans to add a resort hotel in 2025 and another in 2026, but details were sparse. This has been rumored for some time, but it appears to be getting more serious. Here are some of his comments from the call:

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Carnival Games at Busch Gardens

Do you enjoy playing games when you visit a theme park? You’ll see people carrying giant stuffed animals around the park, so people do win, but did you ever wonder what the odds were or strategies to win? The good thing is that at a place like Busch Gardens you can at least be sure the games aren’t a 100% scam like some carnivals. However, not all games are created equal, so it’s best to be educated before you play to know your real odds and the best strategies.

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I Had ChatGPT write a Review of Busch Gardens!

You might have heard of ChatGPT. It’s the artificial Intelligence (AI) program that can write essays, emails, poetry, articles and even lines of computer code. There have been a lot of buzz about it in the media about kids and college students using it to do their homework for them to journalists wondering if they’ll someday be replaced. I asked it to write a review of Busch Gardens in Tampa and this is what I got:

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