I saw the still in this video and was in awe. My first thought was, “that’s Tigris at Busch Gardens Tampa!” So after watching the video the answer was, well sort of. It is indeed a Sky Rocket II by Premier Rides (which Tigris is as discussed previously), Continue reading
Rides
Demolition of Rhino Rally is Underway @BuschGardens Making Way for Project Jethro
Riding the Skyride today was surprised to see the demo of Rhino Rally. Here’s a video I made of it. Pretty large crew onsite that spent the day taking apart the former queue that was left abandoned for years after the ride’s shutdown.
Continue reading21,638 feet @BuschGardens
Flipping through a travel magazine and saw this cool spread with fun facts about Busch Gardens. 21,638 is the combined length of all the coasters in the park (to be made longer by Iron Gwazi later this year). That’s about 4 miles of track you can ride! The park having 300 animal species as well as the animals eating about 2 tons of food a day was also pretty cool. No word on how many tons of food a day the humans eat…
How Kumba Roars at Busch Gardens
Kumba has a distinctive roar, but it appears that the sound is caused by something that is missing rather than something that is added. B&M has a characteristic track design seen below of a box “spine” with fins that hold the rails. This box can echo the natural vibrations of the ride and is often filled with sand to dampen it to the customer’s desired level. My guess is what makes Kumba unique is that these boxes are probably empty to maximize the “roar”, and not minimize it in any way.
Continue reading2019 Pics of Closed Rhino Rally at #BuschGardens
On my trip last week I managed to get a great look at Rhino Rally from the Sky Ride. Rhino Rally opened in 2001 and closed for good in 2014. It was a safari truck ride made by Vekoma, the famous ride company, and was the one and only of its kind.
Continue readingGo on a Roller Coaster Tour at Busch Gardens this Saturday!
Did you know you can get a “behind the scenes” look at several of Busch Gardens roller coasters? The park offers a 2 hour tour prior to park opening where you can see these amazing machines up close and even climb to the top of one! Continue reading
Ride Tigris Today! …Or at Least its Clone
Tigris should open very soon at Busch Gardens Tampa. The track is complete and cars have arrived. No doubt it won’t be long before test runs begin, first with sandbags, then dummies, then some brave engineers/employees and probably followed by a few sporadic and unannounced “soft” openings for guests. However, did you know that a virtual clone of Tigris already exists, in fact several of them? Continue reading
Happy 15th Birthday to the Sand Serpent at BuschGardens!
“Sand Serpent” by Jeremy Thompson is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Today marks the 15th birthday of the Sand Serpent ride at Busch Gardens Tampa! The ride originally debuted on February 28, 2004 and is a wild-mouse coaster. The ride has quite a history including several name changes and a change of zip code. Continue reading
More Boat! The Stanley Falls Flume Ride
Stanley Falls Flume opened in 1973 as the park’s first “thrill” ride and was built by the famous roller coaster company Arrow Dynamics. Arrow was the creator of our modern incarnation of this ride type and built a ton of them in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Stanley Falls is fit nicely into some hills and contours in the Stanleyville area, so you never feel all that high in the air, but the last drop at 43 feet is no joke. There’s also a camera on the drop, so it’s a great chance to catch some fun family pictures. Continue reading
BGT Safari 