Image Courtesy Busch Gardens
Busch Gardens welcomes a new character this weekend. Julia will be joining Elmo, Cookie, Oscar and friends in the Safari of Fun area. Julia is an autistic character and it sounds like she will be a regular in both the shows and as a walk-around character. According to the press release:
Sunday March 31, 2019 is the last day for COO and former interim CEO John T. Reilly. Mr. Reilly’s departure was announced in a March 19, 2019 SeaWorld press release:
We thank John for his contributions during his 34-year tenure at SeaWorld and wish him the best going forward…
Mr. Reilly is a Busch Gardens lifer, stating with the company as a teenager selling concessions at the park in Williamsburg to pay for college. Continue reading
Busch Gardens Tampa is part of SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. which is publicly traded under the ticker SEAS. The company operates 12 parks including 5 water parks and is the 9th largest theme park operator in the world. By buying stock in SEAS you can literally own a piece of the park! Continue reading
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
In my research before our first visit I read over the Busch Gardens website to see what our 2 year old son could ride. It appeared there were a couple of rides he could do like the train, but the list seemed far from extensive. However, the tickets were cheap enough and there were animals, so we figured there’d be enough to fill a day. Then we got there and realized Busch Gardens Tampa is a toddler paradise. Continue reading
So Disney is raising prices again, specifically increasing prices around peak days near Christmas and other holidays. Single day single park tickets will now be up to $159/day and $219/day for “hopper” tickets allowing for admission to multiple parks in one day. Articles point to new investments in the parks (Galaxy’s Edge) and Disney’s desire to manage attendance during peak seasons as reasons.
Let’s compare and contrast a bit here. The $184 for a peak Disney single park day ($159 ticket + $25 parking) could instead get you a $180 Busch Gardens Silver Season pass (no blackouts) with free parking and a ticket to give to a friend. The $244 for a peak Disney park “hopper” day ($219 ticket + $25 parking) puts you just $44 short of a $288 Platinum pass for 1 year at 10 additional nationwide parks (SeaWorld, Sesame Place, Adventure Island, etc.) with free parking, 2 friend tickets, an annual PhotoKey and an animal encounter! All this and we haven’t even talked about 2 free beers per day for the rest of 2019!
Compared to the competition an hour down the road, Busch Gardens just became an even bigger bargain! Basically for the price of a day you can get a year of fun!
Where will ticket price inflation stop?
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
As we’ve discussed already, Busch Gardens Tampa was built on the site of a Anheuser-Busch Brewery with an African theme. This was also the case with the Williamsburg brewery’s European themed park and the Houston brewery’s Asian themed park (which closed in 1973) that were all parks built on brewery property and patterned after the Tampa park. However, did you know there was a Busch Gardens Rumored for Cartersville, GA? Continue reading
Maybe you’re already a Busch Gardens geek and know its whole life story. However, your average visitor may not be aware of some of the fun and unique things about this great park’s history. So this month as the park celebrates its 60th Anniversary we present “Five Things you Might Not Know About the History of Busch Gardens” Continue reading
“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
