Busch Gardens Tampa is one of the most unique theme parks in the world with its African setting, excellent animal exhibits and a world class coaster line-up. However, the park is not at all what it used to be and so I was interested in doing a deep dive into its history, covering its rise and eventual fall into the state it is today. This is part 2 of the series
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Discovery channel or another network needs to hire you as a content producer
I've never even been to Busch Gardens but love learning about stuff from your videos. Definitely enjoyed this one!
So I lived in the area for the early 2000s and any time I went to the park it was a ghostown
I used to love going on the sky ride just to flyover the dolphin show, you could see trainers just hanging out with the dolphins
#bringbackquestor 😄
When I was little (In the mid 80s) Python was the best ride in the park. When it got older the head restraints would give nearly give you a concussion as your head would ricochet from side to side. I still rode it every time I went. I'm glad Scorpion still remains
Akbar was SO DUMB. LOVED Martin Short in the preshows but that ride premise was lame
Holy nostalgia overload…I remember going to the “Festhaus” and dancing with the Pauley girls…my mom has pics of this somewhere.
Honestly that theme isn’t too far-fetched considering where Germans settled in Africa when they had colonies there (pre-WW1)..
But I love this seeing where the park went from to seeing the sad state it’s in today, it still has AMAZING potential especially as it’s smack dab in the middle of Tampa.
part 2 let's goooooo
the ride you call Scorpion, I know as Viper from Astroworld. it was in my top 3 favorite rides in the park for numerous reasons, one of which (at least the configuration at Astroworld) the ride exit was close to the entrance, and the lines were always short, so you could just run from the exit back to the entrance and be on the ride again in about 2 minutes.
iron gwazi is the best coaster in Florida, in my opinion velocicoaster is a close 2nd
I like these documentaries. I am a native and current passholder. I also worked BG one summer while in college. The Blackfish scandal was the big downturn. There were HUGE plans to re invent the Florida parks but that scandal derailed them. They were plans for onsite resorts, etc. Add the Pandemic and now it is hit or miss. But I do see the effort they are making. Gwazi is world class, Pipeline is well reviewed, and the holiday events are still well received. They are moving in the right direction.
I had no idea they closed Python lol
This is a great 2 part video. Well Done!! I worked for Busch in the early 2000's and it was a very special and important time in my life. I hate seeing the rapid decline of such great parks! Thanks again for a fantastic set of videos
Katonga (sp?) is the best show I’ve ever seen at a theme park.
I live 20 mins away and I dont even go to Busch Gardens Tampa. The experience is not the focus of the park and it's unfortunate and dont even get me started on Adventure Island.
Hot take and opinionated
Fantastic video as yours always are. Thank you. We moved to this area 10 years ago and live near Disney. At the time, we visited this park more than any other. And I go to them all. The park had so much entertainment, and we enjoyed the rides even though their operations were poor even then. The shows made the park stand out to us. We went monthly to the park and supported it in many ways and brought many guests with us. Today, the lack of quality entertainment has made it that we basicly stopped going. I hope the park returns its entertainment as if it did, we would go again.
We went there a couple of weeks ago. I remembered from an earlier trip that there were a LOT of animals during the train ride. This time, practically the only thing I saw on this ride, was roller coaster structures. And, as mentioned before, when there is inclement weather, the park shuts down for 99%. For us it was a huge dissapointment. There are enough parks with huge coasters in Florida. We went there to have a quiet animal observing day. Only positive thing about that day is that I ate the most awesome funnel cake I ever had. 🙂 But, for future vacations, we probably won't visit Bush Gardens anymore….
Oh my goodness, I love the idea of a comedy film inside one of those simulator rides. Whether THIS is the best one or not it is a great change of pace.
So very sad . I loved Busch gardens. Such a horrible waste!
Scorpion was my first coaster with an inversion too!
Yes! Thank you for no longer making me think I was crazy for remembering a pit of crocs at the launch of Montu. My friends don’t believe me and I started to question myself thinking yeah that was probably a misfire of my memory, what if a croc jumped up to grab a leg. Ha!!
As always, another great vid!! so close to 100k! congrats! you deserve it, you put hella work in and it shows xx
Gave you a like because I appreciate the historical aspect of your video and the time it took you to make it, but I have to say, your takes are pretty awful. Busch Gardens is BOOMING. It's packed all summer long. You seriously expect SEAS to be able to compete with Disney and Universal when it comes to theming and shows? Of course they can't. They did what they had to do in distancing themselves from what those companies do and putting in some of the best thrill rides in the country. I notice this is somewhat of a running theme with you. You always are looking for the negative aspects of things. I don't konw if that is just a Youtube strategy or if that's how you really feel, but if you do feel that way, you should really atempt to look at things in a more positive manner. You will enjoy your theme park visits that much more and I wouldn't be surprised if it increased your viewership as well.
I was on the opening crew for Iron Gwazi. Worked there for a year and oh boy, I couldn't wait to leave that place. It's really gone down hill from when I was a kid
I just wanna say as a lifelong (95ish to now) attendee of BG Tampa, these videos were great to see. Very cool seeing how it all started and looked before all the changes. Hell its wayyyy more different than I first remember. Somewhere theres hi8 tapes of my first visit, as well as many other visits. Not to mention the hundreds of photos over the years.
I used to go 8 times a year [maybe more as a kid living 30min away] then slowly less to where I'm lucky if I go more than 1x a year for howl-o-scream
Crazy how many duplicate rides there are to the Williamsburg location! I’d love a video going over that park- it’s a big part of my childhood❤️
Roller coasters are not as popular as many theme park operators seem to think. Most people don't want to be flung around every which way when they go on vacation. If roller coasters were popular then the Six Flags parks would be the most visited theme parks, but they're not. Magic Kingdom and Disney Land in California are the two most visited theme parks in the world. Neither of them has that many coasters.
Floridian here since 1994, and went to Busch Gardens once, in 1999, when my kids were young. (Gwazi was amazing.)
Absolutely no reason to go back, because it totally lacked the magic of Disney, plus Universal, and just as importantly…
Every employee you encountered had this miserable attitude, like high school kids working at a MacDonald’s and didn’t want to be there.
The contrast was startling to the smiling faces and friendliness of Disney’s castmembers.
Also, who cares about Africa and Egypt to that extent?
I have photos of that dolphin show circa 1999-2000 I went to that Busch Gardens with my family
Akbar was a bit stupid but gets credit for me as an attempt to do some different things with a simulator ride.
I think Busch Gardens was the first park to introduce whats referred to as "Street Theatre," these day's. At the "Moroccan Village" in 1975 was a magician whose show was very much like, but a poorer version of the Dr. Strange show at Disney's "Avengers Campus." The magician was only performing at weekends and every day during the summer season. If memory serves the show only lasted 12-18 months. Someone at Disney must have had fond memories of the show to bring it back with extra's. Cheers, Chris Perry.
I've only visited USA 1 time, which was two weeks in Florida back in 2007. We visited a lot of the Disney and Universal parks, but Busch Gardens remains my favorite park in that state. To this day, Sheikra (or Shakira as my friends called it! 😂) is my favorite ever coaster ride.
Such a good quality video
Gwazi was the 2nd coaster I ever rode! Broke my fear with Python!
As a person who grew up going to Busch Gardens and even had an annual pass for a while, this video (even more so than part 1) made me so sad. In fact, I was feeling the nostalgia and wound up going in February of last year, and everything you’ve said rings so true. If someone who knew anything about theme parks and the theme park going community were at the helm of the parks division, I think they could really do something. But what I’m seeing is that the only real audience it’s attracting is young (see: high schoolers) folks with not much money to spend because of the emphasis on coasters (which I do love, but even those are…in need of some TLC). Anyway, thank you for archiving this historic park. Oh didn’t know so much of that because it was before my time so not only was it fascinating, it also just hurt my heart to know what it could be now.
The one thing Busch Gardens has going for it is the tickets are still relatively inexpensive given what Disney and Universal are charging. I grew up in Tampa and up through the tween years we would get an annual pass for Busch Gardens and Adventure Island.
Some nuance about the smokehouse – as it wasn't exactly 100% new. The Stanleyville Smokehouse was in operation since the 1980s but was located where the Sheikra queue entrance was to be built. With the construction of Sheikra, the smokehouse was rebuilt on the other side of Stanleyville on the site of the former Zambezi Cafe/Pavilion, and renamed the Zambia Steakhouse. Same operations and recipes but a much better facility.
Anyone remember the hidden gem, Nocturnal Mountain – later known as Curiosity Caverns? A cave filled with bats, spiders, lizards, and snakes. Especially in the early days when it was poorly signed, extra dark, and well populated with nocturnal creatures, it was kind of magical for kids to stumble upon it.
This is a great video. As someone who has grown up going to Busch Gardens, it hits all the nostalgic spots in all the right ways. It's refreshing to see such in depth content for this park as Disney and Universal always get the spotlight. The ending was quite sad though because I've also seen a rapid decline as well and have worked for this park during this and am now at SeaWorld and watching the same happen there. I know these Parks could really be amazing and I hope to see them make some radical changes to reverse their current course. I'd love to see something like this for SeaWorld Orlando because I do think there is a lot to talk about there and a lot of history that can be covered.
In my opinion, the best thing that could happen to Busch Gardens Tampa is for it to either become an independent park, or get bought by Cedar Fair or Herschend. I love the park, but the way it's being run is awful.
I understand the criticism, and agree that dark rides would be a welcome addition for both SW parks in FL. Animal exhibits are going to be a thing of the past. After what Blackfish did to Sea World, I think Black Stone wants to be done with animals. I don't think shows really draw crowds but they are good to offer a variety of options. I like that the roller coaster game in FL has been heating up, but very much agree with you that new roller coasters alone will only do so much. If you want families, you need to offer more for everyone in the family. Still, Iron Gwazi might be my favorite roller coaster.
Here to provide some insight into the ice show situation. Figure skaters in the area have been hard to find and the cast is CONSTANTLY revolving. It also doesn’t help that the pay isn’t great so all of the skaters have to have 2nd jobs coaching (which they barley have time to do) They scrapped iceplorations for turn it up because it was easier to redo the show to keep it relevant (adding newer music) as well as swap skaters in and out. For years they struggled to fill the roll of the cheetah in iceplorations because that skater had to be a really great male single skater that also had to be able to do a back flip on the ice (even harder to find) I had a friend who eventually filled the roll at 17 years old and did it FOR YEARS but he had to train for months to get that backflip. They also struggled to find a child replacement everytime the kids got too old and they had to even switch the gender at one point. (Fun fact the kid was also usually an ice skater bc thats how they found them) Once their better skaters left for better things they struggled and the show was just to complicated to find replacements for. Currently the cast is the smallest it’s ever been and they are trying to recruit new girls out of the local ice rink everyday. Turn it up was supposed to be temporary originally, but they have found that the format of it works best for their situation right now.
i have over 400 rides on iron gwazi and have never had 10 minute dispatch times. Plus parks are getting away from animals and more into rides.
Python was horrible now that I look back on it 😂😂😂😂😂
Focusing on coasters and nothing else really took the soul out of this park! There are lots of people who went to this park for the great shows, the gondola and the animals including the Clydesdale’s which represented Annheiser Busch. Now Busch Gardens is just another symbol of why I despise Blackrock.
Love your vids man thank you
Love your vids man thank you
Thanks for an exceptional History view
I love both of the safari tour truck rides but both of them always had long long lines