Tripping across the pond [Park 2 - BUSCH GARDENS TAMPA]

[toofpikk]

So last year I was fortunate enough to have a business trip out to Orlando near the end of the year. One of my friends from my stint at working at Europa Park was on the CRP, so I spent all my free time with him, catching up, talking about our previous doomed road trip, and theme-parking. During my short free time there, I managed to visit all the Disney theme parks, both the universal parks, and Sea world. I managed to do most of my bucket list rides, including completing the universal parks, seven dwarves mine train, and Mako & Pipeline. I did not, however, manage to ride a significant amount of Disney's E-tickets, including Tron, Guardians, Ratatouille, Test Track, or anything Avatar.

Haunted by this, my mind had been locked on working out how I could make a return trip economically viable. That was until I found myself in the incredibly fortunate position of being gifted several thousand soon-to-expire air miles, and a desperately needed gap in my career; my head started whirring like crazy. You can kind of see the process here.

So what was the thought? Well, 7 years ago, whilst sitting in our air-conditioned room in 38c heat, me and my old room mate used to construct pipe dreams of the ultimate theme park road trips. Having failed to complete our European one due to a broken down car 2 years ago, rather than focusing solely on Florida parks where I wouldn't be experiencing that much which was new to me, why not turn my focus to have another stab at one of these long-ago concieved biblical pilgrimages? I texted my old pal, and within an hour, I got the thumbs up, as he was Canadian he would essentially treat the trip like the most drawn out drive home in history; and I started spreadsheeting every concievable detail you could possibly comprehend that would be required to have an informed trip. Distances from park to park, crowd calendars, the cost of fuel in each area, where the cheapest but reasonable motels were, where I could spend air miles on hotels instead, which cultural hubs I thought were worth visiting... Charlie Kelly does a fantastic job at summing up my composure when it came to getting everything booked for this trip:

So what was the final plan?
This, grotesque, glorious masterpiece:
June 20th: Fly from Heathrow to Charlotte, transfer from Charlotte to Orlando, spend the evening in EPCOT, drive to Tampa
21st: Busch Gardens Tampa, drive up to Valdosta
22nd: Drive to Six Flags Over Georgia, evening at Fun Spot Atlanta, stay in Atlanta
23rd: Drive up to Nashville, spend the evening on the strip
24th: Drive to Holiday World, stay right by Kentucky Kingdom
25th: Kentucky Kingdom, then onto camping in the Daniel Boone National Forest
26th: Drive to Dollywood, stay in Asheville
27th: Drive to Carowinds, stay in Greensboro
28th: Drive to Williamsburg, spend the evening in the Old Town
29th: Busch Gardens Williamsburg, drive up to Richmond
30th: Kings Dominion, drive to Washington DC
July 1st: Spend the morning in Washington DC, drive to Knoebels for the afternoon, then drive to Hershey
2nd: Hershey Park, then drive to Philadelphia
3rd: Drive to Six Flags Great Adventure

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And then another 6 weeks later, I found myself at Heathrow airport boarding the plane.
After a rather long flight to Charlotte sat next to a young family with a very screamy child, I experienced the horrendous stress of 90 minute transfers State side. I strongly DO NOT recommend this. Security is such an arguous process and then having to re-check haul luggage made turn rounds scarily tight. Alas, after another 3 hours, and about 4 hours sleep to the 16 hours I'd been awake, I touched down in Orlando, and was scooped up by my pal so we could spend the evening saying goodbye to his colleagues around Epcot.

As usual! I will keep the written content of my park reports slim, and try my best to let the pictures do the talking.

EPCOT really was serving itself as a flying visit. My previous experience with the park was not the best, firmly ranking it my least favourite of the Disney properties I've experienced. Inaccurate queue times, aging rides everywhere, the most mundane in breadth of attractions... As sucky as a top tier park can get. This time, however, with the emotion bolted on of my road trip partner saying goodbye to his colleagues of a year and a workplace he gushed about enjoying so much added some charm to the visit.

A quick go round on Spaceship Earth, a drink and a snack and a chinwag with some friends I knew who were also on park, and then a sneaky little smuggling through Ratatouille.

First time I've done this ride. I get the complaints but also I actually really liked it.

And then to seal the park visit off, a Zen ride on Guardians.

Yup, my group of 4 were the only people in the entire ride station.

Guardians is an absolutely wicked coaster. Not as intense as I was expecting but it does have some really quirky moments and was buckets of fun.

As my mate said his final goodbyes, I took a quick reflection on EPCOT. It's a very pretty park. But I don't think I'd ever enjoy the process of feeling like you've got the most out of your day with all the loopholes Disney now throws at it's patrons. Visiting with park staff, however, was very fun.

A 90 minute drive down the road in a Jeep absolutely filled to the brim with stuff, we made our way to Tampa, and a late hotel check in, before my mate realised he left his wallet in his apartment back at Disney... 3 hours later, he comes back into the hotel room and I realised my passport was also back at his old room.
Bollocks.
Was this an omen of another cursed theme park trip? God, I hope not..

 

[toofpikk]

Busch Gardens Tampa was just out of reach from my previous trip across the pond. This time however, it made quite the impression on me.

We rocked up to the park at about 11am, having tried to recoup some sleep from the turbulent night beforehand. It was pretty damn busy.

But also, it was pretty much exactly how I'd expected to be, which was tbh, really quite good.

Queue times were wildly inaccurate, the food choices weren't great, and generally ops were pretty shoddy... We had an anxious 40 minutes as a storm passed through half way through the day, but man, BGT is a really pretty, well rounded park.

Finally getting on rides which I used to try to recreate in RCT3 was quite magical. Montu and Kumba were both far better than I was expecting, and I even really enjoyed Cheetah Hunt despite my mate warning me about how dull it was (and the absolutely crawling cattlepen queue). We took time to do the skyway and train too, which were both welcome pauses from the coasters. There's also an INCREDIBLE jump scare behind some of the aquarium tanks, where you'll find a lone lion model ready to make you jump out of your skin as you walk round one of the wooded corners.

We had plenty of time to re-ride everything we wanted to, despite the busyness of the park.

One particular highlight was Flacon's Fury, which was closed in the morning but opened around 4pm. I hate hate drop towers, but this thing looked so quirky and jank I just had to give it a go. It was as scary as it looked for me, but there was an added element of fear for the fact there's clearly a hornet's nest in the top of the ride at the moment, so as you're tipped to face the ground, you're also suddenly swarmed by a mob of scary buzzing yellow things too.

As it came into the late afternoon, a series of very ominous clouds started sweeping across the park. Looking at our phones we thought we'd probably have another 90 mins or so to get a couple more rides in before a hailstorm was due to hit, so we decided to head towards Iron Gwazi, which we'd ridden first thing in the morning.

This thing hauls.

BUT - on first ride, not quite as much as I thought it would. Don't get me wrong, it was intense as hell and snappy and huge and terrific, but it stands so intimidatingly near the entrance to the park, and it felt like it didn't quite deliver a full punch when we first got on it...

Well, as we jumped into the train for the second ride, ops had to pause for 5 minutes to let the first burst of hail pass over. Sunglasses now equipped in place of goggles, we crawled up the lifthill as the rain started properly lashing down again. I don't think I could ever tell you a moment before where I've had a rainy ride on a coaster and noticed myself travelling quicker than the raindrops, but there was a proper matrix-like moment on that first drop... And then sheer insanity followed.

Having spent the day warming up, and now covered in rain, Iron Gwazi ripped through the layout. After about a minute of uncontrollable manic unhinged laughter, during which you're thrown upside down, back to front, inside out, and being so disoriented from the rain smashing our faces... we smashed into the brake run. What an incredible machine.

(unfortunately there aren't many good observation points for Iron Gwazi so enjoy this picture of Sheikra instead)

That rainy ride on Iron Gwazi was unlike anything I'd experienced on a coaster before. Utterly relentless, there were some genuinely scary moments when the train was pummeling through the elements so fast, I thought it was going to rip itself to shreds. Insanely intense, but such crazy fun.

It became clear that the major rides weren't going to be open again for the rest of the day, so rather pleased with ourselves for getting the last ride on Iron Gwazi, we made our way out of the park.

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Aquaplaining our way out of the state, we just made it to Georgia to get some shut eye for the night. Tomorrow held for us Six Flags Over Georgia, and Fun Spot Atlanta, over doubling my RMC count in the space of 48 hours..