Date:7/15/2022-7/17/2022
Destination: Orlando and Tampa, Florida
Goal: Busch Gardens Tampa and SeaWorld Orlando
Distance: 831 Miles
Means of Travel: Flying
Potential Credits: 6
(There is a shit ton of boring context that goes into this trip, COVID, Iron Gwazi and Ice Breaker took forever to open, couldn't get them on Florida 2020, now doing this trip as a sort of Plan C to my previous two region trip plans to deal with unfinished business from Florida 2020, skip to day 1 if this sums it up for you okay. Or read it all, I don't care.)
Bippity boppity back it the fuck up. Back it up to 2018-ish I think it was. RMC had just unveiled four brilliant creations here in the US, they were the center of attention, and everybody was wondering what they would do next. Some of that speculation involved a certain SBNO GCI dueling coaster at Busch Gardens Tampa, one that reached the bottom of my rankings when I rode it for my first and last time in 2013: the infamous Gwazi. "Did they track that thing with gravel? I never want to ride a wooden coaster again, that was Son of Beast rough!" My father complained as we stepped off that horrible piece of scrap lumber, beaten and weathered from the brutal Florida climate. That horrendous, rough, sadistic contraption of rotted wood that had been shut down for almost five years to erode in the Sunshine State humidity and get pounded by hurricane after hurricane was now in the RMC discussion. Ummm, hell no! No way RMC can fix that! Every time speculation popped up, I'd tell the person they were a loon for thinking it could be done! But I ate my words and my words tasted bitter because the next thing we know, RMC was on site and Iron Gwazi was announced, rocking rails in my favorite color purple and paying homage to the crocodile, fitting to have a coaster with so many rolling elements themed to the badass modern dinosaur that rips its prey apart by rolling around. I went from a skeptic to a fanboy, determined to get down there to ride this thing even if it didn't look as good as Steel Vengeance or Railblazer.
So in 2019, Florida 2020 was supposed to be my year! The proposed region trip would be a week of park after park in the Florida sun featuring shiny new coasters such as Velocicoaster, Ice Breaker, Tron, and of course, mighty Iron Gwazi! It was going to be in November, when nothing is busy there, and nothing was going to get in my way! Right? Right...?
Yeah, no. Florida 2020 was awesome, don't get me wrong, but given the circumstances in which we went, be it social distancing, masks, dystopian plastic dividers in Big Thunder's queue, and fearing for our safety with the election going on, certain aspects of that trip were clear signs of the times. And because of those times, none of the new hotness that was supposed to marquee that trip was ready to go. Busch Gardens was completely cut from the trip and we had to stare at Velocicoaster and Tron behind walls, whereas Ice Breaker looked ready to go but sat totally dormant across that pond. I knew I would have to sort of have a do-over for this region trip.
And that do-over was now! 2022 was supposed to be when I did my Sweden region trip, but then Putin invaded Ukraine and I wasn't comfortable going two countries away from Russia while that was going on, hell I even felt uncomfortable in France which is considerably further. Then Atlanta 2022 was plan B, but with Fun Spot not having AirForce One ready in the foreseeable future, I wasn't about to just wait until 2023 for 2022's region trip. Meanwhile, I'd planned this well in advance, and it was based largely on unfinished business from two region trips ago, so I decided that it's perfect! Florida 2020 gets wrapped up with Florida 2020-Too in 2022! First region trip to repeat two parks, second time seeing both structures of the new coasters, serviced by two flights, two different airports, and two different airlines, and if Iron Gwazi were to number one, second park to have two number ones of mine, and the first coaster (in a way) to have been at both the top and bottom of my rankings. Damn shame I didn't go on Twosday...
Day 0
Let's hit the ground running! I left work, went home, changed, and had mom drop me at DAY, where I would be hopping on an Allegiant flight to St Petersburg, or PIE as it's affectionately known as. I got in, dropped my bag at the Allegiant counter, TSA was a breeze, and found my gate.
I get there, ready to board, ready to go, when Allegiant delayed the flight about forty minutes, citing that it was late coming out of PIE. Okay, no biggie. I sit in the corner, charge my phone, call Beth and bust out my Switch so she can Gigantamax my Pokemon for the flight. It gets here, I set my shit down, pull out my Switch, and fire up Pokemon Shield to finish that final champion battle in the main game. Next to me sits a grandma and a small child, whose parents and brother were in the seat in front of us. And of course, Allegiant's plane is the public bus of the sky and wasn't at all clean. Now, as you know, FAA regulations require at least one screaming child on the plane and if Jarrett's on board, they're required to be seated as close to him as possible. So naturally, I was nervous, but the babby fell asleep and we were all good...
...and we landed and hit a lightning delay on the tarmac because the rampers couldn't get us. So we stuck around for fifteen minutes, were then told another fifteen to thirty, and by then the brats next to me were awake and getting restless and started making stupid annoying noises and somehow made me want children even less. We were told to deplane ASAP before the lightning came back and stranded us on the plane again, sadly I didn't have the gall to yell at anybody to get their shit and run because I'm an imbecile.
Finally, we deplaned and go through PIE's (very tropical) corridors to baggage claim. And they sent bags, mine was not one of them. And then we waited. And waited. And grew more and more irritable. And nobody was at the baggage counter. Just as we began melting tar and collecting feathers, they announced that our bags were coming, just late because they're short on rampers to get them. But mine came in the second round of bags, I snagged it, ran outside to find Ben blasting Cupcakke in his car to fuck with me, and we got going.
It was storming badly on and off when we got into PIE.
The Miner Mike and Frenchie's were our intitial plans for tonight, but considering I was now two hours late and we had an early gate crash the next day, we just drove to the hotel and elected to get Wendy's next door. They were out of pretty much everything, I ordered the bourbon bacon whatever the fuck it was and I hear "WE DON'T GOT NO BOURBON" in the mic, so I took my loss and switched to chicken nuggets before heading to our hotel. It was a long day ahead of us!
Day 1
"Ugh, ten more minutes?" I groaned when my alarm went off at 8:30, having dealt with overtime all week at work. We eventually got up, got dressed, and hightailed it to Busch Gardens Tampa, shooting for 10 am.
We were told to expect a multi-hour wait to get into the park, but to our surprise, we got right in and went right for Iron Gwazi! Good morning, Busch Gardens!
Iron Gwazi is tall, but just sorta comes out of nowhere since the park is full of dense jungle. You can’t really see it unless you’re near it or on another coaster most of the time.
The queue is basically Gwazi’s with an extra cattlepen in the station where the second track was. Wait wasn’t too bad, some slow SeaWorld ops but that’s to be expected. Our gate crash didn’t take more than 20 minutes.
Ben and I took the back for our first ride on Iron Gwazi. It was time! From denial to de Nile, what even I was convinced was impossible was possible and it was time to Deathroll out!
There was a Battlebots match once between Tombstone and Whiplash where both boys just traded devastating blows until Whiplash gave out in less than a minute, to which Chris Rose and Kenny Florian remarked, “that was thirty seconds of hell on wheels.” That’s Iron Gwazi. Not particularly long, it doesn’t keep winding back up and hitting you, it’s just a few really awesome elements (some more awesome than others) and brakes. My opinion on Orion is controversially that it’s every bit as awesome as Fury without all the excess elements, no drawn out barrel turn to turn the coaster around, no stupid helix to add length. With that in mind, Orion : Fury :: Iron Gwazi : Steel Vengeance. It’s Steel Vengeance if Steel Vengeance weren't so repetitive and had a better mixed layout. And I really liked it! But didn’t want to rank it without a second ride…
The line was a bit longer but we got back in line before it grew to ridiculous lengths.
And it did it! For the first time since the pandemic, I have a new #1! Steel Vengeance airtime meets breakneck Raptor fast forward pacing on this crazy rumble in the jungle.
So, to break it down, it’s Steel Vengeance meets Railblazer. Starts with a little pre-lift floater, then it’s Goliath’s freaky truss lift with basically Vengeance’s drop, they feel identical. Next element feels a bit like Lightning Rod’s outward top hat thing but with peak RMC airtime. From there it rips up around a climb before whipping you around that iconic deathroll element, which isn’t as snappy or violent as Velocicoaster’s but definitely more sustained and not “blink and you miss it.” Afterwards it heads up into that reverse Stengel dive that’s a bit like Outlaw Run’s but, you guessed it, more sideways ejector. There’s a breaking wave turn after that also pulls a surprising amount of negative force. It then hops up and around a 90 degree hop into a floaty stall, which is fun and freaky but probably the weakest part of the ride. The double up with a turn after is pretty awesome in terms of airtime, which is capped off by this freaky trick track into the most violent pop of air on the ride. There’s one last hill and then the ride slams into the brakes, having done all it needed to do to impress and not needing anything else.
I never thought the perfect coaster existed until Railblazer, which might be why it sat at #1 for nearly 3 years, and I knew it wouldn’t be easy to unseat it from that top spot. And Iron Gwazi has a flaw to me, in that it does have a lot of large turns which aren’t my cup of tea in a layout. Controversially, I don’t think Intimidator 305 is all that and a bag of chips like some (usually very toxic) enthusiasts claim because I find positives uninteresting and it just farts around in those turns crushing you way too long for it to really feel like it’s going as fast as it is. But Iron Gwazi gets around it by outpacing this turns. They’re interesting, curved up and down and not just flat, and the ride simply goes fast enough that it feels like you’re rocketing around them with no chance of it letting up. It honestly feels like a Raptor with Steel Vengeance size and ride system, and while it lacks that terrifying narrow rail I like, the ride itself is amazing enough to justify placing it above a masterful coaster that does. It drops you into this breakneck, comparatively low to the ground layout and it just blazes around there. Fucking amazing.
My baby was up next, but first, all the foods! Ben and I went to Crown Colony or whatever it is now and used our meal plans on pizza and cheesecake, and I snagged a mojito made with African rum. And it was strong af and went right to my head. Just what you want before Cheetah Hunt!
Cheetah Hunt is one of the most special coasters ever to me. I was super hyper fixated on this when I was in high school as it was being built, I was the weird kid obsessed with some roller coaster out of state, rushing home to see if any new construction updates were up, to me it was the use of engineering to simulate something really cool and make an art piece that was beautiful on and off the ride. When I finally rode it in 2013 it became my #1, and has since slipped in my rankings, but it’s still a super enjoyable coaster that I find cool and love its aesthetic.
Good thing for Quick Queue because ops on this were fucking horrendous. For a coaster that’s fast like a cheetah their ops were inspired by the African Inefficient Snail. I love the queue for this ride but a coaster with a double station shouldn’t take half an hour for not even a switchback of Quick Queue. Staff your ride, set a goal, and don’t do a former #1 of mine dirty!
So…when I rode this last, I was at 75 coasters and the year was 2013. I was very impressed by the speed, agility, and amount of surprise wait time on this stealthy layout. At 430+ coasters in 2022, I will admit it isn’t as impressive. It’s great fun, it’s still my second favorite in the park, but I’ll admit it doesn’t wow as much as I remembered. There’s ejector, it lifts you out of your seat, the terrain interaction is beautiful, but in the day and age of RMC (Iron Rattler did probably twice the ejector off a cliff the year I rode this) and the modern wooden coaster and swing launches it feels…left behind. It’s a beautiful concept, still my second favorite in the park, but I don’t think there’s anything necessarily world class about it anymore, if there ever even was in the first place
But it’s still gorgeous to look at! Even if they took the sails off of it.
Two coasters that became my #1 nearly ten years apart.
What’s this? Cheetaka, the Webkinz leopard my partner got me that’s totally a cheetah, got to visit his namesake!
Ontu Montu!
Some Karen mad that their babby was too short to ride held up the dispatch, but Ben and I got on! Montu is a great invert with some awesome whip through those giant inversions, and this time it didn’t die at the end as much as I remember! Fantastic product of old school B&M.
Cobra’s Curse, which was a credit I needed, was over there. But it was closed for annual. Boo hoo, now I have to come back!
We then went to Pantopia for lunch and I had to stop and see the cichlids and gator.
Last time I was here this was Timbuktu, now it’s Pantopia which is more fantastical, colorful, and has a sort of eclectic bohemian vibe to it. And honestly, I don’t see the hate for it. It’s beautiful.
The food here is the same as the Chinese at Marco Polo in BGW. Make of that what you will.
Time to get wet! I changed into my rapids clothes and locked out stuff up, Beth’s favorite ride here was next: Congo River Rapids! Some of the splashes on this are pretty violent, I was a little disappointed with the simple loop layout and cave waterfall that didn’t get you wet at all. But it’s a fun ride in the jungle and I enjoyed it.
This is where the day took a turn to assholeville.
Ben and I went to go ride Stanley Flume when we were three away from riding…only for them to E-stop and drain the damn thing because some stupid idiot stood up on the conveyer lift. So we stormed off in a huff and went to snag the Tigris credit I needed.
I love these little Premier Sky Rocket II models, they make great D-ticket attractions for big parks and stand out at smaller ones, that being said the capacity is annoying. Tigris has some cool ruins around the entrance but I think I like Tempesto’s theming a bit better. But this probably rides the best of any of the ones I’ve ridden, there was a sprinkle before we got on but it cleared on so we got wet tracks with no painful rain to the face.
Then everything went down for weather so we took shelter in Zambia Smokehouse, where they were only staffing one kitchen despite a ridiculous line. I was about to die of thirst when I got up there and asked for several waters and chugged one immediately. Food is typical good theme park BBQ, about on par with Voyagers or Coney BBQ.
With it clearly being a washout, Ben and I waited a few hours before throwing in the towel, spiting me on Grover and screwing us out of more Iron Gwazi, Cheetah Hunt, and the planned photo lap I wanted to take around the park.
When it rains it pours at Busch Gardens, park was flooded so I switched back to my flip flops so my only pair of sneakers didn’t get drenched walking through floodwater. So we sang in the rain and sloshed around the flooded park for a bit and then headed out, taking our loss.
Then we got back to the hotel and got some Angry Orchard and tried to drink off the miserable end to the day. Then Ben went to the bathroom and started panicking that he clogged the toilet. Then I heard the sound of a tsunami cascading out of the bowl and gushing all over the floor like a shoot the chutes boat dramatically splashing down. So I had to call the front desk and burst out laughing asking for a plunger, but by then it was too late. The bathroom was so flooded that Noah was yelling at all the Busch Gardens animals to get on the ark. And then we went to bed, since SeaWorld needed us tomorrow.
All in all? Decent day, surprisingly. Just wish there was more of it. What we rode was awesome, but it sucks missing two credits, especially when Cobra’s Curse looked so cool. I would’ve obviously liked more laps on Iron Gwazi, and a photo lap would be nice to have more quality pictures of the park, but it was what it was and I was a good sport about it. Only critical thing I have to say about any of it is that Busch ops are way too damn slow and I think that’s an opportunity for this park to improve.
But ultimately, it was one of those days I could choose to be a bitch about but I’m going to choose not to. Because the park is super nice with some great coasters and until the rain and the dumb kid standing, I had a blast!
UP NEXT: The theme of everything getting sopping wet on this trip continues as we both melt the ice and break it! Another flight from hell, being verbally abused by a marine mammal for food, reason #385 why coaster enthusiasts suck, and Ben and I get absolutely drowned on Infinity Falls for your entertainment!
