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Tampa: Busch Gardens

Busch Gardens in Tampa is part of the SeaWorld suite of entertainment parks.  It's fair to say that (for Aussies), it would run distantly behind Disney and Universal in terms of name recognition.  However it shouldn't - it provides kids and adults with one of the best days of entertainment that you can imagine for a cheaper price than you pay at the Orlando parks.

A Florida animal park wouldn't be complete without gators

Firstly the park has one of the best zoos imaginable.  Most of the 'big' animals are represented (gorillas, lions, tigers, elephants, hippos, exotic birds, lemurs, snakes etc).  There's even Aussie favourites (kangaroos, emus, echidnas).  The enclosures are interesting and stimulating for the animals and provide great layouts for spectators to view the animals up close.  They also have a large open plains area where you can take a train past free roaming zebras, antelopes, rhinos and giraffes


Nice topiary too!

But the park is also a theme park with some of the best roller coasters around together with other theme park amusements like sideshow alley, complex childrens climbing areas and other themed attractions.  Sam certainly enjoyed the coasters especially Cheetah Hunt and Kumba.

Cheetah Hunt


If Samuel takes daddy on Kumba 5 times and Kumba has seven inversions per ride, how many times does daddy feel like being sick...



On top of all this entertainment, Busch Gardens also had a food and wine festival while we visited.  You could buy a special ticket with up to 15 credits, each of which could be redeemed for gourmet food (tasting plates) and drinks (craft beer, wine, whiskey tasting and cocktails) at any one of about 30 different stalls with different themes.

Not your normal amusement park food

As part of the food and wine festival, a band was also playing.  Not just any band but the Mighty Mighty Bosstones put on a show (all included in park admission).  It would be hard to find a more complete day out anywhere.




Comments

  1. UnknownMay 10, 2019 at 5:21 PM

    Sounds like a great day out!

    ReplyDelete
  2. EESMay 11, 2019 at 12:01 PM

    We actually visited several times (Friday afternoon and twice on Saturday) so it was really two great days out. We had a multi visit ticket to the Sea World parks and our hotel in Tampa was just 500 meters from the park. Samuel and I went early on Saturday morning when the queues were short to ride the coasters then after a lunch break and nap back at the hotel, Elise joined us for the more sedate parts of the visit. This flexibility was another reason why we enjoyed Busch Gardens so much.

    Incidentally Sea World offers a free daily return bus to Busch Gardens from Orlando to Tampa if you want to visit while staying in Orlando. It's about 80kms each way so it would be a very long day though.

    ReplyDelete

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