Busch Gardens Tampa
Tampa, FL
SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ----
(11/5/2023) Busch Gardens Tampa Reveals More 2024 Plans (MORE...)
(10/13/2023) New Progress On The Sky Ride (MORE...)
(10/3/2023) Busch Gardens Tampa To Open Phoenix Rising in 2024 (MORE...)
(9/29/2023) Busch Gardens Parks Voted #2 for Best Halloween Theme Park Event (MORE...)
(8/5/2023) Busch Gardens Tampa Confirms that the Sky Ride Isn't Going Anywhere (MORE...)
Ride Rehabs - These dates are not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as refurbishments are subject to change.
Skyride - NOW CLOSED through “Sometime in December”
Cheetah Run - NOW CLOSED through TBD
Kangaloom - NOW CLOSED through TBD
 General Park News - (10/13/2023) A little good news from Busch Gardens Tampa this week, as pictures of the park installing a new cable on their Sky Ride has been posted to social media. Hopefully this means we will see it finally ready to reopen before the end of the year. Over the past several months, we’ve also heard that the stations have been getting some work done and all the gondolas have been getting fresh new paint jobs.
(9/29/2023) Congratulations goes out to the SeaWorld and Busch Gardens parks this weeks as the SeaWorld park’s Howl-O-Scream was voted as the #1 Best Halloween Theme Park event, followed by the Busch Garden’s park’s own Howl-O-Scream event coming in at #2.
(8/19/2023) Prepare yourselves for this year’s Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens Tampa. According to the park this year’s event will “slated to awaken the guests’ innermost fears and make them scream to the extreme with the ultimate parkwide terror including an all-new haunted house, two new scare zones, and all-new interactive entertainment offerings. Six spine-chilling scare zones, five hair-raising haunted houses and four elaborate entertainment productions will have guests screaming at the top of their lungs.”
Featured this year will be:
D.H. Baggum’s Circus of Fear - (New Haunted House)
The Forgotten: Uprising (Reimagined Haunt)
Big Ed’s Demolition Derby (New Scare Zone)
Sin City Zombies - (New Scare Zone)
The other returning haunts are: Stranglewood Estate, The Residence: Home for the Holidays, and Witch of the Woods.
Look for Howl-O-Scream to take place on select nights from Sept. 8 through to Oct. 31, 2023
(8/5/2023) It has been a LONG TIME since Busch Gardens Tampa has made any kind of mention of their closed Sky Ride, but in a brand new post to social media the park ahs confirmed that the attraction is “not going anywhere - just receiving a little TLC” and more details will soon be coming regarding the Sky Ride!
(7/15/2023) For those wondering, Busch Gardens Tampa wasted no time in taking down the former Sand Serpent roller coaster. While the ride’s last day to ride was just on July 9th, by July 13th it has been essentially leveled, with no steel lefts to be seen poking over the construction walls. Another reason has sent in pictures of the trains that are now sitting in a backstage lot, likely awaiting a pick-up to be shipped off-site somewhere. While the coaster itself was torn apart and likely sold for just the scrap value, the park could possibly be planing on selling the fleet of cars off to any number of parks to be used for replacements or spare parts, as Mack mice are fairly common in North America.
 2024 - Phoenix Rising & Castaway Falls & More - (11/5/2023) Busch Gardens Tampa has released some new details and concept artwork for the new Phoenix Rising family inverted roller coaster. According to the stats, this wont be a very long coaster, with only 1831 feet of track and a top speed of 44mph. Busch Gardens did reveal a new attraction is coming to the Adventure Island waterpark across the street called Castaway Falls, that will be a small scale family style water fortress attraction. The park also indicated that a new ice skating show could be expected in 2024 as well as updates to the Kangaloom animal habitat for kangaroos and wallabies. Oh… and in the short term, the park has also confirmed that the Skyride will finally reopen sometime in December of 2023.
(10/3/2023) Busch Gardens Tampa has announced their new attraction for the 2024 season will be a family “suspended” coaster from B&M called Phoenix Rising. The family friendly coaster will also feature an on-board soundtrack. Phoenix Rising will serve as the park’s 10th roller coaster and take the place on the removed Phoenix flat ride as well as the former SandSerpent roller coaster, as well as crossing over a back-road to fly over a small section of land normally used for animal habitats. Phoenix Rising will be on the short side however, coming in at just 1,831 feet of track, with a top speed of just 44 mph.
For those wondering, B&M have previously built two family inverted coasters, the first going to Happy Valley Shanghai in 2014 and another at Happy Valley Beijing in 2018. While the concept art for Phoenix Rising shows off the same looking coaster train with 2-across rows, the press release from the park reconfirms that this all-new suspended roller coaster “will swing riders side-to-side”. “Riders will feel the rush of the wind and thrill of the flight in this suspended roller coaster that enables ride cars and riders to swing side to side as the train races along the track high above the Serengeti Plain.”
So if this really is a suspended coaster prototype, that is actually quite exciting, as there are very few of those that exist in the world today.
2025 - New Coaster / Project Halcyon - Speculation & Rumor - (7/21/2023) While I don’t really know what is going on yet, we’ve been told that the next big project for Busch Gardens Tampa is being called “Project Halcyon”. According to our source a work permit related to Project Halcyon mentions the construction of a new 70,000 sqft building. For comparison’s sake, I’m told that the structure at Busch Gardens Williamsburg used for DarKoaster (formerly the Curse of DarKastle ride) is about 40,000 sqft.
So while 40,000 is a bit small for an indoor coaster, 70,000 sqft would be a more appropriate size for a decent indoor coaster, or for a massive dark ride. We all know Busch Gardens Tampa could use a killer dark ride, but based on the company’s poor record of maintaining them for very long (RIP: DarKastle & Antarctica) so between the two I’m leaning towards this being a coaster.
However, one more item to consider. The name “Halcyon” may be a reference to the Greek goddess Halcyon, daughter of Aeolus, who was the ruler of the winds. Halcyon married a mortal King and as Greek stories tend to always do… their relationship ended in tragedy and death. In reaction to their love the two were resurrected as sea birds so they could live together once again by the beautiful seaside. So a project name that brings to mind flight and wind makes me wonder if this could be the company finally preparing to embrace the concept of adding a Flying Theater attraction.
(9/11/22) After finally getting Iron Gwazi open in 2022 and finally starting to build the long-delayed S&S Screamin’ Swing project, you might be wondering just what the park may be planning next for 2024 or 2025? The way things have been going at the other park’s in the chain, we’ve been seeing a series of new roller coasters being added one after the other, which is somewhat unusual for the SEAS parks.
For example, SeaWorld California just opened Emperor, their B&M Dive Machine, and already had coaster track on site over the summer for the delayed arctic themed family launched coaster project that is expected for 2023.
In similar fashion, Busch Gardens Williamsburg just opened the delayed Pantheon coaster, has just announced DarKoaster, their own family launched coaster, and is already getting permits in place for another large coaster for 2024.
SeaWorld Orlando opened their Ice Breaker coaster this summer and has been hard at work for months for their new B&M “High Surf” coaster project for 2023.
SeaWorld San Antonio opened Tidal Surge (S&S Screamin’ Swing) this summer and plans for some kind of new flume ride have already been leaked that could be coming in 2023 or possibly 2024.
So not to be left out, you know Busch Gardens Tampa has got to be working on “SOMETHING” for the future. Usually in cases like this, one can look to see what the other parks in the chain have been working on to see if there is a trend that BGT has yet to join. For example, it is easy to see that the new S&S Screamin’ Swing ride currently going up in Tampa for 2023 has been something they have slowly been adding to a number of their parks, starting with Finnegan’s Flyer at BGW, and Tampa was meant to be next until the project was delayed, but then followed up by Tidal Surge in Texas.
As the first park with an RMC hybrid coaster, Tampa has been at the forefront there, but in doing so they’ve converted the more family friendly thriller, Gwazi, into an absolute monster in the form of Iron Gwazi. Meanwhile just prior to the pandemic the chain had been starting adding a series of new wooden coaster experiences. This started with the family friendly InvadR from GCI in Williamsburg in 2017, standing a mere 74 feet tall, and using a very compact terrain layout that weaves in and out of itself along with a great tunnel at the top of the first drop that goes down into a trench.
Next up was a true family coaster, Oscar’s Wacky Taxi from The Gravity Group in 2018 that opened at Sesame Place PA. Standing just 43 feet tall, the coaster has been popular not just with the kids, but has been reported as being a short but sweet guilty-pleasure for coaster enthusiasts as well, featuring cute themed trains from GravityKraft and a nice big tunnel at the far turn-around.
Next up was the Texas Stingray at SeaWorld San Antonio, which managed to open just ahead of the 2020 COVID-shutdown of theme parks across the nation. For this latest GCI creation, SEAS went big again, standing 96 feet tall and offering a 100 foot drop, a 100 foot long tunnel, and a ride experience that has been given all thumbs-up from everyone I know who has ridden it.
At this point you probably see where I’m going with this long tale…
Nothing has been confirmed, so this is only a long-term rumor at this point, barely a whisper on the wind, but we are hearing that Tampa is looking to add their own wooden coaster experience once again to the park. Based on the positive guest-response from the previous three coasters, word is they are looking into getting something that would fit somewhere between Texas Stingray and InvadR in size. Ideally they are looking for another mid-range coaster experience to serve as a stepping stone between the family coasters and the giant thrillers in the park… which is essentially what they were shooting for when they built Cobra’s Curse in 2016. The rumored location is said to be near the Jungala area of the park, and if memory serves there is a big empty spot behind Jungala and Tigris where the back-half of the old Tanganyika Tidal Wave flume used to reside.
Again… this is just a very VERY quiet rumor… but it does fit in with the direction the company was headed prior to the pandemic, and with the current push towards adding more roller coasters to all the parks. Directions can always change, and other projects jump to the forefront as needed.
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