Josh Hendy
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2007
- Messages
- 1,294
We drove down to Tampa from Orlando with no problems or delays and got to the turnstiles before the 9:30am opening. We actually got to park right near the entrance.
Wanting to hit the best rides to beat the crowds and the heat, the morning activities were done commando style. Not at a dead run, mind you, but not wasting time either.
We first got a locker near the Marrakesh Theater and stored our junk (bag with dry clothes, camera)
First Gwazi. Ouch! so painful it made us laugh to think about how they must go around loosening the bolts every morning. The other people on the train were also cracking jokes and laughing out loud about how shaky it was.
Then a 10 minute wait near Garden Gate cafe for the "rope drop" to let us get at Sheikra (they didn't actually have a rope but used sheer moral suasion to hold the crowd back). Sheikra is stupendous. Very smooth and non-nauseating. You feel like you've been thrilled without being beaten up.
Next Kumba. Thrilling, but kind of violent and a bit of a pain in the neck. We enjoyed it but nobody suggested riding it again.
Skyride back to Egypt - what a great option to have in a theme park.
We rode Montu which is an incredible ride, really fast moves and twists. Surprisingly they don't have an on-ride camera for this, not that we would have bought it if they did but I was curious to see what we looked like when we were riding. We were yelling a lot what with the sheer terror and everything and there was a bunch of adolescent girls behind us who didn't stop shrieking from loading to unloading.
Skyride back to Stanleyville and then the water rides - Tidal Wave was OK but kind of forgettable, we skipped the log flume because the line was already building up and it look dispensable, and finally Congo River Rafts which was a snoozer except for the horizontal jet of water near the end which is almost your only chance on the whole ride to get wet. I'm guessing this represents the old, circa 1980 generation of raft rides. Now that I think about it, we visited BG *after* IOA, so Popeye's Barges obviously spoil you for anything else. Next time I will skip the water rides and re-ride Sheikra and Montu.
Then skyride back to the entrance again where we changed our clothes and walked to Zambia Smokehouse for lunch at 12 noon. Thank heaven for the good old touring plan (constructed using help from people on these boards, thank you very much) and the fact that crowds are a bit more slack in Aug. than in July. We enjoyed the food at the Smokehouse but frankly the number one attraction was the air-conditioning.
The rest of the afternoon we wandered around visiting the animals. We loved all of that stuff, especially the tortoises and the hippo which was super-close to the windows. For some reason we missed the tigers and the Curiosity Cave, but at least we have something new to do on the next trip. We also skipped the Safari jeep ride because we could see from the skyride that the water wasn't working and the queue looked long and hot. (Even at Kilimanjaro Safaris in AK we found the shaded queue to be intolerably long whenever we were unwise enough not to do it first thing in the morning.) We could see the rhinos, elephants and other stuff just fine from the skyride and the paths anyways.
Late in the afternoon we were ready to go, and when the subject of possible re-rides came up the only one that volunteered was DD12 who expressed an interest in riding the other side of Gwazi. There's no accounting for taste! Fortunately DD15 accompanied her, aren't sisters the bestest thing ever? I tried to take pictures of them but that coaster is just not designed for spectators (unlike Sheikra). I snapped a picture of the monitor showing their ride picture and the girl behind the counter was all, "no pictures! no pictures!" LOL, who would buy a picture from Gwazi except maybe to show to their chiropractor?
We left at 5pm and our car was actually so close to the gate we should have walked it - we ended up riding the tram all the way to the farthest lot and back again before we figured out where to get off.
BG is well themed and very nicely landscaped, not as thoroughly as DAK but it seems to be a much bigger park with a lot more options for rides, entertainment and meals. I took a ton of pictures of the palm trees, flowers, bamboo, vines, etc. cause I just plain love that stuff. A horticulturalist would have a lot of fun there.
I also give Busch Gardens a
out of 10.
Wanting to hit the best rides to beat the crowds and the heat, the morning activities were done commando style. Not at a dead run, mind you, but not wasting time either.
We first got a locker near the Marrakesh Theater and stored our junk (bag with dry clothes, camera)
First Gwazi. Ouch! so painful it made us laugh to think about how they must go around loosening the bolts every morning. The other people on the train were also cracking jokes and laughing out loud about how shaky it was.
Then a 10 minute wait near Garden Gate cafe for the "rope drop" to let us get at Sheikra (they didn't actually have a rope but used sheer moral suasion to hold the crowd back). Sheikra is stupendous. Very smooth and non-nauseating. You feel like you've been thrilled without being beaten up.
Next Kumba. Thrilling, but kind of violent and a bit of a pain in the neck. We enjoyed it but nobody suggested riding it again.
Skyride back to Egypt - what a great option to have in a theme park.
We rode Montu which is an incredible ride, really fast moves and twists. Surprisingly they don't have an on-ride camera for this, not that we would have bought it if they did but I was curious to see what we looked like when we were riding. We were yelling a lot what with the sheer terror and everything and there was a bunch of adolescent girls behind us who didn't stop shrieking from loading to unloading.
Skyride back to Stanleyville and then the water rides - Tidal Wave was OK but kind of forgettable, we skipped the log flume because the line was already building up and it look dispensable, and finally Congo River Rafts which was a snoozer except for the horizontal jet of water near the end which is almost your only chance on the whole ride to get wet. I'm guessing this represents the old, circa 1980 generation of raft rides. Now that I think about it, we visited BG *after* IOA, so Popeye's Barges obviously spoil you for anything else. Next time I will skip the water rides and re-ride Sheikra and Montu.
Then skyride back to the entrance again where we changed our clothes and walked to Zambia Smokehouse for lunch at 12 noon. Thank heaven for the good old touring plan (constructed using help from people on these boards, thank you very much) and the fact that crowds are a bit more slack in Aug. than in July. We enjoyed the food at the Smokehouse but frankly the number one attraction was the air-conditioning.
The rest of the afternoon we wandered around visiting the animals. We loved all of that stuff, especially the tortoises and the hippo which was super-close to the windows. For some reason we missed the tigers and the Curiosity Cave, but at least we have something new to do on the next trip. We also skipped the Safari jeep ride because we could see from the skyride that the water wasn't working and the queue looked long and hot. (Even at Kilimanjaro Safaris in AK we found the shaded queue to be intolerably long whenever we were unwise enough not to do it first thing in the morning.) We could see the rhinos, elephants and other stuff just fine from the skyride and the paths anyways.
Late in the afternoon we were ready to go, and when the subject of possible re-rides came up the only one that volunteered was DD12 who expressed an interest in riding the other side of Gwazi. There's no accounting for taste! Fortunately DD15 accompanied her, aren't sisters the bestest thing ever? I tried to take pictures of them but that coaster is just not designed for spectators (unlike Sheikra). I snapped a picture of the monitor showing their ride picture and the girl behind the counter was all, "no pictures! no pictures!" LOL, who would buy a picture from Gwazi except maybe to show to their chiropractor?
We left at 5pm and our car was actually so close to the gate we should have walked it - we ended up riding the tram all the way to the farthest lot and back again before we figured out where to get off.
BG is well themed and very nicely landscaped, not as thoroughly as DAK but it seems to be a much bigger park with a lot more options for rides, entertainment and meals. I took a ton of pictures of the palm trees, flowers, bamboo, vines, etc. cause I just plain love that stuff. A horticulturalist would have a lot of fun there.
I also give Busch Gardens a
out of 10.
