Questions for Busch Gardens Experts?

[chrisn]

Last time we were at BG was about 9 years ago, my son was 3 and I remember him being VERY upset that he could not ride the roller coasters with us LOL!

Well fast forward to today and we have a full fledged 12 year old roller coaster thrill seeking junkie! He is living for Sheikra! Thinking he might also enjoy Jungala.

We will be there in a few weeks and are going on a Friday. We only have one full day and want to make the very most of it. Coasters, Rhino Rally, animal exibits, birds, and the best shows. Park hours are 9:30-6:00. We will be there for rope drop and tour commando style. We will stop for a quick lunch...maybe Crown Colony counter service, 2nd level?

We have purchased the Quick Queue wrist bands for that day to minimize ride waits.

We are considering the Serengetti Safari for our DD's 22nd B-Day, but are concerned that we might be overplanning for the time we have. The times offered are 11:00 and 2:00.

Is this doable? Should we have a particular plan of attack? Do we need to worry about ride order with the Quick Queue wrist bands?

Knowing what I have told you, if we have to miss a few things, what would be ok to skip or save for the end in case we run out of time? What are the MUST SEES?

I would really appreciate any advice you can give! Thanks!

 

[SandrA9810]

The park is very small, and you will be able to ride everything, probably twice without an issue. I think you will be throughly dissappointed in the waste of money on the quick queu.
Jungala is a lot of fun, I think we spent the most time there. And got some amazing photos. And the play area is fun too.

We went from like 10-11am to park close at 6 or 7 pm. It was pretty much walk on for everything. Once we waited a few minutes for shiekra. I think it would be very possible to include the safari ride. Rhino Rally is a lot of fun, have one of your kids ask if they can sit up front with the driver (and choose left).

The park is a lot smaller than any of the disney parks, and so you don't need to go at it commando style.

I would suggest visiting the park on Sunday. That way it'll be worth it for the cost of quick queu, and the park will be open till 8pm for the BBQ event. Then you'll have additional entertainment. The first day here at Sea World, there was a minor influence in wait times and crowds. A lot of people just came for the bands and food. Manta went from walk right on (regular weekday) to a wait time of like a 1/2hr during the day on Saturday.

 

[RabFlmom]

The park is very small, and you will be able to ride everything, probably twice without an issue. I think you will be throughly dissappointed in the waste of money on the quick queu.>>>>>>

BG is a pretty good size park. It is 335 acres compared to the Magic Kingdoms 107. Disney's Animal Kingdom is a little larger 500 acres, but most of the area where you can actually walk is a more condensed circle of walks than at BG. The roller coasters are spread out in the different areas of the park and if you just want to do them, you will have to walk a good deal in the day.

If you plan to see the animals then you will want to go to every area of the park and see the animals on foot, on the train, from the sky ride, and on Rhino Rally.

A few of the shows are really pretty good so you might want to take the time to see them, too.

Because the park is so large we tend to try to walk around it only 1 time and do everything we want to in each section before moving onto the next-with the exception of heading over to the Colony House for lunch on the deck or by one of the windows in the restaurant. It is a good break and gives great views of the giraffes. Our kids tend to stick with us and go through each section with us except for when we go to a certain show they think is hokey . Then they head off to a coaster and ride as many times as they can.
We are all worn out wen we leave the park-worse than when we are in the Disney parks because we tend to do more sitting in Disney (in shows and rides) than we do at BG.

 

[SandrA9810]

The last time we were there, we scattered back and forth a lot. Rode the train, Rode the skyway, walked.
We didn't see any of the shows, and we didn't go on the rapids cause it was cool out.

We're theme park junkies, so the whole backtracking and running from one side to the other is normal for us.

 

[MinnieForMe]

Wow! I would hate to see big if Busch Gardens is small. We spent 9 hours there and only made it halfway thought the park not even seeing the shows. We went mid-week in April of 2009. The waits for the coasters were 20-35 minutes each. We do have a toddler so we did the small rides too!

The kids can't wait to go back this year!

FWIW - we did waste an hour feeding nectar to the loorikeets. My 8 year old is a big bird person.

 

[yaytezIOA]

Going on a friday is a toss up. We were there last friday and it was packed....of course it rained all day so we had no issues. If you attack the coasters first and save the animal attractions for later, you should be able to get most of the rides done without quick queue. I would also recommend for the coaster junkies doing the Roller Coaster Insider Tour. It's only 45 minutes and takes you backstage on Montu. (pics and review here) Plus the best part is you get front of the coaster with no lines on it.
As for the Serengetti tour, we did the Endangered Species tour and...well...amazing. (Pics and review of that one here.)

 

[inkkognito]

I love love love Quick Queue. It doesn't seem to sell out too fast so sometimes we wait to see if we need it. They will let you use the options for whatever Quick Queue rides you want (for example, we never use Gwazi so we use that for Sheikra). That way if you get one and only a couple of the coasters have lines you can use all your Quick Queue options for those. Rhino Rally always seems to have a nasty line, even on relatively slow days.

 

[dolphindan1]

The park is very small, and you will be able to ride everything, probably twice without an issue. I think you will be throughly dissappointed in the waste of money on the quick queu.>>>>>>

BG is a pretty good size park. It is 335 acres compared to the Magic Kingdoms 107. Disney's Animal Kingdom is a little larger 500 acres, but most of the area where you can actually walk is a more condensed circle of walks than at BG. The roller coasters are spread out in the different areas of the park and if you just want to do them, you will have to walk a good deal in the day.

If you plan to see the animals then you will want to go to every area of the park and see the animals on foot, on the train, from the sky ride, and on Rhino Rally.

A few of the shows are really pretty good so you might want to take the time to see them, too.

Because the park is so large we tend to try to walk around it only 1 time and do everything we want to in each section before moving onto the next-with the exception of heading over to the Colony House for lunch on the deck or by one of the windows in the restaurant. It is a good break and gives great views of the giraffes. Our kids tend to stick with us and go through each section with us except for when we go to a certain show they think is hokey . Then they head off to a coaster and ride as many times as they can.
We are all worn out wen we leave the park-worse than when we are in the Disney parks because we tend to do more sitting in Disney (in shows and rides) than we do at BG.

I was about to say BG is big in comparison to other parks...we went in Nov and rode all the coasters multiple times with little to know wait....the longest wait was on Sheikra but we only had to wait for 1 train then we boarded....Montu we rode 8 tiimes with no wait...OH and my 8 year old rode very ride and loved them