Okay folks, buckle up for the latest and greatest ride central Florida has to offer. It is easily the most dramatic new attraction in the area this year and, surprisingly, it is down in Busch Gardens in Tampa and not in Orlando itself.
The ride in question is Rhino Rally, billed as "the world's boldest off-road safari and wild river adventure" and easily the largest and most ambitious ride the Anheuser-Busch Corporation has built to date. In fact, when they first announced the concept and some of the details just over two years ago, many experienced ride aficionados said 'Great idea, but no way can you make it work.' Yet here we are with the new ride awaiting its first guests (official opening is May 11 although there is still some doubt abut this - and these notes and interviews are all from the Press sneak peek on April 11).
The essential idea is that it is a safari rally ride that turns 'accidentally' into a wild water raft ride. You are one of 17 rally crew for each vehicle (which had to be purpose-built by the Land Rover company) and you head off into the wilds of 'Africa' (actually, an adapted part of BG's excellent Serengeti Plain area), where you experience close encounters with 17 different kinds of animals before your vehicle gets caught up in a 'flash flood.'
But hold on a minute, before we get carried away with this new ride, let's start with some basics first. Busch Gardens is a fairly large (335-acre) theme park of some 42 years standing that started life as a bird show and mini-menagerie of the owning Busch family when the site was a brewery. Sadly for beer fans, the brewery closed three years ago as it was no longer cost-effective compared with their larger breweries. Happily for beer fans (
) you can still get free sample Anheuser Busch products at the Hospitality House, and you can even sign up for their 40-minute beer school, which is a lot of fun (and a real practical test, if you know what I mean - hic!).
Nowadays, as the flagship park of the giant Anheuser-Busch Corporation, it has seen major investment in recent years and is a wonderful combination of zoo and thrill-ride park, with some of the best coasters in the south-east USA. The likes of Montu, Kumba and the most recent addition, the wooden-styled Gwazi, are all five-star rides, while there are also three good water rides - a log flume called Stanley Falls, a bigger and more themed boat ride called Tanganyika Tidal Wave (which truly does land with Tsunami force!) and the Congo River Rapids, BG's variation on the wild water raft ride like Kali River Rapids. And the young' uns are not forgotten either, with a great kids' play area called Land of the Dragons providing plenty of fun and games for the six-and-unders (and all those too small for the coasters).
In addition, BG has a number of pretty good shows, the best of which is a superb ice-skating extravaganza, which features a number of quite surprising special effects. Don't miss it, even if you are not normally an ice-skate fan (it is also in a big, air-conditioned theater which is great in summer months). Two other additions this year are the Moroccan Roll show at the redesigned Marrakech Theater a clever and energetic parody on virtually every pop song you can think of with a desert theme (Midnight At The Oasis, Rock the Kasbah, etc) and Jungle Fantasy at the Stanleyville Theater, a mix of acrobatics and stunts performed by a Russian troupe who have brought their act from St Petersburg.
The parks animal areas are no minor undertaking either. The Serengeti Plain is a vast area of African-type savannah, which offers a huge number of animals roaming relatively free. It has recently been dramatically enhanced to bring visitors even closer to the animals so there is a real on-safari feel. Then the Edge of Africa is a clever walk-through attraction that brings you up close and personal with the likes of lions and hippos, and is well worth taking your time as you wander around as there are a number of animal experts to tell you all about the creatures you are watching. For an additional $20, you can take the Serengeti Safari, a trip out in a flat-bed truck to see many of the animals of the Plain in true close-up (you can feed giraffes and ostriches!), but you need to book for this early in the day at the entrance to the Edge of Africa area.
Finally, there is the Myombe Reserve, a brilliant recreation of highland Central Africa and home to several families of chimpanzees and gorillas. It is again a walk-through area, and you can take a good half hour or so to get a really good close-up of these magnificent animals. This is one of my favourite areas of the park, and one of the most impressive in terms of its realism.
In all, it amounts to one of the largest zoos in the world, with some 2,700 animals representing 320 species. IMHO, it takes a full day to see everything here and, while the park lacks something of the gloss and glamour of the big theme parks in Orlando, it is well worth visiting as a change of pace and, to a large extent, a break from the crowds and long lines in WDW and elsewhere. Most notably, if you arrive early you can enjoy a couple of hours of all the best rides with only minimal queuing, so you can do a lot in that time. Once the crowds do build up, it tends to be the water rides that have the longest lines (up to an hour for Congo River) while the five different coasters spread the ride fans out a bit thinner.
There is more, of course the Serengeti Express Railway, Skyride, simulator ride (Akbars Adventure Tours, with a brilliant comedy performance from Martin Short), Dolphin Theatre (a la SeaWorld), the long-running Bird Show, more animals and two groups of strolling players, the marching/dancing brass band Mystic Sheikhs and the a capella quartet Men Of Note, who are both quite superb (our press group was serenaded at lunch one day by Men of Note, and the effect on the Crown Colony restaurant was amazing!) and it all adds up to a full days entertainment in just about every sense.
In terms of driving time, it is no more than an hour from WDW or Kissimmee, west on I4 until you hit I75 (it is 55 miles from I4's intersection with Highway 192 to the I75 exit), then north on I75 for three and a half miles until you hit Fowler Avenue (Highway 582). Go west on Fowler for another three and a half miles and, just past the University of South Florida, take the left into McKinley Drive. A mile down McKinley, BG is on your right, but the parking lot is to the LEFT, where you will have to part with $6 to park. For non-drivers, there is also a daily shuttle from SeaWorld and various hotel pick-ups on International Drive to BG for a round-trip $10 (or free if you buy a five-park Orlando FlexTicket, which also includes SW and Universal). For the BG Shuttle Express, you can book at SW's guest services window or call 1-800 511 2450.
(Now go to Part II for an in-depth look at Rhino Rally itself!).......
The ride in question is Rhino Rally, billed as "the world's boldest off-road safari and wild river adventure" and easily the largest and most ambitious ride the Anheuser-Busch Corporation has built to date. In fact, when they first announced the concept and some of the details just over two years ago, many experienced ride aficionados said 'Great idea, but no way can you make it work.' Yet here we are with the new ride awaiting its first guests (official opening is May 11 although there is still some doubt abut this - and these notes and interviews are all from the Press sneak peek on April 11).
The essential idea is that it is a safari rally ride that turns 'accidentally' into a wild water raft ride. You are one of 17 rally crew for each vehicle (which had to be purpose-built by the Land Rover company) and you head off into the wilds of 'Africa' (actually, an adapted part of BG's excellent Serengeti Plain area), where you experience close encounters with 17 different kinds of animals before your vehicle gets caught up in a 'flash flood.'
But hold on a minute, before we get carried away with this new ride, let's start with some basics first. Busch Gardens is a fairly large (335-acre) theme park of some 42 years standing that started life as a bird show and mini-menagerie of the owning Busch family when the site was a brewery. Sadly for beer fans, the brewery closed three years ago as it was no longer cost-effective compared with their larger breweries. Happily for beer fans (
) you can still get free sample Anheuser Busch products at the Hospitality House, and you can even sign up for their 40-minute beer school, which is a lot of fun (and a real practical test, if you know what I mean - hic!). Nowadays, as the flagship park of the giant Anheuser-Busch Corporation, it has seen major investment in recent years and is a wonderful combination of zoo and thrill-ride park, with some of the best coasters in the south-east USA. The likes of Montu, Kumba and the most recent addition, the wooden-styled Gwazi, are all five-star rides, while there are also three good water rides - a log flume called Stanley Falls, a bigger and more themed boat ride called Tanganyika Tidal Wave (which truly does land with Tsunami force!) and the Congo River Rapids, BG's variation on the wild water raft ride like Kali River Rapids. And the young' uns are not forgotten either, with a great kids' play area called Land of the Dragons providing plenty of fun and games for the six-and-unders (and all those too small for the coasters).
In addition, BG has a number of pretty good shows, the best of which is a superb ice-skating extravaganza, which features a number of quite surprising special effects. Don't miss it, even if you are not normally an ice-skate fan (it is also in a big, air-conditioned theater which is great in summer months). Two other additions this year are the Moroccan Roll show at the redesigned Marrakech Theater a clever and energetic parody on virtually every pop song you can think of with a desert theme (Midnight At The Oasis, Rock the Kasbah, etc) and Jungle Fantasy at the Stanleyville Theater, a mix of acrobatics and stunts performed by a Russian troupe who have brought their act from St Petersburg.
The parks animal areas are no minor undertaking either. The Serengeti Plain is a vast area of African-type savannah, which offers a huge number of animals roaming relatively free. It has recently been dramatically enhanced to bring visitors even closer to the animals so there is a real on-safari feel. Then the Edge of Africa is a clever walk-through attraction that brings you up close and personal with the likes of lions and hippos, and is well worth taking your time as you wander around as there are a number of animal experts to tell you all about the creatures you are watching. For an additional $20, you can take the Serengeti Safari, a trip out in a flat-bed truck to see many of the animals of the Plain in true close-up (you can feed giraffes and ostriches!), but you need to book for this early in the day at the entrance to the Edge of Africa area.
Finally, there is the Myombe Reserve, a brilliant recreation of highland Central Africa and home to several families of chimpanzees and gorillas. It is again a walk-through area, and you can take a good half hour or so to get a really good close-up of these magnificent animals. This is one of my favourite areas of the park, and one of the most impressive in terms of its realism.
In all, it amounts to one of the largest zoos in the world, with some 2,700 animals representing 320 species. IMHO, it takes a full day to see everything here and, while the park lacks something of the gloss and glamour of the big theme parks in Orlando, it is well worth visiting as a change of pace and, to a large extent, a break from the crowds and long lines in WDW and elsewhere. Most notably, if you arrive early you can enjoy a couple of hours of all the best rides with only minimal queuing, so you can do a lot in that time. Once the crowds do build up, it tends to be the water rides that have the longest lines (up to an hour for Congo River) while the five different coasters spread the ride fans out a bit thinner.
There is more, of course the Serengeti Express Railway, Skyride, simulator ride (Akbars Adventure Tours, with a brilliant comedy performance from Martin Short), Dolphin Theatre (a la SeaWorld), the long-running Bird Show, more animals and two groups of strolling players, the marching/dancing brass band Mystic Sheikhs and the a capella quartet Men Of Note, who are both quite superb (our press group was serenaded at lunch one day by Men of Note, and the effect on the Crown Colony restaurant was amazing!) and it all adds up to a full days entertainment in just about every sense.
In terms of driving time, it is no more than an hour from WDW or Kissimmee, west on I4 until you hit I75 (it is 55 miles from I4's intersection with Highway 192 to the I75 exit), then north on I75 for three and a half miles until you hit Fowler Avenue (Highway 582). Go west on Fowler for another three and a half miles and, just past the University of South Florida, take the left into McKinley Drive. A mile down McKinley, BG is on your right, but the parking lot is to the LEFT, where you will have to part with $6 to park. For non-drivers, there is also a daily shuttle from SeaWorld and various hotel pick-ups on International Drive to BG for a round-trip $10 (or free if you buy a five-park Orlando FlexTicket, which also includes SW and Universal). For the BG Shuttle Express, you can book at SW's guest services window or call 1-800 511 2450.
(Now go to Part II for an in-depth look at Rhino Rally itself!).......
