Busch Gardens Tampa
Tampa, FL
SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ----
(11/6/2025) Busch Gardens Tampa To Open New Animal Habitat in 2026
(10/28/2025) Christmas Town 2025 Details
(10/12/2025) Busch Gardens Tampa Commits Cardinal Coaster Operations Sin
(9/6/2025) Another Kumba Update
(8/31/2025) Busch Gardens Tampa Confirms Another Permanent Ride Closure
Note: KUMBA has now reopened.
 General Park News - (10/28/2025) Christmas Town at Busch Gardens Tampa will return to the park from November 14 through to January 5, 2026. In addition to all the dazzling winter lights and displays, the park will also feature two new additions: the new Holiday Skies Spectacular show featuring hundred of drones that will light up the night sky and the new Serengeti Light Show, an immersive multi-sensory light and music display set up across the park’s Serengeti Plain.
“The iconic Skyride will sparkle once again with festive lights, providing guests with breathtaking nighttime views of Busch Gardens dressed in its best holiday decor. Guests can also enjoy rides on fan-favorite attractions and coasters, including the recently returned Kumba, Phoenix Rising and more. Beloved holiday experiences like Santa’s North Pole Experience, the Holly Jolly Express, and dazzling shows such as Christmas on Ice will fill the air with festive magic for all ages.”
Also don’t forget all the seasonal holiday treats and goodies you can try while in the park, as well as some new Christmas Town craft cocktails for the adults.
(10/12/2025) I’ve mentioned this was coming on social media, but a recent change to operations at Busch Gardens Tampa on Iron Gwazi has seriously irked their guests. Much like what we’ve seen put in place for several years on Universal Orlando’s major roller coasters, a revised policy banning “all loose objects” while riding is now in effect at Busch Gardens Tampa. I say revised, only because technically a ban on loose objects has always been in place, but now the park is seriously enforcing it along with metal detectors, and forcing everyone to use lockets for the items.
This is where they’re really pissed off their guests however… unlike how Universal and Disney handle their loose items policy with free temporary locker systems at the ready, Busch Gardens is forcing their guests to pay for lockers. I believe the charge right now is $4 for the first 2 hours and if the line is longer or you want to ride more than once, it’s an extra $2 for every extra hour.
To be honest, the requirement to use lockers for your stuff is not a bad one. It is safer for both your stuff as well as anyone standing below, as no one wants to be hit by a flying cell phone falling out of a pocket. Earlier this year I addressed this very issue with a popular article published by Blooloop called “Shouldn’t Ride Lockers Be Free By Now?”, as more than anyone, the concept only serves to benefit the park by streamlining operations and throughput on the ride, as well as removing the risk of possible injury lawsuits from taking place. Universal has been offering free lockers for their major thrill rides longer than I can remember and even Disney joined in on the concept when they opened Tron: Lightcycle/Run in 2023, and now a few other parks (thank you Hersheypark) have seen the light as well.
So really, being in the heart of the Central Florida theme park market, Busch Gardens Tampa has no excuse to not offer free lockers on Iron Gwazi and any other major thrill ride they expand this to, if for nothing else than to just keep up with the industry standards of their peers.
So say it with me now… “Ride Lockers at Theme Parks Should Be Free!”
(8/31/2025) I sort of suspected this move would come when Busch Gardens Tampa announced that Scorpion was closing for good around this time last year, but now Busch Gardens has confirmed that after 50 years, the park’s Stanley Falls log flume will be closing forever after taking a final plunge on September 7th, 2025 to make way for a future attraction.
They said the same thing about Scorpion, but nothing was ever built on the site, but as the two plots of land can be connected, I suspect we’ll see something bigger arrive on the combined site at some point.
(8/11/2025) A bit of a disgusting situation came to light at Busch Gardens Tampa this past week when one of the park’s eateries failed a health inspection so bad in the middle of the day that it was closed on the spot and the guests were asked to leave immediately, in the middling of dining. According to the report posted at DisneyDining health inspectors shut down the park’s Dragon Fire Grill and posted a bright notice on the door stating that the restaurant has been closed “to protect public health and safety”.
If you follow the link you’ll see a laundry list of violations that led to the immediate closure that included pets (flying insects and numerous roach sightings (dead and alive), food temperature violations, violations where staff was touching food without gloves, raw food storage issues, unlabeled cleaning chemical containers and more.
I’ve got to admit, in all the years I worked in the industry when I was younger, I can’t recall ever hearing about such an event taking place at any of the restaurants we had at any given time. So it goes without saying that this situation had to be very extreme to warrant such a reaction. Clearly there is not enough oversight any longer to prevent this kind of thing from happening, or those on-site lacked the power or resources to prevent such a drastic drop in quality and standards.
Frankly, that needs to change immediately.
2026 - Lion & Hyena Ridge - (11/6/2025) Busch Gardens Tampa will open a new animal habitat area in 2026 called Lion & Hyena Ridge. This will be a reimagining of an existing animal space in in the park that will now become more than twice its previous size for a pride of 5 young male lions and two hyenas.
???? - Future Attraction Concept Survey - (7/2/2025) Around the same time that a guest survey about new rides was sent to SeaWorld Orlando guests, another one was also sent out about two future ideas for Busch Gardens Tampa. Amongst the ideas was a proposal for a B&M style Giga-Coaster that would stand over 300 feet tall and hit a top speed over 90mph all while soaring through the sky over the park’s Serengeti Plain. In short… they want the park to have their own version of Fury 325… but it isn’t known if they would try to build something bigger, taller or longer than Fury 325, or just simply be happy with achieving Giga status alone with that 300 foot tall coaster. But to be honest, the Giga rumor has been swirling around Busch Gardens Tampa since shortly after Shekra was converted to have Floorless trains. In fact to do recall hearing about a “Kilamanjaro” project at that time that just never came to be… but perhaps the time is finally right.
A second proposal appears to be for a new water ride that is described as an outdoor, multi-environment, dynamic adventure where they will traverse uncharted jungle trails, explore hidden caves, and plunge into the whitewater of a raging river.” If I didn’t know better, they may have uncovered an unused description for the park’s former Rhino Rally attraction, but after seeing the new technology put to use by Mack Rides for Mission Bermudes at Futuroscope in France this year, using their new Rocking Boat ride concept, this does indeed sound like it could be another version of this new ride concept.
To be honest, they both sound great… and Busch Gardens Tampa is in need or some major new thrills.
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