Busch Gardens Tampa Tips: Theme Park Guide For a Great Day
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Busch Gardens Tampa is one of our favorite theme parks. The park has a great selection of high-speed thrill rides, animal experiences, and low-key attractions.
Busch Gardens Tampa Tips: (Jump To)
How Much Does it Cost to Visit Busch Gardens Tampa?
It’s best to buy your tickets in advance online at the official Busch Gardens Tampa website. Daily tickets currently cost USD$99. They also offer a ticket that includes all-day dining for an additional $40. If you plan to visit more than one day, or are also planning to visit their sister waterpark Adventure Island, multi-day discount tickets are also available.
It’s also worth mentioning that Busch Gardens and Sea World are under the same theme park corporate umbrella. So if your plans also include Sea World Orlando, you can save some money by booking combo tickets.
Parking at Busch Gardens Tampa
There is plenty of parking available adjacent to the park. Parking is currently $30 per vehicle or $35 for preferred parking which gets you a little closer to the front. It’s $5 well spent if you plan to pop back to your vehicle for lunch, snacks, or evening sweatshirts.
What are the Busch Gardens Tampa Ride Height Requirements?
Guests who are at least 48 inches tall will get on most of the top attractions, with a few exceptions (Tigris, SheiKra, Montu, Kumba, and Falcon's Fury) If your youngsters are at the 54-inch mark, they can ride everything in the park.
There’s plenty to do for kids and adults of all ages in the park, so don’t worry too much if everyone in the family isn’t quite tall enough to ride.
Busch Gardens Tampa Quick Queue
The front-of-the-line pass for Busch Gardens Tampa varies in price based on the day of your planned visit ranging from about $60 up to $160 per person. The pass gets you unlimited trips to the front of the line for all attractions except the park's two newest rides, Iron Gwazi and Serengeti Flyer. Those two new rides only allow one skip to the front of the line per attraction.
What’s New at Busch Gardens Tampa
Iron Gwazi & Serengeti Flyer are brand new for this year at the park. Serengeti Flyer is the world’s tallest and fastest swinging thrill ride. The cool part about the ride is that it’s located adjacent to the Serengeti Plain, the park’s open area for animals. So as you swing you might see a giraffe or zebra as you whiz by.
Iron Gwazi is a wood and steel hybrid coaster that won the 2022 best new rollercoaster award. Themed as a crocodile, the coaster has three upside-down moments and a 206-foot-tall peak before an almost straight down drop.
What Are the Best Rides at Busch Gardens Tampa?
In the rollercoaster category, Cheetah Hunt has always been a favorite. It’s a triple launch coaster with a really fun layout.
Cobra's Curse is on the milder side. It drops and spins and goes both backward and forward. It’s one of the most unique rides in the park.
SheiKra is one of those coasters with a scary drop with some hanging over the edge in suspense time. While the drop is loads of fun, the rest of the coaster is pretty average.
Scorpion and Kumba are favorites of the park. Despite their age, both rides still hold up as amazing coasters.
If you don’t mind a good soaking, Stanley Falls Flume and Congo River Rapids are your standard log flume and rapids attractions.
What Are the Animal Attractions at Busch Gardens Tampa?
The Serengeti Express is a great way to see the park's huge open area for animals that they call the Serengeti Plain. The open air train ride takes you across the plain to see zebras, rhinos, giraffes, ostriches, and other African animals.
If you’re looking for an up-close experience you can book a Safari Tour for about $40. The guided thirty-minute tour gets you even closer to the animals with expert narration and even the chance to feed the animals.
At Walkabout Way you can get up close and personal with Kangaroos. The free area lets you pet kangaroos. You can also buy a food cup to feed them for $5. The area is open for a limited window daily, so be sure to check the hours to make sure you don’t miss out.
The park also has lions, tigers, gorillas, sloths, and a really cool Cheetah Run area. Many up-close small group animal experiences are available for purchase on the park’s website.
