Busch Gardens Tampa closing Kumba, will replace with Kumba's Revenge

Sad to see this one go. It was the first B&M coaster I ever saw in person. My family visited Busch Gardens Tampa in early 1993, and I happened to catch it during the testing phase before it opened. I had never seen anything like it. That experience sparked my fascination with roller coasters and how they worked. Before that, my coaster experience was mostly Geauga Lake, Cedar Point, Conneaut Lake Park, and a handful of smaller regional parks where Arrow coasters and portable rides were the norm. I had no idea coaster trains could look like that, let alone move like that.

I stood there watching it complete cycle after cycle, memorizing the layout and trying to recreate it later in Disney's Coaster software. It wouldn't be until 25 years later that I finally got to ride it myself. It absolutely lived up to the anticipation, and I'm glad I got a couple of rides before its retirement. It's always bittersweet when a coaster with that kind of personal history reaches the end of its run, hopefully the future of that plot of land will be bright and actually intrigue me to return to that park.

Isn’t the already enough in the world?

Enough what? Kumbas? B&Ms? Busch Gardenses? Coasters being removed? Enthusiasts? Hamburgers? Taxes? Murder? Children?

Enough pancakes. Duh.

But never enough gravy.

I remember my amazement the first time I saw Kumba in the mid-90s. Their B&M track chassis and 4-abreast trains were such a thing of beauty compared to the Arrow Dynamics machines I was used to, which were mostly function over form.

I remember seeing a photo from the top of Kumba's first drop in a magazine in my school library in the mid-90s. I remember thinking the drop was impossibly steep and couldn't imagine ever riding such a giant, intimidating ride. Years later on a family vacation we went to BGT and the ride lived up to the hype.

It's weird seeing rides I saw get built on the internet start to come down.

BrettV:

It's weird seeing rides I saw get built on the internet start to come down.

There will be one soon that will be soul crushing, to each of us individually. For me, it was The Big Bad Wolf. I won't be heartbroken about Kumba, simply because I never enjoyed it as much as others did. It was beautiful to look at, amazing engineering for its time, game changing even. However, BGT was the one park that I could guarantee that I would be on the bench with a headache before lunch. Something about Kumba hit me the wrong way, ever time I would visit. I've not ridden it in over 15 years. I haven't missed it when I was at the park and it was down for its recent long closures. That doesn't mean others don't love it, as many did. I keep hoping that park will put in something without inversions, but that dream will never come to fruition.

I'm sad to see it go from a historical sense, but if I don't WANT to ride it when it's still running, then I won't miss it when it's gone. Not crapping on it, it's just one that wasn't for me personally.