Busch Gardens Tampa announces Iron Gwazi roller coaster

Bedroom communities? I’ve gone into Kissimmee the “back way” (it’s a toll road, I can’t tell you off hand what it is.) and I was surprised at how many communities, subdivisions, schools, shopping centers, and restaurants. I could tell it wasn’t too far in the past that it had all been farmland and groves. It’s no secret Orlando metro is huge and still growing and I think a lot of that sprawl is heading west of town. Haines City is a very busy intersection there at 1-4.

Vater- Agreed. I’ve driven in a lot of the cities mentioned in that article. nothing compared to I-95 around DC.

That's basically where I live (up 429 a bit, at the Siedel exit). It was all abandoned orange groves five years ago. I-4 between 429 and Turkey Lake is pretty much packed most of the day.

And sure, it's all relative. The 405 around Seattle was horrible, as was 90 into town. Every city is like that.

What I can't figure out is the insane afternoon congestion going westbound from Celebration until Champions Gate/Haines City. An hour to go less than 10 miles. It's worse than what I deal with driving downtown every day.

When I lived in the southwest quadrant of O town 10 years back. "I went to Tampa this weekend" meant one of two things. The strip club or the casino. [Not ride Gwazi].

Those were the only two reasons to gun that road through the swamps.

The past few times I've been down there it is mind blowing how backed up that stretch gets. At any hour of the day. Especially since there's still not that much down there comparitvely. I-4 is still a pretty solidly engineered four lane interstate and there aren't many congestion causing exiting/merge opportunities to warrant the back ups. Weird Florida.

ApolloAndy said:

Tekwardo said:

I need a long weekend to do non Disney and a long weekend for Disney next year.

You will need a lot longer than a long weekend to do Disney...

Im really only interested in Studios and AK at this point. When Tron and Guardians are done I’ll go back for Magicot.

Hopefully, in fall of 2020, Sesame Place sells their 2021 Platinum Pass for $165 like they they did with the 2019 passes in 2018. That'll give them until December to get the bugs worked out before I make the trek down there at the end of next year. Plus, I'll have the whole next year to go, too.

zoug68: already workin those passes for 2021!

I'm actually surprised they kept the Gwazi name. Busch Gardens is generally more into coming up with creative names for rides, so I thought they would use this opportunity to do the same. The reality is that this ride will be nothing like Gwazi.

You mean like it won't give me a headache, or that they'll dispatch trains more often than every 12 minutes?

I remember hearing someone suggest they intentionally had the outrageously slow dispatch times on Gwazi as a way to save wear and tear on the trains and track, which was an absurd thing to say - but itnprobably did actually indirectly help it only get in as bad of shape as it did. SeaWorld and Busch parks may quite a bit right, but efficient ride operations have never been one of those things. Here's hoping Iron Gwazi will be an exception to that trend.

kpjb said:

You mean like it won't give me a headache, or that they'll dispatch trains more often than every 12 minutes?

Yes.

BrettV based on my recent experiences at Busch Gardens this summer, I wouldn't hold my beath that they will be any better by the time it opens. Went in July on a weekend (my mistake but only time I could go) and I literally was able to only ride 1 coaster throughout the day. Everything was at least 45 minutes to an hour, with the app saying Cobra's Curse was 300 minutes at one point. I don't know how easy RMC's are to load but I don't imagine that they are as efficient as B&M's and even those were an hour most of the time I was there. On the one hand, I was glad that the park was full, but the selfish part of me would have really enjoyed a couple of laps on Cheetah Hunt. Anyway, I am definitely looking forward to riding Iron Gwazi at some point after it opens, I rode Wicked Cyclone after it opened and it was awesome so definitely very excited for Iron Gwazi.

Was there truly an hour's worth of guests in line for the B&Ms, or was the line an hour because of the horrid operations?

I know I've waited 30-ish minutes for a station wait on Montu when I know Cedar Point would have had me on Raptor in less than 10 minutes for the same number of people in line.

The SeaWorld Entertainment parks are not a shining example in the ride operations department, for sure, which is one of the reasons I tend to spend less time in them. It's a shame, because their entertainment, culinary and zoological operations are outstanding. I think there's a real reckoning they need to have if they're going to emphasize roller coasters, because everyone, even Disney now, has roller coasters. If that's your competitive proposition, you need to show that you can run them at capacity.

RMCs are not capacity efficient. By the time they checked seatbelts, pull down the latter bars, and then double check the lap bars, the Second train is usually stacked.

super7* said:

pull down the latter bars

The problem is, there are no former bars. Confuses the ride ops.

I was thinking Gwazi Reborn would have been a cool name.

The only name that would’ve been lazier than Iron Gwazi is New Florida Giant.

It's testing... and wow is it hauling...

My wife and kids are going to be there next week. Just a little too soon, I suspect.