Is Busch Gardens worth a visit?

[Amazing-Grace]

What do you think? There is so much to do, would you actually go out of your way to visit Busch Gardens .

[Guest]

Hi Sam - just moving this over to the Universal, Seaworld and Busch Gardens forum for you!  .

[Guest]

Sam

Busch Gardens is definitely worth a visit, we have been about three times now and it always seems to get better with each visit.  The roller coasters are just brilliant and the Rhino Rally is brilliant.

The one thing I would say is that the food is not great, but they do have the hospitality tent - free beer  .

Helen

[panpant]

Sam,

I would find time to do Busch Gardens if you can as there is so much to do there.

You've got big rides, bigger rides and scary rides as well as all the usual water rides and smaller ones for the kiddies.

As people have said, Rhino Rally is good, you see so much more of the animals close up and the end bit ...

The animal trails are better in my mind than Animal Kingdom, in fact I think that AK is a bit of a Busch Gardens take off.

The beer tour is excellent, if you sign up for it (it's free) you get at the end a certificate to say that you are an official beer master and of course it's the place to taste the new lemon beer - very, very good.

Regards


Greg

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[Guest]

Yes definitely, we are lucky that this time we are staying on the Gulf Coast for our third week and we can get to Busch from there which leaves us more time for the Orlando parks in the first two weeks.

Less than 2 days to go now  .  .  .  .  .

[Guest]

It is worth a visit if you have the time. But it is approx 2hrs drive there and back so if you want to make the most of a day you need to leave early in the am. The food, as someone else mentioned, is also mediocre and expensive. If you like big coasters though, it is great and there are some terrific water rides.

I thought the beer tour had been shut down years ago? It certainly wasn't on last year. Have they re-opened it?

[ANGEL]

well just to be different I would say no! sorry, not my favourite place, I know thats not a popular view though! . I thought it was badly organised, very little shade on a hot day amongst other things.  It didn't take anywhere near as long as 2 hours to get there though when we went. .

[Stu]

Mandy,
your not on your own!

I dont like the park either. We went last October for the first time and just didn't like the atmosphere. Maybe I'm just an Orlando snob!! but I dont think I saw a smile on any of the staff there, they wern't very helpful and coudn't answer some basic questions on the park. There seemed to be very little organisation in the rides or the queues. The park reminded me of an early Alton towers, great rides, but spoiled by groups of teenagers running around, shouting, swearing and queue jumping.

I know a lot of people absolutely love this park and in some ways I can see where they are comming from, but for me it was just not worth the journey.
Maybe I hit the park at a bad time as there was at least 5 attractions closed including the new Rhino Rally. Also some of the animals were showing signs of distress especially the elephants, swaying from side to side for hours on end in one spot.