Beginning today, your happy moments or soon to be at Busch Gardens can finally resume! We went on a wild adventure to Busch Gardens Tampa Bay for their reopening day! We took a look at parking, park entry procedures, temperature checks, crowd levels, rides wait times and more! We also got to take a peek at the Iron Gwazi construction progress, the ride looks amazing and we can’t wait to ride it when it finally opens. On that note, lets strap in and check out what the new normal is at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay!
FIRST LOOK & WHAT TO EXPECT
To start off your beautiful day at Busch Gardens you can either take a tram or you can walk up as usual. But when it comes to the tram there isn’t anyone regulating social distancing on the tram itself, in my personal opinion I felt safer just walking up! When you first walk up they do have social distancing markings but they are not as bright or easily seen as Universals or Disney Springs. They also provide hand sanitizer stations when you first walk in to make yourself feel just a bit safer. When it comes to the temperature screenings it’s the same as Sea Worlds, but it is less organized as Sea Worlds. As you continue walking towards bag checks they do have social distancing markings on the ground similar to Universals or Disney Springs!
BUSCH GARDENS
As you may or already know, when it comes to Busch Gardens it is massive! So when it comes to social distancing it is very easy to stay away from people and you may even get lost without a map. My trip to Busch Gardens the crowd levels were very minimal, but then again the park itself is very massive! On another side note, some of the carnival games are currently shut down for the time being but some do have hand sanitizer stations so they could potentially get back up and running. Along with the carnival games, the bumper cars are not open either but they are working on getting it open as soon as possible. Around Busch Gardens you will see hand washing stations throughout the park along with face covering relaxation zones where you can go in an area and remove your mask!
COTTON MASK TEST ON SHEIKRA
With the openings of the parks, comes responsibility! You still should wear your mask even if you’re on a coaster. We are here to test a cotton mask on the great SheiKra coaster here at Busch Gardens! The cotton mask itself on coasters breathes a lot better than the neck gaiter I have been wearing to the parks, just because the neck gaiter does have a filter along the inside. On a side note, the wait times for the coasters at Busch Gardens are pretty short and very reasonable. Along with the short wait times, when you’re getting onto the ride they do have you spaced out 6 feet for social distancing. The mask test itself went perfect, but when it comes to mask rankings on coasters, the paper mask works the best and the cotton mask comes in a whopping second place!
IRON GWAZI CONSTRUCTION PROGRESS
We got to take a look at the Iron Gwazi construction progress, it looks like it’s pretty close or if not soon to be done with the exception of some queue theming. The Iron Gwazi is my most anticipated new Florida Coaster! If you have no idea what this amazing coaster is, it’s an upcoming hybrid roller coaster built and designed by Rocky Mountain Construction and it will feature RMC’s patented I-Box technology! The coaster itself is very massive and we can’t wait to finally hop on this coaster!
As we are just jumping back into the world of theme parks, we will have to see how the world progresses! Along with checking backup with the different procedures, and seeing how people continue on staying safe throughout this. We really enjoyed resuming those happy moments back at Busch Gardens. We hope this informed you on your beautiful trip to Busch Gardens, and informed you what it’s like and how to stay safe! But, now it’s time to strap out of this adventure and move along to the next step!