May 162022
 

I don’t even know where I am in this damn spring break wrap-up anymore. I covered the most important topic: IRON GWAZI. So now let’s just take a relaxing stroll down memory lane, look at pictures, dip out now if you want, stay if you please. EITHER OR.

Dude, I’ll tell you right off the bat that BGT has A LOT of coasters and luckily they were all running so Chooch got a full sweep of coaster creds. Coaster in the first picture up there is Kumba. It was OK but old. I liked the secluded area it was in though – that was cool. And this was a walk-on.

Through that opening resides what is quite possibly my favorite B&M invert, Montu. I never really cared much for inverts until I rode Great Bear at Hershey, and then I had a REALLY GOOD night ride on Banshee at King’s Island. THEN I rode After Burn, which is one of the few saving graces (in my book, you guys, not trying to start a park war here) at Carowinds. That was actually my new #1 until Montu.

Then I rode Raptor for the first time this past weekend since 2019 and decided that inverts are actually one of my fave coaster types now I think.

I even love Alpengeist at Busch Gardens Williamsburg but mostly for the theming. That one is SO ROUGH and hurts my back but the theming is killer.

But back to Montu – it was one train ops so we had to wait for about 30 minutes which was actually kind of long on this particular day when you consider that we had walked on Kumba, Sheikra, and Tigris. (OMG speaking of Tigris – the family next to us in the station was in front of us two days prior in Sea World when we were in line for that fucking Atlantis water ride that broke down; Chooch is the one who pointed them out because he allegedly the teenager daughter’s shoes. Mm.)

(I mean OK maybe that was the case!)

Shit son, Montu was fucking incredible. When we were rolling back into the station, Chooch and I just looked at each other with our eyes in the universal widened O’s of WOW. “Did that just become my favorite B&M invert??” I screamed in Henry’s face when we reunited with him and he tried to play along but Henry isn’t as WITH IT when it comes to coaster types and manufacturers as me and Chooch are. Just so you know.

Also, Henry hates inverts because he has poor taste.

Oh shoooot, this was a fun family coaster! Cobra’s Curse, I think? And also the cause of the one sole fight that Chooch and I had that day. The wait time was posted as 45 minutes, because it’s a family coaster. Chooch wanted to ride it anyway which is astounding considering he’ll be the first one to go OH HELL NO when the wait is anything longer than 20 minutes. Boy hates waiting. I mean, I’m not so sweet on it either. But he is way worse and will complain like an old man in desperate need of a prune.

All I said, “I want to ride this too but MIGHT WE go and get lunch first before we all start to get hangry?” and that was all it took. He got all bent out of shape, and then I got pissed at him for being pissed at me, and Henry was like, “WHAT IS HAPPENING” so I said, “OK fine you spoiled brat, let’s go get in line” and now suddenly Chooch “didn’t care anymore” and kept walking in the opposite direction so I said, “Well, I’m going to ride it” and stormed off so then they both had to turn around and follow me. I got in the queue first, but Chooch caught up and then we proceeded to not talk to each other the whole time, which ended up only being 20 minutes anyway, and the line was inside so it was nice to be in the shade, and then somewhere along the way we forget that we were giving each other the silent treatment and started talking to each other again and had a wonderful ride on Cobra’s Curse, thank you very much.

It was spinning coaster AND it had a creepy elevator lift!!

THEN we went to eat. We had another meal voucher thing and this one place had the Impossible Burger so that is where we went except that, even though it wasn’t even the height of lunch time anymore, the line was almost out the door. Where had all these people come from?? The park was barely crowded! The problem was that there were multiple different food places but nowhere for the individual lines to go, so everything converged into one long line until you got to a point where you could break off and go where you needed to be, but those lines were actually way slower-moving. Like, slow-motion slow. There was one lady behind the burger counter and she was taking her good old time. And you know what? Couldn’t even really be mad. I’m certain the park was understaffed causing everyone there to be overworked and she even said several times, “I’m exhausted.”

I mean, we waited longer just to get to the counter than we did on ANY ride there that day.

And the worst part was that when Chooch and I got there, there was only one Impossible Burger left and she was like, “Can you wait a few minutes?” so I was prepared to forfeit my lunch and eat later if I needed to, so that Chooch could have the last Impossible Patty standing, but she was like, “You really want to eat this?” she said, picking it up with two pinched gloved fingers. “It’s been sitting here for a long time. I wouldn’t feed this to me DOG.” So then I was like, “OMG fine, we will wait for fresh Impossible patties then” so we had to stand off to the side. Now we had front row seats to watching this lunch lady assemble burgers for her customers and it was E X C R U C I A T I N G. Like, my skin was twitching because I wanted to hop the counter and help her.

Anyway. It took about 5 minutes for our patties to come out but then we had to watch her attempt to build them into totally unappetizing burgers-with-fixins and she messed up like two times. Sweet baby Jesus, it was an exercise in patience, but there was a group of college kids in front of us who had also suffered, so when we went from that line to the long ass beverage and check out line, we all bonded over our traumatizing experience. I like being a part of something like that with strangers! Henry wasn’t a part of this portion of the lunch line so he wouldn’t know. But we all shared a bonding moment when one of their friends, still in line to pay, needed a water refill at that point and was having a crisis over having to stand in the drink line again so we were all like “JUST SQUEEZE IN AND FILL IT UP!” I was like, “You gotta rehydrate after being in this line for so long!” and Chooch turned himself inside out with the forceful eye roll he gave me.

It took us so long just to get to our table – somehow Henry beat us, even though he struggled with the cashier he got stuck with who kept trying to charge him for things even though he had a voucher. I wasn’t hungry when we first got there, but now I was literally chewing on the inside of my mouth so I practically inhaled my SUPER TERRIBLE BLAND Impossible Burger. Literally just tasted like a really cheap original Boca Burger. I  mean, I wasn’t expecting much from what was basically a glorified cafeteria, but the fact that it was JUST COOKED – like, I WATCHED the cook as he was cooking it and then cook-walked it on over to the tray behind the glass – made me think that it would at least be semi-edible. I guess it did have a lot of time to cool off and get mushy while we were standing in the beverage line from hell.

Even worse than this was the SUPER CRINGE acapella group that came out while we were eating. They made my stomach hurt, honestly.

Aside from the 10-minute spat with Chooch, this was the only negative part of the whole day. And it was a LONG ASS DAY because we had to drive about 90 minutes each way so  that’s saying a lot!

Cheetah Hunt is one of the most popular coasters in the park and I was really looking forward to it! It’s an Intamin multi-launch coaster and as you well know by now if you’ve had the endurance to get through these word-salad disaster posts, this trip was very Intamin-heavy. That being said, if we had started with BGT, I think I would have loved this way more than I actually did. It was fun, don’t get me wrong! I loved how unique and long of a ride it was – a really great family coaster and honestly something that I think would be really cool at a park like Kennywood. I don’t see Kennywood every getting an RMC or B&M, but an Intamin multi-launch family coaster would be awesome!

Henry was on the train after us (he was too busy fucking around with a locker and we didn’t wait for him so he had to get in line alone. This was the theme of this trip lol). Chooch and I were also in the front row too so don’t go patting Henry too hard on the back!

It’s actually built next to the actual Cheetah area which is cool but I still don’t understand how those animals could actually be unbothered by thrill rides going off all around them. :/

Sheikra was a really great dive coaster, and that’s saying a lot because I don’t really care too much for this type of ride. I loved the layout and the whole area of the park it’s in.

A HIPPO! We watched this big guy cool off in the water for a really long time. Hippos are cool.

BUT DEADLY.

Overall, we had a wonderful time at Busch Gardens Tampa. Iron Gwazi is KING, Montu is PRINCE, and honestly pretty much everything else was solid except for maybe Scorpion which was a bit too old school for me. But, it’s a Schwartzkopf and only one of three remaining in the world so even though I don’t count coaster creds like Chooch does, I had to ride it. It wasn’t as terrible as I expected, but I wasn’t trying to ride it again.

In case you were wondering.

We left right around the time the park was closing (8pm), took the TRAM* back to the parking lot and then journeyed back to Orlando. It was relatively uneventful. We stopped at a gas station for snacks to eat in lieu of dinner because we are super great at vacationing.

*(NOW I WANT TO GO BACK TO WILDWOOD, HENRY ARE YOU READING THIS, WATCH THE TRAM CAR PLZ IT’S UP YOUR BUTT**.)

**(My standard response to everything Henry asks is, “I dunno, up your butt?” because I’m a 13-year-old in 1985.)

Stay tuned for the last two parks of Florida, which we did on the same day so maybe I’ll try to squeeze everything into one post but probably not because my blogging endurance is dwindling in my older age.

Say it don't spray it.

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