Talk about a park that has done a complete 180… and not in a good way. I grew up in FL and this was always my favorite theme park. I went on a Thursday with my family after moving back to the state for the first time since 2014 and the park is a shell of itself. Rides closed. Food options closed. Lines MUCH slower (more on that below). And the customer service and management has gone to absolute hell. None of the staff members on rides care at all and you can just tell that management is not prioritizing the guest experience.
So, let’s talk about these lines. This was undoubtedly the must infuriating part of the whole day. We were there for 8 hours and rode 8 rides… We used to come to Busch Gardens and ride 8 rides in what felt like 8 minutes. I’d be more than happy to wait in a line if the park is jam packed and it’s simply about the number of people. But that was far from the case. Literally every single coaster was operating at half capacity or less… Kumba, Montu, and Cheetah Hunt were all operating with ONE train/cart. So they would load up the train, start the ride, and then you’d have to wait until that exact train got back, the people get off, re-load the train and go again. Normally these rides operate with AT LEAST 2 and sometimes 3 trains.
Worse yet, there was no staff dictating which lines guests should go to so literally every single train would leave with multiple empty seats and I got split up from my group multiple times. The back row alone on Montu literally left with THREE empty seats for one ride (how does that happen when there’s a 45 min wait?!) From boarding one group to the next took literally 4-6 minutes depending on the ride. Sheikra had 2 carts running but it usually has 4. So instead of loading 48 people at a time, they were loading 24. Iron Guazi was the only ride operating with 2 trains and (shocker) it was the only line that took less than 45 minutes. We entered the Montu line and were in a place where it was usually a 10-15 minute wait and it took us 45 to get on the ride. Same can be said about the other lines.
Finally, the “Quick Queue” like only exacerbated the problem further. I’m all for people paying for the fast pass. We considered it before going but seeing as tho we had been so many times before and never experienced long lines, we opted against it. The ride operators literally take EVERY person from the quick queue line before putting any non-fast pass people on the ride. So you could end up stuck in the exact place in line for quite some time considering there’s only one train riding around the coaster at any given time.
As you can see, it was a very disappointing experience. Busch Gardens literally could not pay me to come back and do that again.
The only glimmer of hope is that the rides are still as good as ever. The new ones (Iron Guazi, Falcon’s Fury, and Tigris) are all excellent, especially Iron Guazi, and if the park gets its sh*t together, starts getting multiple trains back on the tracks, and gives even 2 ounces of effort toward managing its staff, this park would immediately take its place as the top theme park in FL again. But they’re a LONG way off it. The neglect is obvious and I just hope they can get back to the Busch Gardens I used to know.
In the meantime, catch me at Universal, Islands, Disney, literally anywhere else.