Meander01946724668
Feb 2022
This is a long one! Holy cow, I couldn't stop writing!
We decided at the last minute to go travel from WI to BG for my birthday for 3 days and bought a vacation package from Busch Gardens that included admission to Sea World. We were pretty excited for that because I love animals and especially marine mammals and I have only been to SW once or twice before about 20 years ago. The package clearly stated transportation to "both parks". Now, I know a little about FL geography and know Orlando and Tampa aren't exactly suburbs. I called BG vacations to question this and it was about a 30 minute phone call where I was told, no there is no transportation to Orlando. I told him that it clearly stated on the package details transportation to both parks. He took my reservation number and looked into it a little more then said, "Oh! Oh yeah, I see that now. Yes, the hotel will provide transportation to SW. Basically just let them know the night before."
I think you can guess what happened. The night we checked in to the hotel (Hampton Inn Tampa North, not the HI right across from the park), we asked about the shuttle to SW and of course they looked at us like we were stupid asking for a ride to Orlando and had no idea why were told that they would provide that. Probably no hotel in Tampa will drive you to Orlando, this finally became clear to us that night. What was in writing was "both parks" so ok, SW was not specifically mentioned. Perhaps "both parks" means BG and Adventure Island but Adventure Island is closed in the winter. And as mentioned earlier, it was confirmed on the phone with BG vacations that we would have transportation to SW. Honestly, we were very disappointed and even a little outraged. So much so I swore I would get online and leave a review. We feel we were flat out lied to a few times!
With no way to get to Orlando besides more money out of our pocket, we called BG vacations the next morning as soon as they opened and spent almost an hour on that phone call. We were not going to hang up until we were compensated fairly. In the end we were given the meal plan vouchers for our stay which still took some time to work out at the park. We never would have bought the combo ticket because we were not renting a car and had no way to get to Orlando except Uber which would have been ridiculous.
Besides that whole fiasco, BG wasn't bad. It isn't Disney or Universal Studios, it is older and half zoo. It is a little run down compared to the Orlando parks. Not the worst zoo, the kangaroo exhibit was great because you can feed them for $6 but once you look past that, their enclosure is actually very depressing. I hope they are have a better space when the park is closed but probably not. Many exhibits were closed, the aviary was closed all 3 days without explanation, 2 of the big rides were closed, Sheikra and Montu. Congo River Rapids was open the first 2 days we were there and we thought we might do that on the 3rd day when it was a little warmer. On the 3rd day, the ride was completely drained and bone dry and the bridge was closed to that area. The tiger enclosure is actually pretty large but there is only one tiger. We were at BG only once before 12 years ago and there were 3 tigers. The Giant Flume was also closed but for some reason I wasn't surprised that was closed for the winter.
Maybe this is their slow season, maybe because we were there Sun - Tues, maybe because of Covid or maybe a combo of all of that but it felt like half the park was closed. The building that had the sloths was also never open for roof repair, one staff member told us they had been working on the roof since November. It was a metal roof!
Many restaurants and snack shops were closed. For the meal plan, it only seems to work for the major restaurants not for snack shops. There were only maybe 4 restaurants open when we were there.
The meal plan seems excessive to allow you to eat every 90 minutes but I guess if you have kids it makes sense and considering the prices for the food, the meal plan is actually a good deal if you are going to be there all day. They stress online that you cannot bring snacks in to the park and you may be thrown out of the park if you are caught bringing in snacks but my bag was never checked any of the 3 days we were there. I don't think we would go back but would not discourage others from going. If you love roller coasters and animals, it seems to be ideal however I would recommend if you go, find out before you start planning what is closed and for how long and hope they are honest with you. If you are flying in to Tampa, don't buy the combo admission ticket that includes SeaWorld unless you are renting a car.