There WERE some positive things to say about this park, but overall this was a disappointment for my family. Note: We went on a Friday - not a weekend, but close and we visited in the summer.
Positives: Buying a combo ticket makes this an inexpensive park if you do only the things your ticket entitles you to. Unfortunately there are so many things that require an upgrade that its hard to stick to your ticket alone. Also, there are some well-maintained parts to the park. Animal exhibits were well made and cared for. The train ride (not something I usually take at a theme park) incorporated the animals and had a presenter onboard who was lively and entertaining. Also, most rides do a good job of providing shade - I just wish they could get their video monitors working
Negatives: We arrived early (10:00 AM - park gates open) hoping to get onto some of the more popular rides quickly. It turns out that rides open at various times, so after walking all the way to the back of the park (a common theme park "strategy"), we discovered that our ride was not scheduled to open until 10:30. Next to us was a ride that didn't open until 11:00. The 10:30 ride then didn't actually open until 10:50 so getting there early was a bust. We rode a few more rides until the wait times started to creep up. Many rides were closed. I can understand one or two rides being closed for maintenance, but there were at least 4 major rides that were not operating. Our biggest disappointment was actually our favorite ride of the day. Cheetah Hunt is a great roller coaster. Its therefore very popular. We continued to check and recheck the wait for the ride, but it continued to hover around 180 minutes! We finally took the plunge and got in line. It is nice that the line is entirely under a large pavilion, but the line snaked and snaked. At times it was on an incline making it uncomfortable to stand but with nowhere to sit. We also couldn't understand why so many trains (roller coaster) would pass, but the line wouldn't move. Our wait turned out to be 2 hours. When we arrived at the loading area we realized why it took so long. Only half the loading area was being utilized. Employees were not matching single riders and sometimes trains were not being sent with a person in every seat. Fast pass guests were also occupying an entire train and sometimes part of the second train before the regular guests were then loaded. It was the most inefficient loading system we've ever seen. The 2 minute ride was great, but by then we were all burned out on the park and called it a day. I'd been to Busch Gardens many times before having a family, so I was excited to share it with my wife and child. I think we all left a little disappointed.