Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is a theme park in Tampa, Florida that has a combination of animals and thrill rides. I recently took a day to visit to take some photographs of the rides for a project I am working on. In the past I had mostly taken pictures of the animals and my daughters. It was definitely a different experience going by myself in the middle of the week. The crowds were very light and I could mostly walk right onto everything. I also took some videos of the rollercoasters while I rode them with my Gopro and think those turned out pretty cool. In terms of animals, there are some very large gators, flamingos, chimpanzees, gorillas, kangaroos, tigers and an African section with lions, hyenas, giraffes and a hippo and crocodile. For the rides there is a large Sesame Street themed kids area including their own rollercoaster.

In terms of thrill rides, Busch Gardens has some of the best.
Falcon’s Fury is a tower that lifts you 335 feet above Busch Gardens giving you a great view of the Tampa area. The seats then rotate so you are facing the ground and you plunge towards the earth before the ride smoothly stops your descent.

And then there are the rollercoasters. I am going to list them in the order of my most to least favorite and am only going to cover the main 5 at the moment (a new one, Tigris is scheduled to launch April 19th).
First for me is Cheetah Hunt. It has several rapid accelerations to mimic a cheetah hunting.

Next for me is Kumba. It is the definitely the best ride to photograph and even though it has been around for awhile it is still a great ride.

My third favorite is Montu. This is an inverted coaster where your feet dangle. I didn’t get any exciting pictures, but I do have video.

Next is Shiekra. This one brings you to the top, starts going over the edge and then pauses for 2-3 seconds before plunging you down and pushing you back against the seat back.

Lastly is Cobra’s Curse. This ride has cool theming and starts by the car being lifted up and rolling right at a huge cobra head. On this rollercoaster, the cars also rotate during the ride.

Busch Gardens is worth a visit whether you like animals, thrill rides, or a little of both.