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| © California's Great America |
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| © California's Great America |
Busch Gardens Tampa is no stranger to roller coasters, building their first back in the mid-1970s. That ride, Python, no longer graces the earth, but was only the start of a long line of coasters to come. This week's Vault piece is the park's guide map from 1995, when one of Busch Gardens Tampa's largest coasters was still the big news in its junior season.
That ride is Kumba, one of only a handful of traditional sitting coasters that B&M have done. While it opened in 1993, the park was still singing its praises in 1995, when this map is from. As we well know the park was just about ready to open another thriller in 1996, when the inverted ride Montu debuted.
Naturally I suggest clicking the image for a much larger version of the map. There's so much different today than from 1995, which really wasn't that long ago all things considered.
The brewery is still located in the center of the park, which means that the dueling wooden coasters collectively known as Gwazi do not yet exist. When Montu was added an entire new area, Egypt, came with it, and that's missing from the lower right corner of the park.
No Elmo here, since Land of the Dragons was the premier children's area at Busch Gardens Tampa. Stanleyville still featured two water rides, but with no SheiKra towering over and casting shadows on them. Even the Serengeti Plain is much different - the Edge of Africa path hasn't been created, and Cheetah Hunt isn't running through the edge of it.
Can you imagine how different things will look in another 18 years?
During the frightening month of October, our NewsPlusNotes poll queried who does the best at "Boo," meaning scares, of course.
And as chosen by our readers, that would be Halloween Haunt at the chain of Cedar Fair parks. Started forty years ago at Knott's Berry Farm, the company has successfully transported the event to almost all their parks (sorry Michigan's Adventure, maybe next year!). The events garnered 38% of the total vote to end in first place.
Universal's Halloween Horror Nights has been around only about half as long as the Haunt, however, the movie studio backing the park features has made it one of the premier scare events in the world. Originated at the Florida park, it was eventually transplanted to Hollywood. The event has been able to play off of Hollywood's biggest and scariest movies, creating mazes based on my popular characters. In the end, the event came in second place with 30% of the vote.
Chain wide, the Six Flags Fright Fest events were kicked up a notch in 2012, resulting in the biggest events many of the parks had ever put on. Perhaps that helped them achieve third place in our poll, with 13% of the vote. Alternatively, that could also be taken to mean that they have some more work to do in our readers' minds.
Here's the exact breakdown of the poll:
This month's poll is now live, and we're looking backward again - this time to 15 years ago. What was your favorite new coaster of 1997?
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| © Disney 2012 |
Perhaps not the best kept secret we've seen in a while, but no matter, the announcement was still worth the wait: Universal Studios Florida will be opening their own copy of Transformers The Ride 3D in Summer 2013.
The park made the official announcement last night as part of their nightly Cinematic Spectacular lagoon show, a most impressive way to do it. Park guests were in for special treat if they were at the park for the day!
Already open at Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Studios Singapore, Transformers The Ride takes guests on a 4D quest to save the world along with the Autobots. Plans for the attraction to be built in Florida started just days after the ride opened in Hollywood, and since then it's had the fastest build schedule of any Universal ride in their history. Why? Simply put, the ride is a home run and once it opens it will be quickly embraced by Florida visitors.
The two story attraction uses a motion based vehicle to take riders past various sets and 3D projections, much like Islands of Adventure's popular Spiderman ride. In Orlando Transformers will have a more heavily themed building than in Hollywood, along with some queue changes. The actual ride experience will be the same as the other versions.
For some great shots from the announcement, and some additional details from a press conference with the ride's designers, follow this link.
