Animan1
Posts: 5394
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 4/3/2006 11:53:12 AM
EDIT: I just realized I completely screwed up the title of this thread by putting BGW and not BGT. Aarrgh! I can't believe I just did that, god dammit...
Now, please excuse me and continue on with the report. 
Having not visited BGT for several years, I was eager to return to once again experience their excellent coaster lineup, both those that I had ridden previously and their 2 new additions since my last visit, SheiKra and Cheetah Chase. As with most of my trips, I was visiting the park with my family, which consists of my dad, mom, and sister. We were visiting for only one day, and hoping that crowds wouldn’t be too bad, considering that many people were on Spring Break this past week. But enough about all of that - on to the report! One more thing to note is that I got some shots at the park with my digital camera that I really enjoy, but trying to upload them onto Webshots on my dial-up has proved much too slow and time-consuming. Sorry, but I guess my pictures will have to remain hidden from all of you at this time. 
We got to the park quite early, but we had left the hotel with plenty of time, since we had to drive into Tampa from Clearwater during rush hour on a Monday morning. The park opened at 9:30, and we got there a little before 9, so they weren’t even letting people into the parking lot yet. But after a short wait, we were in and off to the park on the first shuttle of the day! We got our tickets (with a discount from my dad’s Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards card ) and arrived near the front of the pack at the line to get in. Shortly before 9:30, the marching band arrived and played a few songs for us, and we were thereafter let in.
We decided to head for SheiKra first, but hit up Gwazi on the way. On the tram, I had seen a train stopped on the lift for Montu, and as we approached Gwazi, we saw that the same thing was occurring here. Quite a few guests had headed down the entrance to Gwazi before we got there, and they were saying it was closed. Indeed, the entrance was roped off, no trains were running, and to my knowledge there was no one to tell us what was going on. A bit bewildered, we decided to move on to SheiKra, only to discover that that area of the park didn’t open until 10:00. Now quite frustrated, we decided to head back towards Montu, which was not exactly close by. When we finally arrived, there was an employee out front saying that the coaster was not operating. He said that Gwazi was in the same situation, but that SheiKra, Kumba, and the other rides in the area of the park were operating. Now we were all rather pissed, since so far communication of these issues had been very poor, and we had now been in the park for some time and had not yet seen one ride even testing.
By the time we made our way back past Gwazi towards SheiKra, it was operating. We decided to take a ride, and after putting our stuff in the lockers (which require 50 cents every time, something I still don’t like about the park) we headed in. When we got to the point where you choose your side, Tiger or Lion, we discovered that Tiger was not operating, so our choice was made for us. The line was already fairly long, especially so because there was only the one side running, but what could have been a sub-30 minute wait turned into a hour-long debacle that continued to drop the satisfaction of our visit down into dangerous territory. Multiple breakdowns while we were in line, plus a couple of loading/unloading employees who moved as though they had just run a marathon and looked about as happy as if they were digging ditches turned the wait from reasonable to unacceptable, and when all was said and done, we were not too pleased with our experience thus far at all. It is worth noting that the ride itself was actually pretty good, especially considering that I had heard it was running like crap just the weekend before, so that was a pleasant surprise. It was by no means smooth, an
Message updated 4/3/2006 11:56:02 AM by Animan1
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Scott
Posts: 2766
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4/3/2006 6:34:06 PM
Fantastic TR. 
BGT has strange operations... I've had terrible days at the park, and days that the operations are better then IOA. Weird.
Edit- I don't believe that an unbuckled seatbelt would stop the ride.
Message updated 4/3/2006 6:35:59 PM by Scott
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Animan1
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4/3/2006 8:38:47 PM
Thanks for the comments. I know what you mean about the operations for BGT - BobFunland told me that just the weekend before I went, it was running better than Universal. The next weekend, everything seems to be falling apart. Very odd.
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larrygator
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4/4/2006 8:01:22 PM
Many coasters have security cameras on the lift hill and I believe if you are seen unbuckling a seat belt a ride supervisor can halt the chain lift.
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Message updated 4/8/2006 4:41:45 PM by larrygator
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Animan1
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4/4/2006 9:12:33 PM
Now that would make a lot more sense. That may indeed be what happened, because a couple of employees walked up the stairs of the lift about 30 feet up to where the train was stopped, were there for about 30 seconds, and then came back down. Thanks for the comment, larry.
Message updated 4/4/2006 9:13:37 PM by Animan1
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BobFunland
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4/5/2006 12:02:23 PM
TR BGT and SWO implies there be stuff about Sea World  
I enjoyed the read - I too get a little frustrated with the lockers, not so much the extra pair of quarters but the time it takes and slows me down.
The stopping on the lift is totally based on catching something by an operator seeing it. The seatblets have no sensors of any sort, and are really secondary restraint systems. Heck, if you remember, Kumba didn't even used to have seatbelts 
From what it sounded like, you didn't have a great day at the park. That's a shame, when I went a few weeks ago, it really was better than Universal 
BTW Scott happy belated birthday!
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Message updated 4/5/2006 12:04:15 PM by BobFunland
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Animan1
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4/5/2006 9:07:30 PM
Quote:
BobFunland said:
TR BGT and SWO implies there be stuff about Sea World
I enjoyed the read - I too get a little frustrated with the lockers, not so much the extra pair of quarters but the time it takes and slows me down.
The stopping on the lift is totally based on catching something by an operator seeing it. The seatblets have no sensors of any sort, and are really secondary restraint systems. Heck, if you remember, Kumba didn't even used to have seatbelts
From what it sounded like, you didn't have a great day at the park. That's a shame, when I went a few weeks ago, it really was better than Universal
BTW Scott happy belated birthday! |
Umm, I know, and I already touched on that. It's coming, don't worry. God, some people...
Thanks for the comments and answer to the question. I thought that it sounded like bull, just thought I'd verify though. And I remember the same about Kumba, I don't believe that it used to have seatbelts, though they have since been added. Like you said, they're really just secondary in case something with the locking mechanism on the OTSR goes haywire.
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RCGenius
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4/6/2006 8:27:53 PM
Amazing TR Animan1. Besides the early morning ride status & breakdown problems, it sounded like you had a good time. You did some more thangs at BGT than I did. SheiKra's a great ride, but I only rode it once in the middle. Montu's my favorite coaster at the park & Kumba was amazing too. I didn't like Gwazi that much though because it didn't duel for me. I only wished that I could've went on rides that'd show me some more African animals, but oh well. I remember going to BGT last year in July & I had an amazing time. I practically had to beg my parents to take the 1 1/2 hour drive from Orlando to Tampa Bay in order to go to BGT. I said that I'd pay for all of us, which I did, as long as we could go. BGT's definitely in a league of its own when it comes to being a theme park with amazing thrill rides & great scenery & landscaping wrapped up together. The only problem with BGT's that they're in a desperate need for a major flat ride overhaul because they're so limited in that area. Check out my BGT TR & my whole USF & IOA TRs too & tell me what you think of them.
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Scott
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4/6/2006 8:43:59 PM
hour and a half? I did it in like 50 minutes.
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RCGenius
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4/6/2006 8:47:33 PM
I might be wrong, but I think that the time for us was like an hour & fifteen minutes because we got lost. We were using our navigator & directions printed off of MapQuest at the same time, so we were trying to follow two completely different sources. If we would've used our navigator instead of those maps, we would've been there in only like an hour or so'em.
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ibluv
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4/6/2006 9:11:16 PM
It sucks that your parents made you pay for their tickets. That's just not right. It's been about 5 years since I was last at BGT, and there weren't many operational problems except for Python, which wasn't worth the wait cuz the head-banging factor was almost unbearable. I guess the more rides they add, the more problems they're gonna have, but I'd still like to see them add flats as well cuz it takes more than coasters to have a full theme park experience.
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RCGenius
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4/7/2006 2:18:43 PM
Actually Ibluv, I offered to pay for the whole family as long as they'd take me down there. The price for that whole day was $255.
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Animan1
Posts: 5394
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4/7/2006 9:26:06 PM
Thanks for everybody's comments. I'll check our your FL TRs, RCGenius, and post some comments when I get a chance.
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Animan1
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4/8/2006 4:02:06 PM
Alright, alright, so here it is. For those of you who were eagerly awaiting Part 2 (probably none of you) or at least hoping for it to show up sometime this year (perhaps a few of you) here it is - the SWO part of my Trip Report.
We had gone to BGT on a Monday, and visited SWO on Wednesday of the same week. We arrived a bit later here than we had at BGT, so that by the time we got our tickets, the park was already open. Oddly, SW was open earlier and stayed open later than BGT, leading to longer hours all around. Why that was I don’t know, but that’s the way it was and it didn’t make much difference to us.
The first thing we did is take a look at what shows we wanted to see. We decided on a couple of them and headed off to the first showing of the Clyde and Seymour Sea Lion show. One thing to note is that we had not visited SWO since my family’s very first trip to FL in 1996. So a fair amount had changed, but one thing that I remember fondly from that first visit was the Clyde and Seymour show. At that time it was the Clyde and Seymour Hotel show, but now it was the Clyde and Seymour Take Pirate Island show. No matter, we got in about ½ and hour before the show started, and it’s a good thing we did, because the show ended up being nearly full. There was a mime walking around down by the pool area before the show started, making fun of the guests and generally causing a great deal of laughter and mischief. The show itself was quite good, and there were actually a number of technical issues or mistakes the performers made that they nicely incorporated as jokes, which made it all the more fun. The arena also looked out onto the first half of Kraken, so that was an added bonus.
Following the show, we took a walk through the Pacific Point area of the park where we fed the sea lions and harbor seals before going to get our first ride on Kraken. Once again, we had to pay for the locker, but since Kraken and Journey to Atlantis were right near one another, we were able to use the same locker and ride each of them. Kraken had a very short wait, and I had wanted to ride in the front and back, so we took the opportunity of the short queue to take a spin in the front. After waiting around 10 minutes, we were on. I had neglected to ride in the front row on the other floorless coaster I had previously been on (Scream! @ SFMM), and I will say that the effect of the track flying beneath your feet is pretty cool. If you focus on looking down towards your feet, it really does look like you are on a chair that is suspended right above the track and flying over it. Pretty neat, but the real test is the ride itself obviously. Here I was not disappointed. The layout is very cool, and the pacing of the elements is solid, but the thing that surprised me most was the intensity. This thing really rips through its inversions, which is surprising, because it actually looked a bit slow just watching it. However, this ride is plenty intense, even more so than Kumba or Montu in my experience, which was a pleasant surprise. My head was actually a little “buzzed” after riding this, which rarely happens, so for that to happen must mean this thing pulls some pretty serious G’s. Overall, a very good coaster, sliding between Hulk and Kumba in a comparison of those 3 coasters.
Following Kraken, we journeyed over to Atlantis (pun intended) to refresh ourselves (it was getting a bit steamy out). Apparently, we weren’t the only ones with this thought, as the line said almost an hour, but we ended up waiting more or less ½ an hour. The ride was good, and although I didn’t wear my glasses, thereby hindering my ability to see details, it was a fun ride. The coaster part at the end is a nice surprise, and a interesting change for rides of this type, but it still comes nowhere close to beating Dudley in any way. Overall, it’s a cool ride though, even though I did not get especially wet (I was in the 2nd row, and really only<
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Scott
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4/8/2006 7:27:04 PM
shame that you didn't get to sea (haha) the show. The whale show was the highlight of my day at the park.
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Animan1
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4/9/2006 10:10:11 AM
Yes, it is a shame. I really like whales too (a look at my avatar should confirm that ) but all in all I think it worked out fine, and as I said, we probably learned more about the whales and their training/psychology in this modified show than we would have normally.
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BobFunland
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4/11/2006 2:57:15 PM
No Blue Horizons or Shamu Show? Shamu show is legendary and even Horizons is kinda cool (and most seem to LOVE it)
I think if you go there just for the rides, yea, you'll be disappointed, but I think its a pretty cool park. Still gotta do Wild Artic one of these days...
Message updated 4/11/2006 2:57:50 PM by BobFunland
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Animan1
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4/11/2006 3:10:36 PM
Nope, no Blue Horizons, and I'm sure you saw my lenghthy explanation about Shamu. But you haven't tried Wild Arctic yet? Well, maybe if you spent more time than just 3 hours at the park before rushing off to do another one...
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BobFunland
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4/12/2006 12:51:08 PM
heh if it wasn't free for me I never would have stopped there this past trip, I would have saved it for a full day. I mean I blew off a friend at Cypress just for Sea World that's how much I like the park (and Kraken)
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Animan1
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4/13/2006 10:29:02 AM
It is a nice park, though they could do with a few more rides. I guess it just feels a little odd to go to a park that's mostly animals, but has a flume/coaster combo, simulator, and B&M floorless just thrown in for good measure. A couple more coasters would make this good park a great park, imho.
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