Congo - Busch Gardens - Orlando / Florida Guide
Florida Guide > Other Parks
One year when visiting Florida we decided to buy tickets for Busch Gardens, Tampa which allowed us to enter as many times as we liked in a seven day period. Busch Gardens is a fairly easy drive from our villa (providing the traffic on the I4 keeps moving) and we could reach it in under an hour and a half. We got good value out of these tickets as we managed to go five times within the seven day period.
This particular day we decided we would like to also go to some of the beaches on the Gulf Coast so we combined this with a stop off at Busch on the way.
As we were only going to spend a few hours at the Park we decided to just visit the Congo area. Here you will find Kumba, Congo River Rapids and Ubanga- Banga.
Kumba if you translate it from the African Kongo language means ' roar” and that is what this roller coaster was designed to do. First of all you go up 143 ft. into a 135 ft. drop after which you speed up to a giant loop and your heart really is in your mouth.
As if this is not enough it is followed by a series of corkscrews and loops all ending in a cave. Wherever you are in the Park you can usuallyhear the loud “roar”of Kumba as it travels over the track.
We all love this ride thinking it is one of the best rides at Busch. Although it is a little bumpy that is what you would expect of an older steel roller coaster. The Park was busy this particular day but there was not a very big queue and it moved quickly and the staff were very friendly.
Our party then moved on to the Congo River Rapids. This takes you on a wild, white-water journey down a re-created Congo River. As you twirl along the river in circular rafts, guests are randomly splashed and plunged in the water as they bounce off surrounding banks, creating an unpredictable and often sopping-wet adventure. You encounter pouting jets, waterfalls and an ominous water cave which all make this a great experience and also an exercise in how not to get too wet! The only disappointment we had with this ride was that we had to queue for quite a long time yet the ride seemed short.
My Mother opted out of this ride instead standing along the river bank so that she could fire water spray jets at the unsuspecting guests. Fortunately her aim was not very good and she missed us completely!
Finally we went to the Ubanga- Banga bumper cars to dry out as we rode around banging into each other. We found these alright but no different really from bumper cars the world over.
After our few hours at Busch Gardens we headed off to Clearwater for an afternoon soaking up the sunshine on the beach.
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