Busch Gardens Europe

Busch Gardens is a park I had visited in 2006 but since that visit the park had opened 2 new coasters and got rid of arguably their best one "Big Bad Wolf".

At the start of the day we were given an ERS on the biggest of the new coasters, the B&M dive machine "Griffon". This had been the third of these I'd ridden after Oblivion at Alton Towers and Sheikra at Busch Gardens Africa in Tampa. This ride was too similar to Sheikra to pick one over the other. ERS was a lot of fun though, had the ride ops join us on the last train.

Alpengeist was rougher than last time and I coined a new condition called skier-ear where the train whipped round on the entry to the cobra roll and it was difficult to not take a blow to the side of the head.

Apollo's Chariot was great in the back, still good in the middle. The park were operating a locker scam where bags couldn't be left on the station platform and had to be checked into a paid for locker. This meant we chose designated bagmen who'd sit the ride out and let others ride. Fortunately the queues were quick enough to ensure that bagmen would get their rides.

The other new coaster was "Grover's Alpine Express" and it was really quick for a kiddy ride, getting back to the station within seconds of it leaving. It's part of a new Sesame Street themed area for kids and big kids. The ride's name is an anagram of "Engravers Explore Piss" which explains what that yellow writing was etched into the ride supports.

Loch Ness was holding up pretty well. The theory that it might be due to there being no corkscrews could be true. I got to share the ride with a local enthusiast who knew a lot about the ride and visited the park every week for her Loch Ness fix. "Loch Ness Monster" is an anagram of "Hornless Scot Men" which explains why the ride ops weren't wearing antlers.

With regards to the other rides, Curse of Darkastle the 3d motion simulator ride (similar to Spiderman at IOA) was still pretty good but let down by some of the effects not working.

The ride broke down whilst we were queueing so we entertained ourselves with a game of "How many pairs of glasses can we stick on Darren's head". If you want an anagram of this ride then try "Fake Sled Cars Tour", which sort of describes what the ride is about.

The park's new attraction was "Europe in the Air", an attempt to recreate the "Soaring Over" rides that Disney had made popular. However it was obvious that this had been done on a budget and the attention to detail had suffered. If you do go and watch this during the French section watch for the reflection of the camera in the rear window of some of the traffic in the bottom-left corner of the shot for an example of what I mean. One good thing about this ride is that the queue line is lovely and cool and offers respite from the blazing heat.

For a park that is tight on security I found it very amusing that in their Scottish section of the park they had swords and guns for sale.

Liking the use of the phone box!

Perhaps the best registration plate.

One of my best photos of the trip came at Busch and it wasn't even a shot of a ride. This is one of their bald eagles which was more than happy to pose for me.

Busch Gardens Europe is still a stunning park despite the loss of Big Bad Wolf, which a lot of regular visitors are upset about, but time is a great healer and additions like Griffon will soften the blow. The biggest complaint I have with this park is the lack of decent photo opportunities for some of the rides. Alpengeist and Apollo's Chariot both suffer from this. They have sort of addressed this with Griffon, which has plenty of opportunities for the first half of the ride at least. I did raise this with the park GM who joined us for lunch and who agreed to take it on board. So if you see things improve in this area you know who to thank!