Busch Gardens Tampa Bay

TLDR: Regretful buyer of 4 season passes. Needs serious TLC but we all know their corporate overlord SeaWorld isn't doing that.

Overall, this is an obscenely expensive, low rent, dangerous, and unhealthy place to visit. It's a zoo with a lot of problems mixed in.

Hygiene: They literally have smoking stations next to the sesame street area for toddlers. The smoking stations are always packed and the whole park is an ash tray. Plus 80% are just smoking blunts. So be prepared. Asthmatics and families beware.

Price: Most expensive day pass in Florida. Scammy season passes, they are not month to month as they advertise. It's absolutely a one year contract. The sparse food options are obscene. Literally got 40 nuggets, two large fries from the chic fil a and it costs over $75.00. The concession stand food everywhere else is middle school cafeteria quality but you're still paying basically $17.00 for a cafeteria style steamed hamburger burger from a chaffing dish not including fries or a drink.

Park: Basically no food options and almost all stores sell the exact same thing. Also, The concession stand places sell the same food as all the restaurants, excluding the ice cream place and chic fil a. That's overpriced cafeteria food. No fine dining or nice meal to be had.

This is not comparable to Universal or Disney.

The front end and trolley staff are mostly very rude, vulgar, teenagers with absolutely 0 customer service skills. Was absolutely called a very offensive slur by a team/trolley person. Additionally had two men at the ticket are where you show the passes look very inappropriately and obviously at the 13 year old girl with us. Pretty sure one was trying to take photos too. I made a point to call that out. When it rains, which it's Florida so it does, there are no coverings whatsoever near the vast majority of rides. The 13 yo with us also had to wait 20 minutes after winning a prize at the $20 ring toss because they were so short staffed he couldn't leave.

The animals...

This part hurts my heart. Go see several AFRICAN, not Indian, elephants standing aimlessly in the scorching heat. Their enclosure is smaller than the Panera Bread down the street. The big cats are incredibly bored and it's heart breaking. The great apes have the only valid enclosure there and even that is still when compared to other zoos.

Kids will love it because life has that innocent filter over it and it's a theme park, but you'll get a lot more with a quick day trip to Orlando for relatively the same cost. Plus you don't have to stare at majestic, stunning wildlife living in confinement. This is actually a pretty big issues throughout the state. Avoid animal attractions unless it's something like Two Tails ranch here.