Roller Coasters

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Last weekend, for my daughter's birthday, we spent a long 4-day weekend in Tampa, Florida, kicking off the celebrations on Friday with a visit to Busch Gardens Tampa. I have to preface this discussion with the fact that everyone in my family is roller coaster junkies. And living in Florida, we have easy driving access to over 60 roller coasters, ten of them in Busch Gardens alone. My daughter, gf and I drove to Tampa from Gainesville, about a 2 hour drive. My son drove from south Florida, about a 4 hour drive. We met at Busch Gardens at 9:30am, for the 10:00am opening. It was a gorgeous, cool day, with not a cloud in the sky. A perfect day for visiting a theme park. And for some unknown reason, Busch Gardens was an absolute ghost town that particular Friday. We had the entire park to ourselves, and never once throughout the day did we have to wait in any line whatsoever. So we rode roller coasters. All of them. Over and over dozens of times each. I've never ridden so many roller coasters so many times in my life before. It was amazing! Busch Gardens has a new roller coaster called Iron Gwazi, which we rode first. It instantly became my new favorite coaster. It is currently America's tallest and the world's fastest and steepest hybrid coaster. It is 206 feet tall with a 91-degree drop, and reaches speeds up to 76 mph. I wish I had taken a picture to show you, but unfortunately I was just too blown away by this coaster to stop and take a photo. Instead, I have included a photo of my second favorite coaster, Sheikra. Sheikra is a dive coaster second in intensity only to Iron Gwazi. Sheikra is 200 feet tall, has a 90-degree drop, and reaches speeds of 70 mph. What makes this coaster unique is that as soon as the ride vehicle crests the ascent and just about begins the descent on the 90-degree drop, they stop it and hold you there for about 10 seconds, so that you are looking straight down like you are about to fall to your death. And then you plunge down the 90-degree drop and the fun begins! How about you? Are you fans of roller coasters? The photo shows the ride vehicle at the top of Sheikra just about to round the top and dangle for a few seconds before dropping. Looks scare, don't you think? I insist on sitting in the front row every time I ride this roller coaster.