Why You Should Visit Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida

Have you ever been to Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida? If you like going to zoos and amusement parks, then you will love Busch Gardens! It is a combination of rides and animals, so you get the best of both attractions. This is a kid-friendly place, so you can enjoy it with your whole family!

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Things to Do at Busch Gardens

There are lots of things to see and do at Busch Gardens. There are tons of animals you can see, roller coasters and other rides to go on, and shows to see.

Your ticket into Busch Gardens allows you to see all the animals, ride all the rides, and see shows.

Animals at Busch Gardens

When I arrived at Busch Gardens, I didn’t expect to see as many animals as I did. I thought it would only have a few animals considering there were lots of rides in the park as well.

Busch Gardens has a lot of cool animals that you can see, and you can even interact with a few of them.

Interacting with Animals

One of the best things about Busch Gardens is that they allow you to interact with a lot more animals than most zoos.

In Walkabout Way®, you can feed and pet kangaroos, wallabies, and wallaroos. Even if you don’t purchase food for the animals, you can still pet them!

This was my favorite exhibit because I got to touch a bunch of the animals and get so close to them.

You can also take a 30-minute long safari ride through the African plains to see animals like zebras and giraffes. Sometimes you get to feed the giraffes as well.

At Lory Landing you can feed lorikeets right from your hand. It’s really cool to be able to get so close to beautiful birds.

There are also Busch Gardens Ambassadors that allow you to touch animals that you normally would never get to interact with such as sloths, flamingos, snakes, and aardvarks. When I visited, I got to touch a baby alligator!

Check out their website to read all about their animal interaction opportunities.

Other Animals to See

Some of the other animals you can expect to see at Busch Gardens are lions, tigers, cheetahs, gorillas and other primates, elephants, hippos, and penguins.

They have many other animals besides those I’ve mentioned, but those are some of the highlights.

One of the cool things about the cheetah exhibit is that the cheetahs have a lot of room to run, so you can sometimes see them running through the long exhibit.

Rides to Enjoy

Besides all the cool animals you can see, there are lots of roller coasters and other rides to go on.

When it’s hot out, you can enjoy riding on a couple of their water rides.

I enjoyed all the rides I went on. It’s cool that you can see the animals from the rides.

Visit Shows

There are always different shows you can see while at Busch Gardens for no extra charge.

If you’re feeling tired or want to get out of the heat, going to a show is a great idea! Relax and watch terrific performances suitable for the whole family.

Shopping

Busch Gardens has a lot of cool gift shops where you can purchase all kinds of souvenirs.

One of the things that I enjoyed about Busch Gardens was the Egyptian themed area. They had cool Egyptian things to look at, and the gift shop nearby had a lot of things in it that I wanted to buy.

Info About Busch Gardens

Since Busch Gardens is located in Tampa, Florida, you can go year around.

We visited on New Years Day several years ago, and it was such a fun time to visit. There was Christmas music playing throughout the park, and they still had Christmas decorations up.

One of the nice things that Busch Gardens does is that if the weather is bad and it rains, they let you come back for free on any day within a year’s time.

Buy Tickets for Busch Gardens

There are a lot of options for tickets at Busch Gardens.

If you are vacationing in the area, we suggest you check out CityPASS.

CityPASS allows you to visit Busch Gardens, and four other Tampa attractions for a low price. If you are planning on visiting other Tampa attractions, you should check it out.

Besides Busch Gardens, they also have a water park called Adventure Island that is right by Busch Gardens. You can purchase tickets just to Busch Gardens, or you can buy tickets that include access to Adventure Island or other Busch Garden parks.

You can also choose to get a package deal with hotel accommodations.

If you live near Busch Gardens, it would probably make more sense to buy an annual pass because it’s a really good deal.

There are lots of add-ons that you can get for your tickets like animal tours, skip the line at rides, and meal passes.

Check out their website for all the ticket options.

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