Theme Park Time: Busch Gardens

Busch Gardens is an African based Theme Park in Florida, North America. It has a total of 24 rides including 8 roller coaster and 3 water rides. It opened in 1959 and still operates as a popular Theme Park being just an hour's drive from Orlando, Florida's capital.

The park has 10 sections, Morocco, Bird Gardens, Sesame Street of Fun, Stanleyville, Congo, Jungala, Timbuktu, Nairobi, Crown Colony Plaza, and Egypt. Here are the roller coasters:

Gwazi

Gwazi is a wooden dueling coaster. The two trains on each track are the Lion and the Tiger. Both trains can reach speed of 81km/h on the roller coaster and both have a drop of 32m. It opened in 1999, a few months after Florida's only other dueling roller coaster Dueling Dragons, at Universal's Islands Of Adventure. Gwazi holds the record for most fly-bys on a dueling coaster, with six. A fly-by is when two roller coasters pass each other in opposite directions in high speeds, giving the illusion of crashing into the other roller coaster. In 2011, new trains were added to decrease the roughness of the ride.

Kumba
Kumba is a B 'n' M sit down roller coaster. It held the record for most inversions when it first opened, with seven. The opening of Dragon Khan surpassed the record, with 8 at PortAdventura in 1995. It was the first roller coaster to feature a dive loop, and interlocking corkscrews(shown in picture). It features a 35m high vertical loop wrapping around the station, a dive loop, a zero-g roll, a Cobra Roll, and 2 interlocking corkscrews. It can reach speeds of 97km/h and has a drop of 41m. The track was repainted in 2011.

Montu

Montu is an inverted roller coaster, which means instead of the the trains sitting on top of the track, they sit under the track. Montu is found in the Egypt section. When it opened in 1996, it was the fastest and tallest inverted coaster in the world, one year later, Alpengeist at Busch Gardens Williamsburg surpassed that record. It can reach speeds of 97km/h, has a drop of 46m, and has seven inversions including 2 vertical loops, an immelmann loop, a zero-g roll, a batwing element, and a corkscrew. It was also built by B 'n' M, after the success of Kumba.

SheiKra
SheiKra is a B 'n' M Dive Machine roller coaster in the Stanleyville section of the park. It was the first Dive Machine Roller Coaster in North America. The name derived from a Shikra, and Asian African Hawk that is known to dive straight down for its prey. It has a vertical drop, with another 81 degree drop. It only has one inversion, an immelmann loop. It was the first coaster with a true 90 degree drop, with other being close such as Oblivion at Alton Towers having 88 degree drop. The coaster also has a splashdown event, where water emits from the back of the train.

Other Roller Coasters

Busch Gardens also has 3 other roller coasters, Air Grover, a childrens roller coaster featured in the Sesme Street section, Sand Serpent, a steel wild mouse, and Scorpion, a Schwarzkopf produced looping roller coaster, with only 3 of it's kind left in the world.