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Jungala, a new four-acre addition to Busch Gardens Africa (formerly Busch
Gardens Tampa), threw open its doors for a soft opening this past weekend. What
was odd about the soft opening was that it was announced through the press, and
amounted to a regular opening, albeit with a few rides, play areas, and animal
exhibits not yet ready.
Most of Jungala is leafy and shaded.
The announcement must have galvanized every Tampa resident. By noon, we were
parking in the overflow lot across the street, something I'd never seen before
at this park. At the end of the day, when we were bused back over, I saw they'd
even had to use (and almost fill up) a second overflow lot. It was indeed busy
inside the park, much busier than I'd ever seen it before, but I was hugely
impressed with the ability of the park to absorb that much humanity. Lines were
not that crazy, and while people crowded the walkways (perhaps they were there
to see Charo?) it never got out of hand. I can only imagine the insanity if this
park used a ride-reservation system like FastPass.
I came with low expectations for the much vaunted animal experiences, and
high expectations for Jungle Flyers, the zip line ride, which sounded cool. In
brief, I was exactly backward. The two new rides here are explicitly for (older)
kids, and in fact the zip line ride requires passengers to be between ages 6 and
13, as well as over 48 inches tall. No one older than 13 can ride. And you know
what? The ride would be boring for an adult, I'd wager (and besides, adults
can't ride). I was expecting a high-speed, twisting, winding course that
squeaked through a canopy of trees. Um, no. It's a straight line path, there's
but one tree, and it looked to go slowly in testing. I suppose being high up may
add a thrill (I didn't ride it, obviously, and in fact it was still not open on
our Saturday visit). But on the whole, I was quite disappointed, compared to my
vision.
The zip line is largely unthemed.
The Wild Surge is the other ride in the area, and it can be compared to the
space-shot rides for kids that doesn't go crazy with insane speeds going up or
down, and does some bouncing around. You can ride at 38 inches if an adult comes
along, or 42 inches all by yourself.
It's good for a lark, and the line did seem to
move fast.
It pokes its head above a caldera, which adds some visual thrill to the area.
Adults can ride this one, and I was surprised that the line was not longer, even
on a crowded day such as this.
A waterfall around the other side reminds that
water is part of conservation efforts, too.
But forget all that. Let's talk about the animals. When you normally think of
Busch parks, you might be forgiven for thinking that their animal exhibits are
not tremendously interactive. You can touch rays and perhaps dolphins at Sea
World, but most of the time you're looking at the animals with a fair amount of
space between you and them, partly because so many of the animals are visible in
formal shows. So you watch, passive, in most cases aware that the animal doesn't
really see you.
Not exactly a close encounter of the dolphin
kind.
At Busch Gardens parks, it's usually worse than that. Busch Gardens Europe
(in Williamsburg) has animals around, but mostly the park exists for its
breathtaking scenery and tremendous roller coasters. It does have a lorikeet
area for feeding colorful birds.
The Tampa park has a lorikeet glen, too.
Busch Gardens Africa (in Tampa) has a great deal more animals, including an
entire veldt, but it comes across as a traditional zoo in a lot of ways. In
fact, the mixture of zoo plus thrill park seems a likely candidate for an
inspiration for Disney to build Animal Kingdom (DAK).
But oh, how DAK could learn from Jungala. Busch has raised the bar
substantially, and lurched suddenly to the limelight in zoo design. It will not
shock me in the least if they win major awards from Jungala.
What's so different? The animal encounters are up-close and personal. I came
in knowing about them theoretically, but I had dramatically underestimated the
power of the interaction. You can actually touch an orangutan through a mesh
screen (and with a handler nearby).
This feature is not open full-time, but only at certain intervals.
But that's nothing. You can come within inches of a white tiger, making you
feel like you've come within inches of your life. This particular tiger was just
as interested in the people as they were interested in him.
It's called pop-up viewing, and it certainly
had a line!
We didn't see it in use, but there's a tug of war facility in the tiger
enclosure.
The gravel walkway in the middle separates the
big cats from the big pansies
(the humans), so there is no possibility of an accidental mauling.
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