Sleepover at SeaWorld and Busch Gardens

Don’t you hate it when your day at the Orlando theme parks is over and you have to go back to your hotel? It’s kind of like the post-trip blues—you never want your day to end. SeaWorld Orlando and Busch Gardens Tampa Bay have come up with the remedy for that with their “Explore the Park After Dark” sleepover camps for kids, families and groups. This set of sleepover camps and events will give guests a night they’ll never forget at two of the biggest theme parks Florida has to offer.

Over at SeaWorld, the new Manta ride will be the site of one of the sleepover events. Manta’s queue is an incredible collection of tanks that hold beautiful varieties of rays and fish that glide peacefully around and above you. A lot of times if someone “chickens out” in line or just doesn’t want to ride SeaWorld’s newest coaster, they’ll head back to the aquarium display and check it out until the rest of their group is done riding.

This is also a great option for children in the scout programs. SeaWorld and Busch Gardens have programs for both the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts. A park educator will work with the scouts (depending on their age and scout levels) to teach them about the animals living in the habitats they will be visiting. So not only will your children be having a fantastic time, they will be learning a lot about nature and wildlife as well! For families with children in grades K-5, you can have the same sleepover experience even on holidays! Thanksgiving, Halloween and Christmas are all open for family sleepovers at the SeaWorld theme park. The event starts at 6 p.m. with a pizza party and ends at 9 a.m. the next day with a Continental breakfast.

Over at Busch Gardens, you can camp out at the “Tiger Lodge." This air-conditioned area is an enclosed space over the tiger habitat in Busch Garden’s Jungala. The Busch Gardens sleepover package also includes a Sunrise Safari over their Serengeti Plain and a commemorative t-shirt and water bottle. There’s even a very special sleepover package at this Busch Gardens park—one that involves an animal encounter with wildlife celebrity expert Jack Hanna! Sleepovers for birthday groups and educators are also available with special package offerings catered to the kind of group that decides to camp out at the park.

Nighttime attractions like fireworks displays and animal shows are also available to the sleepover guests of both Busch Gardens and SeaWorld. This unique experience is available on select dates and holidays throughout the year, so get your sleeping bags ready and head on down to SeaWorld or Busch Gardens Tampa Bay.

Busch Gardens: 50 Years of Thrills

On March 31, 1959, August A. Busch Jr. officially dedicated Busch Gardens, which was, at that time, an admission-free hospitality facility for the nearby Anheuser-Busch manufacturing plant. Fifty years later, the manufacturing plant has long since closed, but the hospitality facility has developed into a bustling Tampa theme park filled with exhilarating roller coasters, beautiful landscapes, and exotic animal experiences.

To mark its successful history, the park has opened an incredible new historical exhibit next to the Clydesdale Hamlet. In the exhibit, guests can browse various displays featuring hundreds of memorabilia items and photographs marking every major event and attraction at the park over the past fifty years. Among them is a 100-foot memory wall featuring a photograph of Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio taken the day she started work at the park’s Zagora Café, a photograph of the day dozens of couples got married as they rode Kumba, and opening day aerial photographs that show the abandoned Army airbase runways that today lurk hidden near Adventure Island.

The park put out a call among its staffers for people to bring in any memorabilia they had lying around, and employees responded in force. One accounting clerk brought in her old belly dancer costume from when she was a snake charmer at the park, while others brought in painted gremlins from the Gnome Village, which had been serving as doorstops in the corporate offices. Other items now on display were dug up from the park’s archives, including conceptual art of rides like Montu, which was initially planned to be a coaster built inside a giant Egyptian pyramid.

The search for memorabilia is still ongoing as the exhibit, which will be on display at least through the end of the year, expands; by this summer, it will include video anecdotes from park veterans and former executives.

The exhibit is certainly a valuable look at the history of a park that has grown to become one of Orlando’s most popular, with six roller coasters, 2,000 animals, and 3,000 employees running the operations. Among the attractions at the Africa-themed Busch Gardens Tampa are Sheikra, North America’s first dive coaster which sends riders 200 feet up, then 90 degrees straight down; Kumba, a breathtaking ride featuring a 135-foot drop, 360 degree spirals, and one of the world’s largest vertical loops; Montu, one of the tallest and longest inverted roller coasters in the world; Gwazi, a wooden coaster with two interwoven tracks; and the Scorpion, featuring a 60-foot drop and 360-degree loop at incredible speeds.

Busch Gardens also offers countless animal encounters, available in habitats like Serengeti Plain, featuring hundreds of exotic African animals; Myombe Reserve, a lush forest filled with gorillas and chimpanzees; the Bird Gardens, containing almost 500 tropical birds; and Lory Landing, a domed habitat showcasing a variety of brilliantly colored birds. These exciting habitats, along with shows, tours, and other experiences, ensure that Busch Gardens will be Florida favorite for yet another 50 years.

If you’ve never visited Busch Gardens, don’t wait until its next bicentennial; make some time to explore this beloved Tampa theme park during your next vacation, and save on your adventure by purchasing discount Busch Gardens tickets from DWTickets.com.

Stages are Burning up at Busch Gardens

If you love popular dance shows like So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars, you’ll love the latest show heating up the dance floor at Busch Gardens Africa. Sixteen dancers from around the world will set the Desert Grille stage on fire when the park presents Let’s Dance featuring Burn the Floor. This exciting new dance show opened on January 12th and will be available until April 19th.

Set against a fast-paced soundtrack of familiar dance favorites, including “Do You Wanna Dance?” and “Turn the Beat Around,” Let’s Dance features popular dances as you’ve never seen them before. In a mini-version of their popular internationally touring show, dance troupe Burn the Floor offers a new twist on the Foxtrot, Tango, Rumba, Cha-cha, Jive, Swing, Mambo, and more.

Burn the Floor features incredible professional dancers with an amazing amount of talent and experience. The troupe is choreographed by one of Australia’s most successful dance couples, Jason Gilkison, who’s earned World, British, and International Champion titles. He was recently featured during the finals for So You Think You Can Dance and is currently working with a new reality TV competition, Superstars of Dance.

The dance troupe also features show managers and dancers Trent Whiddon and his partner, Gordana Grandosek, who hold several national and international dance championship titles. Grandosek recently placed second on the Slovenian version of Dancing with the Stars, and Whiddon was a featured professional on the Australian version of the show.

You can catch Let’s Dance featuring Burn the Floor everyday through April 19th in the park’s Timbuktu area; this hot contemporary ballroom dancing show is free with regular admission to Busch Gardens.

Let’s Dance is a sizzling new addition to Busch Gardens’ The Real Music Concert Series, which is back in the Stanleyville Theatre. After watching Burn the Floor spice things up on the dance floor, guests can catch an incredible lineup of bands performing from January 14th through March 21st. You’ll see performers like The Terry Myers Orchestra, The Osmond Brothers, The Monkeys lead singer Micky Dolenz, the Little River Band, and more. Concerts are every Wednesday through Saturday at 11:30 am, 1 pm, and 3:30 pm, and a different performer lights up the stage each week.

So be sure to pack some water when you heard over to Busch Gardens this January – with fiery dance performances and lots of toe-tapping music, this African theme park is sure to take you on one hot ride! And you’ll be able to jam to the tunes even harder when you save on discount Busch Gardens tickets at DWTickets.com.

Busch Gardens - Tampa

Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida is one of America's most exciting roller-coaster theme parks. Every ride at Busch Gardens is a hair-raising, spine-tingling rush of adrenaline-pumping excitement that keeps you coming back for more. I have not been to Busch Gardens in a few years, but after doing some research of what is going on over there in the next couple of months, I cannot wait to get over to Tampa and hit those coasters! Busch Gardens has an African theme with ridiculously thrilling and chilling roller-coasters such as the Kumba, Montu, Skeikra, Congo River Rapids, and many more. A recently new show, Pirates 4-D is a hilariously entertaining 4-D comedy adventure for the entire family - taking place in the new Timbuktu Theater.

Busch Gardens also has a Serengeti Railroad where you can explore the Serengeti Plain with large herds of beautiful African animals. Animals such as free-roaming giraffes, zebras, ostrich, and antelopes can be viewed in a very natural habitat. When touring on the Serengeti Express inside Busch Gardens, you feel like you are on an African safari. Busch Gardens also has a brand new musical review called the Mirage Canteen where you can travel back in time to the 1940's and hear music and see costumes from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Busch Gardens is only an hour drive from Orlando and the Disney theme parks, and is well worth the trip. If you are really into some intense roller-coaster action, head over to Busch Gardens - Tampa for the time of your life.