Florida Guide > Other Parks
The Kumba - Busch Gardens
For many people the attraction of visiting Florida falls into the following categories (great weather, great theme parks, great accommodation, great restaurants and great rides). Florida is constantly evolving and as such new rides are always designed and built, supplementing the already great rides already there. One of the parks that has this philosophy, is Busch Gardens. Here they are constantly looking at ways to build new exciting rides to tempt guests back to their park. That said Busch Gardens also has some great older rides, some of which actually better their younger brothers, having less wait times to ride them. One of the rides that fits this criteria is the KUMBA.
Located at the back of the park at Busch Gardens, the Kumba is a steel coaster that has multiple loops, travels at over 65mph and executes high speed turns and drops. In all you are inverted around 8 times and at times you are pulling very high G force. The ride is similar in design and feel to the HULK at Universal Studios. Having newer rides at Busch Gardens means queues for the older coasters tend to be shorter than some of the newer ones. Making the trip to ride these older rides makes good sense as often queues are very short. On average wait times for the Kumba, tend to be between 5 – 15 minutes as compared to the 45 minutes for the newer Cheetah run and Sheikra.
For most roller coaster fans the Kumba is one of the old school rides that inverts its riders and subjects them to big G forces on the turns, which makes for a very intense riding experience. The design (being on top of the track) makes for a much smoother ride than the Montu (Busch Gardens) or Dragons Challenge (Universal Studios Islands of Adventure) which hangs from the track, but does allow the ride to go faster than both of these pulling bigger loops and twists in the process.
To ride the Kumba people need to be 54 inches tall (which can be a disappointment for the younger members of the family), some of the newer rides Cheetah run (Busch Gardens) and Rip Ride Rockit (Universal Studios) are 51 inches. But as the ride does pull excessive G Force on some of the bigger loops, it is probably not a bad thing!
Top tip - Look to head to the ride first thing in the morning and you should be able to walk straight on without waiting at all. Often most people head for the Sheikra, Cheetah run and wait times are low for the Kumba and Montu (another underestimated ride at Busch Gardens).
If looking at riding one of the top 5 roller coasters in Florida, the Kumba is certainly a ride that is worth a look. When Queues are short you can sometimes ride several times without waiting a long time, often staying on the ride without getting off. When other rides in Florida have long queues this really is a bonus. Those that think it might be a bit long in the tooth and disregard, should re-consider their views as it is still one of the best rides out there and well worth a go. My opinion is it is still in the top 5 rides currently operating in Florida and well worth the trip over to Busch Gardens to ride it. See for yourself, you won’t be disappointed.
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