Great food, an abundance of beer, wine, and cocktails, an excellent new coaster (plus nine other classics), and a multitude of live entertainment all combine to make this Festival one rockin’ party!
Busch Gardens Food & Wine Festival is a seasonal event included with regular park admission, running Fridays through Sundays from March 11 through May 22. The Festival is located at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay and features 21 different food and beverage booths contained mainly in an area of the park between Iron Gwazi and the Bird Gardens, along with a concert series. Each booth offers a themed selection of small plates along with alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. There are 20 new dishes being offered this year. Food and beverage offerings can be purchased a la carte, or guests can buy a lanyard which offers multiple items at a discount. The opening of the Food and Wine Festival also coincided with the grand opening of the park’s newest roller coaster, Iron Gwazi.
Iron Gwazi
In 1999, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay opened what was then and is still a rarity in the State of Florida: a wooden coaster. The original Gwazi was actually two separate wooden coasters – Lion and Tiger – built together by Great Coasters International, perhaps better known as GCI, that sent riders dueling against each other and included several near-misses at various points on the ride. One can only theorize that had Gwazi been located in any other park, it could have been all the more beloved. However, with its two nearest neighbors being iconic powerhouses like Montu and Kumba, Gwazi just wasn’t destined to have the same guest satisfaction longevity. The ride closed permanently in 2015 and had been standing but not operating for several years thereafter.
Thankfully, the park was already at work on a replacement for this massive attractive, and soon thereafter, Iron Gwazi was born. The ride was designed by Rocky Mountain Construction, commonly referred to as RMC, a company which has made a name for itself in the past decade for building “hybrid” coasters. Many RMC designs have replaced aging wooden coasters, incorporating some of their existing wooden structure and footers into new and completely unique (and much smoother) steel-tracked designs. RMC designs are also well-known for offering extreme airtime and unique inversions and elements, satisfying seasoned coaster enthusiasts and casual park-goers alike. Iron Gwazi is no exception and is an excellent addition to the park’s ever-growing coaster line-up, and as an added bonus, it also happens to be the fastest and tallest roller coaster ever built in Florida.
Iron Gwazi had its grand opening on March 11, 2022. Standing at 206 feet tall and reaching a top speed of 76mph, Iron Gwazi exits the original ride’s station before climbing a steep lift hill that’s more than double the height of its original namesake, followed by a 91° – beyond vertical – drop. To put it in perspective, it is difficult to even see the bottom of the first drop from the top of the lift hill. From there, all hell breaks loose with an out-of-control feeling layout that includes several high-speed, airtime-packed highlights like the downward-dropping death roll and a truly wild wave turn.
Iron Gwazi is intense, if not extreme. The airtime elements are incredibly forceful, to the point where your thighs may end up bruised after multiple rides from the force of the lap bar holding you down during the rapid-fire airtime elements. That being said, seasoned coaster enthusiasts who have experienced multiple other large-scale RMC attractions will likely agree that Iron Gwazi delivers that forcefulness in a much more graceful manner that will likely result in a far more appealing ride for lesser traveled riders. It is an incredible addition to the park and confirms Busch Gardens Tampa Bay as a must-visit destination for locals and tourists alike.
Escape Authority was invited to try a taste of Busch Gardens Food & Wine Festival through a special after hours party, Corks and Coasters. During the night of our visit, only select booths were available for tasting, which we will cover here. However, there are many more offerings for guests to try during normal event hours.
The food offerings are generally considered small plates, permitting guests to sample a variety of different options without getting full after one or two dishes. As we discuss more later on in this review, the multi-item samplers will come in handy to try many offerings at a reduced per-item cost.
Seasonally Inspired
The Sour Orange Glazed Burnt Ends Pork Belly Bites were offered at the “Seasonally Inspired” booth. They came garnished with sesame seeds and sliced scallions and were served alongside fried sweet plantains. The sweetness of the plantains complemented the savory pork belly nicely.
The sauce was tangy and had sweetness from the oranges, but neither flavor was overpowering. More orange flavor could have been nice, but overall this was a very well done dish that we would try again again on a future visit.
There’s no question that on our next visit, we will try the Mini Impossible Avocado Slider, which sounds delicious based on the menu description.
Southern Kitchen
We were stuffed by the time we finished this plate, so we plan to save the Cajun Garlic Shrimp & Grits for our next visit. Based on what we did try, we have high expectations for this dish!
Coaster Cocktails
Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, being formerly owned by Anheuser-Busch, has always been known for its beer offerings, and the park continues to have great options in this respect. Given this background, we admire their ambition to try their hand at specialty coaster-themed cocktails. Unfortunately, while these selections all had promise on paper, with a creative mix of spirits and mixers, they all ended up missing the mark on execution.
The Iron Gwazi Fizz had all the makings of an inventive take on a classic gin fizz, but the lemonade ended up overpowering the other flavors. An easy fix would be to substitute pure lemon juice for the lemonade and to cut back on the sweet Grenadine and Blue Curacao, which would better allow the flavor of the gin and lavender to come through.
The 91° Drop suffered from a similar problem as the the Iron Gwazi Fizz, which again meant too much lemonade. The Melon Liqueur and Triple Sec also made for an incredibly sweet drink. Again, cutting back on the too-sweet mixers would have gone a long way toward improving this cocktail.
Finally, the Hybrid Heat was the Festival’s spicy take on a classic Jack and Coke. And once again, this cocktail was on the very sweet side, though the bit of spiciness that came courtesy of the Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire was a welcome addition. Coca-Cola is already sweet, so adding Disaronno on top of that probably may not have been necessary, in my opinion.
Overall, obviously, whether you like these cocktails will boil down to your tolerance for very sweet drinks and your own personal preferences for what flavors appeal to you. While very sweet cocktails were not our personal preference, we can easily imagine other guests with different palates enjoying these beverages, and we appreciated the effort that went into coming up with these cocktails.
The Festival also features a concert series, with a line-up of famous acts including Air Supply, Scott Stapp (the former lead singer of Creed), 3 Doors Down, and tribute bands to Fleetwood Mac, Selena, Gloria Estefan, the Beatles, the Eagles, Prince, and others. These concerts are included with park admission and take place in the Festival Field stage. A full line-up and schedule can be found here. The Festival also includes other entertainment offerings as shown above, including living topiaries (actors dressed in large topiary costumes), which provide for very amusing selfies.
Busch Gardens Tampa Bay continues to impress us with its seasonal offerings, and the Busch Gardens Food and Wine Festival is no exception. The Festival food and beverage offerings can be purchased a la carte, but with most items priced at least $8-10 individually, a much better value is had by purchasing one of the samplers (current pricing is shown here). For instance, for $80, regular admission guests can purchase a sampler good for 15 items throughout the Festival and this increases to 18 items for Pass Members, bringing the price per item as low as $4.44 for Pass Members, which is a considerable savings off the a la carte pricing.
Busch Gardens Tampa Bay is home to ten different roller coasters (the most of any park in Florida), including the timeless and historic multi-looping Kumba, the excellent and intense inverted Montu, the multi-launch Cheetah Hunt, and the dive coaster SheiKra (featuring two 90 degree drops). And, of course, we can’t wait to get more rides in on Iron Gwazi.
Park guests can also purchase Quick Queue to greatly reduce their wait times on most of the park’s coasters and attractions. Quick Queue is currently offered in three tiers: the standard Quick Queue, which allows one use per select attractions; Quick Queue Unlimited, which allows unlimited uses per select attractions; and Quick Queue Unlimited Plus Iron Gwazi One-Time, which as the name suggests is currently the only option valid for use at Iron Gwazi. The prices of these products vary depending on the tier chosen and also based on the expected crowd levels at the park. If you’re interested in purchasing Quick Queue on your visit, click here to view the official page on the park’s website.
You can find an extended photo gallery from our night at Tampa Bay’s 2022 Busch Gardens Food & Wine Festival in this exclusive album on the Escape Authority Facebook page! While there, why not give us a “LIKE” if you haven’t already? We’ll share the dessert!
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Venue: Busch Gardens Tampa Bay
Location: Tampa, FL
Dates: Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, March 11th – May 22nd, 2022
Hours: 12:00pm to Park Close (closing times vary and can be found here)
Cost: Prices vary from $95.99 – $109.99 if purchased in advance online, and $124.99 at the gate. Other special discounts are available. This event is included with all valid Annual Passes and Fun Cards
We thank Busch Gardens Tampa Bay for inviting us to experience this event. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, that in no way impacts the opinion included within this review.