It will live on in the form of a New Giga Coaster
News Kumba Set to Close on August 2nd
- Thread starter Python_Survivor
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Bummer I was looking at a fall trip to Tampa which would have been my first Visit guess Kumba is going to be a missed credit as I don't see any way I can get there in the next 3 two weeks. Really wish they would gave given some more notice
I hate this for you. I really wish you (and anyone else who won't be able to ride it) had the chance. The sheer power of the combination and transition of elements from the vertical loop to dive loop to zero-g roll and the tiny hop into the cobra roll is unmatched.
Been there 3 times in the past year and a half, and was unable to get on it all 3 times. The most recent time was after the refurbishment too. I had a bad feeling leaving that day I’d never get a chance to ride it. 
Lindsey Graham on Sunday, Sam Neill on Monday, Kumba on Tuesday. Hell of a week!
Project Purple on one of those days
Total guess: Kumba is closing for nearby construction for a Giga, and they are using this time to also retrack portions of the ride.
Frankie Valli on Wednesday, Clementon Park on Thursday, GameStop on Friday. They’re all walking corpses as is.
God, this one hurts. I honestly believe Kumba will go down as THE B&M looper. I doubt we'll ever see another like it in the future and it's almost certainly the best of its breed. Really awful loss for BGT's lineup and for the broader community at large.
My 11 year old coaster enthusiast son wanted to ride this so bad. It was always down when we went. Zero percent chance making it before it closes. I don't fucking care if it's a giga. I don't care if it's the greatest coaster in the world. BGT stop destroying your park. What the fuck are you thinking?? Very sad day. And NO gigas are not the end all, be all.
In early 1993 in Maryland, I was standing in a drug store that no longer exists and reading what I believe was a Time or Newsweek magazine, neither of which exist any longer in print form. A multi-page article with arresting, gorgeous photos highlighted an upcoming roller coaster called Kumba at Busch Gardens Tampa, a park I had only seen in a handful of advertising photos. The commercial web-oriented Internet effectively didn't exist, so apart from very rare TV commercials or the rare wandering brochure, there was no way to really see such places unless one physically went to Tampa, or maybe subscribed to weird enthusiast magazines whose availability was shared only by word of mouth and the occasional news media mention. So this article was it.
It gave a fawning (and well-deserved) account of the revolution that was coming to amusement rides in the form of Kumba... the maneuvers and elements not attempted by other manufacturers, the four-across seating, and especially the incredibly tight engineering and manufacturing tolerances. I learned from that article that construction of roller coasters from the most popular manufacturers of the day often became challenging when the last piece of track was lifted into place and ended up misaligned with the first piece by a foot or more. By contrast, Kumba's misalignment had been something like a quarter of an inch. It was nearly perfect.
The photos looked like nothing I had ever seen. The box frame track spine with all its triangular facets was totally new to me. It was innately gorgeous. And the setting was the lush tropical backdrop of BGT, a park with serious aura around it despite the fact that most people in Maryland had never been there. Most kids I knew had been to the Williamsburg park, and the Tampa park was said to be every bit as good but with flamingoes and elephants and palm trees - so without a ton of photos to go by, it lurked unknowably at the edge of kids' imaginations like a distant giraffe silhouetted against a rising moon. I think this was why it grabbed my attention far more than Batman at Great America, a B&M innovation that set in motion an even greater revolution in steel ride design, and which nobody I knew (including me) had any knowledge of, despite it having a one-year head start on Kumba.
To regular old non-enthusiast people just living their lives day to day in the DMV, Kumba was the first indicator of a distant coming-out party for the New Thing in roller coasters. There was something special about taking the most conventional and familiar formula in steel coasters and improving it to the point where nearly everyone could innately tell the old way of designing rides was a dead man walking, and even a mainstream magazine was writing about design + fabrication + construction error stack-ups. To this day, I wish I had bought that magazine with my allowance. I haven't been able to find the article since.
Seeing this 30+ year epoch come to an end -- with B&M diminished to a mid-pack player in the space, BGT relegated to a shadow of its former glory, and Kumba itself passing into the realm of things that no longer exist -- is a bit mind boggling. I am glad to have been alive to experience that entire arc from start to finish.
It gave a fawning (and well-deserved) account of the revolution that was coming to amusement rides in the form of Kumba... the maneuvers and elements not attempted by other manufacturers, the four-across seating, and especially the incredibly tight engineering and manufacturing tolerances. I learned from that article that construction of roller coasters from the most popular manufacturers of the day often became challenging when the last piece of track was lifted into place and ended up misaligned with the first piece by a foot or more. By contrast, Kumba's misalignment had been something like a quarter of an inch. It was nearly perfect.
The photos looked like nothing I had ever seen. The box frame track spine with all its triangular facets was totally new to me. It was innately gorgeous. And the setting was the lush tropical backdrop of BGT, a park with serious aura around it despite the fact that most people in Maryland had never been there. Most kids I knew had been to the Williamsburg park, and the Tampa park was said to be every bit as good but with flamingoes and elephants and palm trees - so without a ton of photos to go by, it lurked unknowably at the edge of kids' imaginations like a distant giraffe silhouetted against a rising moon. I think this was why it grabbed my attention far more than Batman at Great America, a B&M innovation that set in motion an even greater revolution in steel ride design, and which nobody I knew (including me) had any knowledge of, despite it having a one-year head start on Kumba.
To regular old non-enthusiast people just living their lives day to day in the DMV, Kumba was the first indicator of a distant coming-out party for the New Thing in roller coasters. There was something special about taking the most conventional and familiar formula in steel coasters and improving it to the point where nearly everyone could innately tell the old way of designing rides was a dead man walking, and even a mainstream magazine was writing about design + fabrication + construction error stack-ups. To this day, I wish I had bought that magazine with my allowance. I haven't been able to find the article since.
Seeing this 30+ year epoch come to an end -- with B&M diminished to a mid-pack player in the space, BGT relegated to a shadow of its former glory, and Kumba itself passing into the realm of things that no longer exist -- is a bit mind boggling. I am glad to have been alive to experience that entire arc from start to finish.
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I rode Kumba once on my BGT visit. Less than hours previously I’d ticked off the other local big cat coaster in Tampa that also was retired six months ago. I thought it was closing at 4:00 that day and I arrived at 3:00, so I power walked all the way to the back of the park and grabbed my one row 7/8 ride on it. I don’t remember it terribly well but my TR at the time said it was really punchy and ran well so that’s what I’ll go with. It closed six days later for that ten months of downtime, too, so yeah I lucked out.
I’ve been saying for years this was going to be the decade where older B&M’s began dropping like flies. We’ve since seen Nemesis and Dragon Khan both get steered towards rebuilds while Green Lantern got binned and it’s unclear what happens to Kumba. Mark my words, Raptor and Kraken aren’t far behind.
I’ve been saying for years this was going to be the decade where older B&M’s began dropping like flies. We’ve since seen Nemesis and Dragon Khan both get steered towards rebuilds while Green Lantern got binned and it’s unclear what happens to Kumba. Mark my words, Raptor and Kraken aren’t far behind.
This really sucks. We all knew it was coming, and I’m happy the ride survived as long as it did, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. Kumba has always been my favorite B&M sit down.
That being said, 100 million dollars is huge. I’m really hoping this park can pick itself back up and make something great out of this loss.
That being said, 100 million dollars is huge. I’m really hoping this park can pick itself back up and make something great out of this loss.
Unfortunately we have a situation where a whole lot of idiots keep talking shit about B&M on a regular basis so no one should be surprised by this news.
You hope they can 'pick themselves up'? Fuck off
You believe thoosies complaining about current B&M quality issues influenced BGT's decision to close their classic B&M looper? That is remarkably stupid.
What's even your criticism of @cricket's totally reasonable post? You don't want BGT to improve itself? Weird stance, but you do you I guess.
The unfortunate truth is that we’re at a point in time where decisions are going to start needing to be made about some of the older B&Ms. Some will be worth refurbishing and some won’t, some parks aren’t going to want to put the money into refurbishments, and some parks are going to want to spend that money on a new coaster that isn’t roughly 30 years old.
As evidenced by this news, we ain’t gonna be happy about all of them. Hell, of the three that have closed; prematurely counting Kumba; Green Lantern is the only one that very few people have been upset about. Even Firebird, making the very safe assumption that it won’t see a third (fourth counting the floorless conversion) lease on life, has some pretty upset that the original B&M is gone, although endless shit was talked about it when it was open.
The inverts seem to have had a better time aging than the rest of B&M’s early lineup, but as B&M ages, the likelihood of some of their earliest coasters closing is obviously going to rise. I would be fairly shocked if Vortex, Rougarou, or Patriot (a bit obvious on that one, Flight Deck is also the exception for inverts) are around in 10 years, and SFGAdv’s Medusa has had rumors thrown around every couple years for as long as I can remember; although I could easily see that one lasting far longer than anyone expects to out of pure spite at this point, and I’d be perfectly okay with that.
As evidenced by this news, we ain’t gonna be happy about all of them. Hell, of the three that have closed; prematurely counting Kumba; Green Lantern is the only one that very few people have been upset about. Even Firebird, making the very safe assumption that it won’t see a third (fourth counting the floorless conversion) lease on life, has some pretty upset that the original B&M is gone, although endless shit was talked about it when it was open.
The inverts seem to have had a better time aging than the rest of B&M’s early lineup, but as B&M ages, the likelihood of some of their earliest coasters closing is obviously going to rise. I would be fairly shocked if Vortex, Rougarou, or Patriot (a bit obvious on that one, Flight Deck is also the exception for inverts) are around in 10 years, and SFGAdv’s Medusa has had rumors thrown around every couple years for as long as I can remember; although I could easily see that one lasting far longer than anyone expects to out of pure spite at this point, and I’d be perfectly okay with that.
Picking themselves up from their pathetic operations would be nice, yes. I skipped a quick trip to the park in February this year because I (correctly) assumed a ton would be closed, and now I will never ride Kumba because of it. Not that I would’ve expected it to be open on my trip, because it seems like I can’t do a park trip anymore without a headliner being down.
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