After two years of waiting, the day has finally come to ride Iron Gwazi, Busch Gardens Tampa Bay’s latest addition to their globally renowned coaster lineup. Would the impressive Rocky Mountain Construction coaster live up to the immense hype and high anticipation?
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Before we get to Iron Gwazi, however, let’s take a quick stroll around the park. Kumba was the only other coaster we rode on our visit and it was running wonderfully.
Cheetah Hunt is looking marvelous in its fresh coat of paint. The colors are so bright, the formerly faded ride is almost unrecognizable.
Meanwhile over in Egypt, it’s Montu‘s turn to get a fresh coat! The yellow really pops on these once sand-colored supports.
Alright, enough preamble. Time to do what we came here to do!
Our expectations for Iron Gwazi were mixed: while we generally aren’t the biggest fans of Rocky Mountain Construction Iron Horse coasters, we found the layout for Iron Gwazi to be very appealing based on what we could see from pictures and renderings.
Iron Gwazi turned out to be a winning mix of big, sweeping elements and some sharp, rapid-fire forces that RMC are known for.
Unlike the kidney-punching nature of rides like Steel Vengeance, stand-out moments on Iron Gwazi are the sustained moments of what some enthusiasts like to call “ejector-floater” airtime.
The ride is ferocious and unrelenting, yet comfortable and re-rideable. It’s downright pleasant for an RMC, and frankly one the only ones we’ve ever felt compelled to re-ride multiple times.
And that about wraps up our amazing experience here at Iron Gwazi‘s media day. Thank you so much to Busch Gardens Tampa Bay for putting on a stellar event – like always – and I’d also like to offer special thanks for whomever it was that insisted on having a vegan meal opinion at the reception; the Grilled Veggies and Hummus sandwich was very good.
Check out a quick vlog of our day, including POVs of Iron Gwazi!
