Come visit Busch Gardens when it was 'The Dark Continent'
Come join me on another step back in time via one more Niles family home movie.
This time, we are visiting Busch Gardens The Dark Continent in Tampa, Florida. It's the early 1980s in the park now known as Busch Gardens Tampa Bay.
My family's silent Super 8 home movie mostly shows the animal exhibits and encounters at the park, though we do get a moment watching us drive the Ubanga-Banga Bumper Cars.
But the more notable ride in this home movie would be the elephant ride that my sister and I went on - something that I cannot imagine a reputable zoo or theme park offering today. Let's consider this a teaching moment - don't do what we did in riding, or Busch Gardens did in offering this to kids.
Check back tomorrow for my new home movie - this time featuring Busch Gardens' sister park... in Los Angeles.
Previously: Step back in time to visit Universal Studios in 1974 and Step back in time to visit Disneyland 50 years ago.
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FWIW, the Maryland Renaissance Festival (in its 50th year of operation) used to also offer elephant rides as recently as 2019 (PETA and other animal activists along with COVID pushed the Faire to discontinue the attraction).
I think "The Dark Continent's" most iconic attraction was the old Safari Monorail that took guests on an elevated tour of the Savanah. FYI, Kings Dominion used to have a similar safari monorail (was actually one of the few places in the park with AC, so was extremely popular on hot summer days). I do worry that combo parks like BGT, DAK, Sea World, SFGAdv, SFDK, and others are a dying breed as theme park operators (functioning more as entertainment companies than zoos) see diminishing returns from animal exhibits and attractions focused on conservation, live animals, and zoological features. The fact that Tropical Americas will seemingly not have any live animal exhibits and the ending of Animal Actors at USF confirms a trend that theme parks just don't want to invest money into live animals and their care.