2015/2016 - Gigacoaster - Rumor - (10/7/13) According to a local area source members of the ride engineering department from Busch Gardens Tampa were spotted at Canada’s Wonderland over the weekend. While neither park is a stranger big rides, especially B&M coasters, the one big thing that you can find at Canada’s Wonderland and no where else in the world would be Leviathan, a B&M Gigacoaster. Is BGT ready to build the coaster coaster in Central Florida to break the 300 foot height limit? Stay tuned!I would go crazy over a giga, because Florida needs a great airtime machine, and this one will definitely satisfy it (more than ever)!
There is also three reasons why I think it would be a possible/smart strategy:
1. With BGT breaking the 300 ft limit with Falcon's Fury, it would make sense for them to build a 300 ft coaster
2. With Carowinds building a giga for 2015, having a giga at BGT would allow a nice "duel in the South" in terms of gigas. However, if Carowinds is going with B&M, I'd want BGT would go with Intamin (because a B&M would be too similar). Though if they were looking at Leviathan, maybe they might choose B&M. Either one would make me happy! :P
3. BGT also needs something to attract crowds heading to Universal for Diagon Alley in 2014, plus the rumored Jurassic Park expansion and King Kong attraction (mainly Diagon Alley). A simple hyper wouldn't do the trick, nor would a woodie (except if they went with RMC or Intamin and aimed for tallest wooden in the world). A giga, however, would do the trick.
4. We have enough inversions in Florida!! LOL I love inversions, but we need an airtime machine with nothing but gigantic hills!
I do wonder if this is really replacing Gwazi or not though. While I'd think Gwazi would go, given the rumors recently, Screamscape didn't actually mention about the giga replacing Gwazi. Additionally, they reported that BGT has opted to keep Gwazi for the time being (on "life support"):
???? - Gwazi Status Updates - (9/3/13) According to the latest crazy rumors about Gwazi, I've heard that they only expect to keep Gwazi up and running (or rather the half that is still running) for another couple of seasons before they give up and demolish it. I'm guessing this means that they have a long-term plan in place to build some kind of replacement attraction on or near the site, which means we may not see a new coaster in the park until 2016.So if Gwazi doesn't go, where will this new ride end up rising? There's always the old rumors of Jungala Phase II, with a coaster being built from there all the way to Kumba/Congo River Rapids (those rumors died out after the InBev situation in 2008 I believe). That rumor could rise again. Plus, there's the possibility of tearing out Rhino Rally for a themed area, with a giga heading to Kumba/Congo River Rapids and a dark ride, plus animal exhibits and a new train station. However, I don't think it will happen just yet (trust me, as much as I would love for it to happen. RR definitely needs to go).
Of course if this means that Gwazi is officially on "life support" until they are ready to replace it, if anything very costly were to come up in the form of maintenance over the next couple of years, we could see the park opt to simply close it down early. So get your last rides in while you can.
I'm leaning logically towards either Gwazi's space or the old Jungala rumors. Bird Gardens needs a new attraction the most though so I'd prefer Gwazi's plot (though I'm probably the only one who likes Gwazi)! But we'll see how this goes! Stay tuned! :3
