The Biggest PROBLEM With Iron Gwazi

One of the world's BEST roller coasters has some TERRIBLE operations. This means you will have to wait in an excruciatingly long and slow queue to experience this attraction. I know this video may seem very negative, but if we all complain loud enough, hopefully we can inspire change! Sometimes it is okay to bully a corporation. Full review of the actual attraction will be coming... eventually.
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[@themeparknerd643]

At 3:29 you can see loose articles SITTING ON THE RIDE PLATFORM, which means they aren’t even consistent with their policies. Just another reason to be upset. It’s too bad I didn’t see this while editing.

[@ixorikarlsen]

Former Iron Gwazi ride op here (one of the fast ones). I'd like to explain a few things and I'm gonna make this comment from my alt account for what I'm about to say. First off, I would like to thank you for noticing the glaring problems about the ride which I also notice when I attend the park as a guest as well as the problems with management which the other ride ops and myself had a huge problem with when I still worked there. Unfortunately most of these issues are due to management and there is nothing ride ops can do to change that for now. About the slow operations, this is due to a multitude of factors but mainly the restraints and some slow ops. Some ops are slow and can't be fired simply because BGT is so short-staffed (management's fault, but that's no secret) but if you're lucky and have 2 fast ops on the platform (or 4 during busy days), dispatches will be much faster. As another commenter noticed, some ops are also intentionally slow to stop the track from being too hot which causes overspeeds and subsequently shutdowns, which I found to be completely true when I worked there (but I'd still go fast no matter what). When I was paired with another fast op however, it's a completely different story and we would usually hit constant 90 second dispatches and we would try to race each other to see who can get their side of the train done faster (while still keeping safety in mind). Any lower than that was pretty hard and the recommended 60 seconds was physically impossible. But like I said this is only the case if every op on the platform is fast which is/was unfortunately not always the case. About the restraints, there are automatic spiels in the station instructing guests to fasten their seatbelt when boarding without pulling down on the lap bar but most guests ignore this. So I would often tell guests to fasten their seatbelts and leave the lap bar up as soon as the entrance gates opened and it was pretty effective. Several other ops did and still probably do this too. I do wish that the seatbelts and lap bars could be checked at the same time like you mentioned in the video but this can't be done primarily due to the programming of the ride and ops still have to return to the rear of the platform anyway to place their fingers on the sensors. Other reasons for slow dispatches may be guests being too large to fit into RMC's strangely tight lap bars and everyone's favorite: loose articles. The loose article policy for the ride doesn't make sense and isn't very intuitive at all but it basically states that the ride allows fanny packs or anything that can fit into the loose article pouch between your legs on the ride. Water bottles, hats, and whatnot can be left on the other side of the exit gates which you noticed in your pinned comment. Phones, wallets, and other valuables need to go in the loose article pouch on the ride since they're considered valuables and may be stolen. If a bag manages to make it all the way through the line somehow, I would let it slide once and just tell the guest to put it into the locker next time instead of lecture them about it as you mentioned in the video so they could just leave their bag on the side next to an op. I've witnessed the lecture method before but personally never did that even though it was encouraged by management. Coming back to Iron Gwazi more recently as a guest, I've noticed the ops doing the lecture method a lot less and doing what I used to do. On a more irrelevant note, I've noticed that visiting the park during non-summer weekdays is often the best time to visit and the worst would be anything during July or August. Anyway, sorry for yapping so much, hope this helps.

[@themeparknerd643]

thank you for your insight! Gotta love theme park management :/

[@8675309858]

@@themeparknerd643yeah as someone who has BGT as a home park. The management is so barebones it’s not even funny. It’s ridiculous and stupid.

[@BeyondVertical101]

I was just there earlier this month and I can understand why it's so slow, everything that you named makes sense. But what I don't understand is the ride ops allowing 3 or 4 carts to only have one person in them when you send the train off. At cedar point they will fill those with single riders. Especially on Millie every time you'll hear we need 3 single riders and 3 people run up to the gate and get loaded and that less people in line. On busy days it should be standard that no cart has an empty seat when it's a 2+ hour wait

[@metallicnole4514]

I’ve noticed with all the coasters at BGT, they only dispatch one train at time. You won’t get 2 trains on the track at the same time

[@BuschGardensJunkie]

@@metallicnole4514 Cheetah Hunt and Cobras Curse will have more then one on at a time, Sheikra you may get lucky.

[@IndyCoasterCreator]

This park as a whole's operations are so bad that its almost laughable. Seaworld really needs to fix their operations

[@spilledcoffee-gt1qj]

You can thank management of the company they’re doing massive budget cuts to improve profit

[@playernumber967]

Yeah me and my family went to sea world Orlando earlier this year on our Orlando trip. I was expecting good operations since it’s an Orlando park and those get busy so they need to keep the line moving. No far from it we waited like 45 minutes for a station wait on ice breaker in the fast pass line. Same with mako as well how the hell to you do that on a B&M HYPER WITH NO SEAT BELT ITS A CAPACITY MONSTER AND YOU RUN IT LIKE THAT!? I’ve been to portaventura and smabala has pretty quick operation and I was on in like 15 from fast pass line. So yeah I’m not going back to sea world as much as I love mako and kraken and all those rides it was a shit show like how do you make a b&m line move so slowly? Hulks line moves really fast and that’s a b&m not to mention that to get into line for a row is a nightmare since no one tells you where to go you just figure it out bro in every other them park I’ve been to they tell you where to sit or you request where to sit not the fast pass and normal line merging into a unorganized mess. Ok sorry for the long rant I love sea world Orlando’s rides don’t get me wrong but the operations were absolutely terrible. Anyway thxs for reading lol just wanted to get this out there bye

[@BBirdy5]

Busch has the most frustrating operations. Gwazi is an AMAZING coaster, but the dispatch time is horrendous.

[@overbanked]

"Open a textbook to page 33" I'm done 😅

[@CentralFloridaCoasters]

I just rode it today lol. I can safely say that Busch Gardens Tampa has the most a** operations in Florida.

[@shaneh3109]

Disappointing to hear. I'm going in January. Excited for the rides...but this makes me upset

[@Quantumized]

@@shaneh3109 I went last sunday, it was fine imo

[@thedude4063]

The B&M's have good OP's, and so does Cheetah Hunt

[@toast0163]

best believe Seaworld Orlando is worse!

[@MosesJD86]

It’s a stupid policy until something bashes you in eye while on ride or waiting in the queue. It’s the sign of the times, and I don’t blame them for taking steps to protect their company, guests and employees.

[@themeparknerd643]

@@MosesJD86 you got it backward. They’re making people ride WITH their loose articles instead of leaving them on the ride platform, where they won’t hit anybody.

[@mylesmcarthur642]

They need to modify the break run or add a mild trim so that they don't have to wait for the wheel grease to cool down before they dispatch the train.

[@sharkheadism]

*brake run

[@AdamSmith-gs2dv]

They can just put a water sprayer on the track like they have on Mamba at WOF

[@ellisshane2951]

They gotta move the Cheetah Hunt crew to this ride

[@coasterstudies]

They don’t honor row requests either

[@Cyberstar_Entertainment]

They did for me in March lol they must’ve changed something

[@BuschGardensJunkie]

Depends on the grouper and wait times. You can always ask for a certain row.

[@TheBatwave]

I hate to say this. But, the all new Phoenix Rising’s operation is actually worse! There is ZERO sense of urgency in anything they do. SheiKra’s operation is actually really good surprisingly

[@BoulderDashBoy]

I timed a 13 minute dispatch. The boards that display the dispatch time were consistently maxing out, I would cheer "high score" with the people next to me. It's shameful for a ride this good to be operated this horribly, it takes away from the ride experience and puts it lower in my overall rankings.

[@justiceleaguebattleformetr9239]

The biggest problem I’ve seen with this thing is that it runs very slow when the park first opened in the morning and it was very disappointing.

[@powerfulcornelius3285]

Very disappointing? CAP

[@justiceleaguebattleformetr9239]

@@powerfulcornelius3285 it was only the first ride that was underwhelming since it ran a lot slower than I expected it to. I rode it again about 15 minutes later and it was running much faster. Nobody ever said it ran very slow in the morning so I was not happy that it did run slow on my first ride

[@powerfulcornelius3285]

@@justiceleaguebattleformetr9239 I have also rode got the first ride on it in the morning multiple times and I NEVER felt anything close to disappointed. They run and test the train multiple times before opening so technically we never even get the “first” run of the day on a cold track.

[@justiceleaguebattleformetr9239]

@@powerfulcornelius3285 I will say that I did try it in the morning in both 2022 and 2024, and it didn’t run slow on the morning ride in 2024, although it didn’t open right at 10 that day

[@markus8994]

Never ride it in the morning. It rides much faster in the afternoon

[@ant_coaster_cal5548]

They really need to take notes from the wildcats revenge crew at Hershey park they have much better operations and that’s my second favorite RMC behind Iron Gwazi

[@fredericklockard3854]

Boy you ain’t lying. On our last visit I actually timed it, and it averaged about 3-4 minutes for each train launch. The double check takes forever. That same week we went to islands of adventures and Hulk was launching a train less than every minute.

[@skydivedoug]

Totally agree with this. They need to go to Cedar Point and see how the operations on Steel Vengeance works. My last visit to CP, they were consistently doing 30 second dispatches. When I was a BGT, the Gwazi dispatches were exceeding 200 seconds.

[@ThemeParkAvenue]

I've been going to BGT for 15 years, the park definitely used to have better operations overall. Iron Gwazi is a pretty new level of bad (though I have seen good dispatches occasionally), but Montu never used to have one train operations and the lines just overall moved better. The locker policy isn't an issue for me as I rarely bring a bag into a park and the zipper pouches in the car get the job done for me. The park management is just in a very weird funk right now as they have been since the pandemic. Hopefully, this changes soon as it feels like a problem the park is easily capable of solving.

[@crazy4wavescoasters741]

I had no problems riding Iron Gwazi, nor the other coasters at Busch Gardens Tampa. Awesome park!

[@shaneh3109]

When did u go?

[@crazy4wavescoasters741]

​@@shaneh3109Not July.

[@Southeastern_Thrills]

If you think Iron Gwazi's operations are bad, then go ride Twisted Cyclone. The crew operating Twisted Cyclone takes like 5+ minutes per dispatch while on Iron Gwazi it's like 2 minutes.

[@theheardtheorem]

And they’ll also staple the ever living hell out of you

[@Southeastern_Thrills]

@@theheardtheorem True

[@JadenLiu-ot9xz]

I honestly don’t mind it

[@JessicaKuligowski]

I was just there yesterday and walked on twice. I think the worst part was the amount of time spent sitting in the hold station waiting for the train in the load station to dispatch.

[@hootowl2112]

Gwazi has always had slow dispatch. It could be even slower due to the dueling. Both trains had to be ready to go and that could take a while.

[@drewcorry5056]

Absolutely had to bust out laughing so hard I almost choked at your comments. You picked the absolute worst time to visit an amusement park, specially this 1 summer. I have absolutely seen a 5 minute wait for this 1, even in Dec.

[@daniel8421]

The RMC at Discovery Kingdom was running like 300 people an hour. Insanely low capacity. That was kind of the whole park though. Makes you appreciate somewhere like Carowinds a lot more

[@daniel8421]

I actually made this comment before you mentioned Joker in the video. Ha

[@tjmthegreat4009]

3 minute dispatches at least pretty consistently when I go.... ridiculous

[@pithaywood]

I do agree that the wait times a BGT can easily be shorter

[@shaneh3109]

It's a roller coaster ride ops...MOVE YOUR ASS. Get these people paying hundreds of dollars on the ride.

[@ICU306]

You still have to abide by safety standards, jerk.

[@AXIOMMAYBE]

Just got back from a holiday in Orlando. Sea World and Busch Gardens operations are shocking and have been for years. This is to the extent next time out that way I'll probably not bother with the parks. It's such a shame as they've got great coasters but the basics are letting them down.

[@Troy-jc2ko]

The most similar experience I’ve had to this is when I rode Steel Vengeance at CP. I got lucky with the ride breaking down three times so the wait time was 30-40 minutes max COMBINED. I’ll tell you though, as soon as the queue got a tiny bit full, those lockers sucked. As for how this relates to Iron Gwazi, I think BGT should install at least a singular metal detector after the locker area so that people don’t get anything.

[@shaneh3109]

The lockers aren't bad ibr. There's a line after the lockers so you don't miss anything if you are quick

[@JJJJ-he8bz]

I’ve never really had a problem with this ride. I was there on its opening day and the longest i waited was about an hour. I waited 4 hours on Orions opening day

[@keichere]

Not sure if true, but saw on Reddit recently the Gwazi ops are intentionally slow due to poor brakes, or something along those lines. Like they essentially decide between super slow dispatches or the ride breaking down more often. Obviously wouldn’t justify it, but made some sense in hindsight because I completely agree - ops are absurdly slow.

[@themeparknerd643]

@@keichere interesting… if that’s true than it’s obviously unacceptable they haven’t fixed the brakes.

[@mylesmcarthur642]

It has the same problem as Arieforce One, though not quite as bad. Both coasters start to get overspeed faults from overpenetrating their break run in hot weather once they have warmed up. Fun Spot closes off rows or swaps trains every few hours to prevent it from faulting when the cycle times get too low, Bush Gardens tells their operators to wait until the time in station clock hits a certain number if the cycle times get too low to stop it from faulting. Overspeed faults are a less frequent occurrence on a few other RMCs such as Outlaw Run and Lightning Rod.

[@BuschGardensJunkie]

It's not the brakes that's the problem, it's the speed. Many times when the trains, wheels, track all get warmed up, that coaster will trigger a safety sensor of overspeed. Every time that happens causes a 10-15 minute downtime to reset the error. Can blame RMC for making a monster of a ride that likes to go fast.

[@j.tvgl2235]

i’ve mostly never had any problems with the operations at busch gardens in general the most rides that would have the worst operations would usually be montu, i never had a problem with iron gwazi. and ive went to busch gardens since i was born.

[@liamcollinson5695]

I agree i think the moving station idea rides like hagrids and Voltron use is a way better idea

[@notlegitkoolaid4911]

They open a new ride with enough ride ops for decent dispatches. Then a week or two after they have no grouper, and 2 rude ops for the ride. It loads horribly everytime. Such a cheap company

[@mrpowderog8778]

a ride like this belongs as kings island where ride ops are second to none

[@themeparknerd643]

real

[@NateFonseca-r5j]

The policies for iron Quasi for the lockers is because if you don't want any Loose articles on the platform someone might steal your wallet or ect, the locker policy is vary crowded some parks the industry should make a Double sided locker like velocicaster I am sorry it's BS

[@phillinsogood]

Another thing to note is that Busch Gardens continues to build low capacity attractions that have super long wait times like Tigris. I used to work as a rollercoaster operator for Montu & the workers do move extra slow it’s so frustrating lol

[@ducksfan_1149]

Ghostrider deserves a why it sucks video

[@ellisshane2951]

so does steel vengeance, I hate going through TSA

[@themeparknerd643]

@@ellisshane2951 don’t get me started on Ghostrider’s operations

[@taysjewelrybox]

NO?? GHOSTRIDER IS THE GOAT

[@Cheezbat]

The ops are a problem all over…this summer when doing my visits to other parks, I was surprised to see just how slow things were at Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Carowinds as well….and don’t get me started on Six Flags Over Georgia. Sea World and Busch Gardens Tampa used to be so much better, but the current management clearly don’t care.

[@ducksfan_1149]

I thought Carowinds was good in 2024. They do run one train on afterburn tho, that’s probably the worst one

[@thomaslou624]

What I notice is people can’t fit on the ride and slow down the process.

[@chrispena2457]

Removing the seat belts will cut the time in half

[@VelvetteSimp]

Bro you literally hate everything 💀

[@themeparknerd643]

@@VelvetteSimp I criticize bc I care :)

[@ThemeParkPlunge]

I went didn't have quick queue waited like 20 or 30 min thats it. The lockers aren't any different than Cedar Point or Kings Dominion. Waits at Cedar Point for Steel Vengeance are pretty terrible too.

[@Troy-jc2ko]

Lol, we’ve had like opposite experiences. I’ve never ridden Iron Gwazi so I cannot speak for that, but I got three rides on SteVe with a 30 minute wait TOTAL for all three rides. So, Six Flags, please stick with RMC. Those breakdowns saved my whole dang trip.

[@ThemeParkPlunge]

@@Troy-jc2ko for me it will say Steve 15 Min wait… I hop in line and get on 90 min later lol… then I get a ride with the trims on

[@Art_V101]

Thankfully you never rode the original Gwazi,that was worse on every level with way slower loading and the roughest coaster you're ever going to ride!

[@gumthebat6510]

yeah as a tampa native i refuse to ride this ride unless its rope drop, very first thing im doing. its a nightmare otherwise

[@themeparknerd643]

@@gumthebat6510 me with ghostrider, lol

[@dsneakertech5779]

The ride doesn't suck, the operations do lol you gotta be specific

[@metallicnole4514]

I love IG. It's my favorite coaster in FL, but operations are awful

[@AirtimeAxolotl]

Storm chaser has even worse operations

[@taysjewelrybox]

Fury 325 is better than

[@apexarms5737]

You should change your video title. It's not RMCs fault the dispatches are shit. It's Busch Gardens fault. Qwazi itself is phenomenal

[@AdamSmith-gs2dv]

Just go to Atlanta and lap Arieforce One instead lol

[@88josher]

so its not an Iron gwazi problem but ops problem. nice bait.

[@huddyr1112]

This ride is COMPLETELY overrated! This is a social media example of fake news, it's mid at best