Cobra’s Curse is the unique spinning roller coaster at Busch Gardens Tampa. This ride offers a
one-of-a-kind experience. This is not only one of the park’s best family coasters, but it’s easily
the park’s best themed coaster. But how does it stack up to the other spinning coasters out there?
Find out in this review of Cobra’s Curse. Mack built their first spinning coaster in 1997
with EuroMir at Europa Park. This one featured a controlled spin during sections of the layout.
From 2007 onwards, Mack has been offering spinning coasters that can rotate freely during the course.
This has included many family coasters plus a few extreme spinners.
But in 2006, Mack built something completely different in Cobra’s Curse. This ride would
feature cars that could rotate, but they would only spin freely for 1/3 of the experience.
And the vehicles would be way different. All of Mack’s other spinning coasters
feature circular vehicles where riders sit back-to-back. Cobra’s Curse’s trains
look like Mack’s wild mouse cars on a rotating platform. Each train is comprised of two cars,
each seating 4 riders across two rows for a total of 8 guests per train. Then guests
are secured by a simple lap bar. I don’t have much of a preference where I sit on this one.
While the ride does feature a continuous load platform and many ride vehicles,
Cobra’s Curse often has one of the longest waits at Busch Gardens Tampa.
This is because of the limited capacity of each train and the ride’s popularity with families.
The wait can routinely reach the hour mark on weekends or holiday weeks. Therefore,
this is a smart ride to hit early. However, this is a fun queue line.
Located in the Egyptian section of the park, the entire attraction is themed to an excavation site.
The former Snake King Venymyss had a giant statue that granted him power and anyone who rebuilt the
statue would be subjected to a curse. This story is told in the final room of the queue line
through a series of projection mapping effects. Quick Queue certainly helps you board faster,
but you do miss this part of the story. The station looks amazing too with the
hieroglyphics and snake-themed relics. Once dispatched, you pass some additional artifacts
and countless warnings to turn back. But it’s too late. The music intensifies and you start hearing
narration from the Snake King predicting your doom. There’s no on-board audio, but there are
speakers positioned at key points in the layout to play dramatic music and narration. You then
roll into the elevator shaft. This sequence is amazing. I love the detail on the lift structure
and how it faces the massive snake statue. Cobra’s Curse stands 70 feet or 21 meters tall
and this statue is even taller. It’s an incredible thematic element both on and off-ride.
At the top, you move towards the snake’s fangs and slowly turn away from it. But you are
slightly banked outwards, which was a brilliant design choice, to accentuate the near-miss.
You then start the first third of the coaster, which is taken entirely forwards.
You then head down a twisting drop towards the Serengeti plains.
The drop itself isn’t too forceful, but you get some decent Gs on the pullout.
You then navigate an s-bend upwards and dive back down to the ground. Like the first drop,
the most notable part of this sequence are the positive Gs in the subsequent valley.
You then turn into a mid-course brake run. The snake king taunts riders as they’re
rotated 180 degrees. The second third of the coaster is taken in reverse. It’s a slow helix
that undulates up and down throughout, but the lowest point does give a pinch of positives.
You then ascend the final lift via a series of booster tires.
This kicks off the best portion of the ride. The trains are able to freely spin for the remainder
of the ride, which intensifies the action. You immediately start spinning on this swooping drop,
which generates some good centripetal force as the vehicles rotate.
You then navigate this steep horseshoe turn over the midway that’s super disorienting.
This is followed by back-to-back overbanks that also pass over pathways. These aren’t
too forceful on their own, but you can take them at weird angles. You then zoom through a tunnel
with some nice positive Gs before hopping into the brake run, ending the 2100 foot or
640 meter long coaster. But the experience feels longer than that because of the thematic pauses.
Two other notes on the final section. First, it’s easily the best themed coaster section
with the use of trenches and near-misses with the pathways and excavation site.
Second, the spinning typically isn’t as intense as the Maurer, Gerstlauer, or even other Mack
spinners. For me, it’s usually a slow rotation similar to the company’s extreme spinners.
But it’s still enough to heighten the experience.
So what would I rate Cobra’s Curse? I would give this attraction a 7 out of 10.
The ride tells a cohesive story start to finish. You have plenty of details in the queue line and
during strategic points in the ride. Then the stakes intensify as the coaster progresses,
culminating in the free-spinning finale. While I don’t love the elements in the first two thirds,
the finale and theming are well above average for a family coaster. The overall package is
what allows this coaster to compare quite favorable to the other spinners out there.
So those are my thoughts on Cobra’s Curse at Busch Gardens Tampa. What are your thoughts on
this coaster? How do you think it compares to the other spinning coasters out there?
Let me know your thoughts down in the comments. If you enjoyed this review, I’d appreciate it
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coaster and amusement park videos here at Canobie Coaster. Thanks for watching!