Busch Gardens adds detail to plan for Sesame Street kids area

TAMPA — Busch Gardens Africa on Thursday spelled out plans for doubling the size of its popular kids area, which will emerge next spring as Sesame Street Safari of Fun.

In addition to a theme licensed by the children's TV series, Busch will mimic a big Walt Disney World moneymaker by charging for a character breakfast or lunch with 10 costumed versions of Big Bird, Elmo and pals in an adjacent picnic facility.

"We're completely redoing the Land of the Dragons and doubling the size" to 2.5 acres, said Donnie Mills, executive vice president and general manager of the theme park owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev.

Five of the kiddie rides will be redone in a Sesame Street theme. The park also will open a suspended swing ride and then its first coaster tamed down for kids roughly 3 to 8 years old.

The splash area will quadruple in size as Oscar's Swamp Stomp and Bert & Ernie's Water Hole, which will get more serious with the addition of a bucket dump.

Busch also is putting in mothballs Pirates 4D, a 3-D film shown in a theater outfitted with special effects in the Timbuktu area of the park.

In its place will be the live-action 3-D film Sesame Street Presents Lights, Camera, Imagination, which will be augmented by timed water squirts, vibrating seat backs and a whirling plastic string that startles theatergoers when it spins briefly against their legs.

Busch Entertainment Corp. has had a relationship with the nonprofit Sesame Workshop production for years at Sesame Place, a small theme park Busch owns near Philadelphia.

Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8252.