Welcome to our Busch Gardens Tampa Crowd Calendar page, with a monthly look at estimated crowd levels, park hours, and general tips on crowds throughout the year.
Our crowd calendar for Busch Gardens Tampa is meant as a guide and is only an estimate of anticipated crowd levels. The calendar does not take into account weather, which can have an impact on attendance since most of the attractions at Busch Gardens Tampa are outdoors. Please verify operating hours directly with the park before you visit, as they can change without notice.
General Crowd Info
Saturdays are usually the busiest day of the week at Busch Gardens Tampa. Sundays, holiday weeks, and event days also tend to draw in larger crowds than weekdays through the rest of the year. On those days, avoid arriving at the park between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Instead, arrive earlier (lots open about 30 minutes before the park opens) or come mid-afternoon and you won’t spend as much time waiting in line to enter.
Mid-week visits, regardless of the season, typically will have lower crowds compared to the surrounding weekends. The summer season, spring break, and the weeks around Christmas are generally the busiest times of the year. Winter, late spring, and fall weekdays typically have the lowest crowds.
Because most of the attractions at Busch Gardens Tampa are outdoors, a day with extended inclement weather will often reduce crowd levels. It’s worth keeping an eye on the weather in the days leading up to your visit – a few rainy days in a row will often mean the following day (especially if it’s a Saturday) could end up being busier than usual as guests who put off their visit all come on the same fair weather day.
April 2024 Crowd Calendar
Spring break season continues in April at Busch Gardens Tampa. Expect elevated crowds for most of the month, with peak crowds on weekends. The Food & Wine Festival expands to Friday afternoons and continues on weekends into May. Guy Harvey will visit on April 19 & 20, but that will not have any major impact on crowds. That weekend (April 20-22) is also Conservation Fund Weekend, but as of late March, the park has not yet released any specifics on this new event.
As is the case much of the year, weekdays will generally have lighter crowds than the weekends. After the beginning of the month, the spring break crowds should ease up a bit, with weekdays at the end of the month being the lightest attendance days for April.
If you plan to enjoy the Food & Wine Festival (and you should!), be sure to arrive early to miss most of the crowds waiting to get into the parking lots and entrance. If you can’t get there 15-45 minutes before park openings, consider coming in the afternoon to avoid the busiest arrival time of late morning. With concerts in the evening, there will be traffic into the park through much of the day on Food & Wine Festival weekend dates. With the addition of Food & Wine onto Friday afternoons, this will give a chance to enjoy the culinary options with lower crowds, but of course no headline concerts.
See scheduled attraction closures on the park’s website.
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