Cheetah Hunt

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay built its 2011 flagship around the same animal that inspired its name: a plaza adjoining the park's real cheetah habitat, designed so the coaster's launch sequence would echo the stalk-sprint-pounce rhythm of an actual hunt. Intamin supplied the multi-launch hardware, and Cheetah Hunt opened to the public on May 27, 2011.

The layout strings together three separate launches rather than a single lift hill, sending trains from 0 to 60 mph in stages across 4,435 feet of track that weaves low through Serengeti Plain scenery before climbing into a 102-foot arc near the finish, where riders pass through the ride's lone non-inverting loop element. That low-to-the-ground, terrain-following profile was a deliberate design choice to keep the ride visually tied to the surrounding savanna habitat rather than towering over it the way Tampa's taller steel coasters do.

Cheetah Hunt's habitat-adjacent plaza let Busch Gardens market the ride alongside its conservation programming, tying a thrill attraction directly to the live animals guests could see from the queue — an approach the park has since used less than in Cheetah Hunt's debut era.

More than a decade later, Cheetah Hunt remains one of Tampa's most popular family-thrill hybrids, prized for launch pacing that first-time riders can't fully anticipate from the station.