Busch Gardens Williamsurg: A Must Visit Amusement Park in Virginia
Written: Aug 10 '01 (Updated Aug 10 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Landscaping, Food, European Theme, Rollercoasters, Prices.
Cons: Would like to see more coasters, but not necessary.
The Bottom Line: BGW is the best theme park I have ever been too. Not roller coaster king, but scores high in many departments where other parks practically fail.
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| rodeo7's Full Review: Busch Gardens Williamsburg |
One of Anheuser-Busch’s many theme parks, Busch Gardens Williamsburg is a ton of fun for the whole family. Living in Virginia all my life, I have been able to visit the park very many times. Each year the place gets better and better!
Busch Gardens Williamsburg won a bunch of awards last year (2000) which include Amusement Today’s “Best Landscaping”, “Best Food” and “Cleanest Park”. The National Amusement Park Historical Association voted BGW “Most Beautiful Theme Park” for the ninth consecutive year and ranked BGW #2 on their list of “America’s Favorite Theme Parks”.
So, what makes BGW such a great park? I’d say it’s a nice mix many things including ambiance, quality rides, shops and food, low pricing and a focus on family fun. The park has a very European theme which I love. The park’s areas include Banbury Cross, Pesta Italia, Oktoberfest, Aquitaine, New France, Heatherdowns, and the newely opened Killarney.
The park uses natural landscaping to give the park a cozy and refreshing atmosphere not found in many theme parks. There’s plenty of shade and lots of benches to just sit down and relax. The park is well laid out with all the areas easily accessible to one another.
Many people go to amusement parks for, of course, the roller coasters. BGW only has four (five if you include the Wilde Maüs), but they’re nice and diverse and insanely fun. The two oldest coasters at BGW are the Big Bad Wolf and Loch Ness Monster. I remember when they were built so long ago, and yet they’re still a pair of the best roller coasters I’ve ever ridden.
The Big Bad Wolf is a suspended coaster that flies through a Bavarian Village, through dense forest, and even over BGW’s very own Rhine River at 50 miles per hour. Although 50 doesn’t sound fast compared to modern hypercoasters, the sensation of flying through all the terrain is amazing. Double lift hills and a swooping dive over the Rhine are the Wolf’s signature sections.
The Loch Ness Monster is fun! Also having a double lift hill to give you a double dose of a “first drop”, Nessie’s star section is the double interconnected loops. I believe they were the first of their kind. Looking pretty old for her age, this coaster packs a 60mph serpentine kick. My favorite aspect of Nessie is the pressure you feel on your shoulders as you drop and fly around the track. Usually, coasters with shoulder restraints exert pressures onto your back and push you into your seat, but Nessie seems to want to fling you out!
Alpengeist. Brrrrrr. I hate the coaster’s name, but I love the ride itself. BGW boasts that Alpengeist is the worlds tallest and most twisted inverted coaster at 195 feet and reaching speeds of 65mph. The coaster includes a 170 foot first drop and six inversions. The ride gives you a ski-lift gone wild feeling with the suspended, floorless seats. All the inversions are super smooth, especially the two cork-screw sections. This sucker goes fast!
Apollo’s Chariot is probably my favorite ride at BGW. A hypercoaster with a 210 foot first drop, speeds reaching 73 mph, and a unique seat design, Apollo’s Chariot is a must for roller coaster fanatics. This coaster is like old school wooden coaster meet modern technology. The seat design gives passengers a free floating sensation as they safely soar through the air. A heavy lap restraint presses your thighs and rear into your elevated seat. At first, you almost feel un-safe while heading up that lift hill (which feels like it goes on for forever) because your feet are dangling off the ground and you can freely move your upper body around. You forget all about all that as you safely plunge down the first hill. The first hill alone is worth the wait for this ride. Once you get over the shock of flying down the track and calm down a little, you realize you’re stilling dropping down the hill. It’s so long! Definitely ride this coaster’s front row at least once. It’s worth the extra wait. The free-movement effect is enhanced by not having any seats in front of you. For an even better effect, give the front row a try once the sun has set!
The scariest ride at BGW, in my opinion, is the Wilde Maüs. From the ground, this ride looks like a kiddie coaster at an amusement park. Go ahead, give it a try with that mind-set. It like one of those old toys where the little lift stairway thing lifts little penguins (or whatever) up to the top of a track where they roll down many U shaped hairpin turns and a few camel hump hills towards the end. Being so high in the air and moving relatively fast, those hairpin turns are freaky! You feel like you’re going to fly off the track. It gives you a fun, “I can’t believe this ride is scaring me” feeling as you laugh and smile the whole way through the ride.
On a hot day, definitely give the Log Flume, Roman Rapids and Escape From Pompei some of your time. Roman Rapids is a 6 seater circular raft which takes you through… you guessed it, rapids. Escape from Pompei is a multi-rowed boat ride with a single, rider drenching drop.
BGW does boast many more wonderful rides, but I think I’ve written a good deal about the favorites. On to the shows! BGW’s has many shows, some good some bad, but they also change a show or two from year to year.
One of the most popular shows is “Pirates” starring Leslie Nielsen. It’s a 4-D movie where the audience wears 3-D glasses, and are also physically interacted with through other special effects like water squirts and air puffs. Speakers in the seats also give a personal surround sound effect. The only other 4-D show I’ve seen is the Muppets 4-D show at MGM studios Disney World. The Muppets were better, but Pirates is still a great show.
There are many shows geared towards kids that I sat through just to check them out. They weren’t bad. The various animal shows are entertaining, and it’s nice to see the animals up close. “Falcons and Fables”, a bird show, is very informative and the birds are magnificent. Reptiles isn’t so good. It’s mostly a little too much info (about 30 minutes worth) on only four animals. I found it pretty boring, but I didn’t have the heart to just get up and leave in the middle of the small show. “Irish Thunder”, “Starlight Orchestra”, “American Jukebox” and “Busch Boys and Girlz Rock” are all music themed shows.
Another show that I really liked is “This is Oktoberfest”. After one long day at the park, my brother, girlfriend and I headed to “Das Festhaus” for some dinner and the show. Das Festhaus is a large hall designed to look like an outdoor German beer garden with a stage in the center. We bought our food, sat down at a long table and waited for the show. The show itself was enjoyable and annoying at the same time, but still fun overall. Singers/Dancers and a band marched their way to the center stage. The center stage was slightly raised and circular with pillars around the rim. The band seated themselves in some chairs that were on the stage. As they played, the stage slowly rose up a whole story and the dancers danced under the band. This reminded me of those hand made German Christmas decorations that have layers of figures topped off with a fan. Lit candles make the fan turn, which makes the little figures dance around in a circle.
The reason the show was slightly annoying was because we would be asked to clap our hands, stand up and dance, and participate. Of course we did and we had a lot of fun doing it, but our amusement park overpriced food got cold in the process. Bummer. They sang authentic songs with bad German accents, but the overall experience was the perfect way to end that day.
Speaking of food, BGW has excellent food and it’s not too expensive. Just like any amusement park, the price of food is very high, but I’ve paid worse and for worse product. The quality of food at BGW is excellent. The food has always been hot and tasty. Although the German food at the Festhaus was by no means authentic, they still did a very nice job with it.
Lastly, the shops at BGW sell a variety of nice products like collectibles, candy, and Busch Gardens logo items. I especially like how the shops design on the inside and out very closely resemble actual European stores. I wish they had a French Patisserie even though the pastries and bread wouldn’t be authentic.
There really isn’t anything bad to say about BGW. There were only two bad experiences that I had this season. The first was my friends and I rode a new “ride” that opened in Killarney called “Corkscrew Hill”. It’s a 3-D simulator that’s actually very fun and entertaining. The problem was we got into line and waited about 15 minutes outside before we entered a pair of doors. We thought that was it, we were in. But really, we had to wait a good 30-45 more minutes, sitting in a long, dark hallway with annoying flickering lights made up to look like torches. That was annoying, but to top it off, we had to listen to the lady behind us complain to her friends about her job at some fast food place the whole time. We would have gladly skipped the ride if we’d had known it was that long of a wait, but there was no way to know. In the end, we wished we hadn’t waited for the ride that day, but if the line was shorter it would have been worth it.
The other bad experience we had we actually kind of enjoyed. We were sitting in the back row of Alpengeist when we got stuck at the very top of the lift hill. It took us about 20 minutes of waiting around and having people walk up there and tell us the ride would start to find out that we had to get off and walk all the way back down. That was neat since that doesn’t happen to everyone and it certainly had never happened to me before. The only reason we were upset was because we wasted our time just sitting there. The lines aren’t too bad at BGW, but a good 30 minutes in line is long enough. Luckily, they took our names down and we just came back later and were put right onto the very next train. That was faster service than McDonalds!
Overall, Busch Gardens Williamsburg is a wonderful park to visit. If you live in the area, I advise getting a season pass. Only two visits pays the pass off and it’s like any other visit is free. I regret not getting one myself this past season. I would have loved to just gone there to enjoy the scenery, food and catch some rides. Check out their website for all the pricing details since prices for all amusement parks seem to change from year to year, and try to find coupons for dollars off general admission (I’ve noticed them at Burger King, in newspapers and many other retail stores.)
http://www.buschgardens.com/bg_williamsburg/frame.html
[We saw a new coaster being built but I know nothing about it. I’m sure it will be as good, if not better, than the four they currently have.]
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
rodeo7
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Member: Eddie
Location: Virginia, USA
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