VACoasterdude

Looks like a great family coaster, something BGW has needed since the unfortunate retirement of BBW I am trying to plan a trip down this weekend. Does anyone think once testing is complete, that BGW will have soft openings of InvadR for a few hours, where guests will be able to ride before the announced formal opening April 7? Has BGW announced a Media Day for InvadR yet?

Got an email from Busch Gardens to join the Brauhaus Stein Club for 2017. $99+ tax gets you 1 free draft and $5 drafts each time you visit. Become a member of the Brauhaus Stein Club and receive a special edition stein today! Your stein will be carefully stored and displayed in the Brauhaus Craft Bier Room. Enjoy $5 refills in the Brauhaus, where you can choose from 30 different local craft and international beers. Stay tuned for Brewery Talks where will have a variety of local craft breweries come to show off their best brews in the Brauhaus. Guests may come to the park at their leisure to use their stein. Guests do NOT have to come opening day to receive their stein. $99 seems steep to me, can't remember what the price was last year, but I do remember they offered 300 steins on passholder preview day and they were all claimed within the first couple of hours! I did enjoy the Brauhaus several times during my visits last year. Great place to kick back, watch a ballgame, drink a brew while recharging my phone!

It is not accurate, the brochure can't be from 1975 because the Loch Ness Monster did not open until 1978. BTW, really enjoyed the trip report and the photos. You really should get back to BGW during Christmas Town. The park is amazing with all the lights and the view from the skyride at night is awesome!

Great TR so far. Looking forward to part 2!

It honestly depends on how much time you will have to hit up the parks. If you will only have a couple of hours, I would go to SFA to ride Wild One and Superman. (You can honestly do all the coasters at SFA in a few hours.) If you have a full day, I would go to KD. If you have 2 - 3 days, I would go to Kings Dominion, Colonial Williamsburg (for the history thing), and BGW (it would be a shame not to drive another hour past KD and hit up BGW). KD is about 90 minutes from DC's National Mall, SFA is about 30 minutes, of course that all depends on DC traffic.

It would make sense that BGW was extremely busy Monday. September 5 was the last day Season Passholders could bring a friend for free. If I am not mistaken you could bring two friends free per pass (one from the spring extension and one for the summer). Since Saturday was pretty much a washout, that left Sunday and Monday. Not sure why they would only be running three trains on Verbolten, unless one was giving them issues. As I mentioned Friday was a great day at the park with no lines and no rain. Most coasters had a one train wait, unless you wanted the front. Verbolten was running 4 trains and had maybe a 10 minute wait.

So my daughter and her friend wanted to go to BGW on Friday (9/2) and we had a bring a friend ticket to use... I decided while they were going on rides I would checkout the opening of Bierfest. They offered a good variety of local and international beers and ciders both outside around the Ocktoberfest area and inside at the Brauhaus in Das Festhaus. There were two or three local breweries outside who each featured 4 or 5 different beers. I wound up getting the ten 3oz samplers for $22. They give you a laynard which the brewers or BGW employees punch each time you get a sample. Of course, some of the brewers and BGW employees were a little more generous with their pours than others. Most would fill the small sample cup to the top, but there were some who barely filled it halfway! Also, while the brewers who were onsite were able to discuss specifics about their brews, the BGW employees knew very little about the beers they were pouring and when asked questions would just hand me the folded directory of beers. I did find the prices for a 12oz pour of around $10 a little steep. All that aside, I did enjoy sampling the beers and even tried some ciders which were pretty good. BGW's website says there will 100 different beers over the three weekends of bierfest. IMHO it is a good way for BGW to fill the weekends before HowloScream starts. Overall the park was not crowded at all during the day with most rides being a walk on, probably had a lot to due with the approaching hurricane/tropical storm. My daughter's 17yo friend had never been to BGW before and she really enjoyed the park. She also loved all the animal exhibits and animal shows. Her favorite coasters were Apollo and Griffon. She even liked Apollo in the rain, which started right around 9pm, and emptied the park.

Looks like its an even split between BGW and Hershey. Both parks are great and I think your group would enjoy either park. Hershey has a great selection of coasters that even non-coaster people may enjoy. They also have the waterpark within, so if you are visiting on a hot day, the non-coaster people can hang out there. BGW has the landscaping, shows, food and ambiance that non-park people would find appealing. Depending on the timing of your visit, crowds at both parks will be about equal. All that being said, it would be a shame to visit Hershey and miss Knoebels or BGW and miss KD. Both are worth the extra time, but Knoebels....to be that close and not go!!!! Based on your comment, "...then have to kill about 6 hours before we'd get on our flight." It sounds like you are you talking about visiting a park in the morning and then flying out later the same day. That would really change the opinions on which park you should visit, as imho both BGW and Hershey require more than a few hours or 1/2 a day. Are you flying back to the West Coast? You may want to firm up your travel plans before deciding on a park. As someone who coordinates travel as part of my job, I can tell you airports near Williamsburg (Norfolk or Newport News) and Hershey (Harrisburg, PA) do not offer a whole lot of non-stops to the West Coast. Mostly they offer region service to a larger airports (think Atlanta or Charlotte) for connections and options would be limited later in the day. DC area airports offer the best selection of non-stops to the West Coast and I have taken non-stops flights to CA from Washington Dulles as late as 10pm. Also, the cost of flying back from a different city might be a deciding factor, as it usually gets priced by the airlines as two one-way fares instead of a roundtrip. Not to mention one way rental car fees can be triple the cost versus picking up and dropping at the same airport. Hope this helps.

Coaster Campout is this weekend @ KD. Not sure if this has any relevance to the announcement on Saturday...

Unfortunately, I think you are correct. Someone posted on another forum that they thought the area near Juke Box Diner would get revitalized for 2017 with the addition of some family friendly flats. They also posted that they believed KD never gets a new coaster the same year as BGW or KI. Based on a quick unscientific review of the RCDB, they are correct.

I would rather have a totally new coaster unless... they somehow connect Hurler with Grizzly and RMC both...

Bought my tickets for both events today! Super excited! Got a cheap airfare from DC to LAX (Virgin America $200) back in Feb in anticipation of this event and a concert I am attending Friday night at the Hollywood Bowl. Looking forward to it and meeting everyone in September!

Hey all, I will be in Anaheim next week for a conference and plan on visiting either DL or DCA. I will more than likely be going alone, as my co-workers aren't really into amusement parks and Disney. I may be able to hit one park Saturday afternoon til closing, but most likely will be going all day on Thursday. Any tips or advice on which park to visit and things to focus on inside the park to make the most of my limited visit is greatly appreciated.

I was talking with some ACE members at a SFA a few days ago. One of them mentioned he spoke with KD official who told him a new coaster was not in KD's future. He was also told Hurler was shut done because it did not pass a structural inspection. It's fate is uncertain as they are trying to determine how they are going to proceed. It was mentioned that Pat Jones wanted the ride saved and possibly retracked, but now that she is moving on to Carrowinds, who knows. It was also mentioned in jest that Hurler, Richochet and Rebel Yell will all be removed and replaced with a record breaking coaster in 2018.

I rode Superman VR Coaster on Tuesday. Fitting was fast and they had one person checking seatbelts and lapbars and another checking to make sure your VR headset was properly synced. It is kind of cool how the VR is synced with the ride and knows where you are. Having ridden Superman without VR quite a bit, I am very familiar with the lay out. The VR interpretation of the layout is very well done and makes for a great ride. I agree about the sound not being loud enough. Also, I was little disappointed in the graphics as they weren't as sharp and crystal clear as I would have expected. The graphics reminded me of older video games. For some reason the graphics that appear on the POV that are online are sharper and smoother than what I experienced through the VR headset. One of the park officials talked about changing the VR experience for Haunt or Holiday in the park, and that would be really cool. But usually that is just talk that never materializes due to the $ involved. I will say VR will be great for someone who is apprehensive about riding a 200ft coaster, because with the VR you don't realize how high up are. While I liked the VR experience overall, after 10 rides + with VR it got kinda of old. So when I go back to SFA not sure if I will opt for VR or not. Lots of POV videos out there if you search Superman Virtual Reality Coaster @ Six Flags America.

BGW will be extremely crowded on Saturday. I would recommend getting there so you can enter the park when it opens. Not only is this Saturday Memorial day weekend, its the opening weekend of the food and wine festival. You may want to investigate purchasing Quick Queue or Quick Queue unlimited, BGW's Fast Pass. Current pricing on BGW's website is $35 and $60 respectively for 5/28/16. Note that on very crowded Saturdays, BGW will sometimes open LNM early, otherwise agree with doing Tempesto first, followed by Apollo's Chariot. I would then cross the bridge from Italy into Germany and do Verbolten followed by Alpengeist and then Griffon. I would finish with Lochness Monster, if you didn't catch a ride earlier. (Someone posted above that LNM will be running two trains for the remainder of the season. If that's the case, it's lines will grow very quickly and will probably be close to 90 minutes by noon.) After LNM, I would grab lunch, ride the train, watch a couple shows and enjoy the park. Crowds will surge in the afternoon and they may have to limit or stop guests from entering the park for a few hours until the crowds thin out around dinner time. As for night rides, Apollo's Chariot is my favorite, but all of BGW's coasters are great at night, IMHO.

I don't think SFA is worth a special trip or a 3 hour drive! If you were heading down I-95 south anyway (like to KD or BGW), it is worth a stopover to ride Superman, Wild One, and even Roar! On a non-crowded day you can ride all of the coasters in a couple of hours. I will agree Superman and Roar are vastly improved this year! I used to hate Roar and hadn't ridden it in a few years. I gave it another try this past weekend and was presently surprised! Superman was giving greats rides as well! I will go back and ride Superman with the VR this summer and I will probably check out Holiday in the Park in December. So I guess Six Flags is doing something right, because even though this park is 30 minutes from my house, in a typically year I would maybe go there once. This year I might hit the park 3 times!

Just got an email from Groupon that is featuring a deal @ BGW. You can purchase a BGW one day admission for $38.50 (half price) that is valid for admission March 20 - June 26, 2016. The deal allows you to purchase up to 10 one-day admissions. This is a great deal for anyone coming from out of the area and stopping at BGW for a day.

I love craft beer and am very interested in the Stein Club @ BGW. Seriously considering make the trek from NOVA to BGW early Saturday morning to Season Passholder Preview Day for the sole purpose of getting one of the steins. I imagine there will be a long line from the time the park opens and the steins will go very quickly! Reminds me of the AB days when they offered free beer tasting in Das Festhaus and Grogan's Pub! Of course it was limited to AB brands, but was surprised to discover what I and others thought were microbrews at the time, actually were not.

As Chuck said, the weather can vary @ BGW in March. It can be sunny and 80 one day, rainy and 45 the next. Reminds me of a couple of years ago when I was working on a project in Newport New and decided to hop over to BGW in the late afternoon. Mother Nature was dishing out a rainy misty windy 50 degree day, but it was starting to clear when I arrived at the park at 4:00pm. It was nearly deserted, and a lot of people were leaving the park. Turns out BGW management had decided to close at 5:00pm instead of 8:00pm due to weather and low attendance. I hauled butt and got a couple rides on Griffon, Alpinegeist, and Apollo's Chariot before the park closed. It was kind of dreamlike in that I almost had the park to myself for that one hour and was the lone rider on Griffon and Alpie! Definitely check Weather.com and BGW's facebook page and twitter for announcements about closures or delayed openings if the weather is ugly!

A lot of schools start back the last two weeks of August, so August 28, September 2 or 3, may be less crowded. Saturdays are generally the busiest at BGW, and the park occasionally has to deny entry for a couple of hours on summer Saturdays due to the crowds in the park.

Couple of things. I would drive from MD to KD on Sunday night rather than Monday morning. DC traffic is horrendous during morning rush hour and it can take you over an hour to get from the Six Flags exit in MD to I-95 South in VA (although Sunday traffic on I95 South can be bad, too) I would grab a bite to eat after Six Flags Sunday night and head south to KD after 7:00pm. On March 28, KD is only open until 6:00pm. I would definitely drive from KD to Williamsburg that evening so you can sleep in the next morning, get breakfast and make the short drive to BGW and not have to worry about checking into a hotel after BGW. Depending on what time you leave on April 1, your drive to Hershey Park will take a lot longer than 5 hours. You don't want to leave too early or you will be dealing with the Hampton Roads morning rush hour. If you leave too late, you will hit traffic on 95 north before Fredericksburg, all the way up to the DC Beltway. Then you will hit traffic on the beltway before crossing from VA into MD and then on I-270 North all the way up past Frederick, MD. Friday afternoon traffic around DC is unpredictable during the Spring and Summer. It can get heavy and slow (crawls) anytime Friday after 12:00pm. The advice about getting an EZPass is good, however keep in mind the EZPass toll lanes on I-95 only go in one direction depending on the time of day. During morning rush hour, they are heading north, during evening rush hour, they are pointed south and they are closed at certain times so they can reverse their direction. Based on when you would likely hit I-95, I don't think the EZPass lanes will be heading the same direction you are. The EZPass may come in handy depending on what time you hit I-495 in Virginia. So based on the above I would get a hotel for one night near Six Flags, one night in Doswell, VA next to KD, and two nights in Williamsburg. (There is a Courtyard by Marriott and a Doubletree by Hilton right 5 minutes from BGW and about 10 minutes for Colonial Williamsburg. I have stayed at both and recommend either.) I second the recommendation to visit Knoebels. One addition recommendation. The Cherry Blossom Festival starts March 20. If you have never seen them in full bloom before, it is definitely worth a side trip into DC to see! It is crowded and traffic/parking is a nightmare, but definitely worth it. Check online before you head out and if the blossoms are at their peak, I would plan a side trip into DC either on Sunday March 26 or Friday April 1. Hope this helps!

The hype for Cobra's Curse @ BGT started in March of last year. So it is not unusual for BG to start hyping a family ride this early. Other fan sites are pretty convinced that BGW is getting a Mack Spinner (sister to Cobra Curse) in New France that will require the closing of the BG Railway and possibly LeScoot for a good portion of the season! I would be rather disappointed if this is the case, as I was really hoping for a record breaking coaster to compete with Carowinds' Fury 325 and KD's 2017 coaster.

I hope this isn't the case, but what if BGW is going to remove Lochness Monster and replace it with a new coaster in 2017. They are announcing it early to give everyone a chance to ride one last time before it closes forever on Labor Day 2016. It is an Arrow coaster, which are hard to maintain (at least that's what they said when they announced the removal of BBW in 2009), and it is almost 40 years old. While it would be nice if BGW got a RMC or similar woodie, IMHO it won't go in to DF's old spot. When I asked Carl Lum about a woodie going into that spot at an ACE event a few years ago, he said BGW would never get a woodie because of the noise they generate and an agreement with a local community association (Kingsmill). Maybe that agreement expired. Or maybe they are going to open a new country (Spain?). It will be fun to speculate until the announcement is made!

Younger guy, I think his name tag said Brian, although I am not sure and did not write it down. (It was not the Dipping Dots guy!) He said they were hoping for a new coaster to celebrate the 40th Anniversary, but Cedar Fair made that investment at Carowinds and expanded Soak City at KD (which they definitely needed). He doesn't expect another major investment from Cedar Fair for a few years as there are other parks that have moved to the top of the list.