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Busch Gardens Williamsburg (BGW BGE) Discussion Thread

P. 467: Media Town Hall Report

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Wow, loved the opening day photos Chuck. As always BGW looks amazing, even when all the foliage is still dormant. Having ridden it's west coast brother, Tempesto should be a great new addition for the park and a very solid launched coaster. I might actually make it out to the park within the next week and a half, still don't know my upcoming itinerary. However if I don't, that just means I'll have to come later in the season when a new credit is available. As always, I love photo TRs of BGW, one of the most beautiful parks I've been to, and in true Busch Gardens fashion a nice solid coaster line-up.

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As part of the chains aggressive, never-ending effort to keep losing money the ride won't be offered on Quick Queue at all. It sounds like they'll have Plinko but no option to actually buy a skip the line pass.

Source

I think their reason for not putting Tempesto on Quick Queue is because the lines will be long enough as they are, and QQ users would just make it even worse.

Edited by VF15
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Any woodie, RMC or otherwise should be the next coaster here. I have a feeling Tempesto's capacity will only be this "nightmare" we all fear during this season. And who knows? Maybe the low capacity is the reason the ride was never hyped up in the media like most new attractions are.

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I hope they put accelerometers on Tem Pesto. BGW is the only place I've seen them installed on coasters (the three Beemers all have them) and it's amusing to watch during the ride. Tem Pesto's prototype in California has strong airtime going up and coming down the vertical spikes, so this model is likely to have even stronger airtime due to the longer train. Twice the ride of Apollo in half the time.

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Twice the ride of Apollo in half the time.

I'm fairly certain that I would still prefer riding Apollo's Chariot than Tempesto. There's nothing wrong with Tempesto, but it's just not my kind of coaster.

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I can understand why they wouldn't want it on Quick Queue, but it's too bad that BGW doesn't seem to like single-rider lines (they haven't used them on Apollo's Chariot or Griffon for a few years now).

 

The Daily Press (Newport News) posted a nice gallery of BGW photos: http://www.dailypress.com/visuals/photography/dp-news-bgw-lookback-photogallery-photogallery.html. It's always fun to look back and see how a park developed over the years.

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Thanks for sweet trip report updating us on the worst kept secret at BGW. But in all seriousness BGW has to be loving it. They spent almost next to nothing on the promotion of this ride, just let enthusiasts and others speculate about it for free and it will probably have the same effect as a full blown marketing campaign but much cheaper. But more importantly Chuck, can you tell us more about the Ghirardelli chocolate you mentioned? Will there be a new Ghirardelli shop? Or are they just going to feature Ghirardelli chocolate at places all over the park where food is already sold?

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Thanks for sweet trip report updating us on the worst kept secret at BGW. But in all seriousness BGW has to be loving it. They spent almost next to nothing on the promotion of this ride, just let enthusiasts and others speculate about it for free and it will probably have the same effect as a full blown marketing campaign but much cheaper. But more importantly Chuck, can you tell us more about the Ghirardelli chocolate you mentioned? Will there be a new Ghirardelli shop? Or are they just going to feature Ghirardelli chocolate at places all over the park where food is already sold?

 

I didn't notice any other Ghiradelli products elsewhere in the park, although I think they were selling Ghiradelli hot chocolate during Christmas Town last year. I'll look into this later.

 

While many here were grousing about the lack of a "campaign" for Tempesto, we did spend a lot of time talking about it. So, I think you might be on to something there.

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He's not wrong about transfert track adding down times.

However, he says the shoulder straps are for confort only, he doesn't mention disable people.

It might just be me but I would be fine with a little bit more downtime if it meant having significantly better capacity. Then again, in the eyes of the park, it may not be worth the extra money.

 

I don't get why they aren't adding a single rider line. I can't watch the videos, do they give any reason for not adding one?

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Busch Gardens doesn't seem to care for single-rider lines. I can't remember the last time those lines were open for Apollo's Chariot or Griffon. Maybe it's a staffing issue.

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Disney has proven that a single rider line does not interfere with efficiency.

Yes, it doesn't interfere with Disney's operations. This is a different company, different ideals, etc.

I'm just throwing out ideas as to why they would do this. Maybe they just don't want to build a separate queue?

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Hey guys, My family is planning a trip to Williamsburg for early May, and I will be visiting BGW for my first time. Any tips that you guys can give to a first time visitor would be great, but the main question I have is what kind of crown to expect. We'll be visiting the park on Sunday May 10th, and I know from experience that most parks are slower before Memorial day, is that the true in this case?

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Hi Scott, I hope you can expect a gold crown as those are the fanciest crowns of them all.

 

As far as crowds go, I usually go to this park in May and have had good luck with the crowds. The only ride that had more than a 15 minute wait on a warmer weekend in May were Pompeii, Roman Rapids, Le Scoot, and Curse of Darkastle. This park is a LOT of walking so going before the summer heat arrives is wise.

 

I would have to reccomend to you as a coaster fan, the roller coaster insider's tour, which allows you to climb Griffon's lift, it was an amazing experience! Check it out on the park's website. Besides getting on all the coasters early, you are also given tours of the coaster's mainenance bays and they let you hold gigantic Griffon running wheels! Definitely worth the money and the tour guides were friendly.

 

I am going this year on the second week of June on a weekday. It will be my first time riding Verbolten and Tempesto so I am pretty excited. Of course Griffon is in my Top 5 and Darkastle is one of my favorite dark rides, I cannot wait for this trip.

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I will be going on April 24th Friday. I will miss Tempesto by 1 day! Unless they do a unannounced early opening. How are the crowds on a Friday early in the season? Weather? I am pretty sure I will be dodging huge crowds for Saturday on Tempesto's opening.

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