Busch Gardens Williamsburg (BGW BGE) Discussion Thread

[Voxelmatic]

 

(Sorry, couldn't hit "quote" because of that ad running down the right hand side of the page.)

 

What are you talking about? You used the quotes correctly. Not sure how the ads were causing a problem in the first place, unless your browser settings are out of whack.

If he uses Internet Explorer, that's the best he can get .

 

Just buy a Quik-Queue. It always worth the laughs when you just walk past the MASSIVE haunt maze lines.

This. If you use anything along these lines (no pun intended) at any park on a busy day, it will usually pay off in the end. This seems to be especially helpful if you've never been, or want to do all of the mazes.

[Skycoastin Steve]

If he uses Internet Explorer, that's the best he can get .

You're young, therefore I'll let that one pass without ridicule.

[CardCraze]

Headed to the park tonight for the first night of Howl-O-Scream. God help me, I wouldn't go on Bring A Friend Free Day, but this year I got these strange new things called "friends" myself. I'm just going to anticipate 1 hour waits minimum for everything.

[KDcoasterMAN]

Just buy a Quik-Queue. It always worth the laughs when you just walk past the MASSIVE haunt maze lines.

This. If you use anything along these lines (no pun intended) at any park on a busy day, it will usually pay off in the end. This seems to be especially helpful if you've never been, or want to do all of the mazes.

 

Exactly, And the beauty of the QQ is the benefit of taking in the day at your own pace. No scrambling to hit all the mazes.

 

But for those looking to have a good time at HOS, I'd make sure to hit....

 

Catacombs, Bitten, Deadline, Root of Evil (though i haven't experienced it nor have there been any reviews, the concept behind this maze sounds incredible.), take in Fiends.

 

The Open Casket sounds pretty cool too!

 

BTW, tonight is the first night, excited to hear some of the reviews from the night. I'll be there Oct 6th.

[Yamez]

I'll do my best to do a photo TR when we go tomorrow, but I don't know how many pictures I'll actually be taking. My father might be taking more than me! Full write up though, I can promise that much.

[bbusic]

I'm finally planning to go to BGW for the first time tomorrow. Any advice for the park? And I understand the lines will be bad, but how bad?

[CardCraze]

Well, the masses are taking to FaceBook to complain that opening night didn't go perfectly. I only had time to do two houses, but Fear Fair seems to be a whole new maze and much better maze, Dead Line is still great too.

 

The Roaming Hordes concept is really neat, it just didn't work out tonight. They had a "roving hoard" of clowns, and one of chainsaw wielding, deformed, something or others. The clowns ran around, I bumped into them twice, the chainsaw wielders I saw headed down the path from France to Ireland and than never again.

 

I have faith the problems can be fixed, I mean there's not too much wrong with the houses, just the manpower!

[netdvn]

I posted my review of the event on *some other fansite*. It was a good time, although the park really does need to tweak some stuff before calling the event a total success.

 

A lot of fun to be had opening night. Crowds were minimal until around 6 when the park was swarmed with people. I didn't see any shows yet so I won't comment on those.

 

Mazes

Bitten: 20 minute wait: I really liked this maze. Even though it was just like last year's, it was still really fun to walk through. Got some good scares out of it, plus it helped to be behind a few chickens. Rating: 5/5

 

Root of all Evil: 30 minute wait: This maze had some really cool surprises. They guy in the pool, the Lady of the Gardens, the alternate path, all awesome. Unfortunately, this maze has a lot of missed opportunities as well. Too many people standing around, not enough props to hide behind so everyone is in plain sight. Plus the makeup looked really cheap. Some people got into the act, which I appreciate, but it left a lot to be desired. Rating 2/5

 

Fear Fair 10 minute wait: Another disappointment, there weren't enough people and not enough hiding spots. I got some good scares, but I was walking through too many empty rooms and too many missed opportunities. One of the sections was just a long hallway with too much fog and no scares whatsoever. I miss seeing the chainsaw clowns, but their replacement was pretty decent. Rating 2/5

 

Deadline 10 minute wait: This maze was probably one of the best. Tons of scares, tons of surprises, plus I got hit with a bit of that toilet water. There definitely were more actors than last year, which is a plus. I miss the guy with the firecrackers at the end of the maze. Oh and did the subway car get worse? I only saw one actor in there, even though I remember there being more actors in there last year. Rating 5/5

 

Catacombs: Walk on: This was one of the better mazes last year and it seems to have stayed the same. It even felt a bit longer than it did last year with plenty of scares to go around. I got a few jumps here and there plus I had the liberty of being between two groups of chickens that freaked out. Rating 5/5

 

13 was closed due to some sort of technical difficulty so I missed it.

 

Roaming hoardes were few and far between. I saw a group of clowns walking through Oktoberfest and a few zombies with chainsaws around Festa after getting off Apollo. I also found a zombie hiding behind Festa bridge, which was pretty awesome.Their makeup seemed rather cheap too. Rating 1.5/5

 

Hoardes are a good idea, but there are too few actors around to make it fully effective. Perhaps bringing back the scare zones and combining them with roamers would make the experience better.

 

Overall for a first night, it was good. Compared to last year's, it's pretty much on par with it's pros and cons. Let's hope that BGW improves the event throughout the season.

[JRHcoasterki]

BGW just posted this on their Facebook page, good for them for not letting mean people get the best of them.

 

Hi Fans – We’ve recently removed a few people from this fan page for making aggressive criticisms against members of the Busch Gardens’ family. As a general rule, we openly encourage and accept all of your feedback. In fact, we’ve used guest reviews to shape the Busch Gardens experience over the years, and we really appreciate all comments. But sometimes, other fans can cross the line and we don’t feel that this is the place for that kind of behavior. We do our best to make this a family-friendly forum for news, exclusive announcements and feedback. Thank you for your understanding.

[Meteornotes]

^Good for them. More companies need to moderate their Facebook pages. Too many trolls and children out there that think they post whatever they want. They are wrong.

 

dt

[azza29]

^^Great move. There's constructive criticism and then there's abusive ranting, important to draw a line between the two - especially on a page that kids are likely to read.

[Wes]

Facebook is a great tool to interact with fans, but some people are just super dumb and giving them an unfiltered outlet is not smart. Good on BGW for laying down some decency standards.

[Guy T. Koepp]

I wish more people would have the decency to do this themselves. Good for them.

[Yamez]

Unfortunately my dad has most of the pictures from my visit this past weekend, but here are a few that I managed to grab from my mother's facebook page:

 

Jack Hannah and the two Tiger cubs he brought with him to the lunch. Aren't they adorable?

This was the show is Festhaus, it was mildly entertaining and full of corny/crude jokes. My parents loved it.

Some of the lights they had strung up over the paths and midways. Really cool effect at night.

 

We didn't do any of the Haunts as we were more focused on enjoying the park. That said, we did run into the moving horde of folks, and frankly it was never impressive. The only part that seemed to work well for it was at the end of the night when everyone was exiting and the horde followed everyone to the gate. This however also sort of backfired as it made a lot of people angry and frustrated trying to exit, in addition to the park probably losing some revenue from their gift shops (parents wanting to leave asap because of kids, etc.)

 

In the end we saw all the shows and got on all the coasters, DarKastle, and a few flats.

 

The first thing we got on was Verbolten, expecting major lines later in the evening (this proved to be accurate). It was actually quite a bit more intense than I had anticipated, even knowing what was inside the event building. The launches were powerful, and the midcourse drop was pretty much exactly what I anticipated. It still hit me by surprise though, and that was nice. The bridge creaking and groaning as the train drops off of it over the river was a nice touch, and the airtime hill at the end was pretty good. My dad was not a fan of the pitch black (even with the lighting), although he thought the drop was cool - he thought it was gonna shoot sideways somehow! Overall fun coaster, but not top 10 for me. Rating: 7/10

 

After Verbolten my family and I hit up the bumper cars and the Wave Swinger, which was fun. After that my parents decided we needed a park map so once we found one we headed up toward DarKastle. This was my first time on the ride, so it was an entirely new experience for me. Needless to say if the lines hadn't gotten atrocious later in the evening I would have totally hit this up again. The 'vertical' drop near the end of the ride felt awesome, and the special effects took my entire family by surprise. I can't wait to try some newer dark rides at other parks to see how everything has changed since this was even built. I'm also extremely hopeful that more parks will add rides like this, because it was probably my family's favorite ride as a group. Rating: 9/10

 

After that we decided to head back toward the front of the park as it was time for our lunch with Jack Hannah! Since we arrived a bit early to the venue we decided to take a small detour towards the animal exhibits. The wolves were very active, as was the Serval they had back by the lorikeet aviary. After killing some time we headed back over to Castle O'Sullivan and checked in for lunch. The buffet was VERY kids friendly, with chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, cheese sticks, hot dogs, etc. There were a few 'grown up' choices such as a delicious pork roast and stew. He brought out a bunch of animals, including the tiger cubs pictured above. Overall it was very informative and kid oriented, but he was very friendly to the adults in the audience and had to be dragged away at the end of the event for his next show by the Busch staff (he just couldn't stop talking to people, it was awesome!). We got autographed pictures of him and an African Serval, and my little sister and mother took a picture with him (on my Dad's camera). Great experience, great food, awesome animals.

 

After lunch we headed back up toward the animals to let lunch settle and kill some time before our Wolf Training Tour. We ended up watching the pet show which was cute, but overall boring. After the show we went to our tour meet up spot. The tour ended up being just the four of us and was extremely informative. They explained all the concepts behind their training, let us ask any questions we had during the information part of the tour, and we got to see the wolves relatively up close (as close as a guest can anyways). At the end of the demonstration part, we were asked to tell the wolves to do a behavior for us. Each of us got something different, and the wolves all responded very quickly and correctly. Beautiful animals, and definitely worth the money if you have a family member who is really into wolves or animals in general. This concluded the birthday part of the trip for my little sister, so me and my mother were ready to ride all the things!

 

We headed toward Alpengeist first, but we ended up riding the log flume (minus my little sister because she is pretty much scared of anything that doesn't move in a circle) and got soaked. Once done with that we headed up to Alpengeist, while my dad stayed with my little sister (he's not a fan of B&M over head restraints, they hurt his shoulders) and rode some random rides. The wait wasn't long, about 10 minutes, and we hopped on. My mother is a huge fan of Raptor, but to both of our surprise even though this ride was taller and longer, it was relatively forceless. We had both expected more from the ride, but I assume the trims have taken a lot of the punch that used to exist out of it. Fun, but kind of boring for us. Rating: 5/10

 

It was getting close to dinner time and my mother wanted to take in a show, so we headed back up to Germany and hit up Festhaus where we saw Nightbeats. It was really nice to have dinner and a show, plus the show did a lot of 80s references and popular 70s songs which made a lot of folks chuckle. Overall amusing show, well worth a stop if you are in the mood for a break. Rating: 8/10

 

At this point it was finally starting to get dark, and as we were walking out of Festhaus the horde of clowns/zombies/tree people were coming out from backstage. It was actually rather impressive the amount of actors they had, but execution wise they just didn't seem to be anywhere we were. It needs some work and fine tuning, they seem to have the people and the talent for it though.

 

We headed over toward Rome as I mentioned that we should hit up Apollo's Chariot, and got in line. 10 minute wait, and boy was it flying! Barely any trims, solid floater and ejector toward the front row, but not super intense. Great fun, my second favorite coaster at the park. Rating: 8/10

 

After me and my mother rode, my mom dragged my dad on it so I took my little sister on the Battering Ram while we waited for them to get their ride in. Once they returned we headed back through Rome toward France and caught Dig It Up, which was almost entirely a lyricless show. Awesome live band, fun tunes, and the actors seemed really into it. Didn't really have much of a plot line, but played crowd favorites stylized to a marching band esque horn and percussion ensemble. Great for band geeks. Rating: 4/10

 

With only two real coasters left, we headed toward France and Griffon. This had the longest wait of the night at about 20 minutes. Again, just me and my mother, but this was totally worth the wait. The brake on the top of the hill was AMAZING, as was the first drop and both immelans. Got some great hang time at the top of the inversions, and a solid pop of air coming off the MCBR and just before the final brake run. Hands down the best coaster at the park, and clearly a crowd favorite. The only downside was that it was a short ride, something both my mom and I lamented to one another after riding. We tried to get my dad to ride, but the restraints once again won over and he passed. Rating: 9.5/10

 

It was getting later, so we had one last coaster and show to catch. We walked back up toward Ireland and caught Fiends which was easily the best show of the day (outside of the animal attractions, obviously). On the sign outside it says that parental guidance is STRONGLY advised, and I cannot agree more. This show is NOT for families that can't handle some very raunchy humor, sex jokes, and puns. The singing was decent, the plot line was hilarious, and the ending was the best homage to Rocky Horror I've ever seen at a live show. No complaints from me or my family, but if you're sensitive to a lot of skin showing (and I do mean A LOT), sex jokes, sex puns, and raunchy/corny humor don't bother with this show. From top to bottom, it is easily the best show they have at the park this year. The only thing I can't figure out is how it got approved! Rating: 8/10

 

We walked outside, and discovered that they were selling shots just outside the theatre. Regretfully we moved past those (though my wallet is glad we didn't stop) and headed towards Lochness Monster for the last ride of the day. We walked right on to the ride, and were thoroughly surprised. I had never ridden a smoother arrow coaster in my entire life, though admittedly my arrow experience is mostly limited to Cedar Point and Kings Island. Still though, one of the better Arrows I have been on, and definitely re-rideable. I was sad that I couldn't convince my little sister to even try this one, but at least it gives me an excuse to come back to the park!

 

In general, we had a great day. The staff was extremely friendly and courteous, the lines weren't bad at all, and the food was great - seriously have you had their chocolate cake? They serve it at Festhaus and had it in our Brunch, sooooo good. Anyways, point being I cannot wait to return to this park and enjoy it more. I may have to buy a season pass next year, and my family will most likely be returning for Christmas Town. I personally am trying to attend once more with some friends to hit up the coasters a bit more later in October and ride some rides. I can happily say that this was one of the best theme park experiences I have ever had, outclassing even Disney in my book. I cannot say enough good things about this park right now, and if you're on the fence about going to it over Kings Dominion - go to BGW. Its worth the extra drive. The only reason I would go to KD over this park now is I305 and their haunt stuff. Once again, mad props to this park, we had a wonderful time.

[Mrlittle]

^ sounds like you had a great time. I think Griffon is my favorite coaster there. AC just didn't do it for me. But then again I might bias since we had ERT on Griffon and after riding over and over and over. Just made me realize that I really liked it. Verbolten was a great ride at night

[KDcoasterMAN]

^^ Thanks for the review!\

 

^Tip for next time, back row of AC!

[Yamez]

I was a bit disappointed that we couldn't do Verbolten in the evening, the fog was completely covering the drop over the river. As for AC, I prefer rides that are far more intense, but I had a lot of fun on it and for some odd reason we seemed to be getting small pops of ejector air toward the front row. Without those pops of air I would rank it just ahead of Diamondback at KI, and overall I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.

 

Full disclosure - Magnum XL200 is my favorite hyper

[esvadj]

Finally made it to HallowScream Friday night. Not the best choice I have ever made. They were calling for a chance of thunder storms Friday; but, it was a slight chance. I left home at 3:30, waited an hour in the mandatory Hampton Roads traffic, and arrived at the park around 6:00. Just in time for a cloud bursting / holy crap / why am I here storm. Rushed to the Festhaus with everyone else in the park, ate dinner, and waited for the rain to end.

 

About 8:00 the rain subsided and clouds/ crowds cleared. With less than two hours before park closure, we knew we were not going to make it to all the houses. I didn't feel a Quick Que was worth it because the park was closing at 10:00pm.

 

Made it to Root of All Evil, Fear Fair, Dead Line, and 13. Enjoyed them all with 13 being my favorite. It was 9:59 when we got to 13 and my wife and I got to go through alone, which was great.

 

Verbolten: HallowScream overlay? They have added jack-o-laterns in Gretta's pre-show video. That was the only thing I noticed. Oddly some of the posters on the walls of Gretta's office were gone or painted over in white.

 

Going back this Friday, hopefully no rain - and I'll get some pictures.

[Intimidator305]

Oddly some of the posters on the walls of Gretta's office were gone or painted over in white.

 

That's because they get vandalized with inappropriate drawings. I'm not quite sure what Busch was thinking making everything so accessible to the public, they are just asking for it to be destroyed. Hopefully they replace everything that gets messed up.

[coasterfreak101]

^More like they're asking for people to respect the amount of work they've poured into the ride and its surroundings, and just not getting it because for some reason the clientele can't seem to provide it. From the first weekend it was open the paint in Gerta's office was peeling and the knobs on the drawers were half-gone.

[cfc]

Oddly some of the posters on the walls of Gretta's office were gone or painted over in white.

 

That's because they get vandalized with inappropriate drawings. I'm not quite sure what Busch was thinking making everything so accessible to the public, they are just asking for it to be destroyed. Hopefully they replace everything that gets messed up.

 

"Asking for it"? Yes, I suppose you can always depend on people to act like idiots.

 

And I echo what others have said about BGW moderating their Facebook page. Far too many people believe that Facebook is a forum to spout any bile they feel like spewing (save that for your personal pages, folks).

Edited October 3, 2012 by cfc

[JRHcoasterki]

The park just posted this:

UPDATE: Fan, we've reached our capacity (10.6) and will not be allowing any more cars through the toll booths. We're sorry for the inconvenience and hope to open back up as soon as we can. We will keep you posted as we have this afternoon. Stay tuned or call (800) 343-7946

[cfc]

^This often happens during Howl-o-Scream on Saturday night--which is why I generally go on Friday or Sunday night.

Edited October 8, 2012 by cfc

[KDcoasterMAN]

The park just posted this:

UPDATE: Fan, we've reached our capacity (10.6) and will not be allowing any more cars through the toll booths. We're sorry for the inconvenience and hope to open back up as soon as we can. We will keep you posted as we have this afternoon. Stay tuned or call (800) 343-7946

 

Quick Queue sold out at 3pm, how I know, was one of the last to buy one!

[eddie200330]

Is this the only park/chain to do this sort of thing. I heard of this policy many years ago and thought it was a pretty nifty idea to keep the crowds somewhat manageable. I have been to other parks where wait times where unbearably long in the days before flash pass and such.