Finally The Busch Gardens Williasmburg/ Virgina Trip and Picture Report

[Skywriter]

I. Introduction/Getting there

As promised here is my Busch Gardens/ Vacation Trip Report,which the trip ran through 18th-24th. Me and my family headed out Saturday the 18th at 6:30am on an eight hour journey to our Hotel the Comfort Inn on 706 Bypass road in Williamsburg Virgina.We made a total of three stops on the way the longest being about and hour due to the fact we had not ate breakfast so we stopped in Huntington West Virgina and ate at the Golden Corral there which is pretty much like the normal Gold Corral. After eating their breakfast bar we headed back out on the highway and I believe it was on to Interstate 64 which takes you all the way to Virgina Beach.After traveling for a few hours we needed gas for our car so we stopped at some gas station and got gas and stretched our legs. Back on I-64 agian a few miles down the road we ran into a toll of course which is a $1.25 to enter and $1.25 to exit the toll road.Few more hours went by we stopped at a scenic mountain viewing spot in Virgina (to speed things up at bit now ) We arrived at the hotel around 5:45 give or take.We got settled into the hotel and went out to look for food in Williamsburg and it has everything from Mc.Donalds to Uno Pizza. So we decided to eat at Mc.Donald's and I found out the taxes are way lower in Williamsburg and the Mc.Donalds had a few new things on there menu verses here.You could get three chocolate cookies for a dollar there which was pretty cool.

II. Busch Gardens

Went went to Busch Gardens Sunday 19th,Tuesday 21st,and Thursday 23rd. We were able to do this because we had the discovery ticket which was I believe for all four of us was $279. Sunday honestly there was hardly any crowd early and was able to walk on Griffion 3 times we had to get back in line due to the fact they were not letting us re-ride. To even futhuer my example how much of a crowd there was we rode Griffion 3 times,Dark Castle 2 times and Alepngiest 2 times in and hour.Sunday was an amazing day we rode every coaster but Big Bad Wolf and Lochness Monster 5 times just on Sunday. I did ride Lochness Monster one time due to the fact I thought the seat design was going to be like Vortex but was not and I did not like the fact I could not move my right arm that well in the car in fact my whole body so I deiced I would ride once and for some reason my family thought that Big Bad Wolf was just another Top Gun so we rode it only once that day.

Sunday we even watched three shows which were Emerald Beat,More Pet Shenanigans,and Kinetix there nightly show. I must say the shows at Busch Gardens are extremely well done and I would give them a 10 there just amazing. If only Kings Island would have a show in each part of the park themed to the area in which it is in. Like Action Zone a Stunt Show,Coney Mall a Circus Like Show,Rivertown a Country show or logging show and I-Street could have shows on the I-Street band stand where they could have a different preforming group each month from another country.One other thing I really liked abotu the part is I know now why it is the most beautiful park is everything is themed perfectly I felt when I entered each part of Europe as the park portrayed it felt like I was in Italy or in the Swiss Alps and the thing that set the mood the most was music that was played in each part of the park you could hear the change when entering a different part of the park it transitioned so well,don't get me wrong I love Kings Island and will always be my favorite park but if only Kings Island took some of Busch Gardens Ideas the park would be even more amazing.The only thing that I missed was the coaster selection was a little low at Busch Gardens but the ones they had were amazing........back to Sunday I rode every ride at the park which included Apollo's Chariot which is one I thought I could not ride due to me not being able to ride DB and oh boy it's an amazing coaster which was celebrating it's 10 year and looked like it was brand new like DB so it makes me know even more that DB is a solid coaster which will look amazing at it's 10 year.Well it was nearing 3pm at the park so time for lunch at the Festhaus which is soo much more amazing then Kings Islands. It had a German show in it and all High Quality German food. So I ate a turkey sandwich platter which came with German potato salad and again one thing I wish Kings Island would do make the Festhaus German again.The German show was amazing.Next we rode the Rhine River Cruise which is were our hp camera of 5 years decided to die,great I did get some pictures of it though.After that we kinda just sat around for an hour then watched Kinetix which is an amazing show. By that time it was 10 and the rides actually shut down 9 every night which was a surprise becuase Kings Island rides are open till close.We decided we needed to buy a new camera so we went to Wal-Mart and got a Kodak 9.2 mp camera which is a big upgrade from a 4 mp Hp.We went back to the hotel and ate dinner and went to bed. Tuesday was Busch Gardens day again and learning from the sunday trip you might as well take the tram into the park because there is hardly a wait for the trams they run one after another and while in the park the the easiest way to get around is the Train or sky ride,but the skyride always had a wait so we prefered the train.One other thing to not is the tram takes you to the front gate which is actually where you buy your tickets then you must walk to the turnstiles so it's kinda like you can walk around and make up your mind if you want a ticket based on how the park looked form the area you get to walk around in. The turnstiles can be a bit of a pain due to the fact you get a choice the first day you enter the park with more then one day admission ticket use the finger print scanner or ID .Luckily we got there before the crowd picked-up. Honestly the park was not even full on Tuesday and we went to Apollo's Chariot First and we rode in the back 3 times with little wait. My mom snapped a picture of me riding it,and Tuesday was picture taking day mostly so there's where I got a lot of my pictures.So honestly Tuesday was just like Sunday expect we ate breakfast at Squires grill in England and yes the food was great I even have a picture of it .So Tuesday flew past I was kinda sad it went by too fast but I was having a lot of fun and Tuesday was a little hotter then Sunday,so we waited 30 min for there log flume Le Scout or something like that which to me was really stupid and I would take Wild Thornberry's over it any day.Tuesday we left around eight becuase we had accomplished everything we set out to do which was ride Griffion 2 more times and all of are favorite coasters and rides and catch Emerald Beat again.Next came Thursday oh boy what a day. Now today was the day the park was crowded and the turnstiles was a pain in fact we had to wait 3 tram cycles to get in the park and the fingerprint reader at the turnstile took me 3 try's to get into the park the lady almost denied me into the park We deiced to head straight to Griffion and waited 20 min to ride in the front row. Then next we went to The Dark Castle and waited 10 min after riding that it was time to head over to Alpengiest while walked there we noticed all the rides were shut down when we approached Alpengiest the guy outside the ride sad all the rides are closed due to bad weather 10 miles away but Dark Castle and corkscrew hill we be open and all the indoor shows. Well we deiced it was time for lunch so we ate at the Festhaus and this time I had torte cake which is amazing ! After we ate we looked outside to find out all the rides were open again and it did not even rain. So it was time to go ride Alpengiest this is the only ride I had a tight squeeze and had to ride in the Big Boy seat .lol.Well after that I lost track of everything I rode because I was having soo much fun.but I almost forgot after the all the ride shut down to a possible storm 10 miles away it sent 50% of the park back home or to their hotels so many of the rides got the wait times of Sunday and Tuesday so that helped me get me ride counts up on each of the coaster and enjoyed some of the smaller rides.So it was reaching 7 and nowing the rides shut down in two more hours and it was beginning to get dark I conviced my family to give BBW a chance at night and they loved it then. Next we headed to Apollo's Chaorit for one more ride to end a perfect day. When riding Apollo's Choariot we saw ligthing when riding and I guess because it was nearing 8:30 they figured the storm was still far out in the distance. We decied to end the night with ice cream from France and cacth Kinetix one last time and the show started like 10 min early due to the weather coming in. We left towards the end of the show to beat the crowd and the storm that was coming fast we walked very quickly to the tram station and it was very peaceful though walking about the park at night.

Everyday in the park was amazing and I had a great time now here is my review of the coasters......

Griffion-9, I give it a 9 due to the fact I wish it was longer with more loops and such. Ridden-7 times

Apollo's Chaorit-9.5 Ridden-11 times

Lochness Monster-7 due to it was rather ruff and the restraints.Ridden 1 time

Big Bad Wolf-8 Ridden 2 times

Alpengiest-8 Ridden 3 times

Yes and I could not leave this non coaster out The Dark Castle Family Favorite - 9 I think a few effects were missing the days we went.

Overall Park Experince-10, just beautiful and great for the whole family it is a true family park with a perfect combination of rides and unique things to make it a new experience when you walk thought the gate,and every coaster is themed to it's area and will please any enthusiast.

III.Water Country USA

I'm not going to write much on this park even though it's beautiful just like Busch Gardens and has it's water rides that nobody has it's you average water park. As soon as we walked through the doors we knew this park was a owned by Busch everything was place perfectly and themed greatly. There wave pool was pretty much in the center of the water park which had a countdown clock till the wave strated and ened and when they would start the waves they would play the song wipeout and you knew it was time for the waves. By the way we went to the water park on Monday due to the fact is was going to rain all day and what better day to go to the water park when it was rainy and the sun was not going to fry us and it was 81 degree's that day.I loved every slide there mostly like Kings Island but they had more body slides and more slides in general,but my favorite attraction was hubba hubba highway which for those who don't know it's there newest attraction and it's a lazy river without the raft the current is strong enough to pull you along.We only lasted 4 hours in the park but we managed to get everything in and the water park was slightly crowded.

IV.Virgina Beach.

This was my first time seeing the ocean and it was amazing we were on the beach for 6 hours that day then walked on the boardwalk for around an hour due to my mom was getting tired.The only thing I disliked abotu the beach was the prices down there it was like 3 dollars for a little hot dog and to rent a body board was 10 dollars and you can find the same thing in a shop on the boardwalk for 5 dollars.

I did have an amazing time at the beach it was on the list I have things to see in my lifetime.

V. Conclusion/Pictures

If you already haven't noticed the real reason we went to Virgina was to go to Busch Gardens and the trip to Virgina Beach was added to the trip. I had a great time and Highly recommend going to Busch Gardens and make sure you go more then one day and Make sure it's Sunday-Wensday seems like the Thursday-Saturday are the busiest times to go. Oh yeah and I got a Busch Gardens mouse pad.Below I have posted some of the pictures taken if you would like to see them all you can go here......

BBW

Festhaus

Williamsburg Virgina

Parking Lot $12 to park

England

Me on Apollo's I'm in the Black McLovin shirt .lol

White-Alpengiest,Blue-Griffion,Yellow-Lochness Monster

25 years,can't believe it's going away

Wavepool

Italy Stage an awesome show.

One of my favorite pictures I took it's the big Pepsi Clock by the wavepool

Germany

[KI Kevin]

Wow! That's a lot of stuff. Unfortunately I do not get to go there this year. Hopefully next year though. And the one picture of Loch Ness is kind of cool. Just look at how it is completely dwarfed by Griffon.

[DaveStroem]

Glad you had fun. When we were there on a Saturday, the crowds were a little heaver, we had to wait for 2-3 trains on Griffon.

[DiamondbackLover]

I'm going to BGA next year and am wondering if it's as good as BGE is. We'll see. Great trip report. Griffon looks AMAZING...

[Skywriter]

Griffion

Welcome sign

Rental prices

The Beach

I will end i with this one......

For more pictures please go here http://s980.photobucket.com/albums/ae282/S...ter92/Vacation/.

Thanks it took me around 2 days to get this Trip report together and I'm trying to upload a video I took.

I promise you anything with the Busch Gardens name is going to be fun. Yes Griffion is one of my favorite steel coasters.

[Jasper]

Kind of sad to see the Big Bad Wolf signs saying 25th Anniversary, nonetheless great trip report. Glad you had a good time, BGW is a really nice park. I wouldn't mind going back there again sometime.

[Skywriter]

Thank you very much and I wish they would keep it open.

[Coasterfun]

I was there on that Sunday as well. The crowds weren't bad and it is a beautiful park. I think I liked Lochness better, it is just so smooth compared to other Arrow coasters I have ridden. I also liked the enclosed part of the ride. Big Bad Wolf is in a class all of it's own. It really puts Iron Dragon and Flight Deck to shame.

[Skywriter]

Yes I liked the cover helix in Lochness Monster like I said the only thing I disliked was the restrains on the ride they did not really let you move around the car so much.