Smurfy Goes to Busch Gardens Williamsburg - PTR (9/15/13)

[LongLiveTheSmurfRide]

The wife (Laura) and I went on a week long vacation to the Outer Banks and on the way home we stopped at BGW on Sunday the 15th. Since it was still going to be an 8 and a half hour drive home, we knew we'd only have a short time at the park. I didn't even know that it was time for their Halloween event or I may have looked into booking a hotel so that we could stay all day.

This is my first time at the park and *spoiler alert* I loved it.

I have to give a BIG SHOUT OUT to TTD-120-420 for hooking us up with a ticket and a ticket discount, which reduced our entry from $140 to about $50 for both of us. Very cool!

The first thing I noticed about the park was how pretty it is. It's like they went out of their way not to cut down any trees to put in rides or buildings because everything is so entrenched in the woods. I loved that.

The park had such great decorations for Halloween as well. I haven't been to Universal or Knotts, but if they do a better job than Busch; I'd be really impressed.

When we entered the park we were greeted with limbs above our heads.

I never caught Jack. I could have used that reward money.

I loved this area of the park with pumpkins all over the paths.

Germany becomes Vampire Point. Not sure how they survived out in the sun like that. They weren't sparking or nothin'.

Here's Laura trying not to become a spider meal.

Onto the rides.

We were new to the park, so we had no idea where we were going. The park map was a bit confusing and a lot of areas of the park were not open at the start of the day, so we eventually made our way to Griffon first. It was a walk on, so we walked onto the front row center which was so cool. This is my first drop coaster and my main reaction to it was, "Meh." Don't get me wrong, it was fun. The drop was good, and it was very smooth, but it just wasn't much to write home about. Not many forces and was pretty short. It was a good ice breaker.

Next we hit Alpengeist. Again, a walk on. We hopped into the first row. I really liked this one. Uses the terrain very well and had great theming. First invert that I'd ever ridden with tunnels. This ended up being my favorite ride of the day, though we did ride it a second time later and it wasn't quite as great.

Then we went over to Verbolten. Walk on (liking this trend). Front seat was a few cycles long, so we went to the middle. Very fun ride. Love the surprise drop during the ride, which was very....um...surprising. This ended up being Laura's favorite ride because of the unexpectedness of it.

Laura getting a picture with Verbolten.

Next was Apollo's Chariot. Another "meh" ride for me. It seemed slow for a B&M hyper. I didn't get much air time out of it. Definitely prefer Diamondback to this one. After lunch at the Festhaus (we had the sausage sampler "yum"), we did the Curse of DarKastle. That was a cool dark ride.

Loch Ness Monster was next.

I was really surprised how smooth this old Arrow is. Of course, it's either designed (or trimmed) not to go too fast through a lot of elements, so the transitions are not as jerky as others. It was a fun ride, and of course, the coaster is so photogenic.

The majority of the rest of our stay in the park consisted of going into every shop and checking out the animals. We rode one of the 3 sky rides and also took a ride on the train. Then we hit Alpengeist one more time, this time in the middle (as the front had a little line). It was quite shaky in those seats and gave us both a headache, so not a good final ride.

Overall, I loved the park. I described it to Laura as a mix between Epcot, Kings Island and a Zoo. The Halloween stuff looked so good that it seemed more like it was permanent instead of just a seasonal set up. They even had cool Halloween merchandise and food!

I'll finish the report with a few random pics.

Such a pretty park.

I met a girl, and Laura wasn't even threatened.

One more of Loch Ness.

Thanks for reading!

[YoungStud]

Great report, pics, and accurate descriptions of b&m's.

Props to ttd 420 for the hookup.

[fanofFirehawk]

Great Trip Report!

I'm glad you have fun!

P.S. I like Laura's t-shirt.

[TheCrypt]

Great report. BGW is one of my favorite parks of all time and I need to get back there soon.

[Browntggrr]

BGW is one of our favorites.

KI used to have a similar atmosphere.

[LongLiveTheSmurfRide]

BGW is one of our favorites.

KI used to have a similar atmosphere.

Yeah, I did kind of get that old Kings Island feel to a lot of the park. The theming is great and it's not like Kings Island feels that far removed from what they do with the atmosphere at BGW. They could start by just having the music change for the different areas of the park. Seems like such a simple thing, but it adds so much.

[zombieninja]

Excellent trip report! Your photos make me miss BGW already. It's a wonderful park to explore.

[TTD-120-420]

I'm glad your tickets worked out! Thanks for the PTR. I miss it.

As for your comment about the park map being confusing, that will be my focus for my internship presentation next summer.

Glad you had a great time!