Busch Gardens Williamsburg: Epic Rides & European Escape

It was a great overall experience, loved the vibe and atmosphere.The new wolf coster was cool, dark coaster and verbolten were awesome. And by far my favorite part was when I was scared by one of the actors sliding past me in one of the Killarney diner. Was a great experience and definitely looking forward to going again.

Busch Gardens Williamsburg paled in comparison to my previous visit in 2012. Backed up parking lot entry despite most people pre-paying. They even asked to see my ID instead of just scanning my parking pass. A closed DarKoaster was a horrible downgrade to Curse of DarkCastle. Closed theatre that used to hold Europe In The Air was also a downgrade. It seems they want to become an iron park like Cedar Point instead of a theme park. No ice cream available in the park on a 90 degree day? Half-hour wait for food in Das FestHaus due to understaffing? I won't be back anytime soon.

Each year I choose an amusement park to visit on my birthday weekend (Labor Day weekend). This year I chose Busch Gardens Williamsburg since it had been 30 years since my last visit! I had a great time at Busch Gardens. There was a bit of a line going into the parking lots, but it moved fairly quickly. Parking is $35 for standard parking. Entry into the park was fast and fairly easy once at the gates. We purchased our tickets ahead of time to save time in line! They did have some security measure in place including metal detectors and some bag searches. I read on the park's webpage that up to 2oz of snacks and one water bottle were permissible for each visitor. So, we did pack some bagged snacks and a water bottle to try to save on snack purchases in park. We did not have any trouble bringing them in. Once in the park, I personally found the layout a little confusing at first. I think the park could use much better signage as compared to other amusement parks I have visited. I wish there were better signs pointing you to major attractions. Most parks have signs that guide you left, right, straight for roller coasters. I found very little in terms of signs leading you to major attractions. The app was our best guide to finding our way around the park. Park is divided into countries: England, Ireland, Italy, Germany, France, etc. The signs that I did like that the park had EVRYWHERE were signs that informed visitors that LINE CUTTING would NOT be tolerated! Line cutting here was minimal compared to other parks I have visited. We did NOT purchase the quick que passes for the roller coasters. For the most part, I felt a lot of the coaster lines moved rather quickly. The line for Tempesto was under 10 minutes. Line for Apollo's Chariot was also pretty quick, probably 15 minutes. Loch Ness Monster had closures during the day for several hours, but reopened before closing. Line for that at the end of the night was 15 minutes. Griffon had about a 40 minute wait. Alpengeist had an hour wait. InvadR was also about 50 minutes to ride. Big Bad Wolf was about 30-40 minutes wait. Verbolten was an hour most of the day, but we got lucky and someone gave us 2 free quick que passes to skip most of the line at the end of the night. DarKoaster was over an hour wait most of the day ranging 75-90 minutes on the sign out front. We did not get to ride it. We also did not make it onto Pantheon. NOTE: We noticed that the ride times on the app or on the light up signs in front of the rides were NOT accurate for most of the day. We would get in line for a coaster like InvadR where it said the wait was 20 minutes and we easily waited 50! Same happend with Alpengeist. It said 20 minutes and the wait was close to an hour! DO NOT trust the quoted wait times. Quick que passes would probably be helpful IF you want to get to ride all the coasters in one day. Our favorite coasters were Apollo's Chariot, Verbolten and Griffon. Loch Ness gets honorable mention for it's interlocking loops, path over the water and age. Tempesto was the worst! It was rough and over in less than a minute. Big Bad Wolf was disappointing. It is advertised as a family coaster, but is pretty close to being a hanging kiddie coaster. It is nothing like the original Big Bad Wolf! Alpengeist has lots of cool inversions, but is a little rough. Griffon was the smoothest ride of the day and was SO MUCH FUN. My daughter and I rode it at least twice. The experience is so different depending on which row you get seated in! InvadR was OK. It is a good small wooden coaster, good for families. Verbolten was incredible. It is one of just 2 coasters in North America that has an vertical freefall drop track (18 foot). It was super cool! Do NOT let the cute "car-like" ride appearance fool you into thinking this is a "safe" ride for little kids. The drop is pretty cool, but might frighten little kids as it feels like the track is falling out from under the train in the dark! It also has a really cool 88 foot drop along the edge of the water. Note: Some coasters offered a single rider lane: Alpengeist, Appollo's Chariot and Griffon. I wish I had seen that Alpengeist had a single rider line that was situated at the EXIT to the ride, not the entrance. It could have possibly saved me a LOT of time! Griffon's single rider line did NOT move quickly. It was actually quicker for me to stay in the regular que! Apollo's Chariot had such a short line, there was no need to use the single rider que. In terms of other rides, the park does have a few family style rides such as a sizzler-style, tea cups, bumper cars, music express style ride, sky rider, big train, chair swings, sea dragon, river boat cruise and a carousel. We rode the sizzler, tea cups and train. Line for the tea cups was minimal, but the line for the sizzler was LONG. Train ride was OK. There are 3 train stations around the park so you can get off in another section instead of walking all the way across the park. Park also has a standard flume ride, a big splash down boat ride and a river rapids for those seeking water rides. We did not ride any of them as we were short on time. We did try to ride the river cruise boat, but the rides stopped at 6pm and we got there a few minutes after it closed. We did not realize it closed so early. IF you really want to ride it, plan to get there early. There is also a SMALL kiddie section that is Sesame Street themed in England. We did not visit, but know it is there should you have toddlers. There was also a small kids section called the Land of Dragons in Germany. Busch Gardens incorporates some animals into its park. They have a fish and turtle feeding station down under the Loch Ness monster where you board the river boat cruise. Here you can buy food to feed the animals. Park states that it is "cash-free", however you did need quarters to buy feed. It did NOT accept card. Kids loved this. They also have other animals to visit in the Scotland area of the park. We saw signs for the wolves, bald eagles, clydesdale horses, scottish cattle and aviary birds. We were able to view all of these except the wolves. We could not find them in their habitat. You can purchase animal "experinces" but we did NOT. We just viewed them from the pathways. We did dine while in the park. Food was not cheap, but the food was good. We ate at the Trapper's Smokehouse (BBQ). Portion sizes were OK. I would recommend it, but the lines to pay were ultra-confusing! Not a lot of dining tables in the area. We had to wander to find seating elsewhere. At the end of the night, the park had fireworks for the Labor Day weekend. They were pretty good. We were actually ON Griffon when the fireworks started to go off. It was really cool. We felt like we were up on the sky right next to the fireworks! Fireworks lasted maybe 15 minutes in total. Overall, we had a good experience at Busch Gardens. We enjoyed most of the rides we rode. Rides seemed well care for/maintained. There was some theming in terms of "countries" and some landscaping (flowers, shrubs, water features). I was happy to see that it was not just a cement slab. Park was CLEAN. Restrooms were clean. Food was good. Staff was OK in terms of friendliness. Pricing is a tad high for tickets. My main complaint is price and lack of directional signage for major coasters. I would visit here again and recommend to others. TIP: Visit guest services on your birthday to receive a free birthday pin. LINES there were long though, so it may or may not be worth the wait for the pin.

Perfect. We had no trouble getting in. Ride times were great. Liked that they had family bathrooms. Really liked the Halloween show at Marco Polo’s eating area. Food was typical theme park fare. Wish they had more fall decorations instead of all howl o scream scary. They used to have pumpkins everywhere. Now it’s a lot of tombstones and ghosts, which is fine, just wish they did more daytime displays for families with kids. We loved the Sesame Street section. Our 3 year old had a great day. The play areas were great.

We took the grandsons to Busch Garden as they had a day off from school. There are enough roller coasters to satisfy your most desirable “thrill”. Our grandsons enjoyed the roller coasters they chose to go on and rode some several times. I enjoyed visiting the various “towns”, especially the German one. The Das Festhaus reminded me of the beer halls found in Munich, Germany. I was disappointed that there was not a German band playing for the noon time show. Instead, they had an 80’s band. I expected a German band to be playing inside a building called "Oktoberfest" at a German dining hall. Probably because it was “off-season”, there was no Irish show. There was only one Clydesdales and Collies show offered but we were in another area of the park at show time. An abundance of restaurants can be found throughout the park including ones offering American, German, Irish, Italian and a plethora of other international fare. If you are a shopper, there are plenty of shops offering all types of souvenirs and other such items. The “Sesame Street Forest of Fun” caters to younger children. Animal and park tours are offered for an additional fee as well as an all-day food pass which allows you to eat anywhere in the park every 90 minutes. Tiered parking is available including general, preferred and VIP. Those choosing general ($35 per vehicle) can walk or take the tram to the park entrance. The park is clean, and the staff are friendly and helpful. Preparations for the Howl-O-Screen event was visible in certain areas in the park. The park offers something for everyone but expect to wait in long lines for some of the most popular rides and to pay high prices for food and drinks.

I've never left a review like this before. Having lived in VA all my life and enjoyed visiting Busch Gardens many times over the years, I'm nostalgic for BG. It's a beautiful park with great rides. But my recent experience left such a bad taste in my mouth that I'm not sure if I'll return. Several days before visiting I went online to buy two admission tickets which were roughly $55 each. I was presented with some upgrade options which included food and the ability to skip the line ("quick queue") once for each ride ($155). I declined this deal because I wasn't sure how much we would take advantage of the food and proceeded to check out. During the checkout process, I was offered a different deal for approx $150 each which instead of food and one quick queue per ride, offered unlimited quick queue. I had never done this and after some consideration, I decided to splurge on the tickets (over $300 for the 2 of us!). We were anticipating a great day and strolled in to BG that morning when they opened and waited in line to talk to someone about printing our tickets due to the fact that my phone battery was having trouble. They were unable to accommodate. We then waited in line to go through security, then waited in line again to show our tickets. At this time, I was somewhat rudely told that our tickets were no good, that they are separate tickets just for the quick queue and don't provide admission to the park. I received a confirmation email which implied otherwise. So now, they sent us back out to the beginning to buy tickets. Now, I have to buy the tickets I thought I had already purchased. Fine. I go to buy tickets and now, the ticket prices have doubled (presumably because it is now a same-day purchase) and I have to pay $100 each for the tickets. At this point, I'm very frustrated before even entering the park. We proceed to go back through security, the admission line, etc. We've already blown about 45m-1h at the park at this point before entering (not including parking!). Once we get in, we try to use our quick queue tickets (that we have now paid $500 for!) to ride Loch Ness Monster. We take the path for the quick queue and encounter several people along the way who seem to stop us briefly but then tell us that they are not the person to show our quick queue tickets to. We get to station where people are waiting for the "car" of their choice and despite the fact there is effectively no line (we didn't need to use the quick queue at all), the attendant tells us we MUST ride in the front car, that is the car reserved for quick queue. We weren't even given the option despite the fact that we could fall in line behind others (without jumping in front of anyone). The front car is often considered the worst experience on coasters that don't have a shuttle launch as you miss a big portion of the fall on the first hill. This ended up being the case for many of the rides where we were forced into a certain car and in some cases had to wait in an even longer line than those who weren't using the quick queue. So, we didn't even use the quick queue for most of the day. Often times when we tried to use it, the attendant didn't even look at / scan our tickets anyway. We benefitted from it at Verbolten for sure (probably saved us 20m). Everywhere else it may have just saved us a few minutes at best, if anything at all. I understand it would be more useful on a more crowded day. However, $500 is extreme. I feel like I was intentionally misled by the BG website and I'm not sure why they would even let you purchase the quick queue tickets without also purchasing admission tickets. I understand that annual pass holders or someone returning to the site for an upgrade could be exceptions, but they could certainly either require the ticket / order # OR at least make it very clear when ordering that the quick queue tickets do not include admission. Aside from this, although some of the park staff were great, others were rude or unfriendly. As expected, the food was expensive but I felt the beer prices were even more excessive at $16 each. Typically, we stay at this and other parks until dark / closing. This time we left before dinner. Overall, I'm sad to say it was a disappointing experience.

My son asked for a one-day ticket on short notice to go with his friends. Had I not found this discounted price, I wouldn’t have purchased a ticket! Didn’t have any issues and glad to be able to add to his Apple Wallet!

Let me start of by saying if it was one or two things, I would have not complained. First time going to park in 35 years and took my son for the first time. Highly disappointed. Did we have a fun time. Yes, we made it a fun time but was very disappointed in the staff and the fact that half the park we closed. Half the food places, half the rides, half the stores. Closed. from the moment we got there we had issues with our tickets which they tried to tell us were for a different park, even though they said Williamsburgh. Paid for the all-day dining and had to walk half the park just to get to a restaurant that was open that took it. Was only able to use it for one main meal and fries. The restaurants close early (was not posted anywhere) and the employee was rude and telling us how they were closed, we missed it by 3 minutes because had to use the facilities, while holding a stack of 4 plates in her hand to take home. Though people were still in line to get food and were still eating. I understand places close but when you don't post it or let people know that is not right. I was also told by another employee that they had multiple complaints about the restaurant we were trying to eat at. So, roller coasters were open, but not all can go on them. A lot of the rides were closed. No shows going on. If you were lucky one store was open in each country. Its mid August, still summer and not enough staff to keep things running. Spoke to a few people and was told to fill out form from a QR code. did it that day. was also told to call. I gave them a full week to respond and got nothing. I called to speak to someone, was told i could not speak to a supervisor, was on call for 30 minutes, finally get a supervisor and was told i need to wait till i get an email back because they answer them one at a time and since i filled it out the wont help me and i just need to continue to wait. I asked to speak to someone above him and i was told no and he refused to transfer me. So, i asked if he was refusing to transfer me and he said yes because i just need to wait. When i asked how much longer i had to wait i was told he has no idea and that i have to wait till they email me back. there was nothing else i can do. I did state that if i knew i would not be able to call i would not have filled out the form because i don't feel it is ok to mislead people about getting a response when they want to speak to someone about their experience they had. as they are owned by Seaworld Entertainment parks and resorts i find it completely unacceptable that this is their response to customer dissatisfaction. Basically, i was brushed off and told they don't care about their customers.

Great double park experience! Easy to go in and easy to use. Parking very expensive, signage at Busch Gardens inside the park is awful. Great fun! Beware websites clising times are not correct

Water Country was the best. My son and I had a great time. The following day we went to Busch Garden amusement park. We arrived a bit early and waited for the parking toll areas to open. They were supposed to open at 10am, they did not open until 10:20. Once inside, they held everyone until 11am to go into the park. We went to the train ride and were told it won't start until 11:30, same for the kids' horse ride.