We visited Busch Gardens Williamsburg in Virginia on June 20. The best themed and most beautiful park so far, with the areas, rides, shows, shops, food and drink inspired by Europe including England, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Germany and France. Here's our review of the day:
We started our day in Festa Italy, riding the hyper coaster Apollo's Chariot and the recently added launch coaster Tempesto. The park is laid out in a convenient loop so we continued around to Verbolten and Curse of DarKastle in Oktoberfest and Alpengeist in Germany, on to Griffon in France, Europe in the Air in Ireland, Loch Ness Monster in Scotland and then Escape from Pompeii in Italy.
Apollo's Chariot
is considered to be one of the top 10 steel roller coasters in the
world, sending riders into a ravine at 73mph, through a powerful upward
helix and over eight airtime hills. The majority of the ride is hidden
from view so until you're on the ride you don't get a sense of what to
expect which is good. We enjoyed the ride, but after experiencing
several other hyper coasters recently the second part of the ride felt slow and tame in comparison.
Tempesto is a short but fun new ride, blasting riders forwards and backwards through twists, loops and a roll within a tall narrow structure. It's been nicely themed so if there's no queue it's worth a ride, but the least impressive of the roller coasters at the park overall.
Verbolten is a thrilling multi launch coaster that's still family friendly as it's not that intense. Most of the action takes place indoors, in a 'dark forest' with sudden turns and drops, one of which really takes you by surprise. The queue is nicely themed and the racing car inspired rains look brilliant.
Curse of DarKastle is a hybrid 3D dark ride like The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man at Universal's Islands of Adventure, and Transformers: The Ride at Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood, but with an original story. It was one of the best themed rides in the park and very immersive.
Alpengeist sits at the top of the park in an alpine ski resort setting, it's an impressive 195ft inverted coaster that uses the landscape brilliantly, and is definitely best experienced in the front row. It was one of our favorite rides of the whole day, packing in six inversions including a 106ft vertical loop.
Griffon is a 215ft dive coaster that despite not being quite as tall, long or fast as the record-breaking Valravn at Cedar Point is just as fun to ride. What it lacks in those areas, it makes up for with a great setting and an awesome splash down moment.
Europe in the Air is a lesser quality version of Soarin' at Disney with footage of a few famous European landmarks that you 'fly' over. The motion based ride is pretty good, delivering plenty of movement in front of a giant screen and equipped with big fans so that you can feel the wind in your hair, but the low resolution and poorly edited video let it down.
Loch Ness Monster, a classic looping coaster that originally opened in 1978. It's the only roller coaster in the world that features two interlocking loops, which look fantastic, and we especially liked the long spiraling tunnel in the dark.
It's always great to ride a properly themed shoot the chute that's more than just a ramp and drop, and Escape from Pompeii is a really good version of this. We loved the dramatic fire and destruction sequence before the drop. The queue line provides a nice build up to the ride, visiting an archaeological site and preparing to go on a boat tour Pompeii. Watching the city collapsing all around you and feeling the heat of fire erupting from the ruins is very exciting.
We enjoyed two shows in Jack Hanna's Wild Reserve on our visit, the animal presentations The Secret Life of Predators and Pet Shenanigans.
Both featured some very talented animals and their trainers, in
particular the wolves and majestic eagles, but not forgetting the
trained domestic cats!
With such a lovely setting, we decided to make the most of it and spend some time exploring the park on the Rhine River Cruise and the Busch Gardens Railway.
Busch Gardens Williamsburg
is a wonderful place, the landscape of the park is lovely, the
attention to detail in the themed areas is impressive and there are
colorful displays of flowers everywhere. Ride operations were mixed,
with no staff to manage the queues and therefore lots of empty seats on
rides, often one or two on several rows in every train. The range and
quality of the food and drink available was better than at most parks,
and the value for money was fair. It's so different to Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, don't miss out on visiting this park!
