More pictures from our Busch Gardens Christmastown visit! I know Xmas was a while ago, this is the photo-blog equivalent of leaving the lights around your house well after the holiday is over.
This place used to be known as The Curse of DarKastle and was a ride with werewolves and other creepy stuff. Sadly, they closed it down several years ago. Today... it's Santa's Workshop! There used to be giant wolf statues at this entrance, you can see the little banner is still up with wolves on it over there.
We went in for pure curiosity. We had fond memories of DarKastle, so it would be nice to at least walk around a bit. I think I remember there was a statue of fighting wolves where that North Pole decoration is right now. The line queue went all around this garden.
This ride had a pretty packed space to put the line through. No line today because it's not DarKastle anymore or whatever. I grabbed a few pictures as we rushed around it.
Inside the grim castle was a much different story. Lots of happy lights and Helpers waving you a warm welcome.
Some of the old interior DarKastle deco was still visible. The floor was boarded up, but pretty sure this place would have been where the ride tracks would have gone through.
A Santa-tracking radar station. I think they were just trying to get some use out of a screen that was left on the wall.
Xmas presents! It was funny to imagine unruly children rushing over to open them up, and screaming parents going "NO!!!!!!" Haha
Of course, it's fun to look up and destroy any sort of immersion you had with a high ceiling in a warehouse-like building. Nobody ever designs a ride with looking-ups in mind.
No peeking? Let's grab a picture, and you can peek at that all you want. Check out the Wooly Willy over there! That's a classic! Why just Wolly Willy? There should be tons of recognizable toys up there, you think?
I took a picture of the table over there to see if we could spot some neat things later, so feel free to zoom in and check it out. Is that a "666" on the bottom level of the block pyramid? I think some of this might be re-used from a Halloween haunted house display, I'm not sure.
We didn't really expect it, or... not expect it.... but sure enough, the destination of this place is The Big Man himself: Santa! We were a little stunned at the thought of talking with Santa, but once we got to him, we thanked him for all his hard work, and got a picture with him. Yes it's a little silly to say, but this did cheer us up... quite a lot.
There was a small gift shop at the end, and a station where you can view and print your Santa photos, just like after any coaster. Of all the things they took out of DarKastle, the photo spot was still there!
And then, boom, back to the creepy evil castle exterior. What just happened? Is Santa a werewolf?
Poor Gingy the Gingerbread Guy. I wanted to run over and get my picture with him, he looked so lonely. But I was too shy to do it, so I settled for a picture from way over here.
The view from this bridge is getting crowded, with the Log Flume, Alpengeist, and now you can see the InvadR ride over there, too. All three of them are great rides. But only the one was running today.
The sun finally set and I thought I'd grab a random picture of trees with lights all around them. You think they'll eventually get every tree fully covered? Just add a few more each year.
It was around dinner time, but we were not really hungry yet. There was a little time before the big ice rink show, so we thought we'd maybe just grab some food and be done with it. So over to the Festhaus we went. The overall park crowd had increased noticeably...
The entrance was moved to the side of the building, and we were shocked when we got there. Turns out there was a show starting soon in the Festhaus, and already a HUGE crowd waiting to get in. How could they possibly feed all of these people? No way were we going to wait through that. It's cool since we weren't that hungry, but still... yikes!
We paused for a minute outside the Festhaus, there was a bunch of lights timed to blink in tune with the music. A sort-of "show" that was scheduled to run every so often. After a few minutes, we realized you can get this type of "show" at "The Best House In Your Own Town" and we moved on.
We were maybe going to cut through the middle to get back to the other side of the park, but the path was blocked off. This trail is notorious for it's steep incline, and massive amounts of stairs, as you go down to the lake and then back up again on the other side. But... no such exercise for us tonight.
It was right next to Land of The Dragons. And my friend says "What's that?" And I'm all like "You're kidding, right?" So... running around Land of The Dragons we go!
We were all the way up the tree before I grabbed another picture. Inside is a crazy clock. I don't remember if 2:35 is any significant number, but that's what it's set to. I don't know why I didn't get a picture of the nearby speaking tube which connects to the bottom of the tree. I yelled a "Hello!" through it and got a "HEY!" back!
The view from up here is pretty sweet. We only took a few minutes to run around here, and it was totally worth it.
We spotted a lone glove down there! Oh no! Some poor kid's cold hand! This place can be like a maze, so it's not surprising that things could get lost.
The rope bridge is epic. My friend was halfway through saying "We don't need to go across that..." When I bolted through. OF COURSE we have to go across that! Looking down through the ropes... it's up soooo high!
Bye Dragon! It might have been fun to run another lap through there, but I'm glad we got to do it for a hot minute.
No lights off of this bridge at night. Somehow it looks even more creepy, since there's so much lights in other directions.
While walking past it again, we realized that we did not get the picture card from our first ride on the InvadR coaster. When the rides here take your picture, the photo spot at the end gives you a card you can scan later to print your pictures with. Well, turns out the InvadR photo thing was not open, so no chance to get that today.
Taking a shortcut through a gift shop, we spot an engraving machine. This is a little like what we do at work, but we don't have engraving machines like this now. So it was neat seeing it. A little odd that it seemed like I could sit down and start programming in it, there was nobody around keeping an eye on it, and the computer was right there.
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