Busch Gardens - more yays!

 One more round of pictures from our trip to Busch Gardens Williamsburg. It was Memorial Day weekend, so super packed! Packed with fun!

Apollo's Chariot hits all the buttons for a great ride. It's fun, has a comfy seat you feel super-secure in, sooo smooth, and has the current-best tag line to start the ride: "We hope you enjoy your journey to the Sun on the wings of Apollo's Chariot!" Not to mention the science-designed alignment of the track which is pointed right into the sunrise, if you can get here at the right time.

Here's the t-shirt my friend would come back and get later. It helps to scout the gift shops, if you can. We purposefully planned our route back over here to get this shirt, just to make sure, because the big gift shop near the entrance might not have it. And indeed, we made the right call. Score one for intuition!

Tempesto is one of the new coasters we have not yet been on. Right now it's got about an hour wait time. We didn't really feel like waiting, but I grabbed a picture of it anyway. We'll get you later, Tempesto!

This was as close as we got to the just-opened brand-new Pantheon. 2 hour wait time? That's about what we expected. Well, we didn't feel like waiting one hour for Tempesto, so what makes you think we'd wait twice as long for this? Check out that track that just goes straight up. It might have been worth the wait...

We caught up with our friends who were in the park but separated off to go do the Food and Wine Festival tour. They had bought the passes that got them a ton of tickets to trade for the various themed food goodies, along with a map to direct them around.

They treated us to a treat, Matcha Ice Cream from Japan. That drizzle on top is soy sauce. Because... Japan? It was funny that an actual Japanese tourist asked what the drizzle was, and when we told them soy sauce they were like... "Weird! We don't do that on Matcha Ice Cream." It's all good because whatever, it was delicious.

From Italy, we raced all the way over to Ireland to catch the Celtic Fire show. The front of the theatre had signs that said entrance in the back, and we got there mere minutes too late. Door already closed, we could hear music and stomping and cheering muffled through the door. D'oh! It's totally our fault, but we can still say that sucks, right?

This corner of the park has Hawaii! Seeing such a well-built and nicely-decorated building makes me think this Food Festival is going to be an ongoing addition to Busch Gardens.

Nice acknowledgement on this bridge which is near what was once The Threadneedle Faire. Ever been to a Rennaissance Fair? It was like that. It had legendary Dunking Booth "artists" who were masters of the goading insults.

How did I not notice this Angel statue is totally spearing that poor old guy in the neck? Google tells me this is Archangel Michael slaying a Demon, but I can't help but feel bad for that poor Demon. Should I judge? That Demon probably deserves it, right? Still... harsh.

Elmo with a puppy! That doesn't add to the cute-ness, it multiplies it! This gift shop is on the complete opposite side of the park as the Sesame Street area.

We came in here to scout for some Alpengeist t-shirts, but all there are is Sesame Street shirts? They must have some kind of data to let them know this is better than actual Alpengeist merch, you think? It's right next to the ride though.

"Alpengeist" is still the coolest name ever. Certainly for a roller coaster, maybe for like, everything.

It's been a while since I've been on Alpengeist. We've been on so many rides today! Despite the massive crowds. Since I take pictures, I figured I can sort-of track the amount of time we spent waiting in lines. We rode 6 rides and waited in line for about 3 hours, 12 minutes. That's just ride-lines. We also waited in line 43 minutes to get lunch! Including the 38 minutes for parking, the total percentage of "waiting" was about 40%! There's a couple more lines from gift shops and snacks we waited in, so that number is probably higher.

There was only a line for the very front row. All other rows were pretty much walk-ons. The line for the front was still 30 minutes long. If you've ever ridden this, you know why. Only the front row get the "view" and is the smoothest experience. We happily waited. And suggest you do, too.

They had odd metal covers for the waiting rails. I guess this is cheaper than getting all-new rails? Or dealing with chipped paint? Is this only to start distracting line conversations as you debate the purpose of it?

I zoomed in to get a picture of the funny names on the chalkboard over there. So... yeah. Funny names are funny.

Another random Food Festival place, Jamaica! We took a moment to rest next to this place because the Alpengeist zonked-out my friend. It was his first time on it, and while he enjoyed it a ton, there was one part where it swung in an unexpected direction and kinda "got him". I think we were just not hydrated enough and maybe needed a snack and a drink.

Walked past the Dar Kastle which was recently Santa's Workshop hahaha. There are rumors that they are working on something to put in this spot, But we all just plain miss Dar Kastle, can we just get that back?

It was also closed, but the cleverly-named nearby drink station Bar Kastle was still funny to see. This park is supposed to be like Europe, so let's sell some alcohol to kids, it's no big deal in Europe, right?

After hitting 3 places we thought would have them, my friend finally gets a churro he'd been craving for a while. I remembered them being in the big gift shop near the carnival games in Octoberfest, and sure enough, they were!

We walked the churros way back over to Italy where our food-touring friends had gotten a table in the theatre for the show. We didn't have tickets, but did get Italian-themed food for a tiny dinner. Here's Creamy Mushroom Risotto and Sundried Tomato Alfredo. Both of them were very good.

The "show" was only a few songs. And the theatre was very lightly-attended. Still, it was nice to take a break and eat some yummy food.

I was fetching some Food Festival ticket wine for our friend so I snapped a quick picture of the masks at the gift shop. The gift shops in this stretch of Italy are "fancy" and not what you'd think of as normal theme park tourist fare. It would have been nice to scout through them a bit, but the fireworks were starting soon.

There was a bit of a mix-up as they were out of the requested Amaretto wine, and we had to wait to see if they could find some, and then they couldn't... And did our friend want the other one instead? Maybe can we just get the ticket back? OH! The fireworks have started! Phone call... Okay, she's okay with the Limoncello? Great! Grab it and run back.

The short and quick run back to the table spilled "a bit" of the wine all over my poor friend's hand, but the fetch quest was appreciated. This was probably not the best seats for the fireworks show. You probably can't see them, but there are large trees right in the way, and the overhanging roof left us only a small window of view. Still, it was nice to sit down.

Looks like the big bridge that connects Italy and Germany would have been the best view of the fireworks. But also, when the light would flash bright enough to see it, it looked like the smoke was blowing right into that direction! Maybe we did have good seats after all.

Remember when the parks would stay open until midnight? Not anymore! After the 9:30 fireworks, the park was closing at 10. So off to the gift shops on the way out of the park. How could you get a "mystery pin" of "my first ride was..."? Crazy, right? Don't you know? Do they expect you to get random pins until you get the one that was actually your first ride? And I think my friend did say it was Little Gliders for him.

Thanks to The Internet, I don't think we want our kids taking home a "Furry" friend. That might not mean what they think it means, anymore.

Pony! That's one of the Clydesdale horses, but Minty's gotta give a shout-out to her peeps.

These look really cool but also super fragile. Just grabbing pictures of cool merch to check out.

There's probably a t-shirt version of this, but not here. Looks similar to our Apollo's Chariot shirt design we picked up. This is a drawstring bag backpack.

Busch Gardens Williamsburg has more than five coasters, why are these five the big ones? The Loch Ness Monster not on this list? I really wanted to ride the Griffon today but I guess it never worked out.

Here's a cool Alpengeist shirt. Get it,... cool? Because it's the ghost of the snow mountain? 

Verbolten was another coaster we didn't get a chance to ride today, but I like the graphic with the lightning bolt down the middle of the road sign shield so it looks like a "V".

Is this the guy from the Rudolph the Reindeer movie who goes to see the Elf Dentist or something? I don't remember that movie enough. The embroidery on the foot tells me this is the Alpengeist. Was Alpengeist in the Rudolf movie?

My friend bought the PhotoKey thing thinking it would get him print-outs of all the ride pics for one price, but apparently he still needed to pay for them. We're not sure if this is some kind of scam or not, just make sure you research the details yourself before you fall for it like we did.

Photo-op spot! Humiliate your loved-ones with public torture! This is "for fun" but could you imagine this being an actual punishment? Yikes! I'll close out here saying the traffic out of the park was almost nothing at all, so that was good. Another great trip to Busch Gardens!