Busch Gardens - Yay!

 Busch Gardens! I can't really say "twice this year" because technically when we went last Xmas, it was still December. There's a big difference between those seasons, this was full-on Memorial Day unofficial Beginning of Summer Weekend!

Last Exit before Busch Gardens! You can see the tops of the coasters peeking up, past them trees. There was a traffic line to get into the parking lot, so let the waiting begin! As a "Holiday Weekend" it was super-packed. My friend's Season Pass got us free VIP Parking again, so at least we didn't have to suffer a big trek into the park.

While waiting for the ticket pick-up line, I saw this odd birdhouse, which we think might be some kind of... bee trap? Anybody know what this is?

I hate to break it to you, but the Skyride was not the only thing out of service that day. Also, kind of harsh to see the sign about today being a Blockout Date for Basic Membership. Although, if you have a Basic Membership, you probably live nearby and want to avoid a mega-crowded day like today anyway.

My friend had a sore neck that had been bothering him for a few days, so we thought we'd start out with the least-aggressive coaster in the park, Grover's Alpine Express. And he'd never been on it before! Did you know there's a whole Sesame Street area in Busch Gardens?

There's Grover! There's a drop that's maybe 10 or 20 feet, two very speedy circles, and done. It's like 20 seconds long. But... honestly pretty impressive for a tiny coaster, considering the target audience of little kids. Perfect for that person who wants "a taste" of what a roller coaster is like, but is too scared to try one of the bigger ones. Is Sesame Street teaching you how to ride a coaster? Whoa!

The sign next to this owl said it's name is Clover. Busch Gardens has a bunch of nature preservation things going on, so this owl probably needed help of some kind. They wouldn't keep it for regular zoo type of purposes.

Eeek! During Xmas the old Questor/Corkscrew Hill spot still had the Battle of the Erie signs up, and we didn't remember if we'd seen that or not, but now it's just gone. Guess we'll have to look it up online somehow. This is a good space to put something, with a long cool dark tunnel to wait in, so I'm sure they'll get something new in this place before long.

There was a Food & Wine Festival going on, so Grogan's Grill was serving some kind of Greek foods instead of the Stew they normally have. We stopped into Grogan's Pub and had a quick snack, something called Irish Nachos. Kettle-Cooked Pub Chips with cheese and chili. Cheers!

So that Food and Wine Festival looks like it will probably be around for a while. Lots of food stands all themed-out like various countries all around the park, serving snack-sized relevant things. It's doubtful that they would go through all this effort for a short period, and the food variety is certainly a very welcome addition to the park, even if it's a little off-brand for the whole "Europe" theme of the park in general.

They'll give me $2.30 a day to whack a bull? Sign me up! Hey Minty, what do you do for a living? Oh, I'm a Bull Whacker. You gotta know just which spot to whack. Yee-haw!

Everybody knows this as the Log Flume, if you tell them you rode Le Scoot, they might look at you funny and say "what?"

Random supply shed over there with a picture of the founder Louis "Le Moose". There's probably some kind of trivia around who's picture that is or what's the deal with "Le Moose", but I'm too lazy to look it up.

There used to be a giant saw blade at the top of the drop that was right in front of you, which raised up right when you got to it. I'm not exactly sure why, but it's no longer there.

There was an old-school turn-style gate before you got on the log flume, and we laughed when we saw the number counter part was just... gone! Haha this counts for nothing.

Right after the Le Scoot, we le-scooted on over to the Invadr coaster which is right next to it. Yes spellcheck, that's "Invadr" without the "e". The line queue goes right under the log flume track and occasionally big drops of water fall on you.

I snuck a picture of the end of the ride with a helmet stuck to the wall with an arrow, and the big sign that says "VICTOIRE!" Is it possible that French Canandian settlers beat back some invading Vikings? I guess so!

The cool Viking shields up there don't immediately look like row numbers, except you, number 4. We need a snarky fashion guy to insult it. Not as cool as that spiral that's the 6.

I'm not quite sure what anybody would be waiting for, but I caught this sign coming off the ride and thought it was funny. Is this for the Vikings?

Right in the middle of New France... Brazil! You can buy a Food Festival Pass which gives you tickets to exchange for the sample portions. It saves you money on the regular prices and lets you make a whole day out of the food adventure.

Pink Chicken! Here's the sign again because it's easier than having somebody walking around yelling "it's okay to eat! We know it's pink and looks like it's not cooked, but it is totally cooked, and yes it's pink!"

How is this chicken so magically tasty? I'm not kidding, this is some of the best chicken you'll ever have. My poor friend's back was totally in the direct sunlight, not under the umbrella's shade. I guess it could have been worse but he quitely endured the torture, for the most part.

Is this a Minty-only photo op? This tiny waterfall was amazing. When we got this picture, we turned around and everybody else in our group had disappeared! It took us a moment to find them, the park was that crowded! 

Naked Lady Statute! I suppose that does fit with the "European" park theme, but it's still amazing that some overly-sensitive "Karen" has not thrown a fit and got them to put some clothes on this thing by now.

Shortcut through the middle of the park, down the long steep hill. You might have to look twice at the sign on the bridge, they spelled "Landing" with a "u".

Turtles! In an act of pure idiocy, we risk dangling our precious phone over the side of the bridge to get a picture of the turtles. Remember when cameras had that little wrist strap? Can we get one of those for the phone please?

Oh snap! Snapping Turtles! Super big monster-looking things they are. They were all waiting for handouts but fortunately everybody there knew not to feed them. I probably only needed one picture of turtles, but we risked the phone, so I'm going to post a couple at least!

It's hard to see, so I circled it, but there was a GIANT fish right under the water. It must have been 4 feet long, at least. Can you see the edge of it's head and the fins there? It was a lot easier to see in person, but I already risked the phone too much so I didn't really check if I had a good picture of it.

When we turned around my friend made a comment about how he was so focused on the giant fish that he missed this pelican right over here. Looks like some kind of statue! Wait... yeah, that is a statue. D'oh! And everybody laughed.

This is like, the main photo-op spot at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. The Loch  Ness Monster's interlocking loops are just plain awesome. A theme park work of art.

I'm pretty sure they don't run the cars at a pace where it's likely you'll actually see two of them in the loops at the same time. They might though. But I wasn't going to spend the time waiting to see it.

This plaque had some fun facts about the Loch Ness Monster ride, but I found it funny that it mentions the ride celebrated it's 30th birthday in 2008. And it's now 2022. They didn't update this plaque in 14 years? How much do plaques like this cost? Is it just like, the hassle of it?

Why do I remember there being hundreds of stairs? It's not that many. I mean, it's a lot, but Young Minty had a memory of this being nearly un-climbable. Also, a small miracle I got such a clear view of the stairs on such a busy day.

GIANT HORSE! It's like, the opposite of Minty. Good luck with that Where's Dakota blog. This photo doesn't quite capture how massive these Clydesdale horses are.

What size shoe do you wear? This says they are 17 "hands" in height which is a horse thing. I'll save you the math, that's 5' 8" to the top of the shoulder. So now you can have a better imagination how you'd look standing next to one of these. For the record, Minty is .25 hands high.

So funny that there is a Food Festival place for Virginia. We are IN Virginia! So, isn't ALL of this food from Virginia technically? Hahaha I know what they mean. Still funny, right? Cute trivia about the Hush Puppies on the plaque.

My friend's sore neck was getting smoothed out by the coasters, by now they were feeling pretty alright and ready to look for The Loch Ness Monster. It's quite amazing how good this ride is, considering it's soooooo old.

The heat of the day was starting to wear us down, and we were so ready for a water ride. Unfortunately Escape From Pompeii was not running when we got there. It was probably going to re-open, but we didn't feel like waiting around on a maybe.

Near exhausted, we forged ahead to Roman Rapids, but sad-trombone-slides, it was also closed. Later we heard that this ride was closed indefinitely, because they need new boat-cars for it and supply-chain nonsense, they can't get them. They plan on getting them, but have no idea when that could be.

Way out on the back edge of Italy was the Australia booth for the Food Festival. Is there a barbie and shrimp somewhere? My friend would not want the shrimp, but that's the classic Australia food meme, throwing shrimps on barbies.

The giant Piplup plushie kinda hit my friend in the memories, but I think he was too exhausted from the heat to get the full impact. We still got the picture for some reason.

Hey! It's the new Pantheon ride! No? This isn't it? But it says Pantheon.

We hit the gift shop to get some $6 Poweraids and saw the display of pins. It was sweet of them to have one for the Big Bad Wolf! My friend totally picked one of those up. Even though it's no longer there, you gotta remember that it was werewolves before werewolves were cool. There's more pics from our day, we'll post the rest soon.