Another trip to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg! There are a lot of pictures here, normally I'd break this up into a couple of posts, but I'll try to jam them all together this time.
Check out this traffic! Busch Gardens has exits on the highway that pretty much go right in and out of the park. Which is very convenient, except... everybody else enjoys that all at the same time, sometimes. This is what we get for showing up at the wrong time.
Taking pictures has a cool side-effect of marking the times you took them. So we can do math and confirm it took nearly 45 minutes to get through the traffic, get the parking pass, and park. Waiting in lines is what theme parks are all about!
The first thing to do... wait in another line! I'll try and make the story short, but last time they gave us customer service money vouchers that would need to be exchanged for today-versions. Upon reflection, they did refund the money we were owed, but nothing extra to compensate for the two line-waits. I'm not in the mood to get upset about it, but it would have been nice if they realized that and offered us something for it. Okay... maybe I'm a tiny bit upset, after all?
Did I mention this was a Christmas-time trip? So the park was all decorated for Xmas.
Irish Pub Nachos! While in a theme park, you have to make sure to treat yourself to your favorite foods. It's park of the experience! It helps if they have unique, special foods.
Wolf! Where? It's there! Where-wolf? There, wolf! Eh, I was trying to do a werewolf bit, but I don't think it's going very well. I mean... well-wolf. Okay I'll stop.
This plastic chalkboard thing looked a little, I don't quite know how to say this... cheap? Like, they could have afforded something better. Sorry, if I expect something more professional from a top-level theme park.
This new statue was painted in some colors. I recall last time we were here, this was solid white. Normally that Michael Angel stabbing a demon statue, on the wall behind this, is in this spot.
I had to get a picture of this crazy pattern we saw while cutting through the warmer gift shop. Wear that thing to get noticed. Noticed from... space!
While standing in line for the sky ride, we noticed that wine bottle way down there. Cheers!
It's been a while since we've taken this particular section of the sky ride. I kinda forgot it was over here! We caught a glimpse of it, and had to get on.
Giant Coca Cola ad on the street there. In front of the Griffon, which was unfortunately not running today.
Check out the drained pool that Griffon usually rides through. The water splashes onto the track above it, and when it circles around to that part, there's a screeching noise, like the ride itself makes. I don't know if they planned that, but it's really cool.
From up here, you can see the rides bits on the ground over there. Probably using the off-time to shine them up. I say that because they look so shiny.
Looking at all those stairs makes me dizzy! Would it be fun to run up and down those? Just so you can say you did it.
It's ironic that the snow-themed Alpengeist coaster does not actually run during the winter. Maybe the mountain ghost is too powerful and dangerous this time of year?
You can almost reach out and touch the top of the tree in the Land of Dragons! I don't know if this dragon has a name. HI! Um... Treetop Dragon!
There's the Mach Tower. It's officially confirmed that they will be taking this down. I rode it a bunch of times, and it was pretty fun. Bye, Mach Tower! This little pony is going to miss you!
The Pantheon. The newest coaster here, and the only thing I really had on my must-do list today. I've only been on it a few times, but I can safely say it's my now-favorite roller coaster. 90 minutes to go! Probably won't be that long...
We are all familiar with minimum height requirements, but Pantheon has a MAXIMUM height? Since you are sitting down on this, should they measure the height from the seat-up? Would that be fairer?
The gods on Pantheon use the Roman names. So it's Minerva, Mercury, Neptune, Jupiter, and Pluto. We saw "Hercules" on this fence and thought they messed up by using an obvious Greek name near the ride. Turns out that IS the Roman name, in Greek it's spelled Heracles. Good for them, knowing the difference.
We wanted to get on the ride in the daylight, but the sun was quickly setting as we waited in line. There's no lights around the tracks for the darkness, so it's just harder to see where you're going. Not a big deal, but I think I like seeing the track.
There's a map of the ride, which points out which portions of it represent the different gods of the Pantheon. For example, the most recognizable part of the track goes straight up, that part is Neptune's Trident.
We were waiting for the front car. And there was only two rides-worth of people in front of us. Almost there! Then... Nope! They shut down the ride. No estimated re-open time, and they encourage everyone to go on other rides instead of waiting.
The lights turn on into the holding garage, and the train is backed up out of the way. We decided to wait for a little bit. Since this was the only thing I wanted to do, I'd rather wait now than have to come back and wait again later.
The maintenance truck pulls up, and the guy gets out and sprays some panels with some WD-40. We get a huge laugh out of the thought that the Roman Gods were saved by modern lubricant oil.
The guy was wearing a hoodie which we could tell had the not-yet-opened Darkoaster logo on it. That was cool to see. He was working carefully but quickly, his whole demeanor was that of a "pro".
The line wait was shorter than the 90 minutes said, but with the added fixing-time, it did wind up being a 90 minute wait. How did the sign know?!
When we got off, it looked like the wait time counter had gone insane. We certainly are not going to wait 888 minutes! That's nearly 15 hours!
Duh, Cookie Monster. Of course you love Christmas cookies. Bonus Minty Points for the mint swirls on the shirt.
Now there's a conundrum! A Cookie Cookie Monster! Does he eat himself?!
The fun countdown panel is for next year. So you can do math and figure out which day we went, if you want to. This huge sign was also blocking off the Alpengeist, which was closed.
Adorable! I've said it before, but I still think Alpengeist is the coolest name ever.
Howl o Scream merch is still haunting a gift shop. If it wasn't clear, that's a Halloween thing. There might be someone who missed out on a t-shirt and was here for that time, right?
It's My BIG Pony! Hello from this My Little Pony!
The last time we were here, we scouted a restaurant in the England section that served burgers. We endeavored to have our dinner there this trip, but when we got to it, they were closed. D'oh! Maybe next time.
We had a long walk ahead of us to get to the Festhaus, which would surely be open serving meals. We walked past Escape from Pompeii. I know I've taken this picture every time I come here when it's lit-up like this, but it's still the best thing with lights on it here.
Haha, lights. Peace on Ear H. Whichever ear is H.
Festhaus! Here's where we started to wait in line. The line was a lot longer outside, but we kind of cheated and went through the bathroom from the outside, which connected into the inside. Totally YES I did feel super guilty doing that. My friend, not so much.
Why is the express line closed? There's a ton of people trying to eat! We could use some express.
My friend glanced at the floor and it totally reminded him of the floor of the McDonald's he used to work at in his youth. Seriously, look behind the counter of any McDonald's, and you'll likely see this color red tiles on the floor.
On a whim, I decided to try the pizza. The portion size looked comparatively bigger to the other options. I will say this was the most bland thing ever. Like if a 3rd grade schoolteacher told her class today we are going to learn how to make a pizza. I didn't even finish the whole thing, after a while it seemed like chewing homework, literally. I'm glad I splurged on the mac n'cheese, that was amazing.
There's the bathroom that connects to the outside. So depending on how you feel about cheating on the line wait, it's an option if you need to know.
Maybe karma? My friend was hoping to get a hand-made pretzel after dinner, but when we got there, they had just pulled the gate closed! Argh! There were still people in there. You can get a pretzel at other places in the park, but this is the only place with the fresh hand-made ones.
It's fake-snowing! That building has the little clockwork people show every hour, but we're not waiting around for it.
As we were passing by the funnel cake place, we paused and contemplated having some of those. Somebody came out and asked us if we were in line, because we were the last people they would serve. And just like that, we are in line to get funnel cakes, I guess! Being the last people in line was awkward. The worker behind us had to turn away a lot of people, some of which were pretty upset about it. They were even shutting down the act of those people asking others to "order one for me, I'll pay you!" It was a little painful witnessing that over and over. No way could I be that person.
More guilt as I eat a funnel cake when so many other people were turned away. We weren't even sure we wanted one, and sort of wound up in line anyway, and those other people were literally begging. But then, hey, it's a funnel cake. Yum! What was I fussing about? It's not your fault, enjoy your funnel cake!
After dinner and funnel cake, let's take a break. Why not sit on a train ride? Get a light show while you're at it. This time, we went all the way to the back of the train. As far away from the noisy engine as possible. Indeed, it's nice and quiet back here.
Spoiler spotted from the train; you win the Invadr ride. I mean, Victoire! Was there any doubt? So, not much of a spoiler.
I kind of wanted to do Finnegan's Flyer again, but my friend said no way. It's deceptively intense.
Hey Loch Ness! What's up!? It gets to escape its cave this time of the year, and hangs out in the train track show.
I didn't take a thousand pics of the lights this time, but I did get the one thing the other guy said was the "official" Xmas Tree of the park.
One final pic of the trip, as we were leaving we see some strollers parked next to this No Stroller Parking sign. Haha rebels!
No comments:
Post a Comment