A Theme Park Grows in Virginia

I wouldn’t exactly call myself a theme park fan. I certainly understand the appeal for those that like them – get away from the main life, ride rides, eat food, and take your mind off everything – but at the same time I find them to be very limited experiences. At their core every theme park is the same, very rarely offering anything different or new. If you’ve been to a Disney, or a King’s Dominion, or a Six Flags, then you’ve seen everything every one of these parks has to offer. They all do the same thing, just with slightly different rides, slightly different theming, and some odd set of mascot characters.

Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, VA, originally opened in 1975 by Anheuser Busch (thus the name), and currently sits as one of many parks (technically two as there’s also a Busch Gardens in Tampa, FL) in the SeaWorld portfolio. It’s a smallish theme park (technically two, if you count the adjoining water park that you can visit as well) themed around the nations of Europe. Western Europe, specifically, with representation of England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, France, and Italy. So it doesn’t even cover all of Europe, and I’d really argue that most of the theming for the nations is pretty mild.

For instance, the entryway area (what could be considered Busch Gardens’ version of Downtown USA in Disney World) is themed after England. It’s largely cosmetic, though, without much in the way of English music, no real performers, and nothing else to truly make it stand out. Scotland has a few horses you can look at, some bagpipe music that plays on the loudspeakers, and one ride mildly themed to the area: Loch Ness, which is just a water-adjacent looping metal coaster. Most of the areas of the park are themed in this way.

My wife and I recently visited the park just to see how it was. It’s one of a couple of “major” theme parks in Virginia (the other one that comes to mind being King’s Dominion), and it’s within relative distance of where we live (three hours, give or take) that it’s easy enough to do a daytrip out there to tour the park and enjoy a few of its amenities. The drive in was fine, so the real trick is whether or not the park is really worth the effort. And on that front I have to think it’s kind of maybe… but not necessarily yes.

The big issue with Busch Gardens is really a lack of identity. When it was opened it had theming that made sense for a beer brand. Now that it’s owned by SeaWorld, though, you get the vibe that the company doesn’t really know what to do with the park (especially this one, which sits way outside of the main Florida area I’m sure the company focuses on). SeaWorld is all over the place, with parks around the world, but Florida is the bread-and-butter location, and it does feel like the company is kind of ignoring Busch Gardens. I haven’t been to the Tampa area to know if it’s the same down there, but the Virginia park feels a little old, a little run down, like the company just doesn’t care that much about it.

You get that vibe not just from the state of the park, which, while clean, feels old, but also from the employees working there. Disney (as my wife, who worked there at one time pointed out) makes a big deal about ensuring the employees are kind, courteous, and friendly at all times. By contrast, while no one was outright rude at the park, the employees all seemed pretty over being there. They were done, just going through the motions, very rarely interested in providing that “theme park” experience of just being friendly. Doesn’t take much, a smile or some little bit of energy, but the employees seemed downtrodden, done with their jobs, just wanting to go home, and it showed. It was like visiting a traveling carnival where all the employees know they don’t have to try because they’ll be in a new location in two days… except at a permanent park. That was off-putting.

The park also really could use a facelift. The paint could be touched up, the zones of the park could use better theming, and everything could feel a little more special than it does. Some employees wandering around the zones, dressed up and talking to guests would go some way towards that. A Beefeater marching around in England, a couple of people dancing to music in France. These little things would go a long way towards not only making the themes matter, but also would add some to the vibe that this is a park with energy to it. Busch Gardens, by comparison, felt kind of sad.

The mascot crossover didn’t help this at all, in large part because it was practically non-existent. SeaWorld has the license rights to feature Sesame Street characters in their parks, and this meant there was a certain amount of Sesame Street merchandise for sale in the kiosks. Outside of that, there was maybe one Grover ride and… that was about it. While this is a park originally intended for adults (the beer branding and all that), if they’re going to feature rides for kids (which are throughout the park) then those rides should reflect the ma\scot branding the park has (more than just one Grover ride), an\d if they don’t really want it to be for kids (or at least not little kids) then don’t use the Sesame Street branding at all and spend that money on other things. It feels conflicted and not well thought out.

Speaking of not thinking things out, let’s discuss the Food and Wine Festival that the park features in the spring. I’ll have a more robust review of the food in a follow-up article, but the basic construction of the festival is that each area of the park features a few food booths themed around various nations, sometimes (but not always) associated with the “nation” you’re in at the time. Italy, for example, had Italian food at one booth, Germany had a couple of beer sellers, but other nations didn’t have booths for their own food (Scotland, England, Ireland, and France all come to mind) and instead featured nations that, very often, weren’t even close to their core them, like China being in Italy (which you have to really stretch with a Marco Polo association to sell) or Hawaii being just outside Ireland (which… no). Again, a lack of thought to organization made the event feel half-baked.

About the one good thing the park does have going for it are its rides. It’s absolutely packed full of rides. Coasters, thrill rides, gentle rides, kids rides. They’re everywhere, and the lines for them weren’t very long. Some of that was probably due to it being the early season for the park when I went, so while there were people all around it didn’t feel packed. It was a nice time, and I could get onto just about any ride within fifteen minutes of getting in line. And the variety was good, with a number of different kinds of metal coasters, sitting and standing and inverted, as well as one solid wooden coaster to round out the set. They’re fun, and if all you want are coasters at a good price, this might be a park for you.

The price is reasonable for a park. They start around $117 bucks for a day pass, although you can upgrade that on your way out of the park to a season pass for as little as ten bucks. There’s a lot of sales going on for the 50th anniversary too, so this year the discounts are steep (although no clue if that’s just because of the anniversary or if SeaWorld is desperate to get people to visit). Prices naturally go up from there depending on how long of a visit you want, and certain upgrades will increase the costs dramatically. That is about the same as a ticket to a single Disney Park, although I don’t know if I’d consider everything on offer to be as good of a value as Disney in any respect. If I had the same distance to drive (or fly) and I had to work the same arrangements for either, Disney would be the winner over Busch Gardens, easily, but that’s if I paid full price, without a 50th anniversary discount, and I wasn’t within driving distance of Busch Gardens.

All of this is to say that it doesn’t feel like this park is really worth it if you aren’t already close and just looking for a good way to kill time some weekend. Disney is an experience, and the same could be said for Universal or Nickelodeon or any of those. They’re the big parks with the mascots and theming and everything to make the event special. Busch Gardens could be there, if SeaWorld put in the effort, but right now it just doesn’t feel like they care enough to do so, and it shows.

With that all out of the way, enjoy some photos from the visit as I rode around on various gentle rides and saw all the sights that could be seen.