Busch Gardens Williamsburg - May 2023

I had a great two days at Busch Gardens Williamsburg with my wife and kids for the first time in over 15-years. (5/21 and 5/22 2023). The crowds were low and the weather was great. I picked a Sunday/Monday two day combo because I wanted to see the differences between a weekend and a weekday. Sunday was about 70% full, it was crowded but not crazy. The park on Monday was absolutely EMPTY. Granted this was the first Monday-Friday that the park was open in 2023 (They opened 7-days a week one week before Kings Dominion.) I am going to say 20% full at best. The big difference was that a few rides were closed due to lack of staff from Sunday to Monday. School was still in session. Tempesto was the only coaster that was closed that Monday. All the other big coasters eventually opened up through out the day. The train and Skyride were also closed, however I believe that might be normal for this time of the year. The new "Dark Coaster" ride was the only ride with a line, which was about an hour (compared to a 2.5 hour wait on Sunday.) Every other ride was basically a walk-on.

I mentally prepared myself to NOT ride Pantheon, due to my height. I have read reports of them being very strict on height. The MAX height is 76" and I am EXACTLY 76" with no shoes on (76.5" with shoes on). My two boys (15 and 20) were riding and convinced me to give it a shot, "The worst they can say is No, dad". We got to the ride just after it broke down/re-opened and I managed to fit underneath the measurement gate by millimeters. There was no wait so I gave my shoes to my wife and went though the line with my only my socks on. I was able to give it a lap and it was awesome. I know 99% of people on this forum don't have any idea what I am talking about, but being this close to the height "limit" sucks. Getting pulled out of a ride to be height checked is embarrassing. For me, it's like speeding 26-MPH in a 25-MPH zone. Yes, technically I was speeding, but come on now. I got an unexpected ride on Pantheon on Sunday and didn't want to push my luck on Monday, so I got 6 rides on Griffon and Apollo Charriot while my kids waited in line and got one ride on Dark Coaster :)

Busch Gardens is twice the distance from my house compared to Hershey Park, however I would choose Busch Gardens over Hershey Park if given the choice. They have a world class array of coasters and rides that can easily compete with HP. The difference for me at Busch Gardens is 1) Crowds 2) Shows 3) Landscaping. The food is very good at both parks. If you get a chance to go to Busch Garden Williamsburg, I would highly recommend it.

If there’s good food at Hersheypark outside of Chocolatier please reveal your secrets because I haven’t had anything beyond mediocre park food there in years…

Going to BGW on a random Friday in August and hoping to find lower crowds. It’s been 20+ years since I’ve been and there are a lot of coasters I want to get a t least one lap on. How is capacity on Dark Koaster? Should we head there or Pantheon first?

I don’t know how things are this season but in the past the park has been known to do staggered opening- the front sections of the park open first and everyone lines up for Loch Ness then sections further back open later then the sections at the rear open last. I found this out once when I showed up bright and early to ride Verbolten but couldn’t get to it until much later. And I’m going to have to say that nearby DarKoaster will be in the same situation. And that’s if they still adhere to that awful practice.
I mean I understand not wanting to have employees stand around until customers arrive but this made for crowds of people waiting to get to the back to each area and going through at least three rope drops per morning. It was very frustrating. Oh, and the Skyride and the train didn’t operate til later in the day presumably because it might dump park goers out in a place where they didn’t want them to be.

ApolloAndy:

How is capacity on Dark Koaster?

ApolloAndy:

Going to BGW on a random Friday in August and hoping to find lower crowds. It’s been 20+ years since I’ve been and there are a lot of coasters I want to get a t least one lap on. How is capacity on Dark Koaster? Should we head there or Pantheon first?

Dark Koaster is the new ride in the park and everyone is super exited and sprinting for that ride as soon as the park opens. They have one of those electronic displays at the entrance to the ride, and the day I was there it was always 120+ minutes on Sunday. To put things in perspective, every other ride in the park was a walk on or 10-minutes or less. On Monday, park 20%, my kids spent about 45-minute wait when the sign said 60 min. I had two different people ask me for directions to the ride. As in "we are here just to ride this attraction", type of thing. If you can hit the park on a weekend day in the summer, as apposed to the weekend I would highly recommend that. A random Friday should be as good as it gets.

They have four huge parking lots. From the top of Apollos Chariot, you can see all the lots to the left going up the lift. On Sunday it was 75% full, and our car was in the 3rd lot. On Monday, it was 20% full and our car was in the first lot with the other 3-lots empty. That ride gives a good perspective as to how crowded the park is