bgw - 4.5.03

well, it's hard to beat a day at busch gardens williamsburg...it's even harder to beat starting out your coaster riding season with a day at bgw.

yesterday, my fiancee and me headed down from sterling, va to bgw for a day of riding. the best discount we could find for our tickets was $5.50 off of 1 day adult tickets with a food lion card.

we quickly entered the park around 10:30 am and noticed that the park was fairly crowded with school groups that had come to visit. after strolling through banbury crossing we headed back to apollo's chariot. i won't go through a dialogue of our entire today; instead i will just list the coasters we rode below and my ratings of each compared to previous rides on the coaster.

apollo's chariot (5 rides, 4 in the back row) - ok, this has always been one of my favorite hypers but yesterday this coaster was running unbelievable well. half floater air, half ejector. everytime i ride this coaster is surpises me how great it is. excellent ride ops, no stacking, and three train operation all led to nothing more than a 15-20 minute wait all day.

alpengeist (4 rides) - this was the surprise of the day for me. ok, of course this is the tallest invert and extremely eye appealing but in past trips to bgw this coaster has not lived up to the strength of talon or raptor for me, but yesterday changed my mind...the ride was absolutely flying throught the immelman, loop, cobra roll series...i mean SERIOUSLY moving. i was so impressed by the performance of this B&M gem...this quickly climbed to my second favorite invert behind volcano.

lochness monster (2 rides) - the theming and paint job look excellent for the 25th anniversary. the ride itself felt a little rougher than normal though. i would love to see 3 train operation on this one someday to watch two trains pass through the interlocking loops at the same time.

big bad wolf (1 ride) - this was another excellent ride. in my opinion this is by far the best arrow suspended coaster. tons of speed and surprises. i love the last drop onto the rhine river.

overall both jessica and i had a wonderful day together at bgw. the coasters performed better than i have ever seen before, the weather was nice (except for a short shower), and the food was outstanding. i encourage each of you to head down to williamsburg this year and visit one of the best and most scenic parks in the world.

ps....as we were leaving the park my fiancee said to me "i've never walked out of a park feeling so clean..." i guess that's the type of experience bgw prides itself on. truly a world class park.
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seek first to understand
then to be understood

I totaly agree...Alpengeist really had some power on saturday. Although i do think apollo was just as i remembered it.

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G-Forces: The only positive addiction out there!
CoasterCount: 42

I don't remember much about Alpengeist, except that the cobra roll kicked my a**!! That is what keeps it as my second favortie invert.

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"Jessica, you're turning me into a criminal, when all I want to be is a petty thug." -Bart Simpson

Jon, I have to agree with Jessica, BGW is the cleanest park. It was good running into you two!! AC is in a tie with Nitro I think for second favorite, right behind Maggie. After AC I went to the Italian Dinner Theater place and had a great meal, with Desert for 14.00. I even managed to get 3 hrs in at PKD that evening after I left at 3:30. You think BGW was packed, it was empty compaired to its nearby neigbor. They were having a Chearleader competition.

I only managed one ride on Volcano, and one each on the Woodies, and Anacondia before there 8:00 closing. At 6:45 they began to run test shots on H:XLC, a line quickly developed, but they told us after 20 min that it was probably a lost cause.

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Dave

Beware of Kiddie Coasters

You got 12 rides and you think that's packed? The one time I went to BGW (a Saturday in late March), I was lucky to get in 6 rides, and we stayed from opening to closing... :(

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A day is a drop of water in the ocean of eternity. A week is seven drops.

So LNM was just painted?

I agree, all Arrow suspendeds should be as good as BBW.