BGW 2017

Busch Gardens Williamsburg today announced that they are building a viking-themed GCI wooden coaster for 2017.

In 2017, a great battle will ensue in the trappers' village of New France. Vikings will invade, forcing the trappers to defend their village. Invade new territory on the first wooden coaster at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. The 74-foot drop makes it a force to be feared and nine airtime hills wait to be conquered by bold warriors. Chart a course through the winding frontier at 48 mph and claim eternal glory for your crew.

They're letting us pick the name for the new coaster - should it be Viking Raider, Invadr, or Battle Klash?

I think that this will be a great addition for Busch Gardens; they've been lacking a good woodie for a while.

Announcing the 2017 attraction this early seems like a bad idea from a marketing standpoint. You may lose some people who were going to go this year who will just put their trip off until next year. You could've got some of those people to double dip and go again next year.

They should call it Wodan Timburcoaster...would have been such a cool name... :-P

Thabto makes a good point - this can't HELP 2016 attendance. (Not that the park has trouble getting visitors).

In FB discussions today, we're discussing whether Busch has learned from their mistakes with Gwazi...

^^ I agree. If I were planning on visiting Busch Gardens soon and saw that announcement, I would postpone my trip until next year.

Don't care for any of those naming choices.

I'm not one to complain about coaster names, but I have to agree. Those are some of the least creative, vanilla, middling, juvenile attempts at naming the ride that could possible be made.

Battle Klash!?

Wow.

Such an easy opportunity here. Just pick some neat old Norse word that means battle or scare or thrill or something aggressive like that.

How do you miss that?

That is a collection of lame names. And, while I understand that mis-spelling words makes them easier to trademark, I still cringe reading "Invadr" and "Battle Klash".

Maybe they did look at Norse words. Seconds of research on the Internet tell me that Norse words for battle include dolg, eggtog and fundr, none of which strike me as great coaster names.

Well, I'm glad your extensive research of three Norse words for one English word has eliminated that entire idea. ;)

You know what I mean. Just run down this list and there's plenty there. And it would fit the whole "european" thing BGW does much better than anything presented.

The point is it would take almost zero effort to come up with something more authentic, fitting and in line with the park and ride theme in general then the names they've tossed out.

Wodan and Woden are Old Saxon and Old English names for Odin.....and they're reminiscent of our word "wooden".

Really hard to beat that, IMO...

Viking Voyage is cool, but Wild Adventures already has that name...

Of course, I think the names are pretty cool. I actually had a hard time deciding which one to vote for. Invadr was my choice. I think you could make an interesting logo with it. It would hang over the entrance well. LOL

It's pretty interesting that BG is allowing the public to help with some of the decisions on the coaster. Maybe that's why they announced it so soon, so plans could be finalized early enough for the ride to be finished on time. It kind of reminds me of when The Legend at Holiday World was built. Wait, does that make BG's claim that this is the world's first crowdsourced roller coaster false, or misleading? Wasn't The Legend built with the public's input?

Lord Gonchar said:

The point is it would take almost zero effort to come up with something more authentic, fitting and in line with the park and ride theme in general then the names they've tossed out.

Hey, I spent almost nine seconds researching Norse words for battle! :-p

No argument here on the lame-ness of BGW's choices.

I wonder if BGW went with those names as being the most trademark-friendly.

My biggest disappointment in the name choices is that they're so boring, and from the Busch/Sea World parks who usually do it so well.

I'm not a big fan of any of the naming options either. If only they went with a name like Berserker.

Good call.

Already a theme song too!

Whatever it ultimately is named, I'm glad to see a wooden coaster at BGW. As to postponing a visit until next year, someone offered me a ride to BGW this year so I guess that's it. Blew my chance to get a significant discount; Groupon was offering one-day tickets good through June 26 for $38.50 but I was so involved in planning what I would say at my late mother's memorial service that I missed the deadline.

Shockwave.

But listen, I'm with our Bobbie on this one. And I always pictured New France (that so far features, what? a store, a BBQ, a flume, and a transplanted Scrambler?) with some kind of e-ticket attraction. (Although the stats for this one aren't all that impressive, but ya' never know. The vid is no help whatsoever) I have always pictured a much-needed wooden coaster for the park, and this seems like a good place for it. (although I always imagined a terrain coaster from Ireland, through the ravine to the bald eagle sanctuary, possibly using up space left from the old brewery tour.) Anyway, this will bring folks in and cause a traffic jam in a neglected/forgotten? area of the park, maybe even shortening wait time elsewhere in the park, right?

As for the name? For one of them, at least, I can only think of Grindr and Growlr (and c'mon, who won't?), so that one's out. The other two suck. So good luck with that, Busch Gardens, but I sure welcome your future coaster and now I definitely want to come back to one of out country's most beautiful parks.
But in 2016? Probably not,... think I'll wait...
:-)

rollergator said:
In FB discussions today, we're discussing whether Busch has learned from their mistakes with Gwazi...

I would think they have. I have always thought operations and overall maintenance at the Williamsburg park have been leaps and bounds better than in Tampa. Plus, I don't think the brutal humidity and year round operation helped matters much with Gwazi.

RCMAC said:

... I can only think of Grindr and Growlr (and c'mon, who won't?), so that one's out.

Well, I hadn't, until you brought it up. Thanks, Mac. :-p

Are we missing something? What's with the pick sides and "defend the village" stuff in the teaser? Almost every other ride with the word battle in the name is a splash battle of some sort. Is it possible this ride will have a water battle element to it? From the onlooker's perspective I mean?

I mean this is a fairly midsized ride for Busch, so is there some unique twist we aren't aware of yet?