Busch Gardens Williamsburg 9/5 & 9/6

The park announced the Taste of Williamsburg Festival a few weeks back and as soon as the they were available I was able to book us each Saturday and Sunday 11am to 3pm sessions. I looked at the calendar once we got to Williamsburg and all the reservations are booked up for the month.

When we got to the park we immediately felt like they were really limiting crowds. Being that Hersheypark is my home park, and the only other park we've visited since the pandemic started, ) we felt BGW was going above and beyond to make sure they were taking precautions. As mentioned on the BGT trip report the park was sanitizing the trains every hour and sending them empty to dry. It wasn't as big a deal as it sounds, and didn't effect our wait times.

The coasters running for the event are Griffon, Verbolten, Invadr, and Alpengeist. On Invadr and Verbolten they only loading 4 rows of each train. That was only reason they had a wait, and our longest wait was maybe was 5 to 10 minutes. Alpengeist was loading every row of the train, but only one party in each row. Griffon was loading every row but were socially distancing people on the train, so it was typically two groups per row on either side of the train. Both of those were walk on all day with the exception of waiting for the front row on Alpengeist.

The food didn't disappoint as we sampled our way around the park during the day. On Sunday we didn't eat breakfast because we had only used 2 punches of our 10 punch card for samples. For my wife and I that was just enough to sample a little bit of everything. The food at Busch Gardens is still top notch as far as amusement parks go. We had every thing from Churasco, to dumplings, to Cookie dough in a cone, and it was delicious.

If anyone has reservations or are interested in going we highly recommend. Can't wait to ride Pantheon next season, and it looks to be amazing.

I have heard nothing but good things about this event. I wonder if this model would work for other parks. For a premium fee you essentially get your own private event in the park. The guest satisfaction ratings have to be significantly higher than many of the parks open for the modified normal, where the parks are dead but lines are peak season Saturday.

Its funny you say that. Sunday seemed to be more crowded than Saturday. I think it was more of a timing issue(cleaning mostly,) that made it feel more crowded.

Saturday got 1 on Finnegan's Flyer, 2 laps on Griffon, 2 on Alpengeist, 3 on Invadr, 5 on Verbolten, and 1 on Le Scoot. Sunday was a repeat except we started at Verbolten and worked our way back to the front of the park.

My wife and I typically go to the park during the day, and the 11am to 3pm is just about right for the amount of park that's open. Even on a regular day with the whole park open we're there from opening to 5 or 6pm at the latest unless its a park that has something worthwhile to see after dark.