Busch Gardens Williamsburg effectively nears year-round operation with events

I was coming here to share this. I was just there for Christmastown with the capacity increased to 4k. The had all of Italy closed including the bridge from Germany which resulted in crowds that seemed almost normal, especially in Germany and France.

If I lived nearby I would be pretty excited about this.

So they're limiting capacity, but also closing areas? Seems counterintuitive.

Sounds like a typical coronavirus response to me. Cut capacity then concentrate the crowds. Whether by cutting hours (especially cutting hours by Government directive so everyone is using the same reduced hours) limiting points of access, creating crowd control bottlenecks...it’s pretty much what I have come to expect.

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

That makes very little sense to me. I thought the point in COVID capacity cuts was to allow people to socially distance?

It makes zero sense and I would guess that any park doing so likely is doing it at the direction of someone who just doesn't understand. The complete opposite of that happens at the Disney parks (maybe Universal too?). The park opening time is a soft time because if a crowd large enough gathers waiting for the gates to open, the park will just open up to allow the crowd to spread out.

eightdotthree said:

...with the capacity increased to 4k. The had all of Italy closed including the bridge from Germany which resulted in crowds that seemed almost normal, especially in Germany and France.

Normal in what regards? 4,000 people in the balance of the park seems like a really small crowd.

Of course it's a small crowd compared to a normal day. But like I said, it seemed very busy in places like Germany because of the narrow pathways, dead end, and only a few attractions being open.

"Paging Rideman. Rideman, clean up on aisle 7."

It looks like Sesame Place is also going year round this year. I think that makes all the SEAS parks open year round, aside from the water parks of course.

It'll be interesting to see if these post-holiday winter events are successful enough to make a return next year.

Busch Williamsburg isn’t the best park for distancing with its narrow walkways.

Under normal circumstances year round operation would be great.

But really, as bad as things are, just stay home. The parks will be there when this is over. Any park experience right now is way substandard and just not worth it.

I think a lot of people disagree, and frankly amusement parks, the way they're operating, are surprisingly one of the safer things you can do.

It’s so counter-intuitive. But it sure seems like the worst place to be in terms of COVID-19 risk is at home with your family. It turns out it’s a whole lot easier to enforce safeguards in a controlled public environment. Amusement parks are pretty safe places; outdoor waterparks would be even better if the weather would cooperate.

—Dave Althoff, Jr.

I would suggest that being at home with your immediate family is also pretty safe, in that they're probably taking about the same level of risk as you and probably doing it with the same people you are (i.e. going to the same grocery store as you). It's probably most risky to hang out with extended family from far away because of the mix of different social circles and "What could possibly go wrong?"

I think you're absolutely right; I am just going by the early statistic we got that both in New York City and in Wuhan, a very large percentage of COVID-19 cases were among people who were supposedly complying with the stay-at-home orders. Nothing in that indicated the degree to which those people were excluding others from their homes; and while the holiday bounces in Ohio were not large (and in some cases are better explained by holiday weekend reporting effects than by holiday behavior) they are still best explained by people getting together with their own families.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.