How about some love for BGW?

Busch Gardens Williamsburg is probably the best overall seasonal theme park in the USA. It may not have the most or the biggest, but it has all of the elements of an amazing theme park. While many theme parks have turned into coaster amusement parks, this one remains a theme park with something for everyone to do all day long regardless of ride level preference.

*The park is over 40 years old, and everything is well maintained and has a new feel to it.

*The original park is still fully intact, with the exception of Hastings being transformed to Ireland which was actually and improvement.

*New installations fit the theming of the area.

*After 40 years, the park still operates their cable skyway, train and boats. Compare that to the park down the road.

*Excellent live entertainment.

*Great re-rideable coaster collection. Not the biggest or the most, but great rides.

*Landscaping is maintained in all seasons. They even had late season flowers planted for Christmastown.

*An outstanding sound system with music that you can hear virtually everywhere in the park, with a different sound track in each section.

*Good, unique and themed food. While so many parks have went with overpriced fast food chains, this park actually offers food you want to eat.

*Clean restrooms. They may be 40 years old, but they don't have that Cedar Fair stale urine smell.

*Landscaped parking lots that don't feel like fields of asphalt.

*Working headlights on Verbolten

*And Chritsmastown. The amount of work put into this event should be appreciated. 8 million lights and they are constantly working to make sure they work. A phenomenal amount of work goes into the set up and deconstruction. for example, the 1,500 Christmas trees (except the retro ones) actually had the lighting wrapped around branches, not just thrown around the trees.

*A full lake in the center of the park. (Compare that to the park down the road).

The staggered opening of the park can be a little frustrating, but overall, there are few bad things that can be said about this park.

Less than halfway through the offseason and we are already going to talk about Cedar Fair's stale urine?

What's the point of this, exactly?

Hey, let's put an arguable opinion up saying for everyone to agree, and ware a ton of time!

Also, Dollywood.

Jeff said:

What's the point of this, exactly?

To compare that to the park down the road

I totally want to see a UFC-style advertisement for the upcoming Busch Gardens vs. Cedar P--uh, Park Down the Road match.

Everybody already likes Busch Gardens, and what you wrote sounds like a press release, not discussion.

I guess he is making a case for how underrated BGW is. It doesn't get the chatter as other comparable parks (e.g. Dollywood) but I don't think there is anyone on Cbuzz who'd say this is not a phenomenal park.

I love it.

Like for Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Ignore for cancer.

Yeah, it's a fantastic park. They could do without Europe in the Air though.

I guess im in the minority then as i just feel its an ok park at best. They have a few good coasters an awesome dark ride and very few flats. I would take kings dominion over it any day of the week.

Even Tuesday?

BGW has always been nicer than your typical seasonal park, although I must admit that I’m a little concerned about the park’s future. As we all know, SeaWorld Parks is doing very poorly, and it seems like that’s affecting the visitor experience at their parks. In the past, Busch Gardens built new attractions less frequently than that park down the road, but those attractions were usually well thought out, well themed marquee attractions. Manby has said that they intend to shift away from these expensive, themed rides in favor of building cheaper rides (think Tempesto) more frequently. This effectively makes them more like every other regional park, except that their one day tickets cost twice as much.

Edited to clarify: I still really like BGW, so I hope this doesn’t come across sounding like those annoying Disney fans that complain about everything. I just think the park may be heading in the wrong direction due to the parent company’s poor performance.

I haven't been to Busch Williamsburg in 15 years but I remember it being a beautiful park and preferring it to Busch Tampa. That said, BGT really has seemed to have seen better days in my experiences visiting last April. Not sure if others feel that way about either Busch park, but I sure feel it in Tampa.

Mr. Six said:

As we all know, SeaWorld Parks is doing very poorly, and it seems like that’s affecting the visitor experience at their parks.

We don't all know that, because it just ain't true. Despite setbacks in attendance, the company is still profitable, and things like layoffs are pretty normal when there's a significant change in leadership.

They had a net loss of $12M for the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2016. Attendance has fallen by about 10% since 2012. Meanwhile, their competitors have been having record years.

A net loss as in expenses were $12M more than revenue? Or a loss of $12M in revenue as compared to the previous 12 months, which doesn't really indicate true profit/loss?

The business is not operating at a loss. Sure they made less, but they aren't operating in the red.

I’m not much of a financial guru, but their press releases state the “company generated a net loss for the first nine months of 2016 of $0.6 million” and the “company reported a net loss of $11.0 million...in the fourth quarter of 2015." Cash flow appears to be positive, however.