How to handle crowds -- BGE 10/28

We got to the park around 1PM, and they directed us to the auxillary lots. For those of you who don't know, these are the lots that used to be the primary lots before the new ones were built several years ago. I didn't realize that they still even used these lots, but I guess they want to put the cars somewhere on packed days. I haven't been in this lot possibly since I was like 7 or 8 years old.

Anyway, I'll do my usual listing of observations below. Let's just say that overall, it was a great day, and this place knows how to handle crowds--Shapiro, you may want to take note here.

--BGE has great tram service, and this day they were running multiple trams to both sets of lots. Good job here.

--All 4 coasters were running all 3 trains most of the day. There was definitely some stacking going on, but I'm glad that they were running all the trains most of the day. On one Alpengeist ride, the line was of decent length (though the long queue was nowhere near full), and we were on in less than 30 minutes.

--The haunted train ride had a long, but very quickly moving queue. The ride has been more interesting in years past, so they dropped the ball on this one. At least capacity was really good.

--The park does a great job of putting on their halloween event. The atmosphere is definitely interesting. I like how they put a soundtrack around 2 of their pedestrian bridges within the park.

--The food I had was reasonably good, and we got season pass discounts on the food.

--We got to ride all 4 coasters twice each, plus we rode the haunted train ride thing, walked through the Curse of Pompeii (whose line seemed to move quickly when we were waiting), and rode Curse of Darkastle & Corkscrew Hill.

--Had some trouble finding a place that sold capacino, etc., and the place that did sell it had a bit of a wait at times. My iced coffee was good, but my friend's mocha latte wasn't very good, to me at least.

--The park map wasn't comprehensive enough--it didn't list all the food establishments.

--Pirates 4D was back in the theater, and had we known this, we probably would have tried to see it.

--They were using all 7 parking lots, and they were mostly full at some point. Even with all those people, they still managed to handle the crowds fairly well--definitely better than SFGAdv. The only line cutting system they had was for some or all of the halloween attractions, plus Curse of Darkastle, and I didn't notice many, if any, people using it. I'm glad that they know how to run a park and have no need for the likes of Flash Pass.

Good job, Busch Gardens--I will be back next season to sample Griffon!

*** Edited 10/30/2006 9:02:03 PM UTC by rablat5***