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Not all that pleased with the Express. The load time was almost 15 minutes from the train pulling into the station and pulling out again. There were as few completely avoidable issues that went into this. They are only using the front exit from the station which doesn't allow for quick exits for thos getting off and since they are not beginning to load till the platform is clear that needlessly add to the time. They also have stroller parking by the bathrooms but are not enforcing the use of that which means people are bringing them into the line and leaving them on the platform cluttering it up. They also have a rope line setup on the platform that forces you to thr rront our rear of the train instead of letting people go strait for the middle cars.


The ride itself is not bad but for large sections of it the sights are all to the right side of the train making them hard to see if you are on the outside of s crowd train.
 
As far as I know, they are using the New France Train Station, so it does make sense they have long lines. Not to mention, two trains instead of 3. It’s a round trip experience from what I’ve heard.
It is and they were only using onebtrsin tonight. That said if the casn noth handle the extremely lite crowds tonight without long waits then nighhts where ther park is crowded isd going to be as major issue. One trip plus wait time was 45 minutes tonight there is no reason that it should be that way the Frsnce lot isn't even full yo give you crowd size idea.


UP DATE
With the previous mentioned smSPL crowd size the line goes out the station past Invadr and is heading down toward Le scoot. This is not a good sign for high attendance nights.
 
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So just got home from Preview night of Christmas Town....im not impressed. Overall the park was dead empty tonight. There were numerous...ok tons of trees, wreaths, garyland and archways they either hadnt been wired up, didnt work or was half out. They were working on things everywhere, boxes of lights in the pathways, buckets of bulbs, drills, tool bags. We watched the First Deck the Halls and it went very good, Festhaus was very empty and I think we had the whole row of tables to ourselves. Basically the same show as last year. Ate at the Festhaus, food again prety much the same, I did feel like the portion size of the Christmas dinner was smaller and there was no crandberry sauce. The gravy was also a brown gravy which seemed odd for turkey but anyhow, no big deals. Next up we did Twas the Night. Same show, ran great, Santa wins the night for propping the inside of the fireplace back up after the set fell apart. The crowd got a good laugh at it. The book pages also didnt seem to want to turn on the right hand side. We walked in 5 minutes before the show and sat about as close to center as possible in the lower section, again might have been 2 or 3 other people on our row. After Deck the Halls we headed for the Train...more on that fiasco later. Next up was Gloria. We got there about 7:30 for the 8pm show. It was really odd, no line at all and doors were closed. We waited about 5-10 minutes before they opened the doors. Again show ran great to what looked to be aboiut 1/3 capacity. Next we walked up to Scrooge No More for the 9pm show about 8:35 and waited for about 5 minutes before they opened the doors. There were only about 20 people in front if us in line and we got center stage on about 5th row. Show was again the same and ran very good.

Now lets talk about thee refillable mugs. Busch Gardens has absolutely lost their minds with pricing. You can buy the mug for $6.99 but refills are $2.19. You can refill it with any of the hot beverages. Now if you dont want the mug and just want a paper cup its anywhere from $3.39 to $3.89 so even if you buy the most expensive drink you only save $1.70 on a refill after bying a mug.

Overall the park looked like crap to me, yes it raines this week but I have never seen so many lights out, trees out, burned out bulbs, things not yet wired. There is literally nothing new this year except for the train. You would thing for the 10th year there would be something new, something great,but nope same old crap. I did find it interesting how many times I heard Winterfest mentioned while waiting for shows and the train. We also asked about the member ornaments and was told at guest relations those would not be avaliable until December 1.

*edited because I posted it before I finished.

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Now lets talk about the addition for the 10th anniversary of Christmas Town....the Christmas Town Express. What an absolute dissapointment. We walked up right as the train was leaving and there were olny about 6 people in front of us. They said it would be about a 15 minute wait and thats when I noticed they were only running one train, the green train. I figured crowds were so low both were not needed but then when the train came back into the station those people were packed in like sardines. The unload process is some of the dumbess crap BGW has ever done. The entire train has to squeeze through the little exit by the front of the train and they dont start loading until the station is clear. We loaded and I was sitting on the left side of the train, mistake, with the train as packed as it was I couldnt see squat....well there really want much to see but I couldnt see the the few new displays behind the Royal Palace. Think Newport News Park decorations. After that was the straight away by first aid, there were trees with lights......but they didnt work. The bridge by Griffon has some weird globe lights in blinky pastel colors......looked like easter to me. I woukd have much rather just had been able to see the Ireland lights that are now visable since all the trees are gone but you cant because the crappy globes are so bright. Next up was the highlight of the entire train ride....a Loch Ness light up display....it was awesome!! The Scotland station had lights up....but again they werent working. We went past Pompei and into where the new fence wall things were built. This was the most horrible decorating ever done in public. They basically had RGB lights strung up in rows randomally flashing....at least the ones that worked. They could have done so much with this, patterns, images, anything but what they did....which was plug them in on what looked like demo mode. There were 3 sections like this overall and they all sucked. Then past the Peace on Earth bridge was more random pastel balls then even more pastel smaller balls. It looked like someone went on a website and ordered a bunch of crap then when it arrived just stuck it out with no planning. Finally we came acorss the swans, they looked pretty good. Lastly was about a 30ft RGB tree with somewhat of a pattern spinnng around it and then back to the station. I would have been truely pissed if I had waited for more than 20 minutes for that crap. What they have had in the past few years on the train was 100 times better than what they have this year. Bring back all the trees with tiny lights spread all throughout the train, there is no reason for one train stop either, this is not a attraction......it sucks royally! Lastly was the soundtrack....it sounded cheap and cheesey.....So the only thing we got for the 10th anniversary was a crappy train ride! 57920BC2-07E0-43AF-AE81-9237EE9C92CE.jpeg
 
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Given that this is the event's tenth anniversary and they seemed to be betting it all on the Railroad this year... Yikes.

First off I'll say that I am a huge supporter of the concept. BGW should be putting on the most amazing drive-through-style light display the area has ever seen with their train. With some effort and investment, the Christmas Town Express could easily be the event's flagship attraction (something CMT is really feeling like it needs right now).

Unfortunately... I'm just left hoping that what we saw tonight isn't close to being done.

There are some nice elements, but it all feels very sloppily thrown together. Random swans on pink water? A square of giant glowing balls with two gingerbread men in the middle? An awful recording with kids talking about things that have nothing to do with the displays? I just... I'm just left sorta befuddled to be honest.

Places like Newport News Park and the Norfolk Botanical Gardens put on large-scale, beautiful, well-thought-out, drive through light displays and this is all BGW could string together? It's disappointing.

The displays behind the Royal Palace Theater were perfect. The glowing balls near Loch Ness were nice. The Loch Ness display itself was great. After that.... Things just sorta fell apart though. ?

I'm not going to throw away the baby with the bathwater here and denounce the existence of the entire attraction. The railroad SHOULD be an attraction and it SHOULD be great. Even though it's not great in its current state, I still think this is progress. Hopefully after a few years of investments it will become the excellent offering that it deserves to be.
 
Overall it was ok....but there was nothing new. It was the same CT we saw last season. I feel like every year on opening night we walk around and point out new details or things that didnt make it back from previous years but not this year. As far as the train I dont think there is any recovering from what they have. Another thing we noticed that the Christmas trees down by the Rhine appeared to be "fake trees". What I mean is they were too perfect, too triangular. Nothing wrong with it, they looked fine just a change from the cut trees they have always used before. I guess when saying nothing is new is incorrect, they did add the projection in Germany, it wasnt bright or crisp images, I only watched for a minute.
 
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I did find it interesting how many times I heard Winterfest mentioned while waiting for shows and the train.

Oof.

Could BGW have waited another week to open CT since everything wasn't ready?

Seems that Busch wanted to beat Kings Dominion with opening their Christmas event this year, which actually isn't a bad idea unless your event opens in the fashion that it did. There's a chance that I'm speaking prematurely as last night was only a passholder preview, but if nothing changes tonight or tomorrow, then they have flopped on their first weekend. It's odd how this is the first year that Busch has a direct competitor within state lines and they only choose to add a train attraction as you would think that they would try to compete with an ALL NEW event happening an hour or so away by adding much more. I can't wait for Friday in Doswell; I have a gut feeling that WinterFest will blow everyone away. With that being said, I'm still hoping that I can make a trip down to Williamsburg this holiday season, and hopefully things can fix themselves before then.

Also, this is the first season that I've seen generally mediocre reviews for ChristmasTown, which is another bad sign for Busch for the same reasons.
 
The event is still really good. It's just not looking like a great year for regulars who want new offerings to keep them engaged.

Christmas Town feels really stagnant right now. It's far from bad—it's just hard to be excited about a largely unchanged event.
 
It is still a good event if you have never been or have not been in the past 5 years. But considering there are so many locals that go there is no reason they dont add something new every year. I think when Winterfest opens their doors next Friday it will be a game changer for CT. I will give Busch credit that the shows they have will not be topped but the park decor is going to be a showstopper at WF. I also call BS on BGWs claim to have 10 million lights this year. In fact they have removed some. The amount of lights in past years on all the cut trees on the train and what they have this year are about the same in my best guess. In France the trees used to have mini lights mixed in with the larger C7 bulbs and strobes. It looks as if they have removed or are just not using anything but the C7 bulbs in those trees this year. CT last night for me anyhow was boring. We didnt even stay till closing. They werent ready, they shouldnt have been open and it has started the event off on a pivitol year on a very bad note. It also didnt play in BGWs favor that the weather was bad all week. The park looked like crap. Leaves everywhere, I saw quite a few screws and pieces of zip ties on the ground all over the park. Inside the front of the Festhaus was full of leaves. It only made things worse that a few team members kept repeating over and over that they were still putting the finishing touches on things and that they were still working while we were in Italy.
 
It actually looked nicer then last night. There appeared to be more lights on the train especially on the out of it. It's still very unbalanced from side to side with the inside much more enjoyable in my opinion. One can hope that it will continue to improve as we have dry weather that allows them to get more work done this week.
 
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