Gives a good target to give feedback to if you're not happy with it. I would.
The State of the Park: Busch Gardens Williamsburg
- Thread starter CoasterTalkBob
- Start date
I would like to provide the following observations from my trip to Kings Dominion on Saturday June 17. I will place a more detailed account in the trip report section under KD, but I felt that with what I have seen from BGW, it was poignant to post about what I saw at a park 70 miles away. Zachary- if you have to move this post, I understand, but I felt it was appropriate to place here for a couple reasons below.
My fiancé and I purchased the $33.99 meal plan for the entire day. The details of the plan can be found on their website. Bottom line is, as soon as we went to Outpost Cafe, I was ready to compare some of the items to what I had experienced at places like Trappers Smokehouse. Let me just tell you, that once again, whoever is calling the shots as far as the food goes at KD has their eyes on the prize. The prime rib, macaroni and cheese, and Peruvian bread were terrific. They didn’t scrimp on the portions, and the staff was kind enough to recommend to me a way to enhance that meal with horseradish, a slice of prime rib, and the Peruvian bread. The lady that told me this had such a sense of pride in her confidence that the food would be wonderful, that she smiled and asked me to tell her about it if I came back. She was right, it was delightful, and the cherry on top of that was someone from the cooking line took the effort to come over to me and speak to me about my choice amongst a half chicken and roasted sausage as other options.
My other meals from Grain & Grill were terrific as well, with a lot of kindness into not giving me the last bits of whatever was in the tray and getting a new tray. I’m not writing this as an objective food review so much as I am telling you that the last time I went to Busch Gardens, I spent a hell of a lot more for a hell of a lot less with a hell of a lot more animosity from the staff. They were indifferent to whatever I chose and it seemed as if they could not wait to take a break.
Landscaping here is something that I thought I would not even notice, but the fact that even despite a very dry spring in Virginia, there was no wilted abandon carelessly placed flowers, and the theming related to Peanuts had very nicely curated hedges. If you’re going to do it, do it well, and they do it well.
Additionally, there were a few mishaps! Someone passed out in the queue line for Dominator. A supervisor with a shirt tucked in with clean khaki pants with the words “Cedar Fair Supervisor” rushed over without delay to call medical services and directed us a little further backward, so we kept our place in line to ride the ride after the medical scenario had been cleared. He was very calm and soft-spoken about the issue so as not to embarrass the folks who were in distress, and assured us that once it was handled, we would be back in line, and that, we were, very quickly.
A person cut the line for I305, which led to a group of people cutting as well, and the ride operator noticed this incident. Operations temporary halted until they were able to nab those people, but in the process, there was care and consideration to those who were left on the break run for more than 5-10 minutes. We returned to the ride with those people ejected and had an absolutely incredible night time ride on what I agreed to be the most intense giga coaster on this planet.
The operations on Tumbili and Twisted Timbers need work. I wasn’t furious about this, but it was clearly not what I expected and there was too much time wasted fumbling in the name of loose articles and security while trains stacked for minutes on end.
I am not going to go into comparing roller coaster statistics or things of that nature between the two parks. I write this review here as someone who has been going to this park only sporadically since I was a kid. It was fine in those days, but I always passed it to go directly BGW. I would never even recommend my friends and family stop at this park because of what Williamsburg offered. I can safely say that my money, gas money, energy, and friends, will be taking the trip to Doswell Virginia repeatedly this summer for these reasons. I still don’t think that Busch Gardens offers a top-tier experience, and they are fine with that in the things that they are doing for that price. KD had tons of flat rides, nicely shaded areas, lovely music, and a great sense of staff energy and security presence that I felt like I “SHOULD” be there. This park is not perfect, there is no perfect park. But for $44.99 to enter, with a $30 Parking fee that was split between my fiancé and I, and $33.99 worth of food that we ate literally all day and enjoyed, I left that park with a smile in my heart knowing that whatever Cedar Fair is doing to keep Kings Dominion a solid, well curated and thoughtful experience is working. It made me more angry than Busch Gardens cannot do the simple things that KD did with relative ease and pride in doing so.
It is a shame that I am saying this in 2023, but it goes to show you that when you don’t sleep on the thoughts of your guests and the see importance in effort combined with value, you can do really big things. For me, BGW remains second-fiddle until they really listen to the people who set foot on the paths and experience the park, not whatever shareholders families are saying.
I’ve already planned my next trip to KD in one month with more friends. I cannot wait.
My fiancé and I purchased the $33.99 meal plan for the entire day. The details of the plan can be found on their website. Bottom line is, as soon as we went to Outpost Cafe, I was ready to compare some of the items to what I had experienced at places like Trappers Smokehouse. Let me just tell you, that once again, whoever is calling the shots as far as the food goes at KD has their eyes on the prize. The prime rib, macaroni and cheese, and Peruvian bread were terrific. They didn’t scrimp on the portions, and the staff was kind enough to recommend to me a way to enhance that meal with horseradish, a slice of prime rib, and the Peruvian bread. The lady that told me this had such a sense of pride in her confidence that the food would be wonderful, that she smiled and asked me to tell her about it if I came back. She was right, it was delightful, and the cherry on top of that was someone from the cooking line took the effort to come over to me and speak to me about my choice amongst a half chicken and roasted sausage as other options.
My other meals from Grain & Grill were terrific as well, with a lot of kindness into not giving me the last bits of whatever was in the tray and getting a new tray. I’m not writing this as an objective food review so much as I am telling you that the last time I went to Busch Gardens, I spent a hell of a lot more for a hell of a lot less with a hell of a lot more animosity from the staff. They were indifferent to whatever I chose and it seemed as if they could not wait to take a break.
Landscaping here is something that I thought I would not even notice, but the fact that even despite a very dry spring in Virginia, there was no wilted abandon carelessly placed flowers, and the theming related to Peanuts had very nicely curated hedges. If you’re going to do it, do it well, and they do it well.
Additionally, there were a few mishaps! Someone passed out in the queue line for Dominator. A supervisor with a shirt tucked in with clean khaki pants with the words “Cedar Fair Supervisor” rushed over without delay to call medical services and directed us a little further backward, so we kept our place in line to ride the ride after the medical scenario had been cleared. He was very calm and soft-spoken about the issue so as not to embarrass the folks who were in distress, and assured us that once it was handled, we would be back in line, and that, we were, very quickly.
A person cut the line for I305, which led to a group of people cutting as well, and the ride operator noticed this incident. Operations temporary halted until they were able to nab those people, but in the process, there was care and consideration to those who were left on the break run for more than 5-10 minutes. We returned to the ride with those people ejected and had an absolutely incredible night time ride on what I agreed to be the most intense giga coaster on this planet.
The operations on Tumbili and Twisted Timbers need work. I wasn’t furious about this, but it was clearly not what I expected and there was too much time wasted fumbling in the name of loose articles and security while trains stacked for minutes on end.
I am not going to go into comparing roller coaster statistics or things of that nature between the two parks. I write this review here as someone who has been going to this park only sporadically since I was a kid. It was fine in those days, but I always passed it to go directly BGW. I would never even recommend my friends and family stop at this park because of what Williamsburg offered. I can safely say that my money, gas money, energy, and friends, will be taking the trip to Doswell Virginia repeatedly this summer for these reasons. I still don’t think that Busch Gardens offers a top-tier experience, and they are fine with that in the things that they are doing for that price. KD had tons of flat rides, nicely shaded areas, lovely music, and a great sense of staff energy and security presence that I felt like I “SHOULD” be there. This park is not perfect, there is no perfect park. But for $44.99 to enter, with a $30 Parking fee that was split between my fiancé and I, and $33.99 worth of food that we ate literally all day and enjoyed, I left that park with a smile in my heart knowing that whatever Cedar Fair is doing to keep Kings Dominion a solid, well curated and thoughtful experience is working. It made me more angry than Busch Gardens cannot do the simple things that KD did with relative ease and pride in doing so.
It is a shame that I am saying this in 2023, but it goes to show you that when you don’t sleep on the thoughts of your guests and the see importance in effort combined with value, you can do really big things. For me, BGW remains second-fiddle until they really listen to the people who set foot on the paths and experience the park, not whatever shareholders families are saying.
I’ve already planned my next trip to KD in one month with more friends. I cannot wait.
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Well thought out post, I all I can think of to say is, KD must not be run by a Venture Capitalist.
Yeah, but do they get a new "record setting" coaster every year?
Kidding of course. All the SEAS parks seem content to ride this wave so to speak, just going by nostalgia or reputation while everything drops in quality. I doubt it will change until they see a reason to change it, ie people stop going and spending.
Kidding of course. All the SEAS parks seem content to ride this wave so to speak, just going by nostalgia or reputation while everything drops in quality. I doubt it will change until they see a reason to change it, ie people stop going and spending.
Yeah with how Wall Street has responded to SEAS approach to things I fear that we will not be going in the other direction on this stuff for the foreseeable future. All they have to do is build a new ride at the established parks, people come spend lots of money, just keep squeezing the budget until every single penny goes to the shareholders without massive pass and membership cancellations or major arena dance hits and investors are happy.
It’s a shame it feels like over time most industries have found ways to be less and less consumer friendly. I hope other chains don’t follow suit on SEAS approach over time, granted non BG or SEA parks aren’t as good at making me get my wallet out.
It’s a shame it feels like over time most industries have found ways to be less and less consumer friendly. I hope other chains don’t follow suit on SEAS approach over time, granted non BG or SEA parks aren’t as good at making me get my wallet out.
Personal take that might be a hot take too -
I think more parks have been run like this longer than we like to admit, just BGW/BGT is much more noticable because it wasn't for the longest time under AB, so we have something more favorable for the longest time.
SF still has it's major problems of trying to make share holders happy.
Hershey has long killed their F&B and just replaced it with generic chains running everything.
Disney and Uni have long done it IMO but they just get away with it because they spend big about every 3rd year.
CF I feel tends to do the 'one step forward, one step back' with this stuff (not to mention they really neglect their small parks to boost the name parks).
I feel like my thoughts can be summed up by this clip:
Direct Link to Embedded Media Source
CF feels like the one moving towards better right now.
I agree of all the major chains I’ve had business with, Cedar Fair seems to have the happiest employees and cleanest looking parks. I also don’t feel like (despite the fact they 100% are) they are aggressively trying to extract from my bank account when I go. All of that combined with the ride ops tend to be above average at least at the higher end parks makes me feel like of the bigger chains I’d rather give my money to Cedar Fair these days. Now my experience with Disney and Universal is a tad limited at this point but I don’t have much negative to say there. Hershey has some very disappointing ops honestly.
SF has had multiple bouts of bankruptcy — in fact, their aggressive focus on thrill rides at the expense of pretty much everything else can be seen as a major factor in their near-collapse in the 2000s. Plus, SF is now struggling to undo the mess as their current CEO seems to have a long-term strategy for the chain as focusing on entertainment, families, food, and the park experience as opposed to just rides — but many of the parks are so far gone that it’s been a challenge.
Hershey isn’t owned by a publicly traded company so the comparison isn’t completely valid.
I’m not happy with the continued injection of IP into the Disney parks, and I agree that Disney is getting too expensive for what they’re doing these days, but I really don’t see Disney as falling into the same level of budget-slashing of staffing, facilities, theming, maintenance, and non-thrill rides that SEAS is doing.
I’m curious where the argument about Uni comes in. Their parks are also expensive, but they seem to be continually investing in improving their parks far beyond just bare-bones roller coasters and beer stands ala SEAS.
I’d also challenge the idea that CF seems to take “one step forward, one step back” in this context. CF isn’t perfect, but I don’t agree with the assertion that they’re in the same boat as SEAS with just investing in thrill rides and little else. I’m curious about why you think their “steps back” are equal in magnitude to their “steps forward.”
Finally, I don’t think the shock comes from the parks finally moving away from the way they were in the AB days. The parks stopped being AB theme parks in the late 2000s — by the 2010s people were lamenting how they had become normal corporate theme parks. As someone who visited the park in the AB days and was around when it became a corporate theme park, I don’t ask for AB-era BGW to come back — because I know it will never happen. I literally just want, like, 2016-era BGW back.
I just want BGW to keep up when KD makes improvements.
That’s not the point. Also the steps back is yes, they will pull out a great new F&B option but two others are closed making things busier. My CP trip a few weeks ago was really bad with that where I was waiting a good bit to get my food.
Again I feel the same as the previous example, where you’re applying the unsaid of direct comparison to what I meant. I, personally, thinf for the longest time those two parks have valued getting money spent over guest experience. Yes, I blame them for the whole FP/QQ culture, paying extra for small experiences, and generally introducing parts of the park experience that makes it more miserable to me personally.
So this is more what my point is - It’s all happened in 7 years at BGW/SEAS, not over decades like other parks. That makes it all seem much more egregious in its severity when that happens. If this was BGW’s slow path over 20-30 years it wouldn’t be super bad.
I think you misunderstood my point. I would consider BGW circa 2016 to be roughly in line with the other theme park chains (CF, Disney, Uni) in that they were obviously there to make a profit, but still offered a nice experience. 2016 BGW should be the base line for what the park offers as a publicly traded, corporate theme park. When I say I’m unhappy with 2023 BGW, it’s not even because I’m comparing it to past versions of the park — it just feels objectively bad compared to its industry peers in the way it’s being run.
No, I got your point.
Has nothing to do with what I was saying in my OP though. In fact it took my knock of BGW and made it into a defense of them. I wasn't fully comparing BGW to those other parks. I wasn't comparing it to other parks. I was pointing out other parks have made massive changes to their structure over a long long time. Decades of time have gone into these changes at some parks. BGW/SEAS has slammed every single one of those changes into a half-decade time frame. When that much change in a downward fashion happens that fast it all feels much much worse than it might actually be.
Personally I didn't think 2016 BGW was all that great. I thought it was ok. Better than what I was used to with Hershey because they were in the middle of the process of ripping out so much for the Boardwalk and shuttering so many of their unique F&B options for chains to come into the park. SFGA was the other park I went to all the time and it had a reputation at that time of "get in, ride coasters, get out." Dorney was a rare option to go to because it was a water park with a dry part that parents would drop off their kids and treat it like a day camp.
Mind you that was all 2016. It didn't get there overnight. When I moved to PA in 1994 they were all really nice parks IMO. Dorney was a fun 3/4 day park and the closest park with a waterpark side of it. Back then it was a fun place to go because it wasn't super easy to get to for anyone and unsupervised teens were regularly booted. SFGA was known as a thrill park - and even though the rides had problems, back in the mid-90's SF hadn't gained is reputation like that. Hershey was still smaller back in 1994, it was seen as the small regional park. In those days GB and WC were relatively new and Comet, SDL, and TB were the only other coasters so the park didn't have a huge draw and it still relied on Milton's vision as a park for the employees.
All of those changes between the two paragraphs took almost 30 years to happen.
So again, it shouldn't be shocking that SEAS went this route to do things that are more profitable over guest oriented. It just feels so much worse to happen over 7 years where it's multiple things a year that change, often times without an offseason to adjust to it. It's done in ways that's meant to be un-noticed (like the surcharge) but it's made worse by the fact it's so hidden. It's so much worse when every single F&B spot goes to the cost cutting generic foods at the same time as opposed to a side or two going to that over time.
So based on what you have said it seems as though you disagree with this notion that SEAS becoming more profit focused in a much shorter time span feels worse than when other parks have done those things.
This feels like a bad omen for the atmosphere of the park
Interesting that one of the things I noticed most about KD was the awesome themed music, especially in Jungle X-pedition and the areas near Twisted Timbers.
BGW continues to feel cheaper and cheaper, and we as the lovers of this park pay the price.
Went to BGW one last time before my membership expires. I don't think I'll be renewing for a while, and certainly not at the Platinum level.
I just kind of felt sad most of the day—when I moved to Virginia BGW was one of the first places I went, as I had never lived close to a theme park before. I really fell in love with the escapism of it. Awesome shows, great scenery, amazing food, and really fun rides. I know I'm not treading new ground in saying this, but it simply feels like an empty shell of what it was even those 8 years ago when I first went. There is so much throughout the park that screams, "We don't care, you'll pay anyway." Broken trash cans, signs replaced with Sharpie on printer paper, litter strewn about. It really just made me sad.
I ended up sitting back behind the Lorikeet Glen and just kind of taking some time to myself, remembering the animals that used to be there and the general sense of life that pervaded the park. I hope someday that feeling returns.
I just kind of felt sad most of the day—when I moved to Virginia BGW was one of the first places I went, as I had never lived close to a theme park before. I really fell in love with the escapism of it. Awesome shows, great scenery, amazing food, and really fun rides. I know I'm not treading new ground in saying this, but it simply feels like an empty shell of what it was even those 8 years ago when I first went. There is so much throughout the park that screams, "We don't care, you'll pay anyway." Broken trash cans, signs replaced with Sharpie on printer paper, litter strewn about. It really just made me sad.
I ended up sitting back behind the Lorikeet Glen and just kind of taking some time to myself, remembering the animals that used to be there and the general sense of life that pervaded the park. I hope someday that feeling returns.
I agree.. I first went in 2015 and quickly bought a pass and became a regular. I haven’t been since before Covid, but even then it had changed a lot in just over 4 years. Reading here, it seems almost unrecognizable now. I don’t know when I’ll want to go again.
On Tue June 20 I had a day almost like the good old days except the Skyride and was closed. Tempesto also closed but I don’t usually ride. Restaurants were operating and the food was good including rope. strawberries The Rhine Cruise was operating. Great show again in Globe plus the other live entertainment.
BUT THEN they close an hour early because it rained some. They then proceed to court Wed hours from 9 PM ti 6PM v close on the website. And THEN they close at 4 on Wed.
Seas is run by crooks. The cut cut cut employee hours and are probably exploiting these exchange employees also They don’t provide the customer what is advertised.
BUT THEN they close an hour early because it rained some. They then proceed to court Wed hours from 9 PM ti 6PM v close on the website. And THEN they close at 4 on Wed.
Seas is run by crooks. The cut cut cut employee hours and are probably exploiting these exchange employees also They don’t provide the customer what is advertised.
I can’t help but notice… it rained some? It’s been torrential downpour for a decent chunk of the week. If that doesn’t warrant closing, I don’t know what does. No one wants to be to be at a theme park when it’s raining hard, and it’s hard to enjoy when you’re drenched to the bone.