Busch Gardens

A while ago, we decided to take the kids to Williamsburg on Columbus Day weekend, primarily to visit Busch Gardens as a combined birthday gift for them.  We hesitated to book, well I should say I hesitated to book anything for a number of (largely unimportant) reasons but we finally decided to head down on Sunday morning, stay Sunday night and drive back Monday.  We booked the hotel, and were all set - the only snag in my mind could have been the weather.









Well, Mother Nature didn't want to cooperate with us...at least not entirely.  I tried to persuade James several times to change our plans, head down a day earlier or something...but he resisted, and it worked out fine.  He owes me a big 'I told you so'!

  We left about 8:30 on Sunday morning as planned...driving through drizzle that turned into a downpour the entire drive.  The good news is that there was no traffic, so aside from driving through rain we made great time and made it to Williamsburg in just about 2.5 hours.  James was watching radar, and assuring me (I was driving) that there was nothing behind the current line of rain so it should be stopping and we would be in the clear.  We were all hungry so we stopped at one of the umpteen pancake and waffle houses to eat brunch.  When we left the restaurant, the rain was slowing a bit so we decided to head to Busch Gardens and take our chances.

It was still raining lightly as we parked, but as we entered the park it stopped and we had 5 hours of clear albeit cold and cloudy weather.  All I cared about was that it stopped raining, so we were thrilled.  It was quite literally the perfect storm...a Sunday in October with undesirable weather.  There was a small crowd at the park, but nothing like it would be on a warm sunny day.  We had little to no lines for any rides, and we were able to ride each coaster 2-3 times with minimal waits.  The final count (just coasters) was 10 for Quinn, 9 for me and Keely, and 7 for James.  James sat out on a couple, he admitted he is getting old...and I was just happy to keep up with the kids the entire time...the last time I was on a looping roller coaster was when I was in college, about 15 years ago!  We rode Loch Ness Monster, Apollo's Chariot, Verbolten, and Alpengeist.  Keely only missed hitting number 10 by 2 inches...she was just barely (actually 0.1" under) 52", we were able to sneak her onto Apollo's Chariot twice but she was 2" short for Alpengeist.  We also went on a number of smaller rides.  Without lines, we did all of this in about 4.5 hours.  Quite incredible, and frankly it will be hard to go back to BG and actually have to wait in lines for these same rides on another day.  The park was decorated for Howl-O-Scream, the annual Halloween event so it was festive and fun to walk around.  We had a blast, and were all exhausted.  After we left the park, we headed to the hotel and hit the pool/hot tub for some R&R and to warm up.

On Monday morning, it was raining lightly again...surprise, surprise.  And it was cold.  We braved it for a bit and walked around Colonial Williamsburg but the kids weren't into it and we were all cold.  We hit the outlets on our way out of town...a Loft outlet (Keely's comment was that it was my 'heaven' when we walked in) and New Balance outlet where Keely was able to score some new kicks for Girls on the Go.  We made it home in under 2.5 hours, and were glad to be back home.  It was a quick trip, but we had a blast and I'm sure we will do it again!