Theme Park for sale (a trip repot)

[mkcoastie]

Hello my Fellow Mouse chatters!
Well, I recently took a trip to my sadly mouseless (but still pretty cool) local park; Busch Gardens Europe. As the name suggests, this park located in...ummm...Williamsburg, Virginia. Well, as many of you are no doubt aware this park (along with its brothers and sisters) is currently looking for a new owner after Anheiser Busch was bought out by Inbev. So, as there is currently no sign of a "cash for theme park clunkers" program (not that this park is a "clunker" by any means) I thought i would do my bit for my local park by advertising some of the wonderful themeing and general atmosphere in this park

sooooo.... here goes.

I hope you enjoy.


We enter the park through London of the 1500's. There is even a Shakespear's Globe theatre (thought I don't recall the bard ever preforming Sesame Street 4D, must be one of his lesser known plays). Either way a very quaint "village" feel gets you in the mood quite nicely.

and it's off to.....

Ireland! (this might be a good time to note that due to time constraints during this particular outing, this will not be a complete tour of the park). This area of the park is my favorite (themeing wise).




Theese shots also illistrate how BGE keeps winning the "most beautiful theme park" award........Folliage EVERYWHERE. The whole park is buld IN a natural forrest, which gives it a very different feel to must parks that start with a clean bulldozed slate.




We now get to one example of something that frustrates me to no end. Despite all the attention that has gone into the themeing in this park (some of the best outside of Orlando or Anehiem), the desighners have annoyingly decided (one can only assume on friday afternoon at 4:30ish) that "hey, we themed the front of this....that should be good enough. No one wil notice the ugly wearhouse show building ON THE OTHER SIDE" The above picture is actually the least obvious of the examples with the worst being the Curse of Dark Casttle and Escape From Pompei attractions.


GRRRR.......
Well, I've said my pice so it's time for a trip on the sky ride to get some shots of.....




The Griffon splashing down..........


The "coasters in the trees" effect that shows the parks natural forest suroundings.


....Dragon Land (the kids area)


.....And down we come for a nice soft landing in the heart of germany.


Despite my numerous visits to the park I have never actually seen this bloody clock doing it's thing. I assume that it works and that I just have really bad timing.

stinker....
oh well,


This music box is playing in one of the germany stores.....quite cool.


Bucsh Gardens is famous for its animals. Here we see the rare and elusive "steel" bird which has recently been part of Busch Gardens very successful metal animal breeding program. The steel bird is beautiful.......but doesn't fly very well.


And now for Octoberfest in the Eatery/Show hall known as FestHaus




The cavernous interior of this grand hall is truly amazing.


From the back looking forward.


and now we pass by the soon to be gone BIG BAD WOLF (DUN..dun..dun).


the wolf in action....


and now a message from Inbev to the Big Bad Wolf:

Happy Birthday to you! oh by the way.....in memory of you birthday, and taking note of your continued popularity and historical significance.......were going to detroy you. now blow out you candles!


This is the "heres to the hero's" bridge. AB has always been wonderful in recognizing our service men and women. The bridge also affords some wonderful views of the park.


Yaay Coast Guard, they actually remembered us go AB!


The view from te Bridge.....




Here you can see the Rhine River Boat passing unter the train bridge. Very pretty, but I'm afraid this is also a view of the entire Rhine River boat ride's route. it turns around just on the other side of the bridge and come back. Not the most....ummm......riveting attraction.


The river bat comes back to homeport.

and now its on to Itally!


When in Italy...be sure to stop by a Notary


The Itallian gardens......





and finnaly.....

Escape from Pompei!









before I leave you I wanted to share with you a thought I had while walking around the park. It's going to be one heck of a job de-anhieserBuschifying this place (thats not a real word, so don't bother trying to look it up....just nod at the crazy man and say "uh-huh")


The logo appears everywhere, from benches........


......to water faucets. by the way, if want to get some weird looks......take out a camera and start taking pictures of bathroom water faucets.



and with that I will leave you. I hope you enjoyed my little jaunt through Europe. I want to appologise for the no-doubt coutless spelling and gramer errors in my comments, al well as the really bad humor. I also realize that I did not put the actual location of theese pictures in the thread title, thereby forcing you poor buggers to actually read a couple lines of my gibberish to figgure it out. I am sory for this and i promise to pay whatever therapy you end up needing.

happy chatting,

MkCoastie

[mkcoastie]

by the way......next week I will be starting my trip to the other Europe (I'm told there is Europe NOT located in Williamsburg, so I figgured I'd go check it out). This will be a two week trip that will include London, Edinburgh, Paris and yes DISNEYLAND PARIS!!!!! (I'm excited). so expect more pictures to come.

[CaptPhoebus]

I've always heard great things about this park, and these pics just cement the facts more. One of these days, I'll get there. Hopefully sooner, than later. Great trip report there.

[elisebairdcnu]

WOW! Someone on Micechat from MY neck of the woods! (Busch Gardens is my home park as well) and I agree whole heartedly about them taking Big Bad Wolf out on it's 25th anniversary. I'm so overly excited to hear of someone else on here sharing my home park! :-)

[AE_Fan]

Very nice photos, and I most certainly share your frustrations as well. It really is a bummer when you can really see just blank, unthemed parts of buildings inside the park.

With DarKastle, while they got one side and a corner nicely themed...just look to the left of the tower and you got one wall that doesn't even look like it belongs on the building.

The way I see it, if it can be seen in the park at ground level...theme it.

[WheresMickey]

Great pictures!