In December, Busch Gardens is decorated for Christmastown. This was an excellent way to show the lights. Go early and if weather permits, wait for the gates to open at opening town. There's quite a walk from the parking lot to the entrance. Not all rides were operating in Dec. but not a big deal for us. The only complaint I had was the overpriced food and drinks.

We have been going to Busch Gardens Williamsburg for several years. We have always been able to get a great deal on either the bounce pass or fun card for the week, which often includes parking. The food is expensive but much better than most theme park food and unique in that you can get foods that are from the different countries represented in the park. There is plenty to do for little kids as well as older kids. There is a great blend of intense rides and calm rides. The theming is immersive and what sets this park apart. There's also animal experiences like a show with the wolves, a meet and greet with the Clydesdales. The park is always clean and well kept.

Very clean and well planned park- really fun theming in wait areas and plenty of shade on sunny days- except for in Italy. Great coasters - Dark Koster and Verbolten were our favorites. Celtic Fyre was a great mid-day break as was a walk through the Lorakeet aviary.

The park is a lot of fun, very clean, and has lots of well maintained, well done roller coasters and a decent selection of carnival style rides for younger kids. Food typical of theme parks. Some nice, brief animal shows. Celtic Fyre Dance show really good. Gave only 4 stars (would prefer to give 4.5) because of their online ticket buying experience. We thought we’d bought ticket plus Quick Pass for $150 each only to find that this was the fee for just the Quick Pass—the $100 admission price wasn’t included! This was NOT obvious in the online purchase process. Fortunately, the park staff were very polite and helpful in allowing return of the Quick Pass (which we found we wouldn’t have needed on a school day) and getting us the admission passes.

Took my teen granddaughter and her BFF for a spring break visit. It seemed shabby on-site and in need of upgrade, but They loved the roller coaster rides. I on the other hand did not appreciate the money grab At every opportunity. The meal ticket is a scam , buy as you go, because you end up having to buy extra for a real meal and it doesn’t include the things that visitors actually want. Pretzel not included that will be $17; Beer expected to be extra but $15; meal (entree side and dessert) included in meal plan but if you only want a dessert $15! Meal plan varied based on where you go… The price for parking should be illegal and it changes daily. Day 1 $32; day 2&3 $37. Told by hotel staff that in season (late spring through Labor Day) it gets to $200 per day to park!!!! Next time, I’ll pass!!!!

The rides were so much fun! I had a great time on them! Even my boyfriend who hates roller coasters loved Apollo’s Chariot!

Good from afar but far from good. Like others have said, either this place is resting on its laurels or it has terrible management or both. Very understaffed leading to unnecessarily long lines. It took an hour of waiting in line at Festhaus for food as only two lines open. We waited in line at Darkroaster for 45 minutes watching kids who didnt have Fast Queue skip over and jump in that line. Several roller coasters closed. We wont be back.

Perfect day to visit Busch Gardens. The weather was perfect for the end of March. The lines were very short. I rode one roller coaster and it beat me up pretty good, so I didn't ride anymore. There were a lot of places to eat, but not a lit of indoor sitting.

I grew up on Busch Gardens. My first roller coaster ever was the Big Bad Wolf. Busch Gardens was, for decades, among the best amusement parks in the country. Unfortunately, since COVID, that streak has ended. BG has been unable to recruit and retain enough staff to keep it at its former glory, leading to absurdly long lines for both rides and concessions. Even rides built deliberately with double queues were manned for only a single, leading to lines everywhere. When we went to lunch at the Festhaus, there was only a single serving line open. By the time we passed that way an hour later the food line was out the door (and the beer vendor had closed for the day). Insult is added to injury by the colossal price increase. We eat at the Festhaus on every visit. We could usually do this for ~$60 for a family of four before COVID. Now, the same meal is $110. I am in the military and get a free annual ticket for my family and I. That said, I’m still not sure I’ll return.

Very beautiful park that has something for everyone! We did the wine tastings in the different countries throughout the park.

Great park for rollercoasters. It was beautiful. Not everything was open, but understandably so - beginning of the season. Horrible food. No cash accepted but they charge a whopping 5% surcharge on card usage. Plus, at times registers were not working which resulted in huge lines.

Been going since I was a child, now I'm 54 and can't ever see myself going back to this place. Nobody is willing to say what the real problem is, or the obvious reason for the decline of the park. I will...it all started when Williamsburg Area Transit started running buses to the park. The only time I have ever felt uncomfortable at the park for any reason was going through security at the front of the park. How unprofessional can you actually look and act when your job is security? This place has become GHETTO

The zoo, epcot, and six flags had a kid. Lots of kids activities and pretty solid people watching. We went for 3 hours and had a great time.

We go to Busch gardens A LOT! We have been members for years. We normally love it! This past year was somewhat of a disappointment! There were SO MANY lights out at christmastown! Especially on the train ride which is usually beautiful. No one cared to fix the lights and it was pretty sad looking. They have been short staffed lately so all of the rides aren’t always open. We also recently went to Mardi Gras and were SUPER DISAPPOINTED! The only coasters open were Apollo’s chariot and darkoaster. It was 67 degrees and all of the kids rides were open so we didn’t really understand the reason behind this. We spent maybe two hours there before we wanted to leave. There was just nothing to do since everything was closed. The portion sizes of the food were just little samples. You get TWO CRAWFISH, ONE POTATO AND ONE CORN! That was insane to us. The po boys were a quarter of their normal size. All in all Mardi Gras was just plain disappointing and the lights being out at Christmastown was also a bummer. Management really needs to step their game up because this used to be the best park and now it’s just falling apart. We are starting to want to go somewhere else for fun and rides.

While visiting family in VA Beach, I went to Busch Gardens Williamsburg on 12/9/23 as I've been going there since they opened in 1975. For the past 3 years I have been a Seasons Pass Member, even though living on West Coast I only get to visit the Park once each year. It always great to see Christmas Town and I was very excited to show my friends the decorations, eat the food and enjoy the live performances. However after renewing my pass in Jan '23, I never received an email nor a pass in the mail. So before coming to the Park, I called and spoke with one of the Park's customer service agents who told me that he would give me my Pass number and I could show it when to the Park and they would verify my membership. However, when I arrived at the entrance to the Park, I was told that we could not enter unless I paid for parking which was included in my Membership, I asked to speak to her supervisor and someone stating that she was the supervisor, told me to get out her line, pay to park or leave! She added that she had no way to look up my membership. So, I called Customer Service so someone could speak to her and while on hold, she rudely and loudly told me to get out of her line or she would have security remove me. My passenger, feeling embarrassed, paid for us to park. When I went to the customer relations booth inside the park to get them to issue me a pass and the money back from the parking. I was offered an half hearted apology and given some park bucks which was only valid that day, instead of refunding us the cash we paid for parking. I have loved spending the day at Busch Gardens since they opened in '75. It was always a great place to visit, but the warmth and charm that was always there, have gone and I won't be returning. In addition, the customer service has also diminished greatly and it's just not worth it to me anymore.

European theme with lots of fun rides plus European culture & food, visited multiple times with family and friends as a group of 30 plus during 🥶 so no visit to associated water park, loved it 🥰

I visited Christmas Town at Busch Gardens. They have over 10 million lights, several shows, and some of the rides for the Christmas season. (I do not go on roller coasters, but went on the sky ride and the Christmas Town Express train ride.) I saw four shows, three of which are new this year. "Scrooge No More" is their version of "A Christmas Carol". New this year was "Wisemen", a singing trio. They have a huge Christmas tree in the Germany section. They changed the light show this year. It's now called "Celebration of Light at O Tannenbaum". The lights move in synch with the music. They turn the Escape from Pompeii log flume ride into a beautifully decorated "Polar Pathway". This year, they added a light show where the lights move to the music. It was called "Polar Pathway Spectacle of Lights". I was disappointed that two of the shows were not performing on the day I visited. I wish there was a way to know in advance which shows have the day off so I can plan my visit accordingly. Pro tip: Busch Gardens closes in inclement weather. If you are visiting from out of the area, do not plan to visit on your last day in case the park is closed on that day.

Busch Gardens Christmas Town never disappoints. Park was beautiful as always and staff was friendly and helpful.

If I could give this park zero stars, I would. My boyfriend and I went to Busch Gardens Williamsburg this past holiday, and calling it a "horrible experience" is an understatement. We drove down from Pennsylvania to enjoy the Christmastown experience and the limited number of rides that they offer in the winter. I went to the same park two years ago, and it was an amazing experience; however, this park has drastically declined since then. When we arrived on the first day, the park had closed due to the weather. Although I understand a park closing due to pouring rain or severe weather, the weather that particular day was not terrible in the least. It had rained previously in the morning, and the weather for the afternoon/evening was perfect. Since we were only in Virginia for three days, we essentially lost a hundred since the park was closed the first day. We returned to the park the following day, and this is where things went south very quickly. The first thing we wanted to do was the rides. We are both big rollercoaster fans and wanted to enjoy the few rides that they had open. Verbolten was quick to access and was not busy. We also went onto Pantheon, which had an hour wait but was completely worth it. We decided to then try our luck on DarKoaster. The line was about an hour long; however, after waiting for thirty minutes, the ride was then closed down due to a maintenance issue. We then decided to try our luck with Alpengiest, only to find out that this ride was also closed. Because of these ride closers, the remaining four rides that were left open had waits of almost two hours. Waiting for almost two hours was not worth it, so we decided to forget about the rides. We had purchased the meal plan before arriving in Virginia and decided to try our luck at getting some food. We went to the Marco Polo restaurant in Italy, only to find that the line to your order food was through the exit of the restaurant. This not only created confusion and chaos but also made it impossible to get out of the restaurant to pay for the food. At one point, the line for this restaurant was over an hour long. Not to mention, the employees are extremely rude and obviously hate their jobs. Customers became so frustrated that they actually began to yell at employees and other patrons. The food was good but was definitely overpriced, and there was no coordination on how to receive your meals. After only being at the park for a few hours, we decided to cut our losses and leave. The park was absolutely packed, and there was no coordination from the employees, making things extremely chaotic and stressful. We went back to the park for the final day of our three-day trip because we did not want to lose out on more money. The park was not as packed as it was the day before. We decided to go to Pantheon again when we arrived, and then we made our way to Verbolten. The Verbolten ride was really fun... until we got stuck at the top of it. We waited there for about fifteen minutes until they finally got the ride going again. I'm normally very good with heights on rollercoasters, but being stuck on them is a completely different story. After we got off, we decided to try our luck again on DarKoaster. It was an hour-long wait to get onto the ride. The advertisements for this ride make it seem like it is this cool and scary indoor rollercoaster with four high-speed launches, but in reality, it is nothing but a disappointment. The decorations and lighting effects look like they were bought from Spirit Halloween, and the ride is just a loop of the same track. I wish that calling it "underwhelming" would be a proper enough adjective for this ride, but it's beyond that. Overall, I am very disappointed with Busch Gardens Williamsburg. It is obvious that this amusement park has drastically declined and that the employees/owners do not care. The lack of coordination, along with the blatant disregard for customers' time and money to attend this event, is clear to see. I suggest that you do not spend your money to come to this park. You will leave disappointed and frustrated. Christmas Town is meant to bring in the holiday spirit, but in retrospect, it ruined my entire holiday.

We are an “amusement park” family. We love going to parks and riding rides and have been all over the country from California to Ohio and PA as well as to Flordia etc. all that to say we have a lot of experiences with parks and lines and crowds. So when we went to Christmastown on Thursday between Christmas and New Years we were looking forward to it. We Arrived before the park opened so we would have plenty of time. We spent money to buy our pic with the Clydesdale and rode the flyers. From there we went on around to find that the ice skating show, Twas the Night, had only two shows that were later in the day, the Christmas train was closed til 5; Darkoaster was broken down, Alpengeist was closed for cold temps (it was 57 degrees) and so we went into the Haus Top show. Came out and found the darkoaster was open. Waited 90 minutes, which isn’t out of the norm for a new coaster and thought it was a good ride especially for an indoor coaster. When we came out from that ride it was wall to wall people. We literally had to shuffle (not walk) and tried to get to the front of the park to see the Scrooge show; which again only had 2 showings (at almost the same time as the Twas the Night show). There was a massive line and the theater filled to capacity. We then headed to Twas the Night first showing. After the show we had to decide between the train or trying for the Scrooge show again, which we wouldn’t have made anyway. So we went to the train and waited 45 minutes. At 9:00pm we got in line for Verbolten (it had been a 2 hour wait before). At 9:50pm they shuffled everyone through the exit saying that it was closed!!! Why let people stand in line knowing they will be there for almost an hour and not get on the ride. The food prices were ridiculous and more than I could justify spending for a family of 5. $6.50 for a bottle of Powerade, $10 for a pretzel… spending $50 for each person to have only one pretzel is crazy! It was completely disappointing and frustrating. Between 2pm and 10pm, we rode one coaster, rode the train, watched one of the smaller shows, one of the more major shows and one light show on the water ride front. We spent $20 on a picture, $16 for a drink and one piece of cake, $10 for one pretzel. Everything else was closed or full to capacity because there were too many people. A complete waste of the over $300 we spent on tickets plus the more than $300 for our hotel, not to mention food and gas. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY!!!