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Busch Gardens Williamsburg
and Water Country USA
Williamsburg, Virginia
SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ----
(5/23/2025) The Big Bad Wolf Is Now Open To All Takers
(5/19/2025) Water Country USA To Open New High Tide Harbor This Week
(5/18/2025) Big Bad Wolf POV
(5/3/2025) New Information Comes To Light About Possible 2026 Attraction
(5/1/2025) Busch Gardens Williamsburg Sets Date To Open the New Big Bad Wolf
(3/31/2025) Busch Gardens Williamsburg Food & Wine Festival Is Returning
 General Park News - (5/19/2025) Water Country USA reports that they will open their new High Tide Harbor on May 23rd. High Tide Harbor, new for 2025, is a multi-level interactive play structure featuring over 100 interactive elements and four different water slides.
(3/31/2025) The Busch Gardens Food & Wine Festival returns to Williamsburg on Thursdays through Sundays from April 24 through to June 22, plus Memorial Day. “ Guests are invited to explore over 150 international flavors at 18 themed food and beverage locations throughout the park, including new menus inspired by China and Poland. With over 80 new tastes and exclusive wine and liquor tastings, every visit offers a new adventure for culinary explorers. With a Busch Gardens Membership, families can visit again and again to enjoy all the different experiences each weekend.”
Visit the official website for all the latest info about what is new and what favorites will return.
(3/13/2025) Get ready to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day at Busch Gardens Williamsburg this week (March 13 - 17) where you can sip on green beer and other themed food items, as well as enjoy live Irish entertainment, including the return of the popular Celtic Fyre show. Plus enjoy all your favorite rides and attractions throughout the park as normal, so it sounds like this may be your lucky day!
(3/8/2025) Ongoing wave of attraction removals throughout the industry continues this week, when Busch Gardens Williamsburg announced that after 40 years they were retiring the Flying Machines ride. The Flying Machines was a Tivoli Orbiter ride, similar in concept to the already removed Sand Storm ride from Chance Ride that was removed from Busch Gardens Tampa back in 2013.
Unfortunately this makes for a second major flat ride lost to the park’s Da Vinci Gardens area, following the loss of Da Vinci’s Cradle in 2022, leaving just The Battering Ram as the sole adult attraction in the area, along with The Little Balloons and Little Gliders for the kiddies.
(1/9/2025) Mardi Gras fun will roll into Busch Gardens Williamsburg starting January 24th and run ever Friday, Saturday and Sunday through to March 9, 2025. The Mardi Gras event features an assortment of “Big Easy” style entertainment, over 40 special Cajun flavors to taste and of course, the thrill rides and roller coasters that Busch Gardens Williamsburg is known for.
Visit the official website for all the details!
(11/8/2024) Busch Gardens Williamsburg is proud to honor those that serve and their families by extending the Military Annual Pass to include veterans as well as active-duty military for a limited time. Previously, the Military Annual Pass offer was only available to active-duty military. Now, veterans who purchase a Military Annual Pass will enjoy unlimited admission to Busch Gardens and Water Country USA with no blockout dates and free parking through January 1, 2026. Veterans and active duty United States Armed Forces personnel can purchase a Military Pass online at WavesOfHonor.com or at select military bases.
In honor of Veterans Day, Busch Gardens will offer United States military veterans and active-duty members a complimentary meal on November 9 and 10. The park will provide a free lunch or dinner at select restaurants during operating hours each day. To redeem this complimentary offer, veterans must visit a designated kiosk in the England area of the park to verify their status.
2025 - The Big Bad Wolf: The Wolf’s Revenge - (5/23/2025) Just a quick confirmation from Busch Gardens Williamsburg that following the media and passholder preview rides earlier this week, The Big Bad Wolf: The Wolf’s Revenge officially opened to all park guests earlier today. A preview video featuring a full POV run on the ride as well as other assorted B-Roll footage of the new “Wolf” in action, as seen in the daytime, can be found below.
(5/18/2025) The Big Bad Wolf: The Wolf’s Revenge opened for media and passholders at Busch Gardesn Williamsburg. A fun night-time POV video can be seen below, and if you notice an eerie red glow on the track of scenery in front of the train, that’s the red glow from the Wolf’s eyes on the front of the lead car as you race through the woods, which is a very nice touch.
(5/1/2025) Busch Gardens Williamsburg has announced that The Big Bad Wolf: The Wolf’s Revenge will open to guests on May 23rd, 2025. However, it sounds like passholders will begin preview session rides on the new coaster first, starting on May 16, 17 and 18th. May 16th will also mark the official 50th Anniversary of Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
(3/29/2025) The train cars for the new Big Bad Wolf roller coaster at Busch Gardens Williamsburg are being loaded onto the track this week. Scroll through the photo below, but I’m loving the head-on look at the first car which features the eyes and teeth of the wolf on the front car.
(2/2/2025) A reader sent in a few great pictures of the all new Big Bad Wolf: The Wolf’s Revenge family inverted coaster coming to Busch Gardens Williamsburg this season, as seen from a ride on the park’s railroad this weekend.
(1/5/2025) A fun construction update from Busch Gardens Williamsburg posted by Eddytainment the other day gives us a view of the Big Bad Wolf’s construction site as seen from a ride on the park train. Check it out below.
(12/18/2024) Busch Gardens Williamsburg has posted a video construction update showing off the progress on the park’s new Big Bad Wolf: The Wolf’s Revenge. Check it out below.
(10/26/2024) Busch Gardens Williamsburg has announced the name for their new family inverted coaster for 2025, and to everyone’s surprise, they didn’t go with any of the names on their initial fan poll. Instead the park claims they opted to listen to the fans who did not want the legend of beloved “Big Bad Wolf” to be forgotten through the fog of time passing, and have decided to name the new coaster “The Big Bad Wolf: The Wolf’s Revenge”.
I have to admit, I like the move, though the name is a little wordy for me… I’d have preferred something slightly trimmed down like “Big Bad Wolf’s Revenge”, or maybe even just “Wolf’s Revenge”, but I do really love the fact that the memory of what is probably the most beloved lost-ride from the park’s history will be preserved with this new creation.
For those lamenting that Wolf’s Revenge is just a family coaster, it would do you good to remember that Big Bad Wolf itself was also a family coaster. It was that aspect that allowed the original coaster to become a multi-generational hit with the guests over the years, as younger fans had time to grow up and bring their own kids to the park with them to ride The Big Bad Wolf together, or in some cases grandkids could ride it with their grandparents who first took their own kids on it back when it was new.
I get it though. I admit I’d do just about anything to get the original coaster back, but as it stands today, at least we have two great family coaster experiences in place that allow us to relive the memories of the original. Verbolten kept the original station and concept of the high speed run through the dark forest, along with a re-creation of the famous drop to the Rhine River at the end, and soon we’ll have Big Bad Wolf: The Wolf’s Revenge set in place to recreate the lost scenes of the coaster flying through the quiet village.
(10/20/2024) A post from BGWFans has spotted brand new red B&M roller coaster track on the road herding into the Williamsburg area for the park’s new Big Bad Wolf inspired family inverted roller coaster project, coming in 2025.
(9/14/2024) Busch Gardens Williamsburg has been dropping lots of hints about bringing back the legend of the Big Bad Wolf to the park in 2025 with an all new B&M family inverted coaster and now the park has confirmed this plan with release of an official preview teaser. Based on the teaser, it looks like the plan to to make this family inverted coaster bank and turn through an assortment of Bavarian village buildings, not unlike how the original Big Bad Wolf did in the middle of the layout.
So far they will only say that the new coaster will be 2,583 feet long and hit a top speed of 40mph, which is just slightly smaller than the original Big Bad Wolf on both counts (BBW was 2,800 feet long and hit a top speed of 48mph). Much like B&M’s first family inverted coaster that just opened at Busch Garden Tampa, it is expected that the trains will include an onboard soundtrack as well. (oh, and in case you were wondering, Phoenix Rising in Tampa is only 1,831 feet long, so the Williamsburg version will be significantly longer.
So with all that in mind, you’re probably wondering what Busch Gardens is going to name this new coaster. Well, so was Busch Gardens apparently… they’ve narrowed it down to three names and can’t make a choice, so they’re letting everyone vote on it right now on their official website.
Your choices are:
WölfsReign, GeisterWölf or WölfSturm
Follow the link and make your choice!
(8/24/2024) Busch Gardens Williamsburg posted a very interesting teaser online yesterday. Listed as Chapter 1, a voice reads you the legendary story behind the park’s former Big Bad Wolf suspended roller coaster. This ends with a “Chapter 2: The Signal” page before going to black, which means more story is to come.
As fans of the former Big Bad Wolf will recall, the former guest-favorite coaster was removed due to age, and the course where it once ran (and station) were repurposed into the current Verbolten roller coaster that still roams the Black Forest. So why would Busch Gardens choose now to bring this memory back to our minds?
With the opening of a new family friendly inverted coaster at the sister park in Tampa (Phoenix Rising) there is a belief that the Williamsburg park may be seeking to add their own version of this same concept (which even has on-board audio) where they could try to bring back the Big Bad Wolf theme.
(12/9/2023) Busch Gardens Williamsburg is once again moving forward with new coaster plans to make use of the former site once occupied by the ill-fated Drachen Fire roller coaster (1992-1998). Over the years a large number of proposed coaster projects have been in one phase of development or another for the site, but for one reason or another, they have all failed to get the final green light to proceed.
As usual the expert sleuths at BGWfans have broken down the information that is known at this time from what they can see, along with a cool history about all the other projects once planned that failed to materialize on the unique site beyond the Festhaus. I’ll let you head on over there to read their report with all the details and possible layouts, but based on this and other projects announced in the chain, the belief is that this could be a family sized B&M Inverted or Suspended style coaster, not unlike the one coming to Busch Gardens Tampa for 2024.
(8/31/22) BGWFans latest report confirms that the park’s plans for 2024 may be changing and growing into something even bigger than the long rumored “Drachen Spire” project. The park has now filed for a new height waiver with the FAA that is apparently very different from their previous request.
According to the new application, construction for this ride is listed to take place between February 2023 and March 2024, with a proposed height of 220 feet above grade, with the highest point being located in the Festhaus Park area. There is also a humorous project name… ‘Busch Gardens Burgermeisters”.
2026 - New Attraction / Development - (5/3/2025) BGWFans is back with a leak about the next project that seems to be coming down the pipe for Busch Gardens Williamsburg. According to the post, a new development is being planned between Loch Ness Monster and San Marco areas.
This has long been an undeveloped section of the park, but with good reason, as the link to BGWFans tells us that the site was cleared and used for a major gas pipeline that runs below the ground across the park. So any potential project that might want to go here is going to have to figure out exactly where the pipeline is, and stay clear of sticking anything in the ground near it.
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