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----    THE LATEST BUZZ    ----
    (1/30/12) An impressive flashback to the Busch Gardens Williamsburg of past has appeared on YouTube in the form of 8mm footage of the park shot back in 1976, the second year the park was open. (MORE...)
    (1/27/12) Busch Gardens Williamsburg sent out a tweet a few hours ago as the final piece of track was installed into place on Verbolten. Check out the picture (MORE...)
    (1/13/12) A great new animated preview video for Verbolten has been released! Check it out below!
    (1/3/12) A quick update for you Android phone fans… Busch Gardens HAS launched the Android version of their official park app (MORE...)

General Park News - (1/30/12) An impressive flashback to the Busch Gardens Williamsburg of past has appeared on YouTube in the form of 8mm footage of the park shot back in 1976, the second year the park was open.  The footage even includes some POV footage from the train and log ride, as well as shots of the park’s first coaster, the Glissade, a Schwarzkopf Jet Star 3, which was removed in 1985 and used to sit in the same spot where DarKastle is now.

    (1/3/12) A quick update for you Android phone fans… Busch Gardens HAS launched the Android version of their official park app to the Android Market in late December. The app will use your GPS to guide you through the park, offer park details and tips to get the most out of your day, with route guides , show schedules and ride wait times. The app is also good for both the Tampa and Williamsburg locations.
    (12/19/11) Starting January 1st, your beverage options at the 10 SeaWorld Entertainment parks across the country will take a sudden shift, as a new 10-year sponsor deal with Coca-Cola Co. will kick into effect, removing Pepsi products from the park. Coke and SeaWorld do have a long history together, as Coke was the official drink sponsor for the SeaWorld parks (or Sea World parks as they were spelled back then, long before they were purchased and merged with the Busch parks).
    Coke was dropped in favor of Pepsi back on Jan. 1st, 1988 by SeaWorld’s then owners, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and the partnership was continued under the ownership of Anheuser-Busch. Pepsi was long rumored to have an edge over Coke under the Busch era because Pepsi was a major client of the Busch owned Metal Container Corporation who supplier Pepsi with a large percentage of their aluminum cans. So after a 24 year run… Coke will return at last.
    (10/25/11) Busch Gardens Williamsburg has sent out an interesting survey to their passholders this week, trying to test their reactions to possible changes for future Howl-O-Scream and Christmastown events. Currently Howl-O-Scream admission is included for free to passholders (and daytime guests) while Christmastown has been an upcharge event for everyone to date. The questions being asked in the survey seem to indicate that the park may be thinking about allowing passholders into Christmastown for free in the future, but also that they may be thinking of following the Tampa park’s lead and making Howl-O-Scream a separate upcharge ticket event.
    (9/27/11) Pictures taken during a Coaster Tour at Busch Gardens Williamsburg can be found at Flickr. Check them out… very nice close ups of all your favorite steel parts that you just can’t get on your own.
    (9/21/11) Would you believe that there is also a cemetery on site in the parking lot at Busch Gardens Williamsburg? From what I’ve been told the cemetery is located in this area, not far from the parking lot tram stop.
    (9/12/11) Also of interest may be this update about this year’s Christmas Town event that goes over some changes in what attractions will be open. For example, Alpengeist will be open instead of Griffon, and for some reason DarKastle will be closed as well.
    (6/27/11) Some unique pictures taken inside the BGW “Boneyard” were posted to the BGWFans site last week, showing off what’s left over from a few old park rides like the old raceway and some Big Bad Wolf cars.
    (6/20/11) It’s been nearly two years since I learned that the Big Bad Wolf was going to be shut down just before the end of the 2009 season at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, and I had put up a T-Shirt design to help “Save The Big Bad Wolf”. While the effort did not take, as the park was hell-bent on removing the once great coaster, I could not bare the thought of removing the link to the T-shirts for some time. Now this move is long overdue, as I had the graphic artist alter his already great design about a year ago, but all new T-Shirts are now available so you can always Remember The Big Bad Wolf every time you go to the park.

Howl-O-Scream 2011 - (9/12/11) BGWFans takes a look at the latest construction going on in the park for Howl-O-Scream as well as a peek inside the giant hole for the 2012 coaster’s “event building”. 
    (8/12/11) If you haven’t peeked at the official Howl-O-Scream page for BGW lately, a few more secrets have been released. In addition to the previously mentioned “13: Your Number’s Up” haunt, they will also have Catacombs. Two shows have been revealed so far: Monster Stomp Revamped and Jack is Back. Only one Scare Zone listed so far: Widow Makers in New France… full of giant spiders.
    (7/27/11) Howl-O-Scream at BGW has launched their own version of The Dark Side of the Gardens website. The “Fear Grows Here” site is kind of cool with some interesting visuals and an interactive park map that will eventually show off the sites of the different haunts. For now they only show one called 13: Your Number is Up in Ireland. Details about the Monster Stomp Revamped show and Widow Makers scare zone (in New France) are also on the site.
    (7/18/11) For the first time ever, both Busch Gardens Williamsburg and BG Tampa will offer the same theme for their Howl-O-Scream events in 2011. The event will be called The Dark Side of the Gardens.  You can read a bit more over at BGT Nation.
    (7/15/11) Posts from BGWFans claim that both the Cursed and Pompeii haunt mazes have been gutted in preparation for HOS 2011. However… while work is expected to begin immediately on a new maze inside Pompeii, the old Cursed site however may not be used again in 2011.

2012 - VERBOLTEN - (1/27/12) Busch Gardens Williamsburg sent out a tweet a few hours ago as the final piece of track was installed into place on Verbolten. Check out the picture here. You can also catch a video report about it over at Behind the Thrills where they talk a bit more about the props, effects, the trains and theming being installed. Verbolten will have 5 different trains, each with a unique color and theme. One train has arrived already and the rest will be delivered between now and the end of February.
    (1/13/12) A great new animated preview video for Verbolten has been released! Check it out below! I’m starting to get kind of excited about this coaster… lets just hope the theming can push it to the next level.

    (1/2/12) ThemeParkReview has posted some great new shots of the Verbolten construction site.
    (12/30/11) Some great new construction pictures posted to BGWFans shows that the “big drop” built over the former Big Bad Wolf drop has now been installed. I also see some odd little extra supports along both sides of the big drop, which I’m guessing could be for that broken bridge themed look we saw in an earlier piece of concept artwork.
    (12/12/11) Some all new construction pictures of Verbolten have been posted to Theme Park Review this week. The green walls and roof of the “event building” are now up and in place, forever hiding that part of the coaster from the public eye, and the modifications to the footers from Big Bad Wolf’s final drop are looking good.
    Meanwhile you can get an even closer look at the event building and surrounding area in a different update posted to BGWFans that is really worth checking out as well.
    (11/28/11) New construction pics of Verbolten as well as a look around ChristmasTown have been posted to Theme Park Review this week.
    (11/2/11) New Verbolten construction pictures has been posted to Theme Park Review this week as they take a good long look at the track that will soon be enclosed inside the “event building” structure.
    (10/25/11) How would you like to see a tribute to Big Bad Wolf used in Verbolten? There is a poll on Facebook where you can vote on various license plates that could be used on the Verbolten cars, including one that says WOLFXNG.
    (10/24/11) BGEscape has posted new pictures of Verbolten’s track, which now looks to be nearly completely assembled on the pad for the event building. Great to see it all before they enclose the building and cover it up for good.
    (10/18/11) A few more leaked pictures from the Verbolten plans have been uncovered over at the BGWFans Forum. Look for the post with the links to the large sized images showing off things like the vertical change in the track, overhead layout and more.
    (10/10/11) BGWFans managed to get a few pictures of what appears to be the secret ‘drop’ track hardware being installed into the Verbolten event building area over the weekend.
    (10/5/11) Screamscape sources tell us that Verbolten track is now on site at the park, located in a back parking lot near the brewery building. Apparently you can see it from the top of Griffon and Mach Tower, just to the left of the building. The track spotted was painted black, but this is likely to be track pieces that will go inside the “event building”, which will likely be the first vertical track pieces to go up, so they put the walls and roof on top before the winter arrives.
    (9/26/11) BGWFans has added a new Verbolten construction update as well as their aborted attemp to check out Howl-O-Scream. It seems the weather got rather nasty that night causing the park to close down at 6pm, right as Howl-O-Scream was to have started. So sad…
    (9/19/11) Busch Gardens Williamsburg confirmed that the new 2012 coaster project would indeed be called Verbolten as previously rumored. Unfortunately they really did not give out a lot of details about the new ride, though I think we know just about everything at this point already. To recap what they did confirm in brief: Verbolten will feature “multiple launches” up to 50mph and “a few surprises that can’t be found anywhere else in the United States.” (*Cough* Alton Towers’Thirteen *Cough*) The trains will be on the small side, holding only 16 riders (2 across I believe) with lapbar only restraints and themed to look like a car.
    They will leak out more details in the park over the next several months through the aid of QR codes, readable by most smartphones these days. The park did post a very brief animated teaser video however on YouTube, embedded below. Enjoy.

    (9/13/11) Busch Gardens Williamsburg has confirmed that they will announce all the details for the 2012 coaster project at a passholder exclusive event on Sept. 17th. They will also unveil special elements from the 13th annual Howl-O-Scream event as well.
    (9/8/11) A reader sent in a new picture (see below) showing off the huge dig site now at BGW as they prepare to build the ‘event building’ for the 2012 coaster project.
    (8/29/11) More details about Howl-O-Scream from Busch Gardens Williamsburg as well as construction pictures for the new 2012 coaster can be found this week over at BGWFans.
    (8/15/11) A new construction update from Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s new 2012 coaster project can be found over at Theme Park Review this week.
    (8/11/11) Special thanks to a reader who sent in a ton of new construction pictures of the 2012 coaster project, giving us a view of the old Big Bad Wolf station, the remains of the old hillside plunge into the river, and some kind of big hole being dug behind the Bumper Cars, which may be where the show building is going.
    (6/14/11) According to this construction update posted Theme Park Review, quite a bit of work has started for the new “Verbolten” 2012 coaster project on the old Big Bad Wolf site.
    (5/13/11) It looks like we have a name for the new coaster at last as trademark paperwork was registered for the name VERBOLTEN in late March. Also a special thanks to our friends at BGWFans.com for sending us the layout artwork that was discovered for the BGW 2012 coaster project. We are displaying it with their permission, hence the watermarking of the images. Indeed, it is from Zierer and these images pretty much reveal it all, from the themeing of a broken down covered bridge before the big drop down to the Rhine River, to pointing out exactly what we are going to see and feel inside the “event building” as our automobile themed coaster trains take on the evil spirit of the black forest. (edit: Artwork removed by request from the park. )
    (5/12/11) In a shocking bit of news, it has been confirmed that the new BGW 2012 coaster will actually be from Zierer and not Intamin has most of us had been assuming for months now. BGWFans has posted this along with some new drawings from the ride’s layout, showing off just what may be taking place inside that “event building”, which looks like it may also contain a free-fall drop-platform as well, similar to what we saw on Thirteen at Alton Towers last year.
    They also add that the coaster cars will be given some kind of car theme (to go along with those Autobahn sounding names) and there will be some kind of “covered bridge finale” that will be placed in about the same location where the big drop on Big Bad Wolf was located.
    (5/11/11) New rumored details about the 2012 Coaster Project has been posted to BGWFans.com today, however the biggest and perhaps most shocking news is that they claim that the coaster will be from Zierer and not Intamin, which goes against about everything we’ve heard so far, but you never know. Zierer is not new to the Busch parks after all as they chose them to build Air Grover in 2010 at BGT, Grover’s Alphine Express at BGW in 2009 and the two Shamu Express coasters at SeaWorld Texas and Orlando. Could we be seeing a new launch coaster design from Zierer? So far, I believe their only launched coaster so far was Wicked at Lagoon, which has more in common with a Gerstlauer EuroFighter than an Intamin multi-launch coaster. Time to dig deeper… stay tuned.
    (5/5/11) BGWFans has posted new details from the latest city board meeting where the exterior layout of the 2012 coaster project was put on display. It also seems that some of the ride may follow portions of the old Big Bad Wolf layout, though what we can expect to happen within the ‘Event Building’ is still a mystery. It was interesting when they pointed out that where possible, old footers from the Big Bad Wolf will be reused for the new ride.
    My take is that the layout brings up more questions than answers... because what we’re seeing here could be just about anything, and from a certain point of view may even look dull, but the truth is we really don’t know a lot about what this ride is. The layout we do see however just doesn’t scream multi-launch coaster, other than perhaps out of the station and out of the Event Building. Which brings up my main concern... that I’m worried the entire success or failure of this project may be riding on a crazy gimick inside this Event Building, much like Thirteen at Alton Towers. Not that I’m saying it will have a freefall drop platform... just that it almost appears that the focus of the entire ride experience may be based on what happens away from public view. More as we find out...
    (1/6/11) A meeting about the new coaster took place with the local planning commission. From what I’ve been told, the park confirmed that the coaster would reuse the old Big Bad Wolf station building, and the first of several launches would be inside the ‘event building’. The coaster itself was described as following a similar pattern as Big Bad Wolf towards the end. The large themed bridge part of the project will also go in near the old BBW brake run. The meeting took place on January 5th and I’m told we can expect to see a video of the meeting posted here in the near future..

2013 - Oktoberfest Revamp: Phase 3 - Rumor - (8/12/11) AmusementPics managed to grab an interesting picture showing off a survey stake set up out of the old Drachen Fire field labeled “Train Station”.  For years, this large area has been rumored to not only be put to use for a future new land expansion, but also would see a new train station added to the line here as well. Perhaps things will take shape at last in 2013.
    (1/18/11) So far many of the old redevelopment rumors concerning a multi-phase build up / renovation have been coming true, though instead of building a new “country” they seem focused on rebuilding the park’s existing Oktoberfest section. We’ll see the first phase open in 2011 with Mach Tower, followed by the new coaster in 2012. It seems there is a third phase set for 2013 and according to the latest rumors it may be focused on revamping the Festhaus. I’ve no idea if anything other than the Festhaus will be touched upon for the 2013 season yet, or if they are ready to finally expand back into the former Drachen Fire location or not. Stay tuned!
    (4/16/09) Our spies tell us that the park still has big expansion plans on deck to add a new land to the park, taking over the former site of Drachen Fire. The unfortunate side of things, is that many of Busch’s big plans were put on hold when InBev took over the company, so there is no telling if this plan is still moving forward or just on hold for the moment. Either way, it seems that the multi-year plan to build an entirely new country (Spain is the most likley) in still very solid. It’s all a matter of “when” and not “if” at this point from what I’m told.
    (10/30/07) The latest whisper on the wind in Williamsburg indicates that there may be a possible multi-year plans to add a new country at Busch Gardens Europe. A multi-year build plan very likely as we’ve seen Busch do with SeaWorld Florida’s Waterfront area. Over the years different counties have been mentions as possible future projects, but some say that they’ve heard Spain mentioned specifically as a primary choice in the past. As I recall, the park currently has an old England area, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany and Italy… so there are still other options as well such as Greece.
    (10/24/07) We’ve heard an interesting rumor for Busch Gardens Europe today that gives us a good location to watch for the park’s next big expansion in 2009 and possibly beyond. In short, we’ve been told to keep our eyes open for a possible fourth train station to be added to the line, this time in the German area of the park. Things get interesting when you realize that the best place to put down a new train depot in Germany would be back along the existing tracks near the old Drachen Fire spot, which is a fairly large and undeveloped area currently being used for the three back-to-back Never After haunt experiences. Given the massive size of this area alone, it could be used for anything from a massive new coaster to a large new themed land. Of course the bigger the size of the development, the bigger the chance that this could become a project that will take more than one year to build out, so 2009 may just be the beginning.

???? - Water Country USA Expansion - Planning - (11/22/11) The expansion plan proposed by Water Country USA was given unanimous approval from the local Board of Supervisors. No timeline was given as to how the expansion will take place, other than it will be done over five phases.
    (10/14/11) BGWFans has posted a nice map showing off the new proposed master plan for Water Country USA over the next decade.
    (10/12/11) The local news reports that Water Country USA has filed paperwork seeking to expand the waterpark’s size by 43 acres, in addition to the park’s current 41 acres of attractions. Keep in mind, this is for a new overall master plan for the entire park site that will shape everything that is to come over the next decade or two and not a plan for one giant expansion that will happen over the next year or two.

???? - Resort Hotel - Planning - (12/19/11) BGWFans has posted some interesting information this past week about a possible future project for the Williamsburg park. They believe that Blackstone and Xanterra (the company who bought the Kingsmill resort from Busch) have been in talks for some time now about building a joint resort project somewhere on Busch Gardens property that could open between 2013-2015. They believe that the resort could possibly be built in the undeveloped land behind Festhaus park, in the location of the park’s “Boneyard”. Reports claim the Boneyard has begun to be emptied out to make way for the resort project. The site is located on the opposite side of the train tracks, across from where Drachen Fire used to be, which was long reported as a possible site location for a new train station as well, which could serve the new resort quite nicely.
    (8/12/11) In an article focused mostly on the planned renovations to the old Kingsmill Resort area (now no longer owned by the park or Anheuser-Busch at all) it also mentioned that Blackstone also has plans to add their own resort hotel for Busch Gardens Williamsburg near the backside of the park somewhere.
    (4/8/11) Screamscape sources claim that SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment may be doing studies and making early plans to enter the resort biz in select markets. This is something that was looked at in the past under Anheuser-Busch leadership, where they even went so far as to announce their intentions to build a heavily themed African animal safari themed hotel on backside of the Savannah at Busch Gardens Tampa. (Only to fail to be willing to fund the effort on their own without an experience hotel operator... which allowed Disney to swoop in the copy their idea a couple of years later with the Animal Kingdom Lodge hotel.)
    From what I'm told, Tampa is not being considered this time around... since the new owners will admit that the area around the park itself is not exactly the kind of place where you would put down a high-dollar resort experience. While Orlando would seem to be a good fit, Busch sold off the perfect site for such a resort next to Aquatica to an outside developer under their leadership. In addition... the Orlando market already has an over abundance of empty hotel rooms on any given night. Across the nation, San Diego is also likely be crossed off the list as the park is land locked and the park also passed up several opportunities in the past to buy up nearby property where a resort would possible succeed, in addition to a general hesitation by AB to build and operate their own resort hotel without an experienced hotel partner.
    So what's left?  Williamsburg, VA and San Antonio, TX. In a strange bit of Irony, Williamsburg was the once place where AB had their own resort for a number of years in the form of the Kingsmill property. However this resort project was not sold off to Blackstone with the parks, and I believe it remains under ownership of AB, but the Williamsburg area does seem to be a good possibility for a future resort project, especially with the expansion of the park's operating season into the Christmas season.  Texas is also a possibiliy, as there are no other theme park resort in the area, the park has lot of excess land that could be put to use in a number of ways... such as the rumored Aquatica project in Texas, which would certainly give guests a reason to spend the night at SeaWorld.