This article, Whispers, is the first of two pieces that will be published this weekend. This story focuses on a wide array of rumors out of Busch Gardens Williamsburg over the last year or so. The second article will contain never-before-reported evidence regarding progress on one of the projects alluded to below. It’s gonna to be a good weekend!
Background
For approaching a decade now, we have been in a tremendously unusual situation when it comes to Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s attraction development cycle. The twists and turns of the Madrid Arc—our shorthand for the long, winding path from Project Madrid to Wolf’s Revenge—have largely guided investment decisions at Busch Gardens Williamsburg since somewhere around 2018. As a result, our coverage has long followed a fairly consistent through line. Yes, there have been unexpected detours, but everything was still within the context of a set endpoint—eventually, Festhaus Park was finally going to get its long-fabled coaster—Drachen Fire’s long-since-vacated plot would, eventually, be filled.
Quick aside: If you’re new to all of this and need a recap of the Madrid Arc, there’s a brief history near the start of our initial story breaking down Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s new-for-2025, Bolliger & Mabillard-made, inverted family coaster—a coaster we later leaked even more comprehensively and now, officially, know as The Big Bad Wolf: The Wolf’s Revenge (read: Wolf’s Revenge).
Anyway, since the solidifying of Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s 2025 coaster, rumors regarding the park’s 2026-and-beyond investment plans have been far less predictable—the range of potential options has widened dramatically. From the perspective of a BGW fan, this broad array of possibilities is thrilling. From the perspective of someone who seeks to nail down fleeting rumors inside the park and predict Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s future attraction plans as early as possible, however, it has been fairly uncomfortable.
I have long struggled with whether or not BGWFans should cover rumors and, if so, how exactly to do so. We have a reputation for consistently providing accurate information about in-development projects, but that is because so much of our work is reporting on frequently-nearly-finalized documentation we can analyze in-depth and share. Working more in the realm of rumor will, inevitably, result in far more “misses” than our typical public record reporting. Yes, our rumor track record is robust—DarKastle, Battle for Eire, Mäch Tower, Flying Machine, and others are good examples—but there will be times when rumors we share—which tend to amount to internal discussions or proposals inside the park’s offices—will never come to fruition.
Despite the risk, I do want to share what I’m hearing through the grapevine when it is safe to do so. I love reading reputable rumors from insiders at other parks and I am confident that many of you want the same sort of content for Busch Gardens Williamsburg. For posts like this to be feasible though, you—collectively—our readers—must not treat a post like this the same way you would our typical reporting. That brings me to the next bit of preamble I need to offer.
This piece would be impossible to publish safely without intentionally keeping many of the details of what I’ve seen and/or heard vague and nebulous. I am only able to share some of these hints because I am including all of these rumors in one batch and refusing to elaborate on what all I’ve heard and/or what all I’ve seen regarding each. Because of that, there will be essentially zero information conveyed regarding my confidence level for each of these potential projects.
In summary though, do not take any of this to be a prediction of what is to come for Busch Gardens Williamsburg—this should only be viewed as a collection of breadcrumbs relating to some of the projects Busch Gardens Williamsburg has considered relatively recently for its future cap-ex dollars internally. I also want to stress that this isn’t a comprehensive survey of all of the recent rumors I have heard —it is merely a cross-section of some of the more prominent stories I’ve been hearing that are widespread enough to be safe to relay in this format.
Whispers
Back in September 2024, I shared a cryptic map of Busch Gardens Williamsburg on Twitter featuring seven red circles. The sole text accompanying the image was the slot machine emoji featuring—count them—one—two—three number 7s (note the time and date stamp too—yes, that was deliberate!). There’s a triple meaning to this teaser that has never been solved, but I’ll let that mystery stand for now. Frankly, if it were to be solved, it would impact tomorrow’s article so, uh, how about we just set that aside for now.
Anyway, all you need to know about the teaser above today is that, as many assumed, it broadly indicates areas where Busch Gardens Williamsburg is rumored to be interested in investing future capital expenditures. The areas circled all represent distinct, potential (or even formally proposed!) projects that I have either heard rumors of from historically reliable insiders or, in some cases, have even seen direct evidence of myself. Realistically, all of these projects are unlikely to see the light of day. That said, I do believe at least a few of them are fairly likely to make their way all the way through the pipeline to production eventually.
Below I’ve taken the circle map from September and numbed each ellipse. Brief discussions of each follow.
1: Killarney/Wild Reserve
There have been a couple internal proposals for this corner of Busch Gardens Williamsburg since I’ve been covering the park, but I know that recently the Killarney simulator building—previously home to Battle for Eire, Corkscrew Hill, and others—has been firmly back in discussion. Given that one of BGW’s sister parks, SeaWorld Orlando, just opened a new Mack Rides flying theater retrofitted into that park’s existing Wild Arctic simulator bays, it’s easy to imagine that, assuming SeaWorld Orlando’s Expedition Odyssey is a success, the same flying theater ride system could certainly find its way north in the years ahead.
Outside of the simulator building, itself, there’s a fair amount of developable land surrounding Killarney as well. Recent rumors have definitely centered on the simulator building itself, but we should be keeping this area in mind more broadly over the next decade too.
2: Da Vinci’s Garden of Invention/San Marco
Given the relatively recent loss of two of this area’s major flat rides (Da Vinci’s Cradle and Flying Machine) paired with years of thematic and landscaping degradation (partially caused by the forced clearing of the Colonial Pipeline easement), Da Vinci’s Garden of Invention is in very rough shape these days. There have been pretty steady rumors since the death of Cradle regarding the potential for updates to this area, but the park’s recent decision to cut their losses on Flying Machine has certainly amplified those discussions significantly.
Like Killarney though, a drop-in-style replacement to a defunct attraction isn’t the only possibility we should consider for this area. The single largest, contiguous, potentially, developable plot of land left within the park’s railroad loop is located between Escape from Pompeii and the Rhine River. The Colonial Pipeline easement runs directly through the center of this plot making a single large attraction difficult to imagine, but just given the size and location of this thus-far-untouched area of the park, there have been discussions.
3: Pantheon
This is a rumor I haven’t been terribly shy about over the last year or so. I have good reason to believe that Busch Gardens Williamsburg has a strong desire to correct what they (rightly) view as an enormous mistake—the general presentation of Pantheon. In the years since Pantheon’s debut, BGW has seen repeated success with more thematically-focused projects and, though funding may be difficult to secure from corporate, there is a belief inside the Williamsburg park that Pantheon should and eventually will likely be fixed.
What exactly such an update would involve would depend dramatically on the budget allocated, but areas of focus seem to be the queue, station, and maintenance facilities. More extravagant pitches exist, but I don’t think they’re likely to find funding.
Regardless of what does or does not eventually find a budget, the park has seen the consistent ridicule of the attraction’s presentation and frankly said ridicule has worked. We will need corporate to sign off on the investment, but according to what I’ve been hearing for a while now, Busch Gardens Williamsburg definitely wants this project to happen.
4: Aquitaine/New France
Pre-COVID, Busch Gardens Williamsburg proposed a special event facility for the land behind the Royal Palace Theater. That project was relocated, downsized, and then ultimately constructed on the former greenhouse site behind Festhaus Park instead. That switch, alongside another factor, has left open the door for future Aquitaine or New France development. That’s all I can share for now though.
5: Attraction Updates
This circle is huge and deliberately encompasses a number of different attractions—a handful of which have been in discussion for updates of one kind or another. Those rumors range from straightforward renovation projects to potential, significant, marketable overhauls à la Loch Ness Monster 2024.
Here’s one in particular for you though: Alpengeist. Though the current Alpie situation certainly isn’t anything even approaching dire, Busch Gardens Williamsburg isn’t under any delusions regarding the long-term prognosis for these huge, ambitious, remarkably forceful, relatively early, now-aging Bolliger & Mabillard coasters. Given rumors, Busch Gardens Williamsburg may be looking to take a more proactive approach with Alpengeist than their sister park, Busch Gardens Tampa, has with Kumba. This would probably still be a ways off, but it’s a relief to know that BGW is looking ahead.
6: Oktoberfest
Busch Gardens Williamsburg has found a temporary use for the recently vacated Mäch Tower plot as a new sitting area, Prost Patio, but long-term that land use is unlikely to remain. We have a sudden backlog of vacant flat ride plots in Williamsburg that need fillin’ and, though this Oktoberfest vacancy is unlikely to be the first priority, per rumors, there have been discussions.
Like circles one and two, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the abundance of developable land around Oktoberfest as well. There’s a large ravine between Oktoberfest and Rhinefeld that hasn’t seen use since the old footbridge was torn down decades ago. Plus, there’s still space to do more to the east of Das Festhaus and down into Festhaus Park around Wolf’s Revenge too. In a park where easily-guest-accessible, developable land is becoming increasingly difficult to find, these areas should be watched closely over the next decade or so.
7: Verbolten
Lets close out our rumor round-up with another super-specific one. The tremendously successful relaunch of Loch Ness Monster in 2024 really opened pandora’s box and, per rumors, internal discussions have since erupted regarding similar thematic overhauls and updates for other attractions in the park. I touched on one of those possibilities a minute ago with Alpengeist, but here’s another for you: Verbolten.
The rumor mill has repeatedly surfaced the possibility of a significant scenic and story update for Verbolten—potentially in the not-so-distant future. Verbolten has become an iconic workhorse family coaster for Busch Gardens Williamsburg and there does appear to be some internal appetite to not just try to restore it to its initial glory, but maybe even take things a step further. Like the Pantheon rumor, this may prove a difficult sell to United Parks corporate, but I sincerely hope these concepts find funding eventually. Verbolten very much deserves the funding and attention and, frankly, the current state of Verbolten’s show building is unacceptable.
Anyway, there we go—there it is—at long last, closure for a teaser I posted about half a year ago. As stated in the intro, tomorrow’s article will provide new, never-before-reported, hints that strongly point us in one of the directions above. Given said evidence is likely to kick the BGW Project 2026 news cycle into high-gear, I thought it crucial to provide this wider survey of prominent, recent BGW rumors before that more focused article drops.
To stay up to date with all things Busch Gardens Williamsburg, give us a follow on Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, and/or X. Bluesky and X get the most information, but we do try to get major stories to the two Meta platforms too. If you’re looking for the maximum Busch Gardens Williamsburg information possible though, I highly recommend keeping up with the BGW section of our partnered forum, ParkFans.net as well. The discussions following this pair of articles is likely to be quite interesting!
Anyway, see you tomorrow! It’s a good one, I promise. 👀