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DarKoaster: Escape the Storm Debuting at Busch Gardens Williamsburg in 2023

Everything We Know About Busch Gardens' Newly-Announced Indoor, Multi-Launched Roller Coaster

DarKoaster Basics Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s newest coaster, DarKoaster: Escape the Storm, is a spiritual successor to the park’s legendary, defunct dark ride, Curse of DarKastle. This Intamin-made, steel, family roller coaster has been constructed entirely within the walls of Curse of DarKastle’s original show building and will reuse much of the previous tenant’s infrastructure (queue, […]

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FAA Height Waiver Filed for Busch Gardens Williamsburg's Project 2024

New Request Proposes 220 Foot Tall Structure in Festhaus Park

We’re just a handful of days away from Project DarKoaster‘s official announcement, but the flow of news dictates that we continue to look forward. We’ve known for many years now that Busch Gardens Williamsburg has big plans for the previous home of Drachen Fire, Festhaus Park. In the mid-2010s, the site was rumored to be […]

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Website Leak Includes 2022 Howl-O-Scream House Lineup

An Apparent Website Misstep by Busch Gardens Williamsburg Seems to Confirm This Year's Mazes

Anyone who happened to be searching for Busch Gardens Williamsburg Quick Queues on Google recently may have stumbled upon quite a treat: The park’s publicly-accessible-and-searchable Howl-O-Scream Quick Queue page was updated with what appears to be the Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s 2022 Howl-O-Scream house lineup! While there’s some chance this listing could be some sort of […]

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Roman Rapids Encounters Rough Waters

After Standing But Not Operating for Years, Roman Rapids Finds Itself Up a Creek Without a Paddle

Yikes. That’s a good way to summarize the current situation surrounding Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s 1988 Intamin rapids ride, Roman Rapids. For anyone who hasn’t kept up with the attraction lately, Roman Rapids hasn’t operated since Labor Day 2019. The capacity limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 simply made spinning up a staff-hungry attraction […]

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Howl-O-Scream 2022 Information Begins to Ooze to the Surface

In-Park Observations & Permit Filings Shed Light on this Year's Howl-O-Scream Lineup

Now that we’re just over a month away from the September 9th start of this year’s Busch Gardens Williamsburg Howl-O-Scream, it seems high time that we begin sharing what we expect to see out of this year’s event. Since May, we’ve actually known the basic skeletal outline of this year’s Halloween event. That said, with […]

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Disturbing the Graveyard

New Evidence Suggests that Busch Gardens Williamsburg's Boneyard is Slated for Development

Digging up graves is typically more of a Halloween activity, but it looks like Busch Gardens Williamsburg may be getting an early start on the festivities this year. Two months ago we wrote about a shocking occurrence at Busch Gardens Williamsburg: A pair of height balloons were flown in Festhaus Park. At the time, we […]

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Late April Height Survey

Two Balloons Appear Over Festhaus Park

Here’s a wild twist: There was a height survey in Festhaus Park today. Wilder yet, there were two different balloons flown. Oh, and it gets weirder: We don’t think this is Drachen Spire. Before we get to that though, here are a few photos showing both of the height survey balloons in the air earlier […]

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Food & Wine's 2022 Lineup Reveals Encouraging Trends

It Appears Busch Gardens Williamsburg's Signature Culinary Festival Has Largely Recovered from COVID

Before Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s annual Food & Wine Festival opens on April 28th, we thought it would be interesting to compare the published booths and menus to last year’s options. Because of the sheer number of beverage options, we will focus primarily on the event’s savory and sweet dishes, rather than its specialty drinks and […]

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Drachen Spire Height Waiver Extension Details

Just over a week ago, we reported on the renewal of the notorious 355 foot Festhaus Park height waiver that was originally requested for the controversial, Intamin-made, multi-launch, giga, shuttle coaster we’ve dubbed Drachen Spire. In last week’s article, we were very careful to leave the door open for a currently anticipated opening in either […]

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The Battle for Eire Appears Lost

Busch Gardens' Ill-Fated VR Sim Seems to be Extinct

We’ve assumed this day was coming for a while now, but that doesn’t make it any less newsworthy. After less than two seasons of operation, Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s first of its kind, Falcons Creative Group-produced, virtual reality, simulator attraction, Battle for Eire, appears to be no more. Guests attending Busch Gardens Williamsburg this weekend arrived […]

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Late February 2022 Attraction Status Update

A Brief Survey of the Current Status of All of Busch Gardens Williamsburg's Attractions

As promised in our general photo update on Tuesday, we’re circling back today to provide status and maintenance updates on all of the park’s main attractions. This is especially important right now given the recent delays in ride reopenings that have plagued Busch Gardens Williamsburg. When the park originally announced their March attraction lineup a […]

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Drachen Spire Stirs

Tales Tell of a Dragon in the German Countryside

Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You Back in November, we wrote about Project Drachen Spire’s COVID-induced slumber. In that article, we discussed the history of Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s thoroughly-leaked, Intamin-made, multi-launch, shuttle, giga coaster that was originally slated to debut just one year after Pantheon in 2021. As described in our November piece, COVID derailed […]

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Late February 2022 General Photo Update

DarKoaster, Pantheon, Bridges, Rhinefeld Controversy, & More

Given the overwhelmingly positive response to last month’s photo update, it seems that our readers may still be interested in this sort of broad, general park changes-focused, Busch Gardens Williamsburg content. We still don’t plan to post updates like this on any set schedule, but whenever there’s a plethora of small projects ongoing, we’ll be […]

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Go-Karts Plus Planning Multi-Level Track

Family Entertainment Center Near Busch Gardens Williamsburg Proposes Major Attraction Addition

We’ve never written about Go-Karts Plus here on BGWFans, but our partner community, ParkFans, has long had a corner of the forum dedicated to the park’s discussion. For anyone who may be unaware, Go-Karts Plus is a family entertainment center located about 20 minutes west of Busch Gardens Williamsburg. It features a small roller coaster, […]

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Good & Bad News Regarding the Proposed Special Event Building

Back in May of last year, Busch Gardens Williamsburg filed paperwork with James City County requesting permission to build an absolutely enormous special event and storage facility on the former site of the park’s Festhaus Park-adjacent greenhouses. This addition, as we understand it, was designed to allow the entertainment department to vacate Curse of DarKastle […]

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Project DarKoaster

Busch Gardens Williamsburg is Developing a New, Unique, Intamin-Made, Quad-Launch, Indoor, Family Roller Coaster to Replace Curse of DarKastle

Psssst. Before we get into today’s story, I just have a few requests. Please read all of the colored text boxes (like this one). The white boxes just offer a bit of cheeky fun—but the colorful ones only contain important information, I swear. After (and only after!) you read the whole article: Feel free to […]

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BGWFans Leaks SeaWorld Orlando's Project Penguin

Sibling Gossip So Juicy We Just Had to Share

Hey you—yeah, you. I know you’re probably planning to skip past all this text as you go lookin’ for photos and videos. Though I’d certainly prefer that you read the whole piece, I know it’s fairly likely that you won’t. With that in mind, before you get goin’, could I ask for just a couple […]

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Drachen Spire's Slumber

Busch Gardens Williamsburg's Long-Planned Giga Shuttle Coaster Still Has Yet to Recover from COVID

Thanks to a treasure trove of newly-obtained, internal SEAS documentation, we can now say with a high degree of certainty that Busch Gardens Williamsburg is not currently planning to pursue their long-sought giga coaster project in time for a 2023 debut. Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s thoroughly-leaked, Intamin-made, giga, shuttle coaster known to BGWFans readers as “Drachen […]

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Full Howl-O-Scream 2021 House & Show Lineup Leaked

Ahead of Busch Gardens Williamsburg's Howl-O-Scream 2021 Announcement, BGWFans Has Obtained Details on All of the Park's New Houses & Shows

August 10th Update:Most of the lineup has now been officially announced! Check out the update at the end of this article for more details! Oh boy, this is gonna to be a blockbuster… BGWFans has now sourced, corroborated, and, through examination of internally-sourced documentation, essentially confirmed the house and show lineup for Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s […]

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Howl-O-Scream 2021 Details Begin to Bubble to the Surface

Details Ooze Forth Regarding the Upcoming Resurrection of Busch Gardens Williamsburg's Signature Halloween Event, Howl-O-Scream

Earlier today Busch Gardens Williamsburg pushed a handful of blockbuster changes out to the Howl-O-Scream website. Most notably among them was a basic skeleton for this year’s event. Howl-O-Scream 2021 Lineup Howl-O-Scream 2021 is slated to feature five houses, four terrortories (read: scarezones), and four shows. Of those five houses, three will be new with […]

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