Thank you to Busch Gardens® for providing my family with season passes in exchange for this honest blog review. All opinions are 100% my own.
Going to an amusement park, you just think of rides and spending money on games and food.
Busch Gardens® is different, they have holiday activities; fireworks on the 4th of July, Howl-O-Scream for Halloween, and ChristmasTown for Christmas.
So, Wednesday we just had to go see what all the fuss was about. My precious husband thought that by going during the week it wouldn’t be crowded, bless his heart though because he was in for a rude awakening lol.
We kept hearing how it was the place to be during Christmas time.
And boy it did not disappoint!
I love going to see Christmas lights around the neighborhood, but this was so much better. All the Christmas lights were in one big area. The only thing I will say was that it was COLD! But they did have heating centers (closed tents with heaters inside), fireplaces, and torches throughout the park where you could stop and warm your hands up.
They redid most of the shops to give them a Christmas name and were serving hot chocolate. They even redid some of the ride names as well. Instead of the Teacups, it was the Peppermint Twist.
I wasn’t expecting any of the rides to be open. Since it was too cold for my favorite ride, the Roman Rapids (for good reason, a water ride) to be open, we only rode one ride, my youngest sons favorite, the Le Catapult. My oldest said he was going to wait by the fireplace while we rode because he was too cold. But after hearing that my youngest was going to ride with dad, he said he didn’t want me to be alone, so he rode with me 🙂
Oh, we also rode the train to different “countries” as they call them. Along the way, there were trees all set up with lights. Plus we got to see the different areas and how they were set up without having to walk all around the park.
While we were walking to see if we could catch any of the shows, I could smell the fresh pine trees they put up (love that smell but hate the mess it leaves at home).
We tried to catch two shows Deck The Halls and Gloria! but they were both crowded.
With Gloria! in Ireland, the line was so long we would have been waiting through two shows at least. With Deck The Halls in Germany, the building was so packed people had to stand. Before the show even started they were turning people away because of how packed it got (must be a very popular show).
If you’re ever in the area around Christmas time, make a day trip out of it to see the park. It starts November 24th and continues until January 1st. closed on select days. You can check the calendar here. Opening from 2-10 PM EST. I would just suggest that if you are an hour or more away to leave an hour before it opens. We live an hour away and make sure to leave an hour beforehand. They are doing construction the way we come and it gets congested very quickly.
Looking for a waterpark instead? Check out my Water Country USA post.
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