During an unusually warm April, Karen and I ventured down to Virginia to visit our son. While there, we spent a day visiting what has been one of my favorite theme parks, Busch Gardens Williamsburg (formerly Busch Gardens The Old Country). Created by the Anheuser-Busch company in 1975, the park wasn't developed simply to promote their Budweiser products (though it did). It was a love letter to European parks of the past, like the Tivoli Gardens. The park's architecture and landscaping were unrivaled, as was their food which was authentic cuisine reflecting the culture of each different area of the park. Anheuser-Busch was acquired by the European conglomerate InBev in 2008. InBev had no interest in running amusement parks and sold them off to the investment firm Blackstone Group. InBev had also inherited the Sea World parks, and so the Busch properties (there was another Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida) were then placed under the Sea World brand. Over the ensuing fifteen years, some noticeable changes had taken place. We arrived at about 12:30 to a rather quiet entryway. I was used to seeing traffic backed up at the parking gates. But we were able to drive up with very few other cars around us. General parking was now $35. If you wanted "Preferred Parking", it was $50. There was also "VIP Parking" for $60. That was more than the cost of admission to the park the last time we were there. So we paid for just the general parking. As we drove toward the parking area, we were directed to the right. In the past, we had turned left and parked near the entrance. Now we had to follow a winding path that took us to a parking lot about a half-mile from the entrance. There were hundreds of cars already parked there. There was no way we could walk to the park. But that actually wasn't a bad thing. The park had two trams that chauffeured us to the entrance. So we boarded one of them for a pleasant ride. A few minutes later we were dropped off at the park entrance. To the left was a long line of self-serve kiosks. But we had some questions and wanted to talk to an actual person. We hadn't been sure exactly which day we were coming, so we didn't buy our tickets in advance online. Plus the website had a lack of information about certain things. To the right of the kiosks was an archway declaring that this was where the fun begins. That would turn out to be a cruelly ironic greeting. So we went to one of the ticket booths. And then another. And another. None of the numerous ticket booths were staffed. They all had signs telling us to use the next available window. It would have been more considerate to have simply blocked off the queue entrance and have a sign that read "Closed". Our son spotted a Guest Relations building along the walkway down the path heading to the entry gates. A large sign declared it was for group sales. But a much smaller sign nearby said that you could buy regular tickets there. So we queued up for that. Our son had his military ID with him, and we knew that Busch Gardens offered discounts for veterans. So he showed his card to the woman behind the window. She just shook her head. "Did you print out the form online?" she asked. Our son hadn't heard about that. She said you had to print out an online form and bring it with you in order to get the military discount. She couldn't print it out for us. His ID card didn't matter. So then Karen and I asked if there were any senior discounts. There weren't. We had to pay full admission price, which was an eye-watering $109 a piece. We looked at each other. Our only other option would have been to leave after having paid $35 to park. So we coughed up the exhorbitant admission fee and headed over to the entry gates. We went through the security checkpoint and entered the Banbury Cross section of the park. I'd always found that area peculiar. There were a couple of gift shops on the right, the Globe Theater on the left (which was closed) and a small eatery ahead. British pop music was playing in the background. There was a clock tower in the center of the area and a small restaurant behind it. But that was it. The area had just one path, a set of small archways to the right that led to the rest of the park. I wondered why there weren't any other connecting paths, since this was the only way in or out of the park. If there were an emergency, everyone in the park would have to funnel through that small archway section and that would create a huge bottleneck. We walked through that archway toward the Heatherdowns section. A sandwich board along the way informed us that the bridge in San Marco was closed. That didn't really register with me at the time, but it would become a big problem. If we took a left at that point, we would have headed toward the Sesame Street Forest of Fun and Festa Italia. Taking a right would have taken us toward Killarney. But we went straight toward Heatherdowns, the Scotland section. There was a station for the Busch Gardens Railway that could take us to other sections of the park. As we made our way toward that area, we could see the stable where the famous Budweiser Clydesdales were still kept. Kids could approach and pet the huge horses. We went left toward the station entrance. The attendant there flatly told us that it would be 22 minutes until the train arrived. The park was running just one train. Karen didn't want to sit there for that long, so we instead continued walking. The big ride in this area was the venerable Loch Ness Monster, the famous Arrow steel coaster with interlocking loops. There was also an extremely steep staircase that would take you down to the Rhine River, where there was a walkway along the river over to the Germany section of the park, where there was an equally steep climb back up. Near the coaster's entrance was, to my surprise, a food truck that was serving lobster rolls and nachos, not exactly Scottish fare. I wondered why the park had a food truck when it was famous for its own offerings. We passed on that and instead followed the path toward the bridge to Killarney, the Irish-themed section. The first thing I noticed when we got to the bridge was the lack of atmosphere. Previously, the bridge passed over a waterfall along a peaceful stream and the entire area was shrouded in mist. It perfectly set the mood. The waterfall to the right was still marginally there. The stream to the left had been mostly filled in with traprock. And staring at us was something decidedly not Irish, a giant S&S Screaming Swing ride that would have looked more at home in a Six Flags park. It looked industrial and completely out-of-place in this otherwise bucolic setting. The only attempt at theming on the ride was some painting on the supports, cartoonish stones that only went partway up the structure, at which point the painters apparently gave up. We progressed into the Killarney area, which appeared largely unchanged. That's when it finally hit me how crowded the park was, which suprised me for a Tuesday in April. On many areas of the midway, we were walking shoulder-to-shoulder with people. The queue line for the heavily-themed simulator ride over to the right had been boarded up and looked abandoned. The Abbey Theater advertised the Celtic Fyre show, but none of the shows were being performed while we were there. Shows had always been a big part of the park's experience, but that was yet one more thing we wouldn't get for our $109. Next door to the Abbey Theater was another building housing the amusing Castle O'Sullivan show, but that too was closed. Killarney had very little to offer besides beer. So we kept walking toward Eagle Ridge, where two injured eagles were kept in a sanctuary. The path led down to Wolf Haven and then up to Lorikeet Glen, another bird sanctuary. The path then opened up into the next major area, Aquitaine, themed to a French village. To the left was the other method of transportation in the park, the Aeronaut sky ride. But it was closed. To the right was the entrance to the Royal Palace Theater. But that looked abandoned. No shows were scheduled there for the entire season. We walked past all the quaint-looking shops. The path opened up onto a small concourse where the entrance to Griffon, the huge B&M dive coaster was. We continued on into the New France (Canada) area. Looming in front of us was the huge Trapper's Smokehouse. When it first opened, Karen and I had a delicious salmon dinner there. But now, as with nearly all the eateries in the park, the menu was dumbed down to more generic food. It served barbecued meats that you could get at most any restaurant. Nearby was the park's wonderful flume, Le Scoot. But it was closed. So I suggested that we queue up for our first ride of the day on InvadR, the fairly new wood coaster. Our son wasn't big on roller coasters, and the ride was too intense for Karen. But they humored me and we headed for the queue. As we turned the corner I was stopped in my tracks. The line of people stretched out of the queue and back out onto the midway. The sign on the midway claimed about a 20 minute wait. The park was running two trains, but were cycling them really slowly. But I figured we'd give it a try. The line moved really slowly. After nearly a half-hour, we were only about 1/4 of the way through the queue line. The temperature was approaching 90 degrees. It would be at least another hour before we got to the station. So I suggested we abandon this folly and just keep walking through the park. That decision was met with much rejoicing. We walked across the bridge into the tiny Swiss Alps area that was home to the station for Alpengeist, the park's giant B&M suspended coaster. We took a left after the bridge and entered the Rhinefeld, the first of the park's two Germany sections. To the right was what I remembered as a fountain, but it appeared to have been completely filled in with stone and concrete. A little further up was Father Time Gifts, which is where in the past I had purchased authentic Black Forest clocks. The shop also featured other gifts imported from Germany. But the shop's title was now deceiving, because all of the timepieces had been removed. In their place were generic park gifts (some with Sea World branding). As in the rest of the park, there were plenty of places to buy beer. So our son got a 12 ounce can ... for $14. We exited the Rhinefeld onto a concourse with another fountain, this one functioning. Behind it was the giant animated clock, which was silent. Underneath the clock was a really good ice cream concession, which was closed. Nearby was the Land of the Dragons children's play area and the little Kinder Karussel. We bypassed those and headed across yet another bridge, this time into the Oktoberfest area of the park. As we crossed the bridge, to the right was the massive castle that once held the great Curse of DarKastle dark ride. The park decided to replace that with a new ride, an indoor roller coaster called DarKoaster. I was looking forward to trying it out, but it wasn't going to open until sometime in May. So instead we continued on. We stopped off to look at the giant Festhaus eatery. It used to serve authentic German food but now served pizza and hamburgs. Inside was still the gorgeous Anheuser-Busch stained glass eagle, along with stained glass panels depicting the original six lands in the park. Nearby on the midway was the original surrounding structure, for the park's drop tower, which had been removed. The remaining structure, while colorful, looked sort of like an unfinished carousel pavilion with tables around it. To the right of that was a large green wooden barrier blocking egress to what used to be the bridge to San Marco. I looked past the barrier and could see a new bridge in the early stages of construction. It then hit me: this would have been the only way out of this section of the park. On the park map, the bridge was completely missing. That to me meant that it was going to be under construction for the entire season. There was an Aeronaut station nearby, but since that ride was down the only way to get to the Italian section of the park was to double back, meaning over a half-hour of walking up and down steep and winding hills in 90 degree heat. It seemed to me that the park was incredibly irresponsible in forcing this on their guests. The least they could have done -- especially for the outrageous prices they were charging -- was to give patrons some other way to get from one area to another. They should have had two trains running and also the Aeronaut. The least they could have done was to have a small shuttle temporarily traveling along the midway. It became obvious why the crowds were so thick: there was not only comparatively little for them to do in the park, there was also no other practical way for them to get around. Karen wasn't up for trudging down and and then back up the steep stairs to the Rhine River area, so we spent over a half-hour retracing our steps back through the entire park. We finally returned to the Heatherdowns section and followed the path toward Festa Italia, where there was another new coaster I wanted to try. We passed the wonderful Escape from Pompeii shoot-the-chutes ride. It was closed. We walked over the bridge to the Festa Italia section. The ugly industrial track of Tempesto, a stock Premier Rides launched loop coaster (the same model as at Lake Compounce), loomed over the area. It was another ride that would have fit into Six Flags, but looked out-of-place in this park. Next to it was the entrance to my favorite ride in the park -- Apollo's Chariot, the great B&M hypercoaster with incredible airtime. It was down. So instead I made my way to the back of the section where the new coaster Pantheon sat. It took the place of the terrific river rapids ride that used to be there. I headed for the queue line. A readout above the entrance informed me that there was nearly an hour wait to board. Since I preferred the front seat, I could add another 20 minutes to that. I didn't want to make Karen and our son sit around in that heat for an hour-and-a-half. Instead, they waited in the shade and indulged me while I made a video walk-thru (more difficult than it should have been because of the missing bridge). After about three hours in the park, we called it quits. This was the first park we've been to where I didn't go on any rides. All we did was walk aimlessly from one end to the other. To say our visit to Busch Gardens was disappointing is a colossal understatement. For the amount of money we were charged, I expected an experience on par with Disney. Instead we encountered indifferent staff, non-operational rides, shuttered shows and generic food at equally outrageous prices. I had to pay $6 for a small bottle of water. That bordered on extortion. I didn't see many smiles on the faces of the people we passed. I hope the management gets a lot of complaints. I think what disappointed me the most was seeing how the park had begun to lose its character. Anheuser-Busch had a very distinct mission when creating the park: to expose Americans to European culture, food and entertainment and do it in a very classy way. Blackstone seemed to be treating the place as a cash cow (which makes sense since they're just an investment firm). The park seemed to be losing its unique character and impressively detailed theming and turning into just another thrill park with rides that didn't really appeal to me. The whole reason I loved visiting Busch Gardens was because there was no other park like it; I was transported into a different time and place. Fortunately there are many other better choices out there, places like Knoebels that I love visiting, that I know treat their guests with care and respect and that I don't have to go deep into debt to visit. Unless the Busch Gardens management changes its approach, I know where I'll be spending my time and money from now on.

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