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Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Six Flags Great Adventure and Kings Dominion Trip Report
Sept. 6, 2010

On the way back down that night, we recorded a 'cast all about Great Adventure in the car, which you can check out right here.

So Day Three, and we're back at The Gardens, this time with more business to attend to. But first, some more Alpengeist love:

Cobra Rolls are sex-say!

And also loaded with win.

Wait, what's that humongous thing behind the Geist-meister? Bobby wants!

Is this my favorite inverted coaster? Not sure... Montu prolly takes that prize, but still...

Random BGW beautiousness.

Okay, so Curse of DarKastle was one of our prime targets for this trip, as dark rides SLAY and there are not enough of them. Plus, this one is supposed to be really great. Plus, Brent Young, the co-host of The Season Pass and the creative head of Super 78, a theme park attraction and media studio, helped design it!

Gorgeous logo!

And very wicked exterior! Way to go, Busch Gardens Williamsburg!

Wolves are featured. Good doggie!

"Grrrrr! I'ma MESS YOU UP!!!"

In a nutshell, Curse is major blast. The 3D is exceptional, the ride action is full of surprises, and the total package makes it one of the best indoor attractions I've ever been on. When you consider that this thing cost a mere fraction of what Universal paid for Spider-man, it is mindblowing. I won't spoil too many surprises, but DO THIS ASAP.

And to hear plenty of nifty stuff about the park and Curse's development, check out the Season Pass podcast with Brent and Larry Giles, BGW's Vice President of Engineering and Maintenance!

Here's Doug, setting up the gear. Dude works way too hard.

We also were very fortunate to get to tag along with Theme Park Review's backstage tour of the attraction. Bonus! We started in the maintenance bay. And that yellow thing above is a bigass lift that can pull each ride vehicle off the tracks, if need be. For most maintenance, the cars just sit above a pit, like at your local Jiffy-Lube.

Ride vehicle, looking fine!

All the ride's crazy motion is air-powered. If I recall correctly, these fans are part of that system. We got to watch as the cars danced through their entire program. These babies can really shake booty.

You can see the pistons here that help with all the heavy lifting and such.

Fleur-de-lis pattern is old-school Euro-classy.

Here's one of the "sleds" parked in front of the first scene.

It takes a lot of computing power to operate all the high-tech audio/visual/mechanical goodness.

AV System Control, Activate!

This is a projection room. Coooool.

Something I was amazed to learn: most of what we see during the ride comes from the 3D film segments; there's very little "set" design. Tells you how effective those film sequences are. Well done, Brent and Co.! But there are some cool sets, like the spooky rock monster heads above. I want these in my apartment.

"I will haunt your dreams!"

Some more sets. Hmmm, that rooftop appears to be on its side.... Odd.

You'll just have to ride to find out why!

Guide rails.

And we finished up back at the exit dock. Great tour, thanks so much BGW!

Ah, Europe In The Air... More like Vomit In My Mouth. Everything the park got right with DarKastle's projected magic, they got totally wrong with this misbegotton attraction. It was truly nauseating, the odd transitions, the camera movement, all of it. Maybe it was just me (okay, it wasn't just me; I heard other complaints), but this thing is not up to the park's very high standards. It's the only boo-boo you'll find here, but it's a big one. And it's fixable - call up Super 78, would you?

At night, we got to see some of the park's IllumiNights shows. Each "land" does its own thing and we saw the whole Germany edition. One word review: Wacky.

Before I move on to Griffon, another few shots of The Loch Ness Monster, a major sentimental favorite of mine. First, this logo is freaking art, man. The best.

And I don't know exactly what they're doing to this coaster, but she rides like she was built last week. Looks it, too, these days, with a fresh, clean paint job and everything.

No train in this shot, but just look at that. So striking. You can't take a bad shot of this wonderwork.

Oh, Nessie, long may you run. I... I just don't know what I would do if you went away...

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