Our spring break was spent discovering European villages, flying over landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, Medieval castles, the Coliseum, and rolling green hills across Scotland, what a sight to see! Sounds pretty exotic and expensive, right? Not really because we were flying over Europe in the latest 4D attraction, Europe in the Sky, at Busch Gardens Williamsburg!  

Europe in the Sky is just one of the many family friendly rides at the scenic and pristine Busch Gardens amusement park in Williamsburg, VA.  Our family loves going to parks on our vacation and we were thrilled to be invited to experience this park in particular over the break.

Part of the SeaWorld family of parks, aside from major theme parks such as SeaWorld and Universal Studios, Busch Gardens Williamsburg is the nicest amusement park I have ever been to.  The grounds are amazing and lush with beautiful flowers and plants.  Everywhere you go there are colorful blossoms perfectly manicured.  The grounds themselves are stunning.  It is so clean, no trash anywhere!

Busch Gardens Williamsburg boasts a lovely European theme.  The park is divided into several European countries, England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany and Italy.  Each area of the park reflects its origin in architecture, food, and decor.  This makes for an amazing setting! The rides and shows in each section fit the country perfectly!

There is truly something for everyone at this park.  Beginning with the smallest adventurers, there is a Sesame Street themed play land with rides, water fun, and more. This was a very popular area for younger visitors.

We loved each and every section of the park and my older boys braved every major ride there!  They loved Alpengeist, which has six inversions (ahh!), Apollo's Chariot, Lochness Monster, and Mach Tower to name a few.  The only disappointment they had was knowing we had just barely missed the opening of a brand new thrill ride--Verbolten--which was to open the following month.  We will definitely have to come back to try that one out!  Verbolten, a frightening ride through the Black Forest, is now open and being enjoyed by those that visit the park everyday!  From what I hear, it is an amazing ride!

In addition to amazing and groundbreaking rides, we could take breaks throughout the day and enjoy high quality entertainment, such as Celtic Fyre, a program filled with live Irish dancing and music, Pirates in 4D, a funny treasure hunt starring some familiar faces that left us laughing and a bit wet, Pet Shenanigans, a hilarious display of pet tricks featuring animals at the park, Entwined, a fairy tale adventure brought to life in front of you, and for younger audiences, Sunny Days Celebration with Elmo.  You could take up an entire day with these shows, and I definitely recommend checking them out while you are there, they are wonderful!

We enjoyed seeing wolves, bald eagles, raptors, Clydesdales and sheep throughout Busch Gardens, too!  My youngest son loved this, as he is a big animal lover, and he thoroughly enjoyed getting to hold 3 week old Rosa, a baby lamb.  To his surprise, this newborn was as big as he was!

As we left the park, we asked our kids what their favorite ride had been, they began to answer, "Curse of DarKastle! Alpengeist! Lochness Monster..." and continued to name every single ride we had gone on!  There were so many fun rides to go on that they couldn't decide which one was the best.  So we came back and enjoyed them all again the very next day, as well as hit those we hadn't had a chance to ride!


When it comes to large amusement parks, I get a bit nervous keeping my kids together.  Making sure everyone is safe is a huge concern.  Here is something about Busch Gardens Williamsburg that really stood out to me.  There are security guards throughout every section of the park.  You feel very safe here.  So much so, that after discussing with some of the security guards, we decided it would be ok to let our older kids go off on their own since we had ways to communicate with them.  At any other park, there is no way I would have felt comfortable with this!  At Busch Gardens, however, I knew that they were safe.  Since they were big enough to ride every ride there, they had a great time discovering the park on their own.  

I can't tell you about Busch Gardens without mentioning the incredible customer service you will receive while visiting.  Every member of the staff is helpful, courteous, and greets you with a smile.  Everyone you meet is happy to be there and it shows.  

We spent two days at the park and were able to take in almost every ride and attraction, we had a blast! We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and most definitely would come back again.  I can't rave about this park enough and know that you will love your visit as much as we did!

You can purchase tickets online and plan a spectacular visit for summer!

One very lucky Macaroni Dad is going to win a family four pack of tickets to visit Busch Gardens for a day!  To enter, email me at [email protected] or leave a comment below telling me your favorite amusement park ride (coasters, etc.) MUST be a NW Jersey Macaroni Kid subscriber to be eligible to enter.  By entering, you give your permission to receive our free weekly e-newsletter, which you can unsubscribe from at anytime. Winner will be picked at random on or about June 15, 2012, at which time this giveaway will be closed.  Good luck!