To be honest, I had no plans to visit Busch Gardens Williamsburg (BGW) before the end 2025. Sam and I had just returned from Florida and did Howl-O-Scream (HOS) events at both Busch Gardens Tampa (BGT) and SeaWorld Orlando (SWO). We also did Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) at Universal Studios Florida (USF). So yeah, we were good when it came to amusement/theme parks and haunt events for the rest of the year.
So of course Jen goes and sees that BGW is open on a Monday in October and is holding their HOS event. She asks me if we can go and it took me all of three seconds to say yes. I’m off on Mondays, so I wouldn’t have to take off to do it. I also had two free tickets on my season pass for friends to use. It just made sense. I asked Sam and our friend Scott. Both of them were down, so we had four of us.
I also ended up reaching out to Chris who agreed to meet up with us. Carrie and the rest of their family were also going to come. Hopefully we’d get a chance to meet up with them for a ride or two. Their main focus was on catching the shows and some haunts. Perhaps we could join them for some of those?
Another Howl-O-Scream Where We Focused on Rides
Thankfully for HOS at BGW you don’t have to buy a separate admission and/or leave the park like you do at BGT and SWO. That sucked, but we were back at the better of the two Busch Gardens parks here in Williamsburg. I’ve always enjoyed getting in rides and haunts on one ticket, or with our passes. And generally I’ve found BGW to do good when it comes to haunts.
With that being said, this HOS wasn’t doing it for us this year. Since our visit was on a Monday and crowds were light, I think the haunt wasn’t running at peak performance (understandably). We walked right into haunts without having to wait. Once inside they were kind of “meh.” You could tell that they had minimal scare actors as some scenes you just walked through with no interactions. Oh well. We went back to focusing on rides for the most part.
Griffon
Jen sure does love Griffon. I think she’d ride it all day if she could. She ended up with eight rides this visit, getting Scott to go on with her for all of them. Sam and I rode five times, electing to run over to Big Bad Wolf for a night ride while they marathoned Griffon.
Big Bad Wolf: The Wolf's Revenge
I was excited to see how this coaster rode at night with the dark setting and glowing eyes on the lead car. Sam joined me and we both thought the ride was a bit more fun under nightfall.
Going through the village at night felt more natural and “scary,” if you will. I want to do this again when I’m able to visit the park again at night.
Alpengeist
Big Bad Wolf wasn’t the only B&M Inverted Coaster Sam and I decided to ride again in the dark. Nope. We rode our favorite invert two more times before heading back over to catch up with Jen and Scott.
Alpengeist is amazing during the day, but night rides on it are something else. BGW has great night rides throughout the park and Alpengeist is surely one you don’t want to miss. I’m not going to lie, I wish we rode it another time or two before heading back.
Final Ride Counts
Alpengeist (6: Patrick, Sam, 4: Jen, Scott)
Apollo’s Chariot (3: Jen, Scott, 1: Patrick, Sam)
Big Bad Wolf: The Wolf’s Revenge (2: Patrick, Sam, 1: Jen, Scott)
DarKoaster (1)
Finnegan’s Flyer (3: Patrick, Jen, 2: Sam, Scott)
Griffon (8: Jen, Scott, 5: Patrick, Sam)
InvadR (1)
Loch Ness Monster (2)
Pantheon (7: Jen, Scott, 4: Patrick, Sam)
Verbolten (1)
HoS: Bloodshot (1)
HoS: Clock Town (1: Jen, Scott)
HoS: Death Water Bayou (1: Jen, Scott)
HoS: Killarney Diner (1)
HoS: Monster Stomp (1: Patrick, Sam)
* Ride counts only reflect rides for Patrick, Sam, Jen, & Scott as Chris & Carrie only met up with us for a short while
Thankfully Not a Busch Gardens Tampa Experience
Although you could tell HOS was running at a scaled down version of its normal operations, I will say that this experience was still better than the one Sam and I had at BGT last month. I am not going to recap all the stupidity we experienced attending BGT. If you want to read all about that, check out the trip report, “Busch Gardens Tampa – Certainly NOT Like Williamsburg.”
So thank you BGW for having better operations, better rules/regulations, and just being an all around better park. I really wish BGT was up to your standard. Maybe it will be one day because there is so much promise there.
Busch Gardens Williamsburg Photo Gallery - October 13, 2025
If you would like to use any of the images in the gallery above for your commercial and/or non-commercial projects, feel free to do so. I ask that you credit We Were Inverted whenever they’re used. I also ask that you do not alter the image or remove the watermarks. If you need any images/video resized or without the watermarks, please contact me directly.
CREW MANIFEST
The following flight crew members attended this park, & earned the respective credits below:
Patrick
CAG
New Credit(s): n/a
Sam
Admiral
New Credit(s): n/a
Jen
Admiral
New Credit(s): n/a
Chris
Ensign
New Credit(s): n/a
Carrie
Ensign
New Credit(s): n/a