Olivia and I spent the weekend in Southwest Virginia celebrating a good friend’s wedding, and what better excuse than to make a quick trip (2 hours) over to our favorite Virginia theme park for their annual Halloween event, Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Take a look at the video below for the entire recap of our evening:
I am fresh off a recent mid-June visit to the park, so I had recently experienced all the coasters Busch Gardens has to offer. It had been a little longer for Olivia, but only around a year or so because we were in Williamsburg this time last year for their 2020 (COVID-friendly) Halloween event, Halloween Harvest. Last year’s event did not feature any haunted houses, so we were very excited to be back to experience a full “normal” Howl-O-Scream experience. This was an event that I grew up with, but I was excited to host Olivia for her first time. We checked-in to the DoubleTree down the street and were in the park by 4PM.
With two hours to kill before the beginning of Howl-O-Scream, we decided to head to Ireland to get on Busch Garden’s newest attraction, Finnegan’s Flyer. Thank God we purchased quick queue for the day, as this ride had some of the slowest ops I have ever seen. Dispatches were around 8-10 minutes, and this attraction does not have a long ride cycle. It is very fun for what it is, especially cause we had the side of the ride that hangs over the creek towards the center of the park, but I would never wait longer than twenty minutes or so for this ride. The airtime at the top of each swing is phenomenal though.
From there, we headed back towards the front of the park to catch one of Howl-O-Scream’s three shows, Monster Stomp on Ripper Row. We grabbed some drinks from a nearby bar location that had two themed drinks (Olivia was a fan of the sangria), then hopped in some back center seats for the 5pm showing. The show was entertaining–the middle section in particular. They had a really cool four person drum solo using butcher knives instead of drum sticks. I was thoroughly impressed, and the show was great for what it was. At just over twenty minutes long, it was a fantastic way to kick off the event.
After being released from the show, we headed over to the Festa Italia section of the park to check out Tempesto and Apollo’s Chariot. The latter was unfortunately down for maintenance, so we took a front row ride on Tempesto. A fun coaster; nothing super incredible but a good experience nonetheless. It’s got a nice launch to it, and the hangtime at the top of the ride is cool, but other than that, these sky rockets are a little gimmicky to me. Especially with the overkill “comfort collars” that SeaWorld parks love to utilize. Phobia at Lake Compounce is a great example of a much superior exception to this.
By this time, it was just about 6 o’clock, and as soon as my watch turned over, a creepy voice came over the PA announcing that the event had begun. Crossing over the bridge into the Oktoberfest section of the park, we came across Verbolten and decided to jump on for a ride. One of Busch Gardens’ best, we throughly enjoyed our lap on this coaster. The drop track is always surprising and the ride is just a fun time–we were laughing the whole way through. It isn’t as smooth as it used to be, but by no means is it a rough or unenjoyable experience.
We stopped at a temporary bar nearby the Festhaus (one that became our favorite drink location as the night went on) to grab a round of adult beverages and a pair of celebratory Jell-o syringe shots. This gave us the courage to check out our first haunted house of the evening, and we decided to start with the nearby (new for 2021) Nevermore maze. As the name indicates, this was an Edgar Allen Poe themed house that we really enjoyed. There were plenty of scareactors throughout, and with Olivia leading the way we had more than a few decent scares, some being rather unique. There were some cool sets and I thought the house just had a creepy, macabre atmosphere to it. A good one in our books, and a solid way to get the event started.
From there, we were nearby the new for 2021 scarezone Hexed Hollow, so we decided to check it out on our way to Alpengeist. We still aren’t sure why, but there were absolutely zero scareactors in this area. Maybe it was because it was still light out, but if the event starts at 6pm then it seems like there should definitely be actors out by 6:45. Haven’t figured this one out yet but was pretty disappointed with this walkthrough. We unfortunately didn’t get back to this section of the park later on, so it was a bummer to have missed this. Thankfully for us, this was one of the lone misses of the night.
Alpengeist was up next, and with a crowded station we opted for a less-clustered middle row (row 4 I believe). This attraction is still running phenomenally, and Olivia even deemed it her all-time favorite inverted coaster, surpassing Montu at BGT (among others). From there, we were able to checkout my favorite scarezone of the evening, the Meat Market, located in New France. The actors here were great and super interactive. The atmosphere was perfect with a nice combination of lighting and terrifying music. This section just felt complete, and it harkened back to some of the scarier zones of Howl-O-Scream’s heyday (Sea Dog Cemetery, Festa Dementia, etc.). This was by far the best of this year’s event.
While at the midway point of Meat Market, Olivia and I decided to take a quick lap on Invadr, the park’s GCI family coaster. We rode in the specified quick queue row (row 6), but sadly the ride was nothing special. I wish they had went with a more aggressive woodie in this location, as Invadr seems a bit tame and is definitely on the short side, particularly for a GCI. It’s a good mid-tier coaster for young ones and individuals building up courage, but it doesn’t do a whole lot for me unfortunately. I do remember the front row being a good time on this ride though, so maybe we’ll try to get a lap there the next time around.
Next up was Griffon. This coaster is a beast, and if it wasn’t for my undying love of Apollo’s Chariot and B&M Hypers in general, this would for sure be my number one in the park. The airtime is phenomenal, views are fantastic from front to back, and the ride is smoother than anything I’ve ever experienced. Just a fun time all-around–I could go on and on about this one.
Walking through the nearby party zone (not sure about these; somewhat of a vibe killer), we made our way into Wolf Valley. This area used to have scareactors in gillie suits when I was a kid–I really wish they would bring that back. I’m assuming there is a reason for this that I am unaware of. If anyone has any intel on this I’d love to know.
Approaching Ireland, we caught the entrance to Killarney Diner and decided to queue up. This was my most anticipated house of the event, as it was new for this year’s edition of Howl-o-Scream and had been receiving a good number of positive reviews. Thankful to report, the maze definitely lived up to the hype and landed in my top spot of the evening. The sets were impressive and there were a few really good scares peppered throughout. I loved the theme of the house and I thought they executed it extremely well. There were, however, two dead spots within the maze that I thought missed the mark a bit. One was a strobe effect in a long hallway, while the other was a hallway of hanging meat carcasses. If they were able to sneak one scareactor into either of these locations, that would’ve made for a fantastic moment. Otherwise, the house was a strong addition to this year’s lineup.
From Ireland, we made the quick walk over to the Pompeii area to experience another returning house called Dystopia. Crazy enough, this one actually takes place beneath Escape from Pompeii (not while its running, of course), and everytime I enter a maze in this location I can’t help myself from looking up at the ride structure for the majority of the walkthrough. This house was solid; it had plenty of scareactors and a few unique scares. The theme was a bit difficult to pick up on though, and the sets didn’t do a whole lot to help with the narrative. My main question for this maze: why did Busch Gardens get rid of the moving floor at the entrance of the house? I guess the floor didn’t actually move, rather the frame of the room surrounding the floor. BG would hang props from rollers on the ceiling that would swing back and forth, making for a very unique effect that I have yet to see elsewhere. I’m assuming this is related to a reliability or maintenance type issue, but maybe they don’t want to deal with the potential liability of it as well? If anyone knows the true reason, please help a brother out because I’m dying to know.
Next up on our list of haunted attractions was the maze all the way in the back of Festa Italia called Circo Sinistro. This area (Roman Rapids queue area) used to house one of my favorite mazes when I was a kid. It had a very similar theme, but I distinctly remember wearing 3-D glasses within the maze, and the house used the 3-D effect in some really creative ways to scare the crap out of you. To my dismay, BG did away with the glasses years ago, and apparently the maze hasn’t been the same ever since. I didn’t think it was a bad house, but there were a lot of dead spots and very minimal scareactors on our one walkthrough. Granted, we did get the singular best scare of the night at this maze (a bungee jumper that came out of nowhere), but overall it fell a little flat. On the plus side, it was the longest house of the night, so we did feel like it was worth our less than ten minute wait.
We headed back across the bridge past Verbolten and into the area of the park that once housed the legendary Drachen Fire. This is where our last maze of the evening was located, in the very, very back section of the coaster-less field. This maze is called Witch of the Woods and it is an outdoor haunt that runs through the edge of the woods bordering the Drachen Fire field, which is now called the Black Forest. Witch of the Woods was a nice change of pace. This was a new incarnation of this maze, but I had also done its predecessor (Lumberhack) which I really enjoyed as well. The outdoors aspect of it is super cool; it allows them to utilize larger sets, in addition to using a few different scares that really changed up the pace. Since it was later on in the evening, we were the only ones in the area and we esentially had the maze to ourselves–definitely upping the scare factor. A solid addition for this year, and probably my #2 of the evening behind Killarney Diner.
At this point, we had completed every house and scarezone, and with about thirty minutes left in the event, we hustled to get a few house re-runs. Starting with Nevermore, we then took a ride on the legendary Aeronaut skyride that soars above the middle of the park, allowing for some excellent sights and a nice ride to the England section. From there, we were able to get another run-through of Dystopia before finishing off with an epic 10pm ride on Apollo’s Chariot. Apollo’s was running great as always, and even though we weren’t able to get my go-to back row, it was an amazing way to wrap up our busy evening.
We had a great time at this year’s Howl-o-Scream, and we are excited that the event is back in it’s (mostly) true form compared to last season. The houses were a bit hit or miss, but overall they were enjoyable. Busch Gardens can definitely get away with a few more things that a more high profile event (such as Halloween Horror Nights) cannot, so I really appreciate being able to experience some variety. Olivia and I got a bunch of good scares and really enjoyed our night.
I’d like to see a few more specialty food items as it didn’t seem like they had anything this year. They had a number of themed bar areas that were nice, but I can understand why they probably couldn’t go all out in their first season back. The show that we saw was entertaining, and I heard the Jack show was great as well. Scarezones were a bit lackluster, but to be honest I’ve yet to see a good one in awhile, regardless of event. Overall, Olivia and I had a fantastic evening and were happy we made the trip over. We always love visiting Howl-o-Scream and hope to return next year!
– Walker
Texas-Ranger Travels 