January 30th, 2022
Living in Williamsburg and 15 minutes from Busch Gardens, we of course use our annual passes and membership rewards as much as we can.
This year, Busch decided to stay open year round and this created different theme weekends and celebrations. For the last weekend of January and the entire month of February Busch Gardens celebrates Mardi Gras. They do special food booth with Cajun foods, King Cake deserts and Mardi Gras style adult beverages. Employees are also dressed up throughout the park in Mardi Gras attire and pass out beads to the guest.
Most of the kids rides are open on the chilly weekends and only a hand full of thrill rides. The thrill rides only operate when the temperature is above 40 degrees. This is not one of those days. It was a whopping 35 degrees. That didn’t stop us from taking the kids for a couple hours (their request).
This weeks member rewards: 1 free Mardi Gras food sample per pass. For us that means 8.
First up……Sesame Street Forest of Fun.
Taylor is obsessed with Sesame Street and most importantly Big Bird and Grover. As soon as we got into the area, we see Grover decked out in Mardi Gras attire and we went straight to see him. Taylor couldn’t get out of the stroller fast enough and ran right up to him.
***Interesting Fact*** The back drop where guest can have pictures taken with Sesame Street characters is copywrite, therefore guest are only allowed to take personal pictures from the side and not the window looking directly into the picture room.
Most kids are scared of characters, not Taylor. She gets so excited she falls on her butt. She loves seeing the characters so much and cannot wait to hug them and the characters are so good with the littles.
Two of the rides in the Forest of Fun were operating, Elmo’s Spire and Oscars Whirly Worms. The kids all went on them. Elmo’s Spire has 2 rows, 6 seats across. Well our crew takes up an entire row.
While we were in the Forrest of Fun, we ran into 2 other families. It was nice that the area was almost empty. Thankfully even with the low attendance, the show went on as normal.
When you are a Daddy’s Girl and Sesame Street is Life (Taylor is wearing a Big Bird Hoodie under her snow suit), daddy will dance with you during the entire show. Even your siblings join in on the singing and dancing. **Daddy said not to post the videos, haha yeah right**
After we left the Forest of Fun, we went to Ireland. Unfortunately Finnegan’s Flyer was not in operation but it was okay. We stopped by Grogan’s Grill and Blake got a Shrimp Etouffee. The kids also got their first set of beads from one of the workers.
Blake and I got drinks at Grogan’s Pub. Blake got a frozen Hurricane and I got a French 75. Both were delicious.
On our way to ride the Katapult we came across Jesters handing out handfuls of beads. All the kids got about 5 each and were so excited. We also stopped by Café Lulu to get the kids Beignets (again, delicious).
We made it to the Katapult. We had the entire ride to ourselves. It was a first for sure. Blake went back to Trapper’s Show Grill and got the Crawfish Boil and I took the kids to Land of the Dragons.
I was neat the see the Log Flume and Alpengeist covered in snow.
Everyone went to play in Land of the Dragons and I was waiting for Blake when Arianna and Austin came back because they were cold. We went into Das Edelweiss to finish using our sampler coupons. We got 1 Bananas Fosters Cheesecake, 1 King Cake Cinnamon Roll, 1 Mini Mardi Gras Funnel Cake with cream cheese and Mardi Gras color sprinkles and 1 Mini Mardi Gras Funnel Cake with powdered sugar and Mardi Gras color sprinkles. All were sooooo good!
I took Arianna and Taylor on the Carousel while the kids played. Then Isabella and Austin realized we were on the Carousel and wanted to ride. We rode again and Taylor did not want to get off.
Once we finished eating and riding, we folded the stroller up and walked right up on the Sky Ride. Girls vs Boys.
I filmed the sky ride trip. It was really neat to see Busch Gardens covered with snow. We also enjoyed waving to the boys.
We took one more picture of the kids before leaving. It was a great short trip to Busch with an almost empty park.
Nic of Time - Travel 