Coasters and Cuisines at Busch Gardens' Food & Wine 2024!
It’s become an annual tradition of ours to make our way to Busch Gardens Williamsburg at least once every summer towards the end of the Food & Wine event window to check out all the delectable dishes that the event offers! In our opinion, this is one of the best festivals at the park, because the variety of food and entertainment offerings increases exponentially. This year’s event brings a handful of new food and beverage booths to the park but also plenty of returning favorites that we were very excited to try again. Typically, we are big fans of the “Sip and Savor” Tasting pass, but we decided to forego it this visit because we had a number of Platinum Member benefits to leverage. As part of our monthly rewards with the Platinum Member program, we each got 2 vouchers for a Food and Wine booth item and $10 in Busch Bucks that could be used at any food booth as well. With all those rewards, we had enough vouchers to try at least 3-4 items each. We decided that any additional items we wanted we could simply purchase a la carte, using our platinum membership for additional discounts.
We started our festival food crawl in at the Mexico booth, which can be found towards the back of the park by the aviary. Horchata is always a must-have for us, so we shared a glass and the taco trio platter, featuring the shrimp, beef, and pork tacos. This was an excellent first stop as the tacos had great flavors and the horchata - our forever favorite - was cool and refreshing. While we were next door to the aviary anyway, we decided to stop in a say hello to some feathered friends. Note that passing through the aviary is included in your ticket to Busch Gardens Williamsburg, but the bird nectar for feedings is an extra charge. If you do decide to purchase nectar, there’s more than enough in each cup for multiple people to share with the birds!
Above: Feeding colorful avian friends with nectar at Busch Gardens Williamsburg!
Of course, we couldn’t set foot in one of the country’s award-winning theme parks without conquering a few coasters, too! Our next stop was France for a glorious ride on the mythical Griffon, our #1 coaster at BGW. We then hitched a ride on the Busch Gardens Railway, taking the full loop plus a little extra to disembark at Scotland. Our next must-do was ride on the newly reimagined Loch Ness Monster: Legend Lives On. This beloved historical coaster recently underwent an extensive refurbishment and many new theming elements were added. Be sure to check out the vlog for our POV and rider reactions. We thought the theming was top notch and a worthy addition…however, the ride itself felt very rough for a coaster that just underwent intensive maintenance. We do acknowledge that it was only one ride, and that our experience may not reflect the experience of others. We are still excited to see this coaster get lots of attention and hope it continues to grace the BGW skyline for many years to come.
After several rides, it was time for another food break, and this time we headed to the brand-new Africa booth, located in Killarney (Ireland). It was quite the juxtaposition to hear African style music while being surrounded by Irish theming, but we weren’t complaining! At this booth, we tried the peri-peri chicken skewers and bobotie, which is essentially African egg casserole. Both items were hits for us, and we would love to see Africa return for future festivals. Our next stop was Germany for another coaster, this time the incredible B&M invert, Alpengeist. This roaring beast of a ride was hauling, and the ride nearly took our breath away. We highly recommend not skipping this one if you are coaster fan visiting this park. Another new food booth that Katie wanted to try was Turkey, which was located near the bridge to Festa Italia. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived they were out of the doner kebab - hopefully that means that the booth was popular and the dish was good, because we’d love to see it return next year! Instead, we made our way back to one of our old favorites, the Jamaica booth, for some jerk chicken sliders. One of our favorite food hacks is to ask for some of the Jamaican patty sauce to put on the sliders. Katie also tried the ginger lime refresher at this booth, which was delicious, and we shared a coconut pineapple cake as well.
Our final food crawl spot of the day was Brazil, for an order of the churrasco with chimichurri sauce and a coconut milk rice pudding. The churrasco we have had many times but also thought it was even better than the previous year. The rice pudding was new for us, but we highly recommend it if you are a fan of coconut! We wrapped up our fun filled day with a night ride on Verbolten, another great option in the coaster line up at Busch Gardens, and if you can do it at night, it’s even better! We picked a gorgeous day for a visit as the sun was shining and the temps were mild. For a more detailed review of the food we ate and to see our ride experiences, please check out our vlog!
