I was excited to try Busch gardens with my small children ( ages 4 and 6), but I think we will stick with elsewhere. The park was pretty and the theming is nice in places but there is a lot lacking for the price.
1. Parking: Is inefficient, it took forever to get into the park when we had already paid for parking online. It would be nice if there was a special line, etc. for people who had already purchased their pass. We probably should have paid to park closer since we have small kids and a stroller, they operate a tram from the parking lots regularly but i would have preferred just closer parking/walk into park.
2. Getting into the park: This was slow! We have been to Disney several times and while it takes some time at Disney they have their system down really well considering the crowd, Busch gardens process for scanning tickets, going through security felt jumbled and also kind of insecure.
3. Park layout: This park is quite large. If you are coming with small children, the Sesame Street Forest of Fun is right by the entrance, the other area really meant for kids is as far away from the park entrance as you can get in Germany. There is a bridge near the Loch Ness Monster entrance that crosses into Germany, but it is stairs only so not stroller accessible and the day we were there, a tree was blocking the path as well. There are other kid friendly rides and shows spread througout the park and also a train ride, but the train stops in Scotland, Italy and France..not in Germany so you still have to walk all that way at least from Italy. Which would be ok except........
4. Ride loading: With the small children we were not doing any of the big attractions, only the kiddie rides. The attendants doing the kiddie rides had absolutely zero hustle, with the result being that we would come to a kid-friendly ride, my kids would get on and then the attendant would wait about ten minutes for more children to come. Then they would start their painfully slow walk around the ride to make sure everyone was secure. Then wait for more kids. Then walk around again. Then start the ride, all with the biggest expression of disdain you have ever seen in your life. My kids are pretty chill but many of the children decided in that amount of time that they did not care to wait longer, were upset, were hot, were thirsty, had to pee, etc. That being said, the rides in the Seseame Street area were pretty well done, this part of the review is for the rest of the park.
5. Food: The food was gross. They let you bring in one bottle of water per person and snack type foods. I normally dont mind paying for lunch at a place like this, i understand that theme parks cost money but basically the only options for children are chicken nuggets or hot dogs. I had to ask for a different plate of food twice because they kept handing me food that was cold when it should have been hot.
6. Clealiness: I really did not feel like the bathrooms were very clean, we encountered several restrooms with no toilet paper, running out of soap, etc. One bathroom near the Scrambler type ride was very well kept but the bathrooms in the sesame Street area were a disaster. The nursing rooms for infants were ok and clean at least.
We have done sesame place and disney and i would recommend both of those over busch gardens. Williamsburg is a lovely place to visit but it was too expensive to justify coming back for that lackluster experience.