Our trip to Busch Gardens Europe (aka Williamsburg) over the weekend was a total success. We had great weather on the long Memorial Day weekend – going in, we thought we made a bad call because we were afraid the park would be packed – but we had beautiful sunshine, a cool-enough breeze, and almost no lines at all. We drove up Friday, hitting some traffic – apparently an overturned 18-wheeler – but we had enough time in the schedule to absorb it. We hit our traditional eatery, a nice Mexican restaurant at just about the halfway mark, and the kids collected some great custom ballons from visiting clowns – weirdness! We got in to our nifty little Econolodge in time to hit the sack, after a quick trip to Food Lion and Wawa to pick up park entry coupons – $10 off the $60 admission, the best deal around. The next day everyone was pumped up and we hit the road at 8:30am. We were at the park by 9am, in the first row of parking, whoop! They opened up Scotland at 9am, which let gave us time to pack our stuff in a locker (no bags on rides any more), ride Loch Ness Monster and get in line to storm the rest of the park. Then we hit the Griffon, and were screaming down the 200+-foot-freefall by 10am. What a start! Everyone’s heart was pumping after that, and we basically didn’t stop until 10pm that night. We crawled home and fell asleep. After a nice jump in the cool pool the next morning (with Wrenny jumping in without testing the water haha!), we headed home for some well-deserved rest. Wahoo!! Good job to the whole crew, everybody did their best to have a blast. :><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"