Busch Gardens Williamsburg Goes Year Round with New Winter Weekends + Mardi Gras Events

© Busch Gardens Williamsburg

Busch Gardens has taken the plunge into being open year-round with the introduction of two new limited time events that will keep the park open during January and February.  Up first is Winter Weekends, which will start on January 15th, and run that Friday, Saturday and Sunday, then again the following weekend - ending on Sunday January 24th.

The new event is designed to continue the celebration of the beauty of the holiday season and will feature plenty of decorative lights, but also plenty of rides, attractions and more.  Another major feature of the event will be the ability to see special animals that are not normally at the park, including an alligator, lemur and even a baby kangaroo.  There will also be special fireworks on Saturday evenings.  The park will have plenty of rides open during Winter Weekends as well, including Alpengeist, Verbolten and InvadR.

© Busch Gardens Williamsburg

Following right after and starting on January 29th, Busch Gardens Williamsburg will hold an all new Mardi Gras event.  The new celebration will run through February 28th and be followed by the park's St. Patrick's Day Celebration.

During the Mardi Gras event the park will feature 8 decorated themed areas along with special food, beverage, live entertainment and more.  There will be a similar list of rides open to visitors as during the Wild Weekends, so you can get plenty of more coaster rides in!  More detail on Mardi Gras will be added as the start of the event approaches.

So now we've seen both Six Flags and Busch Entertainment moving more of their parks into year round operations using special events, I guess it's officially a trend now.  A smart one, in my opinion.  With limited operations and the pandemic still not under control, it's a great way to stretch out the season and provide their guests with even more value than ever before - at least from a season pass perspective.