Christmas Town
Large-scale holiday event with millions of lights across the European hamlets and festive shows.
Busch Gardens Williamsburg
Theme park · North America
🇺🇸 Williamsburg, Virginia, United States
Europe in miniature, repeatedly voted most beautiful
Overall score7.2
Opened
1975
Size
422 acres (171 ha)
Rides
53 attractions
Avg. visit
7 hours
Ticket range
$60–$90 USD
Events & shows
Food & Wine Festival
Spring festival with international food and drink stalls plus a concert series.
Howl-O-Scream
Separately ticketed Halloween event with haunted houses, scare zones and live shows.
Visual Archive
Busch Gardens Williamsburg has won "world's most beautiful theme park" more than 30 times, with wooded hamlets themed to England, France, Germany, Italy and Ireland connected by a steam train and skyride. Pantheon, Griffon and Alpengeist keep the coaster lineup genuinely strong.
Plan Your Visit
Hours & tickets
- Operating hours
- Typically 10am-8pm in summer, shorter in spring and autumn
- Seasonal closures
- Closed roughly November to March apart from Christmas Town event dates
- Queue-skip pass
- Quick Queue and Quick Queue Unlimited, priced by date. From about $60 USD.
- How long to stay
- Full day
- Multi-day tickets
- 2-day and combo tickets with Water Country USA offer a clear per-day discount.
- Season pass
- Annual or season pass from about $160 USD.
Getting there
- Nearest airport
- Newport News/Williamsburg (PHF), ~15 miles; Richmond (RIC), ~50 miles
- Public transit
- Very limited transit; Williamsburg Area Transit bus 14 serves the park seasonally, but a car is easiest
- Parking
- On-site parking available. Around $25 USD per day.
- Staying over
- No park hotel; numerous Williamsburg hotels are within a few miles and some offer packages
Accessibility
- Accessibility
- Hilly, heavily wooded site with significant grades; a sky ride and train help with distances. Wheelchair and ECV rental available, and a ride accessibility guide lists transfer requirements.
Good to know
- Who it suits
- Genuinely all-ages: Sesame Street Forest of Fun for small children, world-class coasters for teens, and gardens and shows for adults
- Best time to visit
- Weekdays in late May, June or September; Christmas Town in December is beautiful but busy at weekends
- Dining
- European-themed dining across the country hamlets, with a good beer selection reflecting the Anheuser-Busch heritage
- Outside food
- Outside food and drink are not permitted.
- Weather cover
- Mostly outdoor and famously wooded and hilly, with theatres, dining halls and the Festhaus for shelter; coasters stop in thunderstorms.
- Baby care
- Nursing and changing facilities at first aid and family restrooms.
- Rentals on site
- Stroller / pushchair hire and Lockers available on site.
- Currency & payment
- Cards and mobile wallets accepted throughout; USD cash accepted.
- Official app
- Busch Gardens Williamsburg app (iOS/Android): wait times, show schedules, map and Quick Queue.
Archival records
Golden Ticket Award for World's Most Beautiful Park