My day began early (0600) and I had to cajole Mollie into getting ready for our departure from the hotel. Fortunately, there was a breakfast in the lobby. However, Mollie didn't like much of what was offered so that didn't bode well for the rest of the morning... Brenna texted that she was on her way to Busch Gardens and we departed our hotel shortly after that (0645). We made our way to I-95 via US-1 and found that the traffic wasn't too bad - it was much worse on the other side of the Interstate, though. On the way, Mollie and I had some great chats about all kinds of topics. Mollie was able to see Brenna's location and figured out that we were close to merging after we got off I-295 and onto I-64. So, we stopped for a bathroom break at a nearby rest area and waited until we saw Brenna's little car pass us. We then caught up to her but couldn't slip in behind her because there were too many big trucks nearby. Instead, we continued on ahead and reached the Busch Gardens parking lot entrance at 0915. Brenna got there a few minutes later and we were able to stay together from that point. The parking area opened at 0930 and we got on a shuttle to the main gate by 0945. We arrived at the Will Call Office shortly after that and quickly converted our Veterans Appreciation Voucher into entry tickets (the process was very easy). It was already pretty warm so we tried to get to water rides or colder venues as fast as we could. However, we'd forgotten about the "gates" that the park uses to restrict entry into the various country areas. This required us to wait in the hot sun for almost 45 more minutes before we reached the fun rides. Since we'd had the delay, we were able to convince Mollie to ride on "Invadr", a wooden roller coaster that looked pretty tame until we got aboard - she did NOT like it... After that, we split up so Brenna and I could ride on "DarKoaster" (a new indoor roller coaster). The line was almost an hour and the ride itself may only have lasted about two minutes. It was fun, though. We later found Mollie in the FestHaus (much cooler inside) and learned she'd done a bunch of the kid rides we all used to like. She had already gotten herself some lunch so Brenna and I got some food too (1200). While eating, we watched the familiar German dancing and singing performance while we tried to hydrate and cool down. After about 45 minutes, we felt like braving the heat again and ventured over to the bumper cars, carousel and other Midway displays. We kept moving through the park, checking line sizes and noting that there were several closed attractions (no explanation was given). I took breaks several times because my foot was hurting but it gave Brenna and Mollie a chance to ride the teacups and other carnival type rides. A major highlight of this point was when Brenna and I went on "Escape from Pompeii" and Mollie stood in the Splash Zone to get cool. We eventually reached Scotland (middle of the park again) and were going to try to attend the Irish dancing/singing performance but missed the 1430 showing. Instead, we split up for a while and walked around looking for other rides we could do. Brenna and I went on "Le Scoot Log Flume" (one of our favorites). It was nice to cool off on the ride but, by then, it had gotten so hot that we needed another break in the FestHaus. I watched the German performance again and Brenna got more food. Mollie joined us a little later (she'd been visiting animals and riding the train). After we were cool, we went back to Italy and Brenna was able to ride on "Apollo's Chariot". It was still early (1700) but we checked out the Marco Polo Marketplace (Italy), where we ultimately had dinner. While eating, we listened to a contemporary musical performance - it was quite good. The place was much less busy than I'd expected and it gave me the impression that the lines for rides might be shortening. Sure enough, when we got back to "Roman Rapids" we found the delay had been cut from 60 to 10 minutes. We happily boarded the raft and got SOAKED. Brenna and Mollie took a second ride before they'd had their fill. The girls checked out a few more venues, including the Sesame Place Forest of Fun (Brenna liked that). We then (1855) wandered around the park, looking for a Starbucks (Mollie had a craving). We kept hearing messages about bad weather was coming but never had much more than the hot temps. Brenna saw a Dippin Dots station in England so we stopped for some (1915). I thought the girls would want to stay until the closing fireworks but they did not object when I suggested we depart (1935). We made it back to our cars and got out of the park without too much traffic. We then drove to our hotel (Red Roof Inn) in Williamsburg, arriving just after 2000. Mollie wanted to check out the nearby Colonial Williamsburg property so she and I went out (in the car) again while Brenna laid down to rest. It wasn't a long drive but we had a hard time finding the trail from the Visitor Center to the historic buildings. As a result, it was completely dark before we'd parked and found a shuttle bus. We rode it to a place where the drive told us we'd find some interesting buildings. Shortly after that, we located the Governor's Mansion (Mollie was impressed by that) and then checked out a few more things nearby. We ended up walking back to our car because the buses were not predictable).. Back at the hotel (2130), we found that Brenna had fallen asleep. To maintain the quiet, I did about an hour of work on my computer while Mollie rested, read and relaxed. Settled for bed by 2300. Thinking about the day, we all agreed that powering through the high temps was difficult but were glad that the Festhaus AC worked great and that it was possible to beat the heat by going on water rides and high/fast coasters. Overall, it was great to return to Williamsburg after a long absence!
