Busch gardens williamsburg season pass discount?
Busch Gardens Williamsburg: When's the best time to buy?
From Lee McGraw
Posted September 4, 2013 at 2:30 PM
does the park offer any type of discount for the 1 year pass?
or what is the best time to purchase the one year pass.
thanks!
From Tom Rigg
Posted September 12, 2013 at 6:22 AM
Typically, BGW doesn't offer discounts on their annual passes. Instead they offer a summer pass and a fall pass that cost the same or nearly the same as a single day admission. Quite honestly, the best way to go is buying the platinum pass on the easy pay option. It ended up being roughly 15 a month and it gets you entrance to all seaworld entertainment parks except for Discovery Cove. I've looked into the cost of the platinum at other seaworld parks and BGW's has historically been the cheapest. If you are at all thinking over the two years of the pass that you would go to any seaworld, aquatica, Busch Gardens park or sesame place it is well worth it to puchase the platinum. It's also the only pass that you can always get a discount on tickets for family and friends all the time.
I would agree with Tom. BGW does not really offer any sort of discounts on season passes. The Fun Pass does not include Howl-O-Scream, and the fall pass is just good in September and October. I locked in my Platinum Pass the first year they offered the EZPay option 5 or 6 years ago, and I get charged $11.24/month. I think it's somewhere around $15 or more a month now. They key to the Platinum Pass is that you have to visit one of the other parks (Sea World Orlando, Aquatica, Seasame Place, BGT, Adventure Island, Sea World San Antonio, Sea World San Diego) every 2 years to make it worth the extra expense above the standard pass. What I like about the Platinum Pass is that at the Sea World parks, you get reserved seating at all of the shows, which is a great perk on busy days.
From Lee McGraw
Posted September 13, 2013 at 7:21 AM
Thanks for the replies!
We were looking into the platinum pass and noticed near the bottom that it says "Special discounts do not apply to EZ-Pay. Only passes paid in full are eligible for special savings."
Know anything about that? Does not make sense to not get any discounts for two years?
Here is the link, page 6 "ez-pay"
http://seaworldparks.com/langhorne/~/media/BGW/PassMembers/PassMemberGuide-Platinum.ashx
Thanks
That's a pretty standard legal statement. What that means is that if they ever do put season passes on sale, EZPay customers would not be eligible for those discounts. As far as I know, the only way to get a discounted season pass for the Sea World chain is to get the Holiday-discounted Super Grover Pass from Seasame Place, which requires you to live in that market. If you live in the BGW market (VA and NC), then you are not eligible for that discount (Maryland residents are though).
From Lee McGraw
Posted September 13, 2013 at 9:48 AM
Thanks again! We are getting the two platinum passes next week!
Thanks for all your help!
From Lee McGraw
Posted September 15, 2013 at 2:40 PM
Purchased them today, unfortunately they are the e-tickets so we can't plan our trip till the day we get there. We can't sign in to make reservations for fright feast,or blood banquet, check out special promotions, sign up for tours etc. Called them and was told that they can mail me the tickets BUT it would take two months because we used ezpay?!? Something about credit checks and outstanding debts.
Asked if we could cancel this purchase and just get them the night before we leave in Oct. but was told our card would be charged the full price as these are not refundable and if we disputed the charge to our card we would be "black listed" and not able to purchase in the future. They didn't come right out and say black listed but used their fancy legalease to get the point across. Starting to see that they are just in it for the money.
Now we have that sick feeling in our stomachs that this might not have been the best idea plus we loose one month of our two years since we are not going down till October....
I'm not sure why you bought a 2-year season pass for a park you're not going to visit until October. What did you expect? Season passes need to be processed in the park (they will take a biometric scan), and as I noted previously, the park does not discount passes, so there was really no advantage to you buying now versus 3 weeks from now.
It sounds like you may not have described your situation accurately to the customer service person over the phone or you did not get someone in the park. When you call BGW, depending upon which selection you make on their automated attendant, you may get directed to a person in Orlando, who doesn't know anything about the Williamsburg park or their events. I would recommend calling the BGW reservation line to see if you can reserve your dining and tours over the phone, while providing your pass information to get the discount.
BTW, the park closed for capacity on Saturday (first weekend of Howl-O-Scream), so it sounds like it's going to be a very busy event for the park this year. Last year, the park only closed for capacity on the last 3 Saturdays in October (September weekends were fine). We are likely going for the first weekend in October this year, because it's going to be a madhouse as Halloween approaches..
From Lee McGraw
Posted September 16, 2013 at 2:18 PM
Thanks Russell,
We thought that if we bought them online now we would have the barcode to be able to sign into the pass member area. We did not know that we had to go to the park. We thought that they would mail them to us even. We had planned to get tickets for family at the discounted rates etc.
We were just trying to plan ahead and it backfired on us.
We are also planning for the same weekend as you, maybe we'll run into each other!
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