One of the Largest Holiday Displays in the Country Opens Nov. 23

Williamsburg, Va. (Nov. 1, 2012) – The world’s most beautiful theme park is about to transform into one of the largest Christmas events in the country as Busch Gardens® in Williamsburg, Va. celebrates its fourth season of Christmas Town®: A Busch Gardens Celebration.

This year guests can have themselves a very retro yuletide as the sights, sounds and nostalgic good cheer of a vintage Americana Christmas comes to life. Holiday Hills™ welcomes guests to a time gone by when holiday traditions were bold, flashy and warm as apple pie. Holiday Hills will open in the park’s Festa Italia section. The new area expands Christmas Town’s footprint and offers guests additional ride and restaurant choices this Christmas season. See below for additional details about Holiday Hills.

With the one million lights added to the park to create the new area, Christmas Town:  A Busch Gardens Celebration now features more than six million twinkling lights that adorn nearly every building and tree in the 100-acre park. The light count makes the Williamsburg park one of the country’s largest Christmas light displays.

The entire family will get in the holiday spirit with dazzling shows, Santa’s workshop and gift ideas for holiday shopping. The parks’ signature 50-foot-tall, animated Christmas tree boasts nearly a quarter-million twinkling lights that dance to a musical score.

Many of the park’s world class rides and attractions are also open (weather permitting), including the all new Verbolten®, an indoor/outdoor, multi-launch roller coaster which debuted this past spring. The park’s tallest ride, Mäch Tower®, will operate in observation mode for Christmas Town so guests can take a leisurely 240-foot ride above the park for a Santa’s eye view of the park. In observation mode, Mäch Tower will then slowly lower guests back to the ground.

It takes a 70-person team thousands of hours and just over three weeks to install and transform the park to a winter wonderland. More than 1,500 fresh-cut Christmas trees are placed throughout the park’s pathways and hills, 700 wreaths decorate doors and windows and 20,000 ornaments are carefully placed on trees.

Christmas Town opens November 23, 2012 and will continue on select days, through December 31, 2012.  For more information, including an operating schedule, visit:  www.ChristmasTown.com

Fun Facts About Christmas Town

• Six million Christmas lights adorn the 100-acre park
• Eight-five percent of the lights used at Busch Gardens Christmas Town are energy saving LED lights
• More than 1,500 fresh-cut Christmas trees are placed throughout the park’s pathways and hills
• The fresh-cut Christmas trees are turned into mulch at the end of the season and used in the park’s planters and flower beds
• 25 miles of cables provide power
• The park is wrapped in more than three miles of garland
• More than 700 wreathes and artificial trees decorated inside areas, doors and windows
• 800 lit snowflakes and stars twinkle
• 20,000 Christmas ornaments are carefully placed on the trees
• 900 window candles and luminaries light the night sky
• Thousands of hours of installation completed by 70-person team

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