Today is Day 2 of our 10 part series looking back at Busch Gardens Williamsburg (BGW) as it appeared in 1998!
Today we'll look at two park mascots before moving onto two park icons tomorrow!
The first is long since retired and appears to be some sort of giant stuffed, costumed bear! This picture was taken outside of one of the unique German shops in Rhinefeld. Up until the late 1990's and early 2000's these store spaces were rented out by actual German craftsmen specializing in all kinds of special and unique handcrafted gifts from Cuckoo Clocks, Steins, Hummel figurines, and glass blown Christmas ornaments. Unfortunately, similar to how both Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom have replaced the majority of their unique craft and gift shops with generic park merchandise shops, Busch Gardens has done mostly the same. The shop below in particular I believe has been replaced.
Up above, our sendoff for the day, the Beer Meister master of ceremonies of the Oktoberfest Festhaus in 1998! Inside the beautiful Festhaus is some great food and a lunch/dinner show featuring traditional German singing and dancing to the music of a real live German Oompah Band.
I know for a fact that the shows continue on today along with a newer Maypole dance outside of the Festhaus but I am unsure if the Beer Meister continues to make appearances. My guess is that it is a role that has long since been retired.
EDIT: I knew for a fact that the show continued on throughout 2011 since I worked at the park that year and had to sit through "This Is Oktoberfest!" several times. This newer version of the original park's Oktoberfest show retired after only one season and was replaced this past season with a newer kids' show.
Germany happens to be one of the larger (if not the largest) section of Busch Gardens Williamsburg, and the Anheuser-Busch German heritage has a lot to do with it! For a long time free beer samplings were available in the Festhaus to all those age 21 and over, however, this practice ended in 2009 before the sale of the parks by AB InBev to the Blackstone Group.
Well folks, that wraps things up for today! Be sure to stop by tomorrow for a look at an icon from Yester-Busch Gardens! Thanks for stopping by!
I know that the show at the Festhaus is not happening any more. It was replaced this year with a really bad kids show. The Beer Meister retired in 2002 and died in 2009.
ReplyDeleteWow! That's crazy! I'll update the post now, that's one show I never thought would retire especially since it just had the "This Is Oktoberfest!" refresh last summer.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting decision for sure!