[Haunts] Dates and Times for 2015's Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens Williamsburg Uncovered?

Doing a little digging about, it would seem as if the dates for this year's Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens Williamsburg are out there. Of course, it's nothing official as they haven't made any announcements. Given the way that the park calendar looks, I think it's a fairly accurate peek at just what might be going on with this year's event.

The first thing that I noticed was that there was a much later starting time for this year's HOS. The past few years they've been opening mid-September, but this year it seems to be pushed back to about the 25th. The main indication is that there are no Friday operating hours in September on either the 11th or 18th, the next date that the park is open all day is the 25th. This would make sense on a couple of levels since a lot of things have been cut at the park this year, and that's sadly a good way to make up some of the losses, even more so if attendance in mid-September just wasn't cutting it.

As of right now, it looks like the event will run from Friday, Sept 25th thru November 1st and be running Friday-Sunday. Really great to see them adding Halloween weekend back into the mix, but a little sad about losing the early weekends as well.

Now, you're probably wondering about hours, it looks like things still aren't that improved here but they are a little. Apparently they got the memo somewhat from past years, as there are a lot more days where the event is open until 11pm. Fridays and Saturdays, starting on October, 9th, the park will be open the extra hour.

That's a total of 8 nights they'll be running Howl-O-Scream for 5 hours, assuming the 6pm start time is still in effect.

5 hours may seem like a lot, but it really isn't. Not when you consider that there are 6 mazes, 5 scare zones, 2 dining experiences, and 2-3 themed shows every year, plus the regular rides being in operation too. That's a lot of things to get through.

Sure, Busch Gardens Tampa is only open for 5.5 hours a night (Typically 7:30p-1am) for their event, but that extra half hour can mean a lot. The real problem with Williamsburg is that for 13 nights of the 21 night run, you only have 4 hours and that's just not enough. It never has been and never will be. I still think that midnight closing times are necessary here on at least later dates as the crowds only get worse and wait times increase dramatically. Of course, that can happen early in the year as well. So, they really should just be 11pm or Midnight every night outside of Sundays.

Also, by the looks of things, Williamsburg is still not making this one a hard ticket event, unlike Tampa's show. I really think that they need to in order to be able to ramp up the scares a bit and generate some more hype and interest for this one, but at the same time it is kind of nice to have an uninterrupted visit to the park as well. That one I'm torn on some as it does allow for you to catch a couple of the shows early, freeing up more time for the scares later in the night.

All of this could change, of course, and there's really no word until they make an official announcement. For now though, it seems as if this is what it's shaping up to be for 2015's Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.

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