confused by Williamsburg tickets

[drcmk]

I know many of you have been to Williamsburg in Virginia. I am planning a trip there over our Spring Break in April. I am confused by the number of different places there are to visit and what is included in each ticket fee. Can you please help?

First of all, I see that in addition to Colonial Williamsburg, there is the Jamestown National Park, Jamestown Settlement, Yorktown Victory Center, Yorktown Battlefied and Historic Yorktown. All of these have separate fees (and you can pay even more for specific events after you've bought your ticket). I see that you can buy an annual pass at Willliamsburg (we'd qualify for the 25% discount for more than seven tickets), but Williamsburg is not advertising the spring ticket rates now, only winter ticket rates. So I have no way of knowing if the annual pass is a deal. There are rates for the Historic Triangle Pass, which are good for seven days at three of those five attractions, but I don't know how to compare them to the spring rates which aren't published on the website yet.

I am sure that we do not want to go to Busch Gardens. I would love any advice about how to pay the least for the tickets that we want and which exhibits are most worth our time.

Thank you!

 

[cvjw]

We visited Williamsburg last June. We got the Triangle tickets that were only available online for around $100 per person. We got the tickets that were good for unlimited admission for 7 days for Williamsburg, Busch Gardens and Water Country. It even included parking for the theme parks. It was such a great deal. You could come and go to the attractions as you pleased. We did not get the Triangle ticket that included admission to Yorktown and Jamestown. We bought those tickets as a combo separately. I think it was about $15 extra per person. We enjoyed visiting all of the historic sites and the theme parks. We ended up spending more time at the theme parks because we had 6 kids with us who are roller coaster enthusiasts. We stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge, and the kids really enjoyed the waterpark there also.

 

[drcmk]

Thank you CVJW. Did you feel like Jamestown and Yorktown were worthwhile visits? The children I will travel with are 14, 13, 12 and 11.

Do you understand the difference between Jamestown Settlement, Jamestown park, Historic Yorktown, Yorktown Battlefield and Yorktown Victory Center?

 

[McKelly]

Do you remember what time of year the summer Triangle tickets came out, for purchase?

 

[Janet Hill]

Jamestown Settlement and Yorketown Victory Center are living museums with lots of interactive attractions. These are operated by the State of Virginia and well worth the price of admission IMO.

The other parks are operated by the National Park Service and are good too, but not as much to do or see. These are the original sites and there are some active archealogical digs still going on.

If you are really not going to Busch Gardens you could have time to do all of these.

Nearby there's a ferry (free) and that's kind of a fun activity if you've never been on a ferry before.

 

[cvjw]

Thank you CVJW. Did you feel like Jamestown and Yorktown were worthwhile visits? The children I will travel with are 14, 13, 12 and 11.

Do you understand the difference between Jamestown Settlement, Jamestown park, Historic Yorktown, Yorktown Battlefield and Yorktown Victory Center?

Yes, we really enjoyed Yorktown and Jamestown. My kids were aged 13 and 9 at the time of the trip, so they were old enough to learn about history. Both of the boys have studied the American Revolution in school this year, so I think them actually seeing where history was made helped them to appreciate what they learned at school. Yorktown has the victory center where you learn about the battle, and then a separate park where the battle took place. Jamestown had the visitors center where you learned about Jamestown, and then an area where they had recreated the settlement. We spent almost a full day at Jamestown and Yorktown.

 

[cvjw]

Do you remember what time of year the summer Triangle tickets came out, for purchase?

We visited Williamsburg the first week of June last year. It was a great time, by the way, because Virginia schools weren't out yet, so the crowds were really low. We bought the tickets in late spring, thru the website history.org, I think.

 

[miknsusn]

FWIW I visited these places as a child with my family. I remember tons about our day at Jamestown-it was very interesting, nothing from Yorktown, and from Williamsburg-the then VP Bush and Mrs. Bush were there at the same time and we all thought it was funny that they wore matching clothes and cool that we saw someone "famous".