Busch Gardens Williamsburg’s next roller coaster will pay tribute to one of the park’s classic rides: Big Bad Wolf. 

The new coaster, scheduled to open in 2025, will be a family inverted coaster built by Bolliger & Mabillard, the Swiss coaster firm behind other Williamsburg favorites such as Apollo’s Chariot and Alpengeist. 

But it’s an even earlier coaster that serves as the inspiration for the new ride. Big Bad Wolf was the suspended coaster which lived at the park from 1984 to 2009 and took guests through a faux Bavarian village. The description used in Busch Gardens’ press release evokes that defunct attraction:

Long ago, a wolf swept through a Bavarian town, turning townsfolk to werewolves and destroying the village. Forty years later, it’s time to honor the past during the annual Festival of the Silent Bells. The area is quiet at first, but strange noises are soon heard… footsteps and growling, then bright red eyes appear. The wolf has returned.

The new ride doesn’t have a name yet, as Busch Gardens is opening the decision to fans in an online poll. The three options are: 

  • WölfSturm (Wolf Storm)
  • WölfsReign
  • GeisterWölf (Ghost Wolf)

Voting on the ride’s name will be open through Sept. 25. 

Whatever it ends up being called, the new coaster will be slightly shorter (2,500 feet vs. 2,800 feet) and slower (40 mph vs. 48 mph) than its spiritual predecessor. Big Bad Wolf was also 80 feet tall and sported a 80-foot drop, but Busch Gardens hasn’t provided those statistics for the new ride. BGWFans.com — which first broke the news about the attraction back in December 2023 — reported last month that the ride’s highest point will 67 feet, based on local permits, but the maximum drop height could be higher based on how the terrain is used. 

Big Bad Wolf’s plot of land was taken over by Verbolten, which opened in 2012. The new coaster will instead take over part of the land once occupied by Drachen Fire, a looping coaster which operated from 1992 to 1998.

This will mark the second straight year that the United Parks & Resorts chain added a family inverted coaster. Busch Gardens Tampa Bay opened Phoenix Rising this past July, which was the only third iteration of B&M’s family inverted coaster model and the first to be built outside of China.

The yet-to-be-named coaster will be the 11th at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. The expansion of the coaster lineup comes in the same year that regional rival Kings Dominion will celebrate its 50th anniversary with its own B&M addition, a launched wing coaster called Rapterra.