Well after very little sleep it was off for the 10 minute drive from my lovely little motel room to Knotts, so I could be at the Knotts gates in time for the start of solace at 7 am. This was the first time I had ever been to theWinter Coaster Solace enthusiast event and I was generally impressed and thought Knotts put on a great event.
The event started with ERT from 7-10 on Jaguar!, Boomerang & Timberline Twister. Not the best collection of coasters for ERT, I mean the best part about any of those three is probably the queue for Jaguar! Yes thats the name of the attraction "Jaguar!" exclamation point included. Jaguar is an enjoyable family coaster its long and covers a good deal of knotts. The ride also interacts with Montezooma's & Silver Bullet, because Knotts is so tight on space. I rode Boomerang twice in a row and felt VERY ILL, those rides just make me sick.
But soon ERT got a whole lot better because from 8-10, Knotts also had Sierra Sidewinder, Xcelerator & Supreme Scream open. Xcelerator was where I spent most time during ERT, I got 8 laps!! Xcelerator is a lot of fun, but is really short. The views of southern california you get from the top hat are AWESOME. Also Xcelerator is different then other rocket coasters, because it launces you right out of the station instead of on a piece of track 20 feet in front of it. I did Supreme Scream once, not super big on drop towers but did enjoy the view on a clear morning.
During ERT, I also got my first ride ever on Sierra Sidewinder, which became roller coaster 282 for me. Sierra Sidewinder is a fun little ride, not to thrilling, but if you get it spinning the right way it is a exciting ride.
At 9 AM everyone at Solace went over to the construction site for Pony Express where park management took us on a tour and talked about the new for 2008 attraction. The construction site had a lot of activity, including a portion of Bigfoot Rapids filled with dirt. I wasn't overly impressed with the express, I think it will be a small-short ride thats only value will be its cool horse trains, but probably won't be worth the long lines it will certainely have.
At 10 o'clock the park opened and I headed over to Silver Bullet for my first ride ever on the coaster and it ROCKED. Silver Bullet (coaster 283) is a long B&M filled with great signature moments, I think my favorite was the overbanked "wingover" move or the helix over the reflection lake. The line was kinda long because the bullet only had 1 train operation. So by the time I got off I had 2 hours to explore the park before lunch. I grabbed a ride on the "Knotts Classic" Calico Mine Ride and this was old time cheesy dark ride at its greatest. I took some video from the ride and will probably post on the feed at some point. I think my favorite part of the ride is this HUGE dig site that they called "The Calico Glory Hole" and I couldn't help but giggle every time they said it. I rode the bumper cars, which are some of the worst at any park. I also walked past the closed Kingdom of the Dinosaurs dark ride, which is probably just sitting there rotting (boo to you on this one Knotts).
At 1230 it was time for lunch which was a tasty large buffet with a fried chicken hometown cooking part and a barbeque part. At lunch there was a presentation from the GM of Zamperla, which was pretty neat, got an inside look on some of the up & coming new rides they are working on. They also had a raffle for prizes.......... unfortunately I didn't win (but what would I do with a Boomerang wheel??).
Now I was really tired and time for a nap, so I took a 2.5 hour Knotts Break and retuned to the motel for some shut eye.
I came back to Knotts to see the rest of the park. I wandered through a lot of the shops in the old ghost town section of the park, which was fun. You could tell this section of the park was just older then dirt, but still enjoyable. Knotts also has the original (and best) camp snoopy kids area complete with Rockin Tug & Sky Skater. I rode the Dragon Swing & La Revolucion in the spanish themed flat rides area.
I also had the oppurtunity to see 2 of the Knotts Berry Farm shows. Mystery Lodge is a very odd, Native American themed, multi-media specail effects show. The specail effects were well done and much more entertaining then the lame storyline about indian spirits. I also saw the Wild West Stunt Show and this thing was GREAT. A VERY funny show in typical good guys vs. bad guys theme. The pop-culture/southern-california jokes were really what made this show entertaining. I think my favorite joke was near the end, right after the bad guys was captured they said:
Deputy 1:Now that your been arrested we will send you where all hardened criminals go
Deputy 2:Six Flags???
Yep i was laughing. Anyway the knotts shows were entertaining and by far the best I'd seen at any Cedar Fair Park. They also have line dancing at night, and it was pretty popular (my opinion is that white people love line dancing or dancing in unison, and thats why i think Soulja Boy got so popular last year).
Right around 925ish, I knew that the fireworks were going off at Disneyland on the other side of town so i hoped on the Sky Cabin and YOU COULD SEE THEM!! This was pretty neat and something I reccommend.
At 10 O'clock it was time for more ERT and a tasty snack of baked goods!! I did Ghostrider 5 times at night, a few times in the back seat and it is one wild ride. It is getting a little on the rough side, but not too rough for me. It was cold by this time and I was tired and need to get up early the next morning for West Coast Bash, So it was one more lap on Silver Bullet for me before calling it a night
Overall I found Knotts to be a nice little park with some fun rides. My advice would be to anyone taking a trip to the West Coast would be to save Disneyland for last because it is just on another level compared to the rest of these parks.
I am gonna post this YOUTUBE vid about the simpsons making fun of the OC and the idea of them visiting Knotts. Me & my old roomies always found it amusing.
Ride Count
Silver Bullet (2X)
Ghostrider (5X)
Wild West Stunt Show
Mystery Lodge
Wheeler Dealer Bumper Cars
Calico Mine Ride (2X)
Boomerang (2X)
Xcelerator (8X)
Supreme Scream
Calico Railroad
Sky Cabin (2X)
Dragon Swing
La Revolucion
Montezuma's Revenge
Jaguar! (5X)
Sierra Sidewinder (2X)
No comments:
Post a Comment