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We get to Knoebels in approx 3 hours and 15 minutes, not bad with 2 rest area stops. Pull in to a half full lot at about 11:15 and head for the park. Entering the picnic pavilion we look for a close ride to find out how the pay per ride idea works here. We walk past Skloosh and find out the basics of their pay per ride ops and also figure out that Skloosh may be a ride if we start to get too hot. First impression of park are nice shady park with kind of a country fair type atmosphere. We head to get tickets and look for some warm up flats to get the addrenaline pumping. My friend suggests Downdraft and Power Surge as our warm ups and I ever the one to not say nah let's not try that jump on the plan.
Downdraft - I had never rode this but a friend told me this was the reason he got sick on swings once before. He rode this ride 3 times and then rode the swings. Nice spinning and veritcal moving rotational ride. Good G forces as the ride moves veritically. Good starter for the day. 7/10.
Power Surge - By watching this ride while on Downdraft I was wondering what my friend was thinking well in line I found out. He wanted to try to make me get sick. I laughed at him and told him I ain't the one that got sick from three rides on a ride like Downdraft and then a ride on swings. Needless to say we hop on and go for a ride. Ride flipped a few times for us but looked to be really flipping for others. Can someone tell me the best rider arrangement for this ride since he outweighs my be about 90 lbs I bet we need to sit a certain way to get it to flip like it can. Call it anticipointment but I can only give it a 5/10. if it would have flipped more I would go to a 7 or maybe 8.
After this ride my friend turns to me and says "Ok I messed our heads up with those two rides, Now you pick a ride since I scrambled our brains." I turn to him and say "You may have scrambled yours but I am still walking normally" I got an evil grin and said "Let's get some wood" Insert laugh from double meaning. We head to the back of the park to fill the plans of knocking out the three coasters making one of the two woodies fall on an semi notable number for each of us. Phoenix would be number 40 for me and Twister would be number 30 for him. We get back to Phoenix using the back of the park first rule for riding coasters. And drum roll please.....
Phoenix - we get in line and look over our seat choices both of us like to ride coasters in different locations each ride so we notice a 5 train wait for the back row and say sure we can do that and formulate our plan to ride all the coasters this day, back row first, then front row then mix seats in the middle for the rest of the rides (Never make plans as we find out later). about 10 mins after getting in line we are on board and I turn to my friend and say "where do they get these ride ops?" It is amazing. Train dispatches and into the tunnel we go. OMG it's dark in there at noon! Up the lift we go trying to figure out what we are in for. The first drop is quick and fun. Up we head to the turn around and POP! I stand almost straight up hitting the lap bar with my thighs I had about 1 foot of space between me and the bar when seated and and it's now gone!!!! As we go around the turn around I float back to my seat and say quickly to my friend "nice air on that" He said something like "Ummmm it lifted my 250 lb ass out of the seat more than Nitro with a lose restraint." Down we go the next drop and I am waiting for the next air to see what it will be like. BAM! next hill crests and again I am almost standing. This repeats and with each hill I am in the same postion as we crest the hills. Never have I had so much air on a coaster, YUMMY!!!!. We get off the ride and I proclaim a new KING of wooden coasters for me. 10/10 I know some people are gonna say that it's too high well that's my score til something beats it! I will also say Phoenix is a top 5 overall for me sloting in at number 3 behind MF at #1 for overall ride and TTD at #2 for the experience. Little did I know how much my coaster rankings were about to change.
After Phoenix we needed credit 29 for my friend to make Twister #30 so I knew Whirlwind would be that ride.
Whirlwind - We walk up and get first in line for next train. So we take back seat as planned. One word fit this ride. BORING!
2/10. Lowest Steel Coaster and Lowest Coaster in my rankings. Thanks Snorewind. But it did do one thing. Give us another credit. On to Twister in a hurry since we wanted the bad taste out of our mouth.
Twister - Again we get in line and it's a short wait for back seat. The quick and dirty review since this ride went by so fast. I love the dual lifts. First drop was sheer bliss. Lots of nice lateral g forces especially as you wind completely around the station. Good out of control feeling. 8/10 and another woodie jumps right up into #2 wood and top ten somewhere overall. Next time there I have to read the plaque that says something about Elitch Gardens.
After the two back row rides we decided let's jump back on Twister grab our front seat rides on it and Phoenix and then look for food. Again something that will change.
We get our front row ride on Twister and it get raves from us for the speed and forces. We say to each other NO other place to ride this coaster beside the front. On the walk back to Phoenix I remembered my promise to myself to do the Haunted Mansion and tell my friend lunch will be delayed. He looks at me and say "OK, I don't know what you got in mind but it will be ok." We get a front row ride on Phoenix in no time...Lines? What are lines? Again we start to wonder about the idea of riding these two anywhere but the front row. We get lots of air on the Phoenix and head through the park to the Haunted Mansion.
Haunted Mansion - We walk into line and my friend says "this is why lunch had to wait?" I say YEP! just wait and see...I will not say anything about the ride but this "Must do ride at Knoebel's, an awesome haunted house and I did jump 2 times" My friend did jump once and thanked me for having him do this... Score for ride 8/10. If I was rating haunted houses 10/10! Thanks CBers.
Next up was a slice of pizza for lunch... not bad at all and CHEAP lunch! After lunch it was getting hot so as we walked for another Phoenix air ride we quickly detoured to the Flume.
Flume - Nice flume two decent drops and some nice splashes of water even when not droping. 7/10 Forgot to do my normal flume thing of talking to ops at the top of the drops. I love hearing foreign accents talk back to me as I am about to fall down a plunge.
Back to Phoenix and another fast sweet air filled ride. Then another fast and furious lap on Twister. With about 1.5 hours left before we need to leave we decided lets try some other flats, one more lap on each coaster and then a quick shopping and we would head home definitely happy. (Not that the plan happened, again?!?!?! when will we learn!) As we head to Galleon and 1001 Nachts we notice some clouds over the mountains. Oh no rain gonna shut down the rides and our plans will be ruined.
Galleon - Typical pirate ship that the end rows almost get horizontal to the ground (Brings up a quick question any others of these go horizontal like BGW's feels and looks like it does?) The ride op jokes that our ride will start out dry but may end up being a water ride. We all laugh and as the ride goes on it gets more and more ominous about rain. No it didn't end up a water ride. 7/10 I love pirate ships.
We get off and scrap plans for 1001 Nachts since it is now beginning to drizzle. We head back to Twister's shirt stall and by shirts (Got Wood shirt for me) and joke with the stall operator about the weather coming. She says loudly "anyone that wants to pay with credit better do it fast and then dead pans by the way we have ponchos." Just a fun moment. Then head to the candy store. Commence downpour of the rain as we are walking to the store and we grumble about not getting the ponchos" The store gets busy but we get our candy before the rains stops and wait out the rest of the rain with a bunch of people in the candy shop. We notice it is closer to 4 so we head out as the rain lets up and get in the car and head to our previous commitment.
We still have half our tickets and my use them during PPP. What I am gonna need though is what rides did I miss besides the Flyers, 1001 Nacht and the bumper cars that are can not miss rides?
Overall I think Knoebel's has a special place in my heart and will probably always be there if they don't go the way of pay one price all the time. Nice change to go to a park where you only pay for what you want. Thanks for a fun day Knoebel's and as Arnold said in The Terminator "I'll be BACK"
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