I love Knoebels. What more can I say. :)
Knoebels invited Con attendees to spend the day after at their fine little park. For $12, Knoebels punched our name badges and handed us a card that gave us full access to all rides, including the Haunted Mansion (which is normally a $1 upcharge even with the Ride All Day stamp, which isn’t usually available at all on weekends).
What followed was a day of riding and eating, over and over. Incredible.
First, the rundown of food. This is my personal tally, others ate even more.
Lunch #1: Rib-B-Q, diet coke
Lunch #2: Cheese-on-a-stick, ginger ale, cookie (this would have sent my endo into a tizzy, but I needed the blood sugar fix)
Dinner #1: Chicken Pretzel, potato cakes, diet coke
Dinner #2: Cesari’s Pizza (with pepperoni and jalapenos, and I added red pepper flakes; my companions were calling it the Inferno Pizza, but I liked it), diet coke
Knoebels has so many great places to eat, and so many ODD items (chicken pretzels are basically pretzel-shaped chicken nuggets, btw) that you just HAVE to try them.
Knoebels has some awesome flatrides, something we’d tended to skip during the rest of the con. The new flat ride, Downdraft, is ok, but not as good as Power Surge. The Flyers were slower than I’d remembered them, but I was still able to get a few good cable snaps. The Haunted Mansion was great, of course, as was the classic Carousel (I grabbed 8 out of a possible 9 rings, having missed the first because I didn't realize the arm was down yet. I came REAL close to grabbing multiple rings on several passes, but I haven't quite got the timing down for that yet. No brass ring for me, though)
And then there’s the bumper cars. Knoebels bumper cars are absolutely amazing. Heavy, old, fairly quick Lusse cars with a slick floor. When they say no head-on collisions, they mean it. Now throw a bunch of ACErs on all at once, and it gets downright NASTY. We had an excellent time :) I have a few bruises from that ride, but it was worth it.
And then, of course, the coasters. We took one lap each on High Speed Thrill Coaster and Whirlwind for completeness, but the woodies are the heart and soul of this park.
Phoenix (16 laps) – This ride is absolutely amazing. Especially in the ejector seat, but the back seat is great as well, especially in the double-down (very Jackrabbit-esque). During the night ERT they turned all the lights off briefly, for a truly amazing ride.
Twister (8 laps) – I love this woodie as well. It’s a different experience than Phoenix, and was comparatively empty during the ERT, but I made this my last 2 rides of the night, and was on the last train out. Once again, all the lights were off, for a really wild experience.
Souvenirs: I've already got all sorts of stuff from this place. Magnets, a mug, a shirt. However, one thing my coaster arsenal didn't have was a park-related hooded sweatshirt. That has been remedied now, with the purchase of a zippered hooded sweatshirt with "Knoebels" embroidered on the left chest. :)
Dick Knoebel himself came out to thank us for attending, and invited us all in for PPP. I’ll be there :)
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--Greg
http://www.pobox.com/~gregleg/
*** This post was edited by GregLeg on 6/26/2001. ***
