Knott's 9/15/23

After a motion-sickness-inducing trip on RailBlazer absolutely ruined my entire day at Great America earlier this Summer, I was a little worried that my coaster-riding days might be over. So I gathered some more data at Knott's last Friday. I'm happy to say that taking Dramamine before going to the park (that was key I think) helped tremendously. Here are the highlights:

• It was a great day to go crowd-wise.
• Ghostrider was running fabulously. Great floater air over that second hill, and love that amazing feeling of getting sucked down into the structure after the station turnaround.
• Xcelerator was still down. I know employees usually don't know much, but I asked anyway. I heard a couple weeks. But there was no testing going on whatsoever.
• Hangtime was walk-on. It's a fun ride with a couple strong pops of air after that eye-bulging first drop. It's a real looker too.
• I passed on Coastrider. Let's just say the "pommel" causes me a LOT of male discomfort. Been there, done that.
• The Calico Mine Ride holiday overlay was... weird. Trains were tracking noisily. I'm not sure how they would address that without sacrificing braking efficiency.
• Pony Express wasn't running, and no action around Monty.
• Jaguar is fun as always, but I miss that threading Monty's loop bit. I'm hoping whatever (Vekoma?) comes up with maintains that interaction somehow. I just love all the RCT coaster spaghetti action in that area. Maybe they could weave in an RMC through all that Miler, B&M, and Schwarzkoph/Strengel/Vekoma mess for the win. ;)
• I was surprised to see a lack of haunt construction. Isn't it supposed to open this coming Saturday? And 50 year anniversary too? I could swear there was full-bore construction happening in July and August in years past. Maybe they have it totally down now?
• Pro tip: Split the chicken dinner between two people of you go to Mrs. Knotts Chicken Restaurant. It's a LOT of food!

Anyway, it was very nice to get out to my home park. It's been ages. The park looks great. Slow day, so not much live entertainment, but the tradeoff was walk on lines. Don't miss this park the next time you motor west.