Knott's Berry Farm Ops Problems

So I went to Knott's for the first time while on a family trip to California for Christmas. (We also went to Universal Studios Hollywood, Disneyland, and California's Adventure) and man do the OPS at Knott's Berry Farm leave A LOT to be desired.

Look I know its Christmas week and I knew it was going to be busy- but holy crap. Why on earth do they have soooo many roller coasters with Single train operation??? That is just ludicrous to me!

Since I knew it was going to be busy and it was a park I had never been to I decided to spring for the fast passes for the whole family to ensure we could ride all the coasters and other highlights we wanted to hit. But even with fast lane passes we still waited:

Xcelerator- 60 minutes

Pony Express- 60 minutes

Hangtime- 45 minutes

Ghostrider- 30 minutes

The regular standby line for Xcelerator was FIVE HOURS LONG at one point. FIVE HOURS. That is just absurd, and yet it still only runs a single train.

The standby line for Pony Express was 3 hours- one train.

Coastrider- 3 hours- one train.

Sierra Sidewinder- 3 hours- one train.

Ghostrider was running 2 trains yet the OPS are so slow loading and unloading they are both stacked at the station and brake run almost every cycle.

Also- busiest time of the year yet the on ride photos were closed at Silver Bullet, Ghostrider, and Xcelerator? What is that about??

I just don't get it. What a sh*tshow.

And the food lines were almost as bad! We waited over hour to get dinner at 8PM from the BBQ Restaurant. Luckily for lunch we were hungry and ate at 1045 and it want that busy yet.

I will never ever go near Knott's at Christmastime again that's for sure; and I kinda doubt I would go at any other time of the year either!!

Comparatively we spent Christmas Eve at Universal and Christmas Day at Disneyland and I was pleasantly surprised by the crowds at both places. It was busy still but not a massive mob scene like I was expecting.

Yeah, our last visit we had a similar (but not as bad) experience in Feb of 22'. Horrid ops all around, it legit made SFMM feel like a Disney or Universal park in comparison. But honestly, completely 180 at Six Flags where operations were shockingly good, running multiple trains even though it was quite dead and the staff overall was *FAR* friendlier, upbeat and dare I say, having fun doing their job? Reminded me of old SFO/SFWoA days.

It makes a huge difference from a guest perspective when your crews/employees don't look miserable and have a bit of pep in their step.

The legacy Cedar Fair parks are starting to practice how to do things the Six Flags way for the merger! Gotta prove that synergy will be the result! 😆

I am going to assume it is an issue of staffing for Knott's, not that it excuses anything.

The issues of staffing a year round operation are a major league headache. Knotts has essentially a skeleton crew of full timers that can handle the off season reasonably well. Finding people to augment them for just during the holidays has become next to impossible of late, especially in the post pandemic time. With California increasing the minimum wage it might help in the hiring of short term help. The issue seems to be that what used to the source of said labor force, college students, would rather just stay home rather than work the two to three weeks they are out of school.

Disney and Universal appear to maintain a larger percentage of full time staff compared to Knotts. They also, for the most part cost more to get in.

Basics of supply and demand, however the businesses don't like when it's on the other foot. High demand causes a higher price, in this casde its the price of labor. There is a non-significant amount of people who are realizing that being a wage slave isn't worth it and are opting out of the process. If the parks want to resolve their staffing issues, they need to increase the pay. If increasing the pay causes a higher gate, then so be it, if the experience is good the gate is worth it. But as it stands now, I wouldn't attend with operations like they are, even if the admission was free.

All the Cali YouTube people I can stand to watch, have never seen lines like this at Knotts ever.

Calico Mine Train was like 2+ hours

In less then week you could walk on Xcelerator in 10 min, with one train operation.

1. Disney blocked out an entire two weeks for both passes, and most single-day tickets sold out by the beginning of the month.
2. Apparently, every lot was nearly full, which I don't think has ever happened.
3. Knotts is considerably less $$$ than Disney and Universal
4. The Holiday Overlay and Market has gotten better, and more marketing
5. Half of Camp Snoopy also closed, the lines I saw for the present Off Road trucks was insane.
6. The Cali labor market is insane, and I bet after the week they had they will prep better next year.
7. Pony & Xcelerator due to their shortness and systems and prototype nature have not run two trains in years
8. Due to the size of the park they have only one crowd eating B&M, compared to the coasters at SFMM

I haven’t been in 20 years but I remeber pretty early on they decided 1 train op on Xcelerator was sufficient, if only because the second train doesn’t actually add that much, capacity wise.

^ which is interesting to me because KI & CP run three trains on coasters that barely get any additional capacity from doing so, either due to ride length or operations. Orion, Banshee, Raptor, and Valravn immediately come to mind. The fact that Knott's can't be bothered to run two on Xcelerator is crazy to me. What is going on at that park? Bad management? Cost cutting?

From what I've heard about Xcelerator is the way it is blocked it actually is less efficient to run two. Sort of like how they eventually stopped trying to run three on Mantis. But that doesn't excuse the other rides or the abysmal dispatch times I hear about on Ghostrider.

CP still runs three on Rougarou on busy days, which I find amusing because I've yet to see a single dispatch fast enough to gain any benefit from doing so.

Yeah, I've sat in that up-track brake run with the abrupt stop many times. It really feels like that ride underperforms in terms of capacity.

Ditto for Valravn and Raptor the last few times I've been there. The additional train just adds to waiting on the brakes.

It's a weird juxtaposition to SWO and BGT which does the exact opposite.

Yes, must be holiday crowds coupled with Winter Break labor shortage as Dutchman pointed out. We went in Fall and ops were fantastic.

One should not expect much from Cedar Fair these days. Cheap season passes and meal plans = they don’t care about guest experience. The got their money It’s a cheap pass They don’t have to care People are going to keep buying these cheap passes and get a poor experience

It’s going to just get worse as they combine with the worst managed theme park company.

This merger could be the greatest thing to ever happen to all the theme parks involved and someone's preconceived notions will prevent that someone from having even a marginally enjoyable experience.

One should not expect much from Cedar Fair these days

Depends on the park.

I would say from afar Knotts along with CP, KI, and CW are the real crown jewels and the money makers also all have some legacy CF influence, Knotts also like CP has immense history but unlike CP is smack in the middle of LA, and has many traditions and really was at the forefront of CF in terms of Halloween, Special Events, and Live E.

And we are all acting like customer service at parks is in some vacuum, customer service and tech across, retail, hospitality, and food service have been crap since the pandemic

Six Flags Over North AND South Carolina