Knottsberry Farm (6-8-03) A review by Dan
Associated parks:
None
Ghostrider: I've heard a lot of great things about this woodie, and they all turned out to be true, and then some! Out of the station, up the lift and down the first hill. Great air!!! Intense airtime filled drops and a wild and out of control feeling. I loved every minute of this ride!!! The ride follows a sort of out and back course with plenty of hills and drops.The drop after the mid-coruse was particularly memorable. The helix was really fantstic as well, with great intensity, and the one-of-a-kind finalie had me breathless. The airtime on those hills was phenominal!! Give this ride a 10+!! Easy!
God, is Jason lucky to have this ride so close to his home!
Next, we headed to the Calico Mine Ride, were we ecountered a few less than considerate peeps (mostly kids). They acted as if Jason and I had signes on our backs that read "feel free to jump in front of us. We're just a coupla poor slobs who don't have the brains to object!" Jason had a few words to say on our behalf..... "So, does anyone else want to jump in front of us?!!" (about 5 peeps had already done just that!) "This is a LINE YOU KNOW!!!" Jason was obviously not too happy about this turn of events. I decided to keep quiet as I was the visitor here.
Calico Mine Ride: This train ride through he dark was quite fun. Excellent themeing here, alot like some of the Disney rides I went on. Mechanical miners greeted us around just about every turn and the ride lasted quite awhile. One of the better dark rides I've been on. Rating 8.
I almost forgot this, but thanks to Jason I can now include this in my report.
Timber Mountain Log Ride: After dealing with a few more line jumpers, Jason and I boarded the ride. This is what a log ride should be. The themeing seemed excellent, just as Jason had said before we went on. As I recall ( and beleive me it's difficult to remember everything about this ride because of all the dark rides I hit at Disney) the themeing was sort of woodsy with lots of mechnical animals and such. Great job of themeing! This is a great water ride for the whole family! I just wish the one at SFoT was this much fun. Rating 8
Jason convinced me to try out the Jaguar, sort of a junior coaster.
Jaguar: I'll admit I really liked this ride! It was quite intense for a junior, and it seemed quite smooth. Plenty of twists and turns over the water at breakneck speeds. Good fun! Rating 7.
I decided to add the parks Boomerang to my track record. Not much of a wait here, we were on in a few minutes.
Boomerang: Well, at least they got the name right. Yep, It's a Veckoma Boomerang! For what it's worth, this one wasnt' as rough as I was expecting. Even Jason, Who probably doesn't care for Boomerangs any more than I do, seemed pleasantly surprised by the rides smoothness. Rating 6.
Next up was Xcellerator!!!
Xcellerator: What an awesome ride!!! The Intamin company out did themselves with this baby. And then out did themselves again with Top Thrill Dragster at the Point, but that's another story. I manage to convince Jason to wait for the front, which was WELL worth it!!! The ride's a blast, literally! We rocketed out of the station with blinding exceleration, up the huge hill and back down the other side. The thrill factor of this ride was matched, in my book, only by the night rides I took on Millenium Force last year. After the first hill, the ride goes into a series banking trunarounds which sort of remsemble a figure 8, all with loads of speed and intensity! And finally hits the end run. WHAT A RIDE !!!! Rating 9.
We decided to grab a ride on Supreme Scream, the S&S contribution to Knott's success. Similar to other S&S's I've been on, this one lifted riders to the top (as opposed to launching ). I think there's definately something more unnerving about being gently lifted to the top then suddenly dropped, as opposed to being launched to the top and dropped. Anyway, an excellent drop ride with minimal wait time in line. Rating 7.
Jason and I grabbed another ride on the Ghostrider, this time near the front. Another spectacular airtime filled ride!! Afterwards Jason had to leave, which left me alone to take one more ride on Ghosty, and 2 more on Xcellerator. Left at closing which seemed to be 7:00pm.
A few parting words for Knotts. The park doesn't have a lot of coasters, but the ones it does have are spectacular. It also has a good assorment of water rides including Perilous Plunge, which we decided not to get on because of the weather. It was overcast and rather cool, niether of us felt like getting soaked under those conditions. I'm sure Knotts gets plenty of competition from Disney (which was packed the three days I visited), but they have a good park that is a must for any coaster enthusiast, or any family that is just looking for some good vacation fun. The park was quite clean and VERY well themed. A real feather in the cap for Buena Park California. Overall park rating 9.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Jason (who posts on here as Soggy) for putting up with me on my little California coaster excursion. There's nothing like riding Ghosty with another great coaster enthusiast. Thanks Jason!
On this trip I also payed visits to Disney, DCA and SFMM. Next up Disney.
Thanks for reading!
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TITAN RULES!
*** This post was edited by DAN-EL 6/16/2003 9:55:50 PM ***
*** This post was edited by DAN-EL 6/17/2003 5:08:01 PM ***
Glad you liked Ghostrider, it is really a great ride.
Too bad Montezooma wasn't open it is another gem. I was disappointed when it wasn't open last time went.
Did you go on Timber Mountain Log Ride ? If you liked Calico Mine Ride, you would have also liked TMLR.
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Welcome one and all, y'all come have a ball!
Things a bear-y fine, ridin' on the old Knott's bear-y line!
It was great meeting you, Dan. And I didn't yell at the peeps that weasled in front of us, I just let them know that we noticed what they were doing. At least those people in CMR did have friends in line ahead of us, the kids on TMLR were just cutting, plain and simple.
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SCREAM with me... in 2003!
Ok, you didn't yell, but at least you had something to say on the matter. Good for you Sog!
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TITAN RULES!
*** This post was edited by DAN-EL 6/17/2003 4:56:15 PM ***
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