California Dreamin' - Part 1: Knott's Berry Farm
It’s been nearly 7 years since we last visited Southern California, but surprisingly not a lot has changed since our last visit, when Galaxy’s Edge burst onto the scene at Disneyland. There are some new attractions scheduled to debut this summer and next year across the LA-Area landscape, but the timing of this trip was for the US Men’s National Team’s World Cup opening match at SoFi, I mean, Los Angeles Stadium, so we didn’t have much flexibility to alter our 10-day itinerary to experience the new rides, most notably Montezuma’s Revenge and Fast & Furios: Hollywood Drift.
The first park we visited during our trip was Knott’s Berry Farm. This park is still cute and charming, but between the stale attraction lineup and heavy Saturday crowds and a Latin dance competition, we experience some long lines that were only slightly mitigated by our single-use FastLane passes included in our Six Flags Prestige season passes. We were fortunate to have arrived at the park just after the gates opened, so we were able to ride a number of rides with little to no wait. We immediately headed to Xclerator, and scored 2 walk-on rides, including an experience in the front row. The prototype for Intamin’s hydraulic launch coaster is still running great, and the new paint job since our last visit looks excellent with a gradational color scheme highlighting the signature top-hat element. Hopefully the park’s commitment to the new paint means Six Flags intends to keep up with the maintenance on this coaster, because it is a dying breed with Kingda Ka demolished and Top Thrill Dragster converted to a LSM swing launch by Zamperla. Xcelerator’s launch still delivers that powerful kick, and the refreshed paint appears to have smoothed out the ride through the second half of the course.
Since we were able to get 2 rides on Xcelerator so quickly, lines were still short in the back sections of the park. Unfortunately, Hangtime was not open yet, and would not open until later in the afternoon, so we made the questionable decision to hop aboard Coast Rider since it was also a walk-on. Knott’s Mack Wild Maus has to be one of the worst coasters of this type on the planet. I’m not sure why, but this version of the coaster has a lap bar restrain that features a cross bar that presses into your shins so hard that it left depressions in my legs that took nearly 10 minutes to subside. Coast Rider’s layout is identical to Apple Zapple at Kings Dominion, our home park, but our local coaster does not feature these painful restraints. I’m not sure why Knott’s has to use such uncomfortable restrains, but at least we can feel fortunate to not have waited more than a minute to ride this certified torture device.
Next up was Knott’s Bear-y Tales, which was the only attraction we would ride that was new since our last visit – the shooting gallery dark ride was call Voyage to the Iron Reef back in 2019. I really liked this new theme and the integration into the history of the park and its signature product. There were some neat effects on this, and I had forgotten how long the track was for the ride as there are 3 more full-length scenes beyond where it feels like the ride is ending. It’s a good thing the ride is long, because while we managed to only wait around 5 minutes to ride, the low capacity (maximum of 4 guests per car) and slow loading process meant lines were typically above 45 minutes when I looked at the park app later in the day. Also, the pull-string mechanism to shoot your jelly blaster (similar to TSMM) is really tight (or at least the one I used) and does not have a clear click to indicate that you’ve fire a shot. Small children would probably have a hard time pulling the string on the blaster rapidly throughout the entirety of the ride.
As we made our way around the back of the park, we came to Pony Express, which was not running the last time we were at Knott’s. While my wife and I have ridden this attraction before, this would be a new coaster for our son. Because of that, we were willing to wait in the 20+ minute line to experience this unique coaster. There aren’t too many coasters where riders lean forward in a straddled seat, and the one here for Zamperla is well themed. The only issue here is that the ride is incredibly short, but Knott’s has done a great job with the theming and ride ops were doing a decent job keeping the line moving and optimizing throughput. Pony Express might not be a top tier coaster, but it’s a fun and unique experience worth going out of your way for.
After we rode Pony Express, the crowds in the park were pretty intense, and had fully enveloped Ghost Town, diminishing our desire to experience Ghost Town Alive. The live improvisational theater experience was a highlight of our last visit to Knott’s but with so many people wandering the area, we just didn’t feel like wading through the sea of people to try to immerse ourselves. We did see a large contingent of actors roaming the land (far more than we remember from 2019), but every one was being mobbed by smaller children and parents that discouraged our teenager from interacting in the vignettes. In hindsight, visiting on a busy Saturday with a special event was probably not the wisest choice, but as I noted, we didn’t have a ton of flexibility in our itinerary. I you’re interested in enjoying Ghost Town Alive, it’s probably best to visit on a slower day or start your day in the land to start your immersion before crowds start getting intense (for reference, the line for Ghost Rider was 120-minutes for most of the day).
The intensity of the crowds were partially due to the dance competition in the Wagon Train Theater, which we did take so time to watch. While we were enjoying the performance, I noticed that the Butterfield Stagecoach had started running, so we quickly got in line for one of the most unique theme park rides you’ll find anywhere. The classic horse-drawn stagecoach is a fun throwback, but has extremely limited capacity, so with just 20 or so folks ahead of us in line, it still took nearly 30 minutes before we were rounding the park Oregon Trail-style.
In addition to the Butterfield Stagecoach, Knott’s is home to 2 other classic attractions that are can’t-miss. Calico Mine Ride is a nostalgic spin that focuses on theming over thrill given guests sit on benches with no seat belts or other restraints. The animatronics are decidedly old-school here, but are plentiful along the track as the train twists and turn through the caverns and tunnels. This is the type of attraction many parks are abandoning in favor of coasters, and hopefully Six Flags’ management understands the need to maintain something like this.
While it’s certainly more thrilling than Calico Mine Ride, Timber Mountain Log Ride, has a similar commitment to theming and animatronics to pair with a refreshing plunge down a 52-foot drop. We would ride Tiana’s Bayou Adventure later in our trip, and the newly rethemed Disney log flume cannot touch the level of detail and story presented on Knott’s log flume. The story of this flume may not be as recognizable as Disney newer attraction, Knott’s does a better job with a fraction of Disney’s budget, making it worth your time whenever you visit this park.
Ghost Rider is still the best ride at Knott’s, and since we last rode in 2019, the coaster has received a number of minor retracks as well as new Millennium Flier trains that have vaulted it to be once again one of the best wooden coasters in the world. Because the lines for Ghost Rider were consistently over 90 minutes all day, we ended up utilizing our single use Fastlane for our one ride on Ghost Rider, but that lone experience was enough for me to put it back amongst the best wooden roller coaster I’ve ever ridden.
We did eventually make it back around to Hangtime after it opened later in the afternoon. Because we were on the other side of the park when it did open, we were forced to wait a bit over 30 minutes to ride, which is about my tolerance for a coaster like this. There’s nothing terribly wrong with Hangtime, and it packs a punch for such a small footprint, but it’s there are far better vertical/beyond vertical drop coasters out there.
The last major coaster we rode was Silver Bullet. This B&M invert is pretty good, but even with its unique custom layout, it falls well short of the likes of Alpengeist, Montu, Banshee, and Afterburn. This was Zach’s first time on this coaster, and he agreed that it was probably better than most smaller B&M inverts and definitely better than Great Bear. We did end up riding Jaguar when the wait dropped to around 20 minutes in the late afternoon, but never made it on Siera Sidewinder, which was not running when we first entered the park, and was averaging a 30+ minute wait for most of the day. While we were able to take advantage of short lines and low crowds during the first hour or 2 the park was open, the park got pretty packed after lunchtime. I guess the moral of the story is to try to avoid Knott’s on summer Saturdays with a dance competition happening in the park, and if you don’t have a lot of options, always get to the park early and take full advantage of the first hour or 2 before crowds fill in.
Replies (5)
Thanks for the TR, Russell. Just one question, though: since you've been before and after the merger, do you notice any difference in maintenance or operations? Or is it all the same?
I always enjoy reading the reports of infrequent visitors to my home parks, so I'll definitely be following along with this one. Knott's is best avoided on Saturdays whenever possible as the park doesn't handle crowds well, but a Saturday during the May-July window (the peak season for the park) is particularly nasty. Unfortunately, as you said you didn't really have much choice for this trip.
For future reference, the best strategy for Knott's is to get there at least 30 minutes before opening and jump in the GhostRider queue right away. Knott's opens this ride before the rest of the park, so if you're quick you can often ride and be off before the rope is dropped to everything else. Once that happens, head directly to the boardwalk for Xcelerator, HangTime, Knott's Bear-y Tales, and Coast Rider (which is just a standard wilde maus, not spinning as you mentioned), then tour the rest of the park in whatever order as crowds will have likely built up by that point.
Make sure you go down Tiana’s Bayou Adventure without a boat I heard it is a blast...
We got stuck in some traffic getting into the Knott's parking lot (had preferred parking, so we were forced to enter past the main gate), so walked through the gate right at opening time. We were able to use the single-use FastLane from our Prestige Passes to skip most of the Ghost Rider line in the afternoon, so we only waited about 10 minutes to ride. It would have been nice to get more rides on Ghost Rider, but even if we had arrived sooner and rope dropped that side of the park, we probably would have faced similarly long lines on the north side of the park in the afternoon.
Something had to give in terms of our itinerary, so Knott's ended up being the one park we had to schedule for a weekend day (all of our other theme park days were on weekdays, though one of those was a holiday - Juneteenth). Logistically, we were trying to avoid bouncing around too many hotels, so since we started our trip with a stay near LAX/SoFi, and our second hotel was in Chatsworth (splitting the difference between USH and SFMM) with our final hotel across the street from DCA. So our choices were to visit Knott's on either the first Saturday we were in LA or the last Saturday.
Frankly, we were able to ride everything we wanted over the course of the day aside from Sierra Sidewinder, it was just a stark contrast during the first hour or 2 of the day and around noon when the crowds really swelled, and never relented, even in the last hour of operation.
Coast Rider added those shin guards after a 10 year old thought the ride was over and tried to get off before reaching the unload spot, and when the train started moving to unload, his leg got caught between the train and the platform.