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The Knott's Berry Farm (KBF) Discussion Thread

P. 651: Montezooma's Revenge project terminated?

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^Or you can look at it as they are looking for ways to maximize the value of Skeleton Key to sell more, which in turns means more budget for the event. Voodoo and Paranormal Inc are probably the two nicest mazes ever done, so if that's what it takes for them to up their production value, I'm all for it!

 

Exactly. More revenue, more budget, more awesomeness! The key rooms have been lots of trial and error. Before, when they were integrated into the maze layout, it really took you out of the maze's element. You would have to find the employee, show your key, then wait for your turn.

 

Then they started to put the rooms in the beginning of the maze to help tell the mazes story. Was it better? Sure. Did it help with crowd control and lines? Not really... With the rooms separated from the mazes all together, it should assist with line backup, and general maze traffic. I hope it streamlines the experience, and adds to the overall haunt. Let's hope the escape rooms are better than the 2nd year of Trapped.

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How should the lines be September 1st Thursday? Dead?

Any chance Ghostrider or any rides go down for maintenance then?

 

In the past, Ghostider has gotten some maintenance time in the weeks leading up to haunt, but it's hard to say how it's going to run now post-renovation.

 

But, GhostTown Alive continues through Sept 5th, so I doubt GR would be down until after then.

 

And not until after Sept.11 (after WCB), I'm hopin'.

 

normally, it's been closed for WCB. but, it's also not run a whole year yet since refurbishment. i'd guess it will be open.

True, they usually close it in September for maintenance (I go in September most years and it's always closed), but they aren't doing that this year. I know that they definitely plan to have it open for WCB, but you can never guarantee something unexpected won't happen to it between now and then.

 

Due to the aforementioned bad timing I have, I've actually only ridden GhostRider once before, and it was when it was rough. Every other time I've been to the park it's been down for retracking. I'm really looking forward to getting several laps on it, especially at night. Last year I ended the night on TMLR, this year I'm going to finish with a GR marathon!

 

I'm also hoping we do another Iron Reef contest this year. Last year I got a lot better at it after the contest was over.

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^Or you can look at it as they are looking for ways to maximize the value of Skeleton Key to sell more, which in turns means more budget for the event. Voodoo and Paranormal Inc are probably the two nicest mazes ever done, so if that's what it takes for them to up their production value, I'm all for it!

 

Exactly. More revenue, more budget, more awesomeness! The key rooms have been lots of trial and error. Before, when they were integrated into the maze layout, it really took you out of the maze's element. You would have to find the employee, show your key, then wait for your turn.

 

Then they started to put the rooms in the beginning of the maze to help tell the mazes story. Was it better? Sure. Did it help with crowd control and lines? Not really... With the rooms separated from the mazes all together, it should assist with line backup, and general maze traffic. I hope it streamlines the experience, and adds to the overall haunt. Let's hope the escape rooms are better than the 2nd year of Trapped.

 

Exactly. One of the most frequent operational complaints during Haunt was wait times for the Key Rooms. Because they were designed for small groups, to feel more intimate, the capacity for the rooms was pretty low. This would very frequently cause the guests who bought the Skeleton Key pass (which comes w/ Frightlane) to wait longer in line than guests who hadn't paid for the up charge. Now that the key rooms are standalone, those guests can better take advantage of the decrease wait times at the mazes that they paid a considerable sum for.

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^Or you can look at it as they are looking for ways to maximize the value of Skeleton Key to sell more, which in turns means more budget for the event. Voodoo and Paranormal Inc are probably the two nicest mazes ever done, so if that's what it takes for them to up their production value, I'm all for it!

 

Exactly. More revenue, more budget, more awesomeness! The key rooms have been lots of trial and error. Before, when they were integrated into the maze layout, it really took you out of the maze's element. You would have to find the employee, show your key, then wait for your turn.

 

Then they started to put the rooms in the beginning of the maze to help tell the mazes story. Was it better? Sure. Did it help with crowd control and lines? Not really... With the rooms separated from the mazes all together, it should assist with line backup, and general maze traffic. I hope it streamlines the experience, and adds to the overall haunt. Let's hope the escape rooms are better than the 2nd year of Trapped.

 

Exactly. One of the most frequent operational complaints during Haunt was wait times for the Key Rooms. Because they were designed for small groups, to feel more intimate, the capacity for the rooms was pretty low. This would very frequently cause the guests who bought the Skeleton Key pass (which comes w/ Frightlane) to wait longer in line than guests who hadn't paid for the up charge. Now that the key rooms are standalone, those guests can better take advantage of the decrease wait times at the mazes that they paid a considerable sum for.

I find this to be true at many cedar fair parks I visited last year... it was frustrating waiting for the key rooms. Dorney had an awesome stand alone experience and ended up being my favorite of any of the rooms in all the parks I went to. They should do more of that rather than attaching to the houses in my opinion.

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Quick question . . . If ghost riders line is to the entrance, what's the typical wait time at that point?

Do you mean entrance to the building or entrance to that cave / mineshaft thing? I went on a busy day not long after it had opened, and the line started at the point where the track does the first 180-degree turn to the right before the lift. Inside the station, all of the lower level switchbacks were being used and on the upper level, half were being used. That took about an hour. The problem is that you don't really know how many sets of switchbacks you'll be facing until you get in the building, but if all are being used, and the line is all the way out to the cave, definitely more than 90 mins and maybe even longer. I can't imagine it getting to that point though.

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Darn, went to Knott's Thur, 9/8 to hopefully have a short wait for Ghostrider but it was closed. Heard a bunch of power tools out in the track area but couldn't tell what they were repairing.

 

The rest of the park was pretty dead. Most of the coasters were being dispatched with empty rows because there weren't enough people in the station to fill them up. I was able to ride Silver Bullet 6 times, Xcelerator 3 times, La Revolution 2 times and one each on Supreme Scream, Log Ride, and Sierra Sidewinder in under 2 hours. Weekdays in September and October and the best time to be there as long as Ghostrider is running.

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i've ridden Ghostrider a handful of times since it's reopened. but, always during the day. very fun. but during ERT last night, at night, it felt like another coaster all together. i want to say it seemed to me one of the coasters with the biggest differences in night and day rides i've been on. i'm definitely a back row guy on ghostrider as well. the front did pretty much nothing for me. last 3-4 rows i'm happy.

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Ghostrider has been opening late this week. And a little birdie told me to expect some pe-Haunt maintenance again this year.

The park told us directly yesterday that Ghostrider is going down for maintenance beginning today. They said that Xcelerator is also going down at the same time for cable replacement. They elaborated by saying that to expect Ghostrider to still undergo roughly the same maintenance schedule from now on, though at least for now it's not for retracking. It's more for hardware adjustments due to natural changes in the new wood.

 

One trivia tidbit I found particularly interesting is that they said that the refurb was 3 years in the making and that one inspiration for part of the reprofiling (particularly taking out the mcbr) was Gold Striker at CGA. They said they liked how it ran full out from start to finish and never slowed down, and I think they did a great job achieving that same experience with the refurb.

 

And yes that means GhostRider is definitely back. I got 10 laps in yesterday but could have done twice that if there were enough time. There is no more discomfort in this ride, it's simply fantastic. You get more air in the front, but the back row is nice too as I feel like I get more lateral G's as you get whipped around the corners. In this condition it's the best traditional woodie on the west coast. It's also my new favorite overall night ride. That new lighting package is perfect.

 

Knott's and GCI hit it out of the park with this project. Completely blew away my expectations of just how much better they could make the ride, but at the same time I'm not surprised as that's the kind of people that run Knott's.

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i've ridden Ghostrider a handful of times since it's reopened. but, always during the day. very fun. but during ERT last night, at night, it felt like another coaster all together. i want to say it seemed to me one of the coasters with the biggest differences in night and day rides i've been on.

I agree; I was there a few weeks ago and found the same to be true. I was indifferent to the post-rehab version, but the night rides made it feel a more like the old relentless Ghost Rider but without the pain. Back seat's indeed a blast, but I must say that I found the front to provide some nice launches over the first camel back, the hill after "the drop," and the two smaller bunny hops on the return leg.

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Some post West Coast Bash thoughts...

 

1. It's very obvious KBF cares about hosting the event every year. The Q&A is always tons of fun and you can tell their marketing team puts effort into making the day special. Kudos to everyone!

 

2. Got my first rides on Ghostrider 2.0. It's as close to old Ghostrider as we're going to get...basically feels out of control again minus the ejector air, which was all replaced by pops of floater air. So Ghostrider moved from the bottom of my list to soundly at the top of the middle tier (I'm a fan of ejector air over anything else if I had to pick).

 

3. Iron Reef still has it's flaws (mainly the WTF story and low capacity), but it works well for the park. I enjoyed it more this time around.

Edited by Jew
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Some post West Coast Bash thoughts...

 

2. Got my first rides on Ghostrider 2.0. It's as close to old Ghostrider as we're going to get...basically feels out of control again minus the ejector air, which was all replaced by pops of floater air. So Ghostrider moved from the bottom of my list to soundly at the top of the middle tier (I'm a fan of ejector air over anything else if I had to pick).

 

I very much agree with this. The "drop" is not nearly as good as it was during it's prime, but the collective whole is SO much better. The second half in the front row has a ton of small pops!

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I saw during WCB that they had already demolished the buildings they bought to replace the parking spots lost by the Soak City expansion. Nice that it seems like the whole parking lot will get taken care of as part of the project.

Edited by Jew
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i've ridden Ghostrider a handful of times since it's reopened. but, always during the day. very fun. but during ERT last night, at night, it felt like another coaster all together. i want to say it seemed to me one of the coasters with the biggest differences in night and day rides i've been on. i'm definitely a back row guy on ghostrider as well. the front did pretty much nothing for me. last 3-4 rows i'm happy.

 

Are you saying riding at night was even better?

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