The Knott's Berry Farm (KBF) Discussion Thread

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?

i'm one who doesn't like to say things like this, but yes, for me, it was better at night. during the day, i haven't been as impressed. i was thinking because of how much ghostrider runs through the structure makes it better at night. compared to like Twisted Colossus, it basically feels the same to me, day or night.

currently, i'd say it's similar to the difference on The Beast day vs. night.

i couldn't get enough during ERT.

Knott's Berry Farm has sent us a press release about the return of the popular daytime family event, Knott's Spooky Farm!

The daytime park wide, family-friendly Halloween celebration, geared for kids ages 3 - 11, Knott’s Spooky Farm, returns on weekends in October and Halloween Day, starting October 1. Knott’s Berry Farm invites families to join in the Halloween fun by participating in hands on and fun activities and all new experiences in Ghost Town, Fiesta Village, Boardwalk Ballroom and Camp Snoopy. The special limited-time event serves up live entertainment, trick-or-treating, a costume contest and exclusive festivities honoring the 50th anniversary of the classic Peanuts animated TV special It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!

 

Knott’s Spooky Farms’ friendly monsters will return to Main Street to invite kids to trick-or-treat for tasty sweets by ringing whimsically themed doorbells. Surprise the little explorer in your pack by visiting the kid-friendly Spooky Hollow Maze in Camp Snoopy which offers an enchanting experience through a spooky forest with larger-than-life jack-o-lanterns and keep an eye out for the friendly headless horseman. Kids can engage with Linus and Sally while celebrating the 50th anniversary of the classic Peanuts, It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!, in Ghost Town with special Halloween themed activities like decorating their very own pumpkin head, for a nominal fee.

 

New this year, the Ghastly Gallery hosted in the Boardwalk Ballroom, welcomes little ghouls to enter a monstrous museum where they can explore spooky culture and even have the artistic opportunity to display their “monsterpieces” and visit the Monsterpiece Theatre. Also, head over to Fiesta Village for some vibrant fun with a Dia de los Muertos non-scary, friendly, educational celebration of the season.

 

The spooky fun continues in Camp Snoopy where the Peanuts gang will host a spooktacular costume contest which invites families to bring their festively costumed children for some Halloween fun! Additionally, families can watch the Peanuts Gang in The Monsters Are Coming, Charlie Brown, where they’ll have guests of all ages singing and dancing along to classic Halloween tunes at the Camp Spooky Theatre.

 

A 2017 Knott’s Season Pass is the best way to experience all of the Knott’s Spooky Farm fun with the family. New 2017 Season Passes include one free admission during the 2016 season to Knott’s Berry Farm and unlimited visits in 2017 with no blackout dates, discounts on select food and merchandise, and access to exciting year-round seasonal events. 2017 Season Passes are now available at the best offer of the year for a limited time on knotts.com.

 

Knott’s Spooky Farm runs weekends October 1 – Halloween Day from 10:00 am to 4:00pm, and is included with regular park admission. For more information on all the exciting things that are going on at Knott’s Berry Farm, visit us online at knotts.com and follow the conversation using #KnottsSpookyFarm

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.

Heading to the park next Friday, did they say when Ghostrider and Xcellerator are back up? Hoping to get some dead park time when it opens Friday morning

Heading to the park next Friday, did they say when Ghostrider and Xcellerator are back up? Hoping to get some dead park time when it opens Friday morning

Heading to the park next Friday, did they say when Ghostrider and Xcellerator are back up? Hoping to get some dead park time when it opens Friday morning

No, but I would expect both to still be down then. I doubt either will be up before the beginning of Scary Farm.

crossing fingers, it is the first weekend of haunt so we have that going for us

Today all rides are open except ghostrider..

It should be operating again from 23 september acccording to knott website

Today all rides are open except ghostrider..

 

It should be operating again from 23 september acccording to knott website

Man kudos to KBF staff for getting Xcelerator back up so fast and providing a projected up date for Ghostrider. Both things the "other park" wouldn't do.

Today all rides are open except ghostrider..

 

It should be operating again from 23 september acccording to knott website

i totally missed that the other day when i looked on the website. glad it's not long. i want to hit ghostrider during the dead weekdays.

Today all rides are open except ghostrider..

 

It should be operating again from 23 september acccording to knott website

I'll be there on the 24th! Let's hope it's up and running!

Cedar Point replaced Dragster's cable in less than 3 days when it pretty much exploded all over the midway a few weeks ago. If Knott's took longer to replace a cable when the replacement was scheduled ahead of time and the old cable was in one piece then I'd honestly be a little confused (unless there was more to the refurbishment than just cable replacement) so I'm not sure why people are surprised that it's open already. Still, kudos to Cedar Fair as a whole on their efficiency with these types of things. As others have implied, a certain other chain could learn a lot from them.

Cedar Point replaced Dragster's cable in less than 3 days when it pretty much exploded all over the midway a few weeks ago. If Knott's took longer to replace a cable when the replacement was scheduled ahead of time and the old cable was in one piece then I'd honestly be a little confused (unless there was more to the refurbishment than just cable replacement) so I'm not sure why people are surprised that it's open already. Still, kudos to Cedar Fair as a whole on their efficiency with these types of things. As others have implied, a certain other chain could learn a lot from them.

during the WCB Q&A they said xcelerator would be down in the coming week to replace the cable. i was thinking, but cedar point changes dragster's cable overnight.

I went to Knott's on Thursday, Sept 22nd for approx 3 hours from 10 am - 1 pm. Everything was a walk-on except for Ghostrider and that took half hour. I timed Ghostrider dispatches with one train operation between 5 1/2 - 7 minutes. This means even a 5 train wait is a half-hour hour wait with only one-train running. I guess they had to have a line somewhere in the park.

^Why were they only running one train?

^Why were they only running one train?

I could see through the floor that they were working on the second train. I just checked the Knott's app today and the wait for Ghostrider is 5 min so they must have second train on now. I wouldn't want to be there on a weekend with one train operation though. Hopefully, they can keep two trains running most of the time.

Blast From My Past...trip

Me and The Snoop, just hanging together during the past WCB weekend.

And many many thanks Robb, Elissa and Knott's!

He and me, in the wonderful Knott's Berry Farm Hotel....lobby! Sept.14

Not sure which thread to post this in, but a user on reddit (r/rollercoasters) found this coaster track traveling on the 91 West in South LA area. It's definitely Premier track... Any ideas where it could be going?

Not sure which thread to post this in, but a user on reddit (r/rollercoasters) found this coaster track traveling on the 91 West in South LA area. It's definitely Premier track... Any ideas where it could be going?

 

when i think about south LA, and the 91 west, that's only a short stretch of freeway. basically west of knott's. no idea where it's going from me if that's where it was taken.

found this park map randomly while cleaning some stuff up in my closet. i don't know what year it was from. any guesses? it would have to be at least 1982. i went there for that video game challenge. 3 Williams electronics games, i think it was like 30 seconds each game and they added up the scores. Joust, Stargate and Bubbles. I thought i was going to go there and marathon play Joust, then found out it was just 30 seconds each game. I was in 1st place for a while, and ended up in 4th place. i forget what else i won but one of the prizes was a 2-3" black and white portable TV! hahaha

It's from 1983. I checked with my 40 Years Calendar, and the dates and days line up with 1983.

And the coupon for Sea World has an expiration of May 31 1983, too.

EDIT: Sorry I jumped around in years, there. The dang thing kept slipping on me.

It's from 1981. I checked with my 40 Years Calendar, and the dates and days line up with 1981.

what's throwing me off is the games we played in the contest. two of them, were released in 1982.

i'm seeing sat june 18th as 1983.

^^Maybe it is not out of the question to say that could be a new coaster for Knott's. I would say that because RMC Mean Streak is shaping up to be a real possibility, which has not been announced yet. So, it could be possible that Cedar Fair is not yet done with announcements. Knott's has also not built a large coaster in a while, so could we be looking at an out of the blue announcement for Knott's? Or there could be a coaster going to some random location entirely, like Long Beach or Santa Monica.

The map has to be from before 1983. Camp Snoopy opened in 1983, and does not appear in the map. Based on the presence of the Wacky Soap Box Racers and the lack of Camp Snoopy causes me to think it is from 1980, 1981, or 1982. The lack of emphasis on the Soap Box Racers, which opened in 1980, seems to exclude that year, and as previously mentioned, the expiration of the SeaWorld coupon is in 1983, so I would place my bets on 1982.

^ So it's most likely 1982, because a coupon that expires in '83 could obviously be given out,

in the previous year? Rather than say, given out two years in advance?

Just another guess here.

A Group Photo, taken in Knott's, from this year's West Coast Bash.

The map has to be from before 1983. Camp Snoopy opened in 1983, and does not appear in the map. Based on the presence of the Wacky Soap Box Racers and the lack of Camp Snoopy causes me to think it is from 1980, 1981, or 1982. The lack of emphasis on the Soap Box Racers, which opened in 1980, seems to exclude that year, and as previously mentioned, the expiration of the SeaWorld coupon is in 1983, so I would place my bets on 1982.

All the dates and days only match up to 1983. Just go back to any calendar and you'll see they all only match to 1983.

Also just noticed that it says on the top of the map. Camp Snoopy opening July 1st.

Not sure which thread to post this in, but a user on reddit (r/rollercoasters) found this coaster track traveling on the 91 West in South LA area. It's definitely Premier track... Any ideas where it could be going?

 

Woah. Weird find...

I have absolutely no idea. It has to be for something in California, and I think it's safe to say that SFMM, SFDK, and CGA are ruled out. That leaves potential boardwalk parks and Knott's...

EDIT: Also remember, Knott's is a year round park and could very well make an announcement later on and open a new attraction in the winter (like GhostRider and Silver Bullet). I don't see why, but it's probably just the little Knott's fanboy in me hoping we FINALLY get a new coaster.