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My West Coast Bash 2016 Trip Report!


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Hi, I'm Nate, and I'm 13 years old. This year I went to West Coast Bash with my family for the second time. We had a wonderful time (just like last year).

 

We drove up on Friday right after we got out of school, and we got there by 8 or 9. We came from the Bay Area. We stayed at the Courtyard Marriott right next to Magic Mountain; it was pretty nice. On Saturday morning, we went to the park.

 

We arrived and checked in, and waited in line. We were looking forward to trying New Revolution, and riding X2 and Twisted Colossus. When the gates opened for ERT, we headed for New Revolution, but it was closed. We had also heard that X2 was closed. We decided to head to Full Throttle. After riding that once, we went to TC, which was a walk on. We only rode it 3 times, but it was dueling better than I've ever seen it duel. We were right next to the train the entire ride.

 

After TC, we went to New Revolution. We first rode it once without the VR. I thought it was fun, and much more enjoyable than it used to be. We then tried the VR, which was interesting. It was themed to flying around in a city while fighting robot monster things. Overall it was very well done; they seemed to sync the sounds of the trim brakes to the sounds of things happening in the VR world. For example, a building was crashing down right as we went over a trim brake; it sounded like a normal crashing sound. It was a cool experience, but not exactly something I would want more parks and coasters to adopt.

 

We then headed to X2, not having much time left in ERT. We walked onto it once. I had the inside seat, but it was a bit more brutal than I remembered. I still really like the ride, but it bangs your legs against the seat really hard the whole time. I love the soundtrack though.

 

By the time we got off X2 the ERT had ended, but there was still nobody in the park. We walked up to Tatsu, but it was closed, so we went up to Superman and walked on a couple times. It was really fun. Then we went down into the back area of the park (Apocalypse, Riddler's, Mine Train, etc.) and hung out for a while, occasionally riding things. That area takes a long time to fill up with people, so we just stayed there occasionally riding things. We went to the front of the park and waited until lunch.

 

Lunch was pretty good. The best raccoon I've ever had.

Seriously though, it was good, and it was funny to see Robb try to make fun of Magic Mountain in front of their staff.

 

We left after lunch and rested at our hotel until we came back for the night ERT. We got there around 7 something, and it was packed; but we discovered that Lex Luthor had an empty single rider line and walked straight on, skipping the probably hour-long wait.

 

The park buyout was a bit more crowded than we expected, but we still got a fair bit done. I don't remember the order, but I know we rode Riddler's with no line, Scream with no line, Lex Luthor again, Tatsu 3 times at the end of the night (when the line had died down), and Goliath once. We were exhausted when we got back to our hotel, but had to wake up early to drive to....

 

KNOTT'S!

 

Knott's Berry Farm was just an amazing experience. They sure know how to throw a party and make you feel welcome. We checked in and gave Robb his 84758th cup of coffee and waited for the park to open. In the morning ERT, I rode Xcelerator a few times, and then did the Ghostrider tour. It was cool, and he explained about what exactly they had changed to make it so much better. I then went back and did Xcelerator a couple more times, and then we headed over to ride Ghostrider before it opened to the public.

 

The general public were already entering the park around 9:45, but luckily weren't allowed into the Ghostrider line. It was crowded with TPR people, but only took 10 or 15 minutes. I rode in the back (kind of), and I have to say the ride was great. I hadn't ridden the old Ghostrider in a few years; I remember it was fun, but kinda rough. The new one was butter-smooth and kept up good speed the whole way, and it was great to go without the midcourse brake run. Overall a much better ride.

 

After Ghostrider, I rode a few things (Voyage, Silver Bullet, Jaguar, Montezooma, Log Ride) because nothing had lines. Knott's has a great coaster lineup, and it's a super fun park. Then it was lunch time. The food was AMAZING. Knott's sure knows how to cook a chicken dinner. It was a bummer that we didn't do TPR Quest, because I played last year and won a Montezooma wheel and a GhostRider lap bar release. However, the Q&A was HILARIOUS! Jeff Tucker and the whole team were great at answering the questions, which were super creative. My brother won an awesome Xcelerator wheel, and I didn't win anything for my question, but I went up and twerked at the end (I know... I'm desperate) so I could get a "Tron Disc" which is actually a part from the frog hopper. It was a really great lunch.

 

We went back to the park; I wandered around taking pictures until it was time for the Knott's Scary Farm haunt tour. I'm not really a big haunt maze person; I find them really interesting, but I would never go through them at night, full of scare actors and everything. Part of the reason I went through the mazes was to get inspiration for the haunt maze I'm designing for a Halloween event we're having at my middle school; however, I think that if I themed it to the Tooth Fairy maze, it might be a bit creepy for the kids in my school

 

We first went through the Paranormal Inc maze, which was really interesting. The basic storyline was that we were in some sort of asylum/hospital thing with a Ghost Hunters-like TV show that claimed to have a thing that would let us see ghosts. It turned out that the device worked too well; it opened a portal to hell. It was fun to walk through with the lights on, but it seemed to heavily rely on actors doing acrobatic stunts in the air and things like that, so it would've been much better with the scare actors in it. At the end of the maze, you went outside into Hell, and there was a bit scary monster thing that was really funny looking during the daytime.

 

Next was the Tooth Fairy. I have to admit that when I first heard of this maze (at last year's West Coast Bash Q&A session), it did not sound good to me. It just sounded unnaturally creepy and I just didn't like it. It turned out that it was unnaturally creepy, but I enjoyed walking through it. Would I enjoy the full maze, complete with darkness and actors and dentist drill sounds? Probably not.

 

Our tour was led by Daniel, the designer of the maze. He told a cool story about applying to be an Imagineer at Disney, and how he designed a Little Mermaid-themed rollercoaster, which won some awards. I hung out near the front so I could hear what he was saying. The maze was super creepy, with lots of blood and gore and dead kids and teeth and all of those sorts of things. The maze was scary enough with the lights on and without actors; I would not be able to do it at night. The maze tours were really cool, and it was interesting to hear about designing these things.

 

Unfortunately, after the haunt tours, my family had to leave so I could get back to school; I missed night ERT. We had an amazing time at West Coast Bash, huge thanks to Robb, Elissa and everyone at TPR for putting on this great event year after year!

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We're here at Magic Mountain! Here's Superman! It's really tall!

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Artsy New Revolution

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Artsier New Revolution

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Apocalypse is now as white as Colossus

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Tatsu!

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New Revolution is pretty

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Here's the park in the evening

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Goliath still towers over Twisted Colossus

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Barely a wait for Tatsu at night!

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Arrived at Knott's! Cool morning weather much appreciated!

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GhostRider Backstage Tour! First test run of the day!

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Cool shot of GhostRider

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Xcelerator!

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More Xcelerator!

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And more Xcelerator!

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Sorry, this ride is just really photogenic.

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Silver Bullet really is a beautiful ride

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HELIX!

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AMAZING lunch.

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Snoopy!

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Monty

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Ok, just ONE more pic of Xcelerator.

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Jeff Tucker

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Here's the opening room of Paranormal 101. This is where things go CRAZY at the start of the maze!

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Crazy books

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Here's a little skull guy

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The morgue? That sounds fun!

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And here is Hell!

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This monster thing is pretty great

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Or at least it was until it ate me.

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And now... Tooth Fairy!

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Lots of dead children. Very creepy atmosphere

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Teeth!

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Creepy mannequin kids everywhere

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Giant drill

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Letters to the Tooth Fairy

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Again.. Creepy

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Apparently these things were actually used to practice dentistry in the early 20th century, but they were creepy, so they put them in the maze.

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The scariest prop in the whole maze, in my opinion

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The maze designer with his proud creation

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Apparently this kid used to be covered in cockroaches, but people stole almost all of them.

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And I'll end with this great pic of Robb. Thanks for a great trip!

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Thanks for sharing about your WCB days! Very nicely written report. I was able to attend ECB at Kings Dominion and HersheyPark several years ago and it was an absolute blast. Sometime maybe I'll be able to get to WCB! Mazes and scary things are not my cup of tea either - seeing the daytime walk thru pics of your tour was more than enough for me haha.

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Great trip report here! And that was nice twerking you and the guys did there, too.

 

You're so lucky to live sooooo much closer to Ghostrider, than I do.

It's a great coaster, day or night riding, but especially at night.

 

Thanks for sharing your WCB days.

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Love your pics of the two Knotts mazes! Tooth Fairy is such a demented maze, I love it! One of the scariest most unsettling of all their mazes for concept alone. It's cool seeing the pictures of it! Paranormal Inc was by far their best maze last year too. Lots of great props and effects!

 

Thanks for sharing!

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