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In spite of it being one of my absolute favorite parks, I usually only make the trip out to Hershey once a year. However, thanks to my 2020 plans going right into the crapper I'm working with what I've got nearby so after my visit with my buddy last month, we got a group of pals who haven't seen each each other in forever to meet up for a day of fun at The Sweetest Place on Earth once again the past weekend. I'm not doing a full on report but I figured I'd mess around with the new forum and throw up some photos we captured on Sunday and share a few thoughts about this awesome park. If you've followed my reports leading up to now you no doubt of noticed a pattern of us making the trip out to Hershey, PA on a Sunday in October - we've done this almost every year for the last 5-6 seasons, and I've often screamed from the hilltops how this is the best time to visit this park. While Saturdays in the fall are usually busy-to-mobbed, Sundays have always been good to us and the crowds have always wound up somewhere between totally manageable to almost non-existent. With the shortened Covid-hours, the park is only open from 2-9pm during this years Hersheypark in the Dark, so that allowed us to get a late start and plan a brunch at Troegs ahead of the park. However, car troubles had us scrambling for alternate plans and with a bit of a delay, we just headed right for the park and grabbed some food and brews there instead. Welcome to Hersheys clean new entrance plaza. As I learned last month, Candymonium is fantastic but as we all know people are dumb and will all run to that first to stand in a two hour line that will most definitely shorten by the late afternoon as the crowds spread out around the park. Skip! First up? Skyrush. One member of today's gang is not much of a rider and said she was up for anything so we really ripped the band-aid off in style with a front row ride on the best roller coaster in the state. Skyrush is just incredible. We waited for the front and were treated to one of the best ever rides I've had on this thing. As more of our group arrived, I managed to hop back on and closer to the rear and had another great ride but... Skyrush is a front seat ride. I will die on this hill. I know, back seat left side whatever. But the drop in the front is unreal. It's just so steep that even in the front you still lose sight on the track you're about to fly down. And I honestly feel like the majority of the airtime is considerably better here than it is in the back. The feeling of being pushed up into the hills with that much force is just perfection, so much better than being yanked around like a rag doll in the rear. Also, two rides and my legs were fine. I wish yall Thigh Crush pussies would STFU already. The gangs all here! From here we grabbed some beers (plus side of Covid? No more beer jail at Hershey!) and wandered around a bit trying to find something to ride and settled on Fahrenheit as it just had a relatively short 25 minute wait. I had a fantastic ride on this fun little Intamin last month, but either my belt in this seat was much, much shorter, or I've gained a crap ton of weight in just a month - it wasn't even close. Honestly, not even bummed. With not one but two attendants trying to staple me in and instructing me to relax my shoulders, I stared at the buckle willing it to close and knew there was just no chance. I told the attendants to forget it, made sure the missus was cool riding alone in the front (she was - she loves this ride) and hopped off to grab another beer. As a big dude, I've had many close calls with the walk of shame over the last 7 seasons of enthusiast life, but this was the first time I was denied a ride. Ah well, it was a good run. In addition to the manageable waits in October, another reason you need to get out here is the park itself. It's just gorgeous with the changing leaves. We made our way over to Lightning Racer and had ourselves a nice race with groups of our large party taking opposite seats on opposing trains. This was running really well in September and even better this weekend. It's absolutely one of my favorite woodies, maybe not the fastest, tallest, most airtime, whatever... but it rides really well and has a little bit of everything and the racing aspect just makes for a great time. The park doesn't do much in the way of decorations for this event, but there a re some and they're cute. Basically. At this point some of our crew rode some flats, did some shopping, wandered a bit, when a few decided to call it a day and the remainder of us made our way to the Sidewinder food court area in search of subsistence (aka Chickies crab fries). A few more beers and a check in of the app notified us that Candy was down to 15 minutes. We headed that way and while it was more like 20-25 minutes we were treated to a phenomenal night ride as it had gotten dark by now. Candymonium is another astounding ride, and with it, this park's line-up is just out of control stacked. Just need that RMC. I typed that not only because I believe it, but I know I just twisted some purist-panties. You're welcome. Even though after dark the air was quite chilly, our boy Bill was not happy about this. With such a large group with us today we didn't ride a ton, and spent a lot of time hanging out, yapping, drinking, eating and that was fine. I love just being in this park. Missed Storm Runner and Sooper Dooper Looper something fierce on both visits this year but what can you do? We ended the night with a trek up the hill to Great Bear and managed to snag a front row ride through the pitch black night. So good, it's really a shame that like the last 10% of this ride causes so many nerds to hate on it. I love basically this whole ride, it's a shame they couldn't figure out a way to do something with that short straight bit at the very end, but it's still phenomenal even with what's there. I did not get any photos of Great Bear, not that I could have since most of the ride area is dark AF, so here is a photo of the best roller coaster in Pennsylvania (suck it, Phoenix!) We would have ridden it again but a train got stuck on the lift about an hour before close and the park sent the crew home and shut the ride down. Ah well, the rides in the afternoon will suffice. A quick stop for a giant bag of kettle corn to take home and we bounced right before park close. I did look out for magnets but all they have is candy related stuff, nothing for the coasters. Pretty lame. Beyond that and getting denied a ride on the 3rd-best Intamin in the park, we had an incredible evening at this wonderful park. Hersheypark in the Dark is still happening for the next two weekends, be sure to check it out! Thanks for reading and make sure to smash that react button!

It's definitely not for this season. There are pictures of it on Reddit and it's in extremely rough condition. I don't see any way it's operating this year. Hopefully that means Knoebels is planning to properly restore it and add it to the park for good. One more amazing flat ride saved from the scrap heap. I'm particularly happy about it since according to comments I've seen elsewhere, it seems to be the old Bayern Kurve from Fun Spot Indiana...which was, I believe, purchased from Riverside Park when it became Six Flags New England...My first Bayern Kurve and among the first adult rides I ever rode. In a year like 2020 that just keeps finding new kinds of crap to throw at most of us...leave it to Knoebels to literally find a piece of my childhood rusting away in a lot and decide to fix it up.

They should sue. Cali needs a wake up call. I was hoping they were going to follow Florida's lead

Thank you @bert425! I usually get the display up within a week since I only have a week off of school before Thanksgiving. Thankfully my family are wonderful hardworking elves so I don't have to install all 40,000 lights by myself.

oh, come on. I highly doubt that anyone who posts here would be upset about Christmas lights display. ESPECIALLY pics posted by someone as an example of the kind of work he'd like to do working at a Theme Park for their Holiday displays. & @ranelson38 those displays look great. How long do they take you to put up?

If people would say , “The capital originally intended for CGA was repurposed for KI instead”, that makes more sense. But saying a coaster went to park A instead of park B... there’s absolutely no way any of us could even know that, and seems far less likely.

S&S – Sansei Technologies has sent us a press release announcing their new Spin Shot Tower concept, which can be built new or retrofit on any existing S&S tower! S&S – Sansei Technologies is excited to announce the new Spin Shot Tower! The Spin Shot takes the thrills and excitement from our 4D Free Spin coaster seat and puts it on our world-famous tower rides. For a modest investment, the Spin Shot can be retrofit on any S&S tower. Custom ride profiles can be programmed to orient the rider, face-up, face-down or even upside down during the tower ride sequence! This thrilling experience will be mechanically controlled to ensure maximum safety and thrills for all riders. S&S recognizes the current market challenges and the limited capital expense budgets most parks now face. Executive Director of Sales & Marketing, Josh Hays said, “Our CEO, Tim Timco, challenged us to develop an exciting attraction that parks could offer their customers at a modest budget. We believe our talented engineering team has met that goal. Parks want to offer their guests new and exciting experiences every year. That is a difficult task right now, but we believe our new Spin Shot Tower will allow parks with existing tower rides to reward their guests with a thrilling experience that doesn’t break the bank.” The Spin Shot is a patented product only available from S&S - Sansei Technologies. For more information about the Spin Shot Tower, you can visit the S&S website at http://s-s.com/rides/spin-shot-tower/.

Just realized I posted this TR on page 420. Score!

That's why I said "Ehhhhh" hahaha. I just think they are hard to compare in the example you are giving; and that it's not really apples to apples. But maybe it comes down to this: The state thinks very large gatherings aren't safe, even if all safety measures are followed. And, Voting 'shouldn't' be drawing the same large crowds in any given location. I'm not defending the state, just trying to understand it.

These restrictions are frankly ridiculous and will prohibit CA parks from opening for a long time. Parks around the country have shown they can operate safely in this environment. At this point, I think it will take a lawsuit and court intervention to get the parks open. Meanwhile, thousands of people will continue to be out of work and the surrounding economies will continue to suffer.

Differentiating “large” parks and “small parks” and letting them open at different times is pointless. 25% capacity would spread out guests at the same rate regardless of the size of the parks. Add this to the list of completely arbitrary guidelines set forth by governments during this mess...

@Nrthwnd, The trains are not going anywhere it's the boat ride with the whale that's going. Last week there was some news about the expansion, the Dutch high court has revealed a partly judgment that said that the park isn't allowed to expand yet. About 15 from 141 points aren't good enough but the park now has half a year to fix them, so this still hasn't come to an end.

It's also making more sense to me why Hulk got re-built and Dragons got the axe. I mean, if Universal was able to get a good deal on buying two of the same coasters at the same time for Dragons I'm sure we would have seen a very different fate for that ride... *sigh*

I wonder if they'll be able to sell 3 more towers with these to Hershey.

Great photos and recap, Bert! Glad we got to meet up. You were an awesome tour guide. I'll get started on my TR this week!

Haven't had much time to explore the new format, but I can see ALL THE EFFORT THAT WENT INTO IT! Thanks a million, Robb, (and to any 'elves' that may have assisted you). I hope to get started ASAP to begin my explorations of 'TPR 101.'

Similar topic, but out of sheer curiosity looked into Dollywood one day ticket and season pass prices since 2005 via Wayback Machine, inclusive of tax. I think they're a pretty affordable park overall. 2005: $43.50/$72 2008: $50.20/$83 2012: $60.60/$96.50 2016: $73/$122.35 2020: $88.70/$150.4 Price increases seem to be relatively consistent from 2005-2021. 2005-2012, prices went up 40% on tickets and 35% on season passes. Over a similar period from 2012-2021, we have increased 45% on tickets and 55% on season passes. Considerable investments have been made in the last 8 or so years compared to the earlier period, so this makes up for the slightly more substantial increases as of late.

Made it out to Cedar Point this past weekend, October 17th-18th with my mom and dad to visit my sister working at the park. My sister works at Dorney, but since they closed early, a bunch of full timers and seasonal workers went out to help each weekend. Some have stayed out there since the end of September, other drive back and forth each weekend. Only did the park though on the 17th. The weather was absolutely gorgeous all day, clear sky's, very comfortable temperature. It was a great day to be at the park. Attendance wise, the park seemed pretty packed. Most coasters had between an hour to hour and half wait all day. Steel Vengeance did run out of access passes by 4pm. No worries to me though, I didn't ride any of the coasters. Just walked around the park, did their trick or treat fall fest event and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the park. The park is as always, beautifully decorated and well maintained. Who ever their pumpkin supplier is, I bet they are one happy person with the amount of pumpkins that are at the park. The trick or treat fall fest event was pretty awesome. You get a card that can be used at 6 tasting locations around the park. The tasting card and all the areas that had food tasting. They also had, for an extra charge, specialty brews and booze bars. I didn't get photos for all the food that I did try, but I will still mention them. The first stop was Hugos Italian Kitchen where I tried the "Death Dog." The Death Dog was a hot dog topped with fresh jalapenos, shredded pepper jack cheese and five-alarm chili. It was good, but honestly, wasn't that hot. Next, we made our way back to Wagon Wheel Pizza where I ordered the "Fire Toasted Dessert Pizza." A dessert pizza topped with chocolate chips and marshmallow fluff, oven-toasted with drizzled raspberry sauce. This was amazing. I can't even think of words to describe it. This location was not listed on the places to go. When talking to the associate, she said this is something new they are testing for next year, and it was only available that weekend. You had the opinions of picking 1 from pulled pork, smoked ham, brisket, and Nashville hot chicken. Then you picked 1 from beans, rice or corn bread. Everything was topped off by coleslaw and pickles and barbeque sauce made inhouse. My sister and dad tried this, and it smelt amazing. Tony, if you read this, spread the word that this is a must for next year! Lastly, we ended the night by getting "Pumpkin Spiced Funnel Cake" and "Frankenstein's Fires." Pumpkin Spices Funnel Cake a a fresh deep fried funnel cake infused with pumpkin spices and topped with cream cheese frosting. Frankenstein's Fries are fresh cut fries topped with cheddar cheese, pulled pork, and candied bacon. This event was pretty cool. I definitely think this is something that the park should do every year in the fall. It is an event that can be geared towards adults and older people that might not want to do haunt. Great stay at Hotel Breakers. Love the fall decorations. Love a room with a great view!! Woodstock! Snoopy! Loved all the pumpkin decorations around the park. Nice little touches with wagons and other fall décor. Millennium Force from the train! Blue sky's over Gatekeeper. Ended the night by taking the boardwalk from the parking lot back to Breakers. Such a great location! All in all, it was a great day at the park, and overall great 2 night stay at Breakers.

Prolly in Japan

This is life in Illinois. We're everything that's wrong with California, without the view.

It’s been a bit since I got out of the house – doing our best to stay as safe as possible during these crazy times. but when an acquaintance from TPR, Condor, messaged me that he and his Dad were swinging thru Texas on a quick Theme Park trip and was I interested in joining them for a day? I jumped at the chance and said, Yes! And booked my reservation for Yesterday. I knew it was going to be crowded – FrightFest always is – and recommended that yes, it was a good idea to purchase Flash Pass. I never buy Flash Pass, since SFFT is my home park, but said that if he does purchase, I’m totally in (it’s cheaper the more people, and we’d likely need it). How correct I was on that! I’ve not seen the park so packed in years. Knew it would be bad from the moment we walked in, but the crowds got bigger and bigger as the day went on, and by the time the fog machines kicked in all over the park (~6pm), forget social distancing. There were just way too many people to even attempt that (despite the many signs, and security guards holding signs all thruout the park. By 7pm, the lines for food/drinks – which had been long-ish thruout the day – became unbearable (hour + waits). .and it’s not that many places were closed. They were mostly all open. . there were just a LOT of people in the park. I’m sure that factoring in that Gov. Abbott just this past week relaxed restrictions that included Theme Parks – allowing to operate at 75% capacity – had a lot to do with how crowded it was. But mainly I suspect that it’s simply closer to Halloween, and people just really want to get out and have some fun regardless of Covid. At least pretty much everyone WAS wearing face coverings/masks everywhere. Still lots of hand sanitizer avail everywhere too. . . so felt safe enough, even without really any social distancing happening. I had a fantastic day, and very much enjoyed the company (another of Condor’s friends from Austin also drove to meet up for a while). I’ll have comments among the pictures – but just a couple of quick notes: “FrightFest” is not the branding in 2020 for SFFT at least. They are calling it “Hallowfest” – and just know there are no actual “haunts” available. None of them even appeared to have been set up. Tho there is tons of fantastic theming thruout the park, and they are making liberal use of Fog-machines thruout several areas. there are also no Scare-actors roaming the park – instead, they have put them behind fenced areas (or scenes), and so there is socially distanced interaction with the Scare Actors. Honestly? I *greatly* prefer this way. LOVED this – even tho in areas like by the waterfalls, having “scenes” on both sides of the path, made for a huge crush of folks all crammed in tightly together. I guess to make up for the lack of haunts, SFFT brought in what they are calling the "Freaky Car Show" - which had 10 or so "freaky" cars, to see. Majority were together in a queued off area in Los Festivales, but a few others were sprinkled thruout the park. Most were recreations, but the "moderator" did tell me that 3 are "real" - the Flash Gorden skimmer, the Men in Black car, and the Batcycle. Kinda cool. in addition, there were horror actors coming in every weekend to do meet & greets and have panel discussions thruout the day. (the ones yesterday were Ray Park (Darth Maul!), and a few from the Resident Evil films (tho I didn't really recognize them). They are now operating most coasters at full capacity, having installed plastic “guards” between the row queues. (the exception being Wonder Woman, which is still only loading a handful of seats per train – and is only operating two trains while the 3rd is being refurbed). The real downside of this, is that they have removed WW from Flashpass because capacity is so limited now. So if you go, don’t expect to be able to use FP for this ride – stand by only, and with literally ~8 seats available across two trains. . . even a shortish line is going to take ~25 minutes. Even the flats (such as Disc-o, Joker, the swings), are back to operating at almost full capacity. Maybe 2 seats open between patrons, instead of what they had been doing on my visit a month ago – were they were loading less than ½ the ride to enforce lots of space between folks. in addition, the Indoor and enclosed attractions are back to operating as well: Pirates of the Deep Sea (indoor Shooter) was operating (and we would have ridden it if it hadn’t broken down while we were in line), and the Ferris Wheel (with the small mostly enclosed pods) was operating too. The shows are back – at least in the outdoor theaters. We passed a Dia De Los Muertos band performing in Los Festivales theater, as well as a Horror Themed Cover band performing in the big amphitheater over in CrackAxle. Both shows had really good crowds watching every time we passed them. The park has gone “cashless” – if you want to purchase anything in a store, you either have to charge it, or use a card that you get from converting your cash at several locations thruout the park. This didn’t impact me at all, and actually helped use my “snack” credit on the dining plan, since the lines in the actual stores (as opposed to food service places) were pretty much non-existant. Speaking of food service. . . they are heavily promoting Online Ordering for food (tho as noted above, many folks were waiting in the walk up lines as well as in the online ordering) It really was crowded tho - even with 4 of us on the Flash Pass? In total we only got in 10 rides using Flash pass (and 15 rides total in a 10 hour + day). . frightening to think how bad the day would have been *without* Flash Pass: Goliath x2 Iron Rattler x2 Superman x2 Poltergeist X1 Pandemonium x1 Batman x1 (standby line) Skyscreamer x1 Wonder Woman x2 (not on Flashpass) Bugs Whitewater Rapids (flume) x1 Supervillain Swings x1 (standby line while waiting for Iron Rattler flash pass time) Train x1 (full lap of park, since only CrackAxle station is operating) k. . on to pictures! I'm here! Tho it's not "FrightFest" this year. . rather it's "Hallowfest". . hmmmmm. . . . wonder what the differences are? guess I'll find out. I should mention here, the mask I'm wearing today, was a surprise in the mail gift from @Nrthwnd (thanks Bill! it's an awesome mask, and very appropriate for "Hallowfest") my reservation was at 11 - made weeks ago, to meet up with Condor. Tho the park didn't open until Noon today - weird, tho I had checked with SF customer service, and they told me that they open the gates an hour early to help with Social Distancing. So I didn't worry about it, and sure enough, when I arrived slightly after 11, the lot was open (and already getting pretty full!). They also had the entire front part of the park, Los Festivales area, open, and were operating both rides there: Goliath (Batman clone) and Boomerang. Condor and his Dad had already headed over to the Flash Pass booth, and picked up the "watch", and I met up with them there, and we noted that Wonder Woman wasn't on the Flash Pass. We went back over to the booth, and asked - to be told that due to the limited capacity on the ride, they weren't offering WW on Flash Pass at this time. Which is a shame, as Condor really wanted to get multiple rides on it. We decided that we'd "rope drop" WW, once that was let loose at Noon, but since we still had over 40 minutes before that, we'd head over to Goliath and make use of the Flash Pass for the 1st time to get a ride. This early, it didn't really save us more than 10 minutes, but hey. . it left enough time for me to go fix the issue that was going on with my photo-pass (which had stopped working on my prior trip in late August, and still get to be near the front of the Rope drop by the Spassburg Train Station, so we could head to WW). the photo booth wasn't operating at Goliath (I guess because the park wasn't officially open yet, before Noon), but since we headed to fix my Photo-pass right after we got off of it - they "fixed" it by giving me a new card/account. . which really is what they should have done 6 weeks ago so I didn't lose *those* pics - I knew that I could ask them to find the Goliath pics, as the camera had flashed. I must say, I *LOVE* the filter options available for Frightfest online. Multiple for most all rides that have a photo op, in addition to the "standard" ride photo! spooky! Since I had my photopass fixed now, as we headed to rope-drop area, we stopped to pose for an official photo by some of the decorations that were up. I was surprised when the photog told us we could, and should, remove our masks for the picture if we wanted. There was no one near us this early, so went for it. so yes, the maskless pics (the only ones of the day) were taken here, by an official SF Photographer who told us we could Rope Drop happened, and we bee-lined it to Wonder Woman, and got on in ~10 minutes for our 1st ride. As we were getting off, Condor's friend texted that he arrived, and so he headed to meet up with him at the front gate, while his Dad and I got back in line (which had lengthened, but was still not too bad yet). Remember, no Flash Pass, so we wanted to get in at least 2 rides now before the line filled in (later it was running easily a 3 hour queue). Condor and his friend came back, and with a few excuse me's - came down and met us where we were in the line. This time we had waited ~35 minutes. . still, not terrible when capacity is ~8 seats for every two trains! Nobody had issue with them joining us, since the two of us would have ended up in 1 train anyways, so ended up as 4 didn't change the wait time for anyone. So we got rides in the very back, and in the very front - so Condor & his Dad could experience the different rides you get depending where you sit. then we headed over towards Superman (which had been down, but came up while we were in line), Skyscreamer, and over to Iron Rattler - making use of the Flash Pass. which by this point (just after 12:30 was extremely obvious was needed - we had to "excuse me" thru probably 150 people to get thru the Iron Rattler line, to get to the point in the queue were you can take the path to get to Flash Pass queue! really! ). I think the Flash Pass time was ~40 minute wait here, tho later, it would be 1:45 and we had to kill that time before we could get in line (where again, we had to "excuse me" our way thru the back end of a full queue to get to the Flash Pass entrance). Some of the decorations up in CrackAxle. They didn't have the train station shut down, which implied to me that there was not going to be a zombie horde pouring out of the train as Fright-Fests always has. So I suspected no Roaming Fright actors later (which was correct). these decorations are awesome tho. . most of them belched smoke and some fire, too. from when we passed Iron Rattler on our way to get some food (while killing time before our Flash Pass pinged we were ready). Shortly after I took this pic? the line spilled out of the entrance, and around the corner on the right! the 4 of us In line to get food - at Totally Kickin Chicken. Was a good choice, as usual, the food was very good (in particular for a theme park). The wait wasn't fun - 20-30 minutes, I think. . but later on, the lines all increased exponentially. Showing off our Godzilla shirts. . that's how we knew we'd get along and decided to hang out at the park. . we both love the Big G (and no, we didn't coordinate, we just both happened to show up in Godzilla shirts LOL) From the Kickin Chicken ordering line. THIS IS THE LINE for Roadrunner Express !! Well out of the queue and down the walk way. (this ride does offer Flash Pass, but when Condor looked, it was almost a 2 hour Flash Pass wait, so instead we decided we'd use our next avail. booking for Poltergeist once we ate and rode Rattler, since that one was a much more reasonable 20 minutes or so, giving us time to eat). the show going on at the theater behind us while we waited in line. Mainly 80's coversongs. . . but they were decent (and the guitar player was wearing a KISS shirt). they had a decent crowd - and way more watching a later show when we came by. Loved they were all performing in facemasks. yes, LOL, they are called "Wicked Mixx" (that's TWO "xxes" in Mixx). hmm. . .theme park friendly? HAHAHA. . just "sexy" enough to be entertianing! After our Rattler ride, we headed towards Poltergeist. THIS is the Flash Pass Retail spot, as we passed by it. Yes, the line goes all the way outside the queue, and wraps around! Folks saw the lines and immediately went to Flash Pass to purchase it - and it doesn't appear they were limiting either, based on how many folks we saw wearing the "watches" as the afternoon went on. (and they had raised the price too. . when Condor picked it up at 11, it was ~$80 per person - it was $95 per person when we passed here). and to be clear - none of these folks are in line to pick up the Membership Skip the Line passes per visit - there is a separate table for that up near the front gates. These are all folks getting Flash Pass over by Poltergeist. . love what they did with the open space in front of the queue! after Poltergiest, we used the Flash Pass to get an almost Walk On on Bugs - the line was huge, so not sure why this let us book and get on right away. . but it did. the Spitting Dragon was really drenching everyone, but what really got us were the kids manning the "spray hoses" near the end of the ride - in particular one hit that landed *right* in the crotch of our 4th team member - he kept saying he looked like he pissed himself (which it kinda did). .but was funny as hell. love the photo "wrap" option, even if it cuts me off in the back row. (the grouper was going to put us in our own log, but with the line so long - and us skipping said line - I offered to just take the back two rows of the log passing). this one is better tho. Condor's friend hadn't been with us when we rode Goliath earlier, so we made a trip back to the front of the park to grab a reride on it. Since B&M, we went for Back Row, left side - and it really had warmed up from earlier in the day. It's running great, and is supper snappy. I think the only Batman clone that runs better is the one at SFOG (and Condor agreed with on that). In regards to choosing seats - I do want to mention, we had no issue getting to sit where we requested, on any coaster where they were assigning seats. A polite request was always met with "sure" (*the only exception was a reride on Superman. . where the grouper insisted on sending us to row 7, instead of row 8 when we asked for the back (B&M coaster). . . but after they cycled thru all the trains fpr disinfecting - they were running all 3, and the line was still insane! (thank goodness for Flashpass, even tho we had to wait for our time) - row 8 was still empty, so we just moved back to to last row when we boarded. enjoying the decorations around the park as we roamed. no we didn't bother with Boomerang, even tho it IS the scary season! A pic of the separating screens they've installed in most of the coaster stations (this one is Goliath). with these "separators" installed, they are filling every row in the coasters now. a pic of the Parking Lot from Goliath's station. yes, even tho a lot of spots are blocked with cones? there are still a LOT of people here! SPOOKY on ride from Superman which was running fantastic, and the night ride was well worth the wait. it was around 6:30 here, and the scare actors were starting to come out. And the smoke machines started going into overdrive around the park. it wouldn't be dark for about another hour, but took advantage of the light to get some pics showcasing how they are set up for frights. Fenced off "scenes" with the scare actors roaming within these enclosed areas. and yes, they DID interact with the park guests. . coming up behind to hover in selfies, and "attacking" those who got close to the fence. we roamed around enjoying the sites, while waiting for our time to come ready for Iron Rattler (a dusk ride): the queue time on our Gold Flash Pass was over 1:30, so since the Gold is supposed to reduce time by 1/2? that meant standard was a 3 hour queue. From where we entered with the Flash Pass, and looking down? Yep, they are using the ENTIRE queue - and tho there is some social distancing attempted in this pic? that's still a LOT of people. the Iron Rattler Station showing off the plexiglass shields between rows. they were running both trains, fully loaded. (and it still had that long of a line) we had booked another ride on Superman, but it was going to over an hour wait, so decided we'd take a lap on the train (only running one engine, so it took two cycles). it was close to 7 here, I think. . you can see the smoke starting, and some of the CrackAxle decorations from our place in the Train line. Daredevil Dive is looking great. . . . so wish it was open already ooooo. . they added Fire effects to it! at first I thought it was just for Hallowfest, but the gas attachments appear to be Steampunk themed - AND tehy are thruout the ride in multiple pipes. I think this ride is going to have fire effects! on the train - they are loading every row - with plexiglass installed between each row. Really cuts capacity tho, as many rows are actually two benches facing each other - and with Covid, if someone is in a row? that means it's "full" regardless of how many are sitting on one bench. Sun was setting fast, and you can see from the train pics, how dark it got while we were on our loop around the park: blurry, since train was moving. . but the back side of one of the Scenes. I liked how the scare actor came over to the back fence to threaten the train passengers as we went by. so much beautiful track! don't be fooled by this apparent lack of line at Joker - it was pulling 2 hour plus lines all day, so we skipped it. (we did ride the blue swings tho!. .that was about a 25 minute wait) DareDevil Dive from the train. . this is going to look amazing when running and the train passes it (and you can see some of the fire effects in that "venting pipe" on the right. exiting the train - fire effect from a different "Venting pipe" see? all around the ride. . .these Fire effect really look to be part of the lighting/theming package! the ones on the main sign, did this every 20 seconds or so. . giant fireballs! it was time for our night ride on Superman, but the ride had gone down. It's B&M, so rather than cancel our booking and get in a long queue for something else, we decided to wait it out for about 30 minutes. . . but we wanted to get off our feet for a while. So decided to head to Sangerfest Halle to grab a bench (every other bench/table we passed was occupied since so busy). Turned out Sangerfest Halle was pretty packed too, but we did eventually find a bench to sit on for 20 minutes until we got a notice Superman was back up and headed that way. this is a shot of one of the scenes in the area by Bug's WhiteWater Rapids - again, the scare actors contained behind barriers, but messing with folks who got near enough to mess with. The area really does look quite spectacular! once we got back to Superman, Condor immediately booked us a night ride for Iron Rattler. Only to have the park do something insanely shitty: They had announced that several of the rides would close early for the big fireworks at 10:30 (it was only ~8:30 now), and that included the Train, Iron Rattler, Wonder Woman, and Superman. In fact, by the time we got to Superman for our ride, they had closed off the Standby line (to allow them to drain the crowd before the fireworks). But we were able to use Flash Pass line to get our reservation, since the ride had been down. but when we got off Superman, Condor got a notice on the Flash Pass that Iron Rattler was now closed - and our reservation had been deleted. We headed over that way to ask - and along the way, I saw a senior supervisor and stopped to query her why they would cancel reservations? I understand closing the line off to future bookings, but since the reservations were booked for it on the Flash Pass, they need to honor those if the ride is still cycling (ie: not down for mechanical). . she agreed, and said go see what they tell us at Iron Rattler, and then if not satisfied go talk to Flash Pass office. we got to Iron Rattler, and sure enough, lots of folks still in queue, and the ride cycling. . . . The Flash Pass folks just happened to be coming out the entrance, so Condor talked to them and we basically got the "im sorry, we werent' sure when we needed to close" and "we're not sure why it deleted reservations, but go talk to Flash Pass office" - because honestly, they had come to the park for night rides on Iron Rattler, and tho we had gotten a "dusk" ride, we had a night reservation locked in - it's not right they cancelled it. as we were starting to walk to the Flash Pass booth, I heard a ride op say to the Flash Pass folks - your Supervisor is not gonna be thilled with y'all! So I stopped and asked if a lot of people had the same issue we did, and they said yes - and were sending them all to Flash Pass to deal with it. Not gonna go into the whole thing. . but will just say that we ended up in the Flash Pass queue behind a Hispanic family that was complaining (and since I understand Spanish - hey, I grew up in Texas - I piped in and said - are y'all specifically referring to an Iron Rattler reservation being cancelled? And they enthusiastically agreed (they had been waiting almost 2 hours only for their reservation to disappear). . so with a big group now (5 of them, 3 of us), the counter guy went to get a Supervisor to talk to us. not thrilled with how it went down - terrible that they cancelled reservations from those who had them (and couldn't offer Skip the Line passes for Wonder Woman, since the Flash Pass queue wasn't being used today) - *but*. . . very pleased with the customer service the Supervisor provided, and I think it was a better solution than I could have hoped for. I believe Condor was happy to accept the resolution too, even tho We really wanted a true night ride on Iron Rattler. so just heads up for anyone going. . the park was "open" till 10, with fireworks at 10:30, but two big rides (Superman & Iron Rattler), lock the queue much earlier than that. once resolution happened, it was ~9:15 and we were near the front of the park anyways. . . (and Condor and his Dad had big day today heading to Dallas - and I had an hour 1/2 drive to get home still). . so we said our goodbyes and they headed out. Had a great time meeting and hanging with them, and really glad he had reached out to tell me he was gonna be at SFFT so I could drive down to meet em. was a great day, even with ending issues, and the gigantic crowd. I decided I'd wander thru the "Freaky Car Show" - since there was no line at this point (and I had taken a few pics around the park earlier in the day of the cars). so here's the "Freaky" cars that were on display. the big "Soul Harvest" scare zone at the front of the park - again, surrounded by fence, with the scare actors within) the Stilt performers probably appreciate not having to keep an eye out for little ones running beneath them! dark, but he nodded "ok" when I asked if I could use flash (ALWAYS ASK. . don't want to blind the performers) SPOOKY and with that, I headed out. way, way too busy, but had a wonderful time, and as noted at the start? I actually greatly prefer the scare actors being in scenes instead of running around freely. BOO!

The excessively padded trains were a warning to unwary riders.

While it sucks we can't ride any rides, I am still very glad to see Knott's putting on these food events and selling out. I am sure they are pulling in quite a bit of money. I anticipate they will do a Holiday/Christmas event too, and they will probably just keep doing these until they can fully open. Good for them, it's genius.

I was at the park on the 10th with a co-worker/friend. Two ladies in their 50's blowing off steam after having students back in our rooms for the first time in almost 7 months. To add to what Dan posted: I think they did a great job figuring out a way to do JL with the line and only one party per car, each person asked to use hand sanitizer right before the ride. The scare zones were kind of lame. More like scare shows, but as a teacher I give the park an absolute A for effort and attempting to keep some of that Halloween atmosphere. I think they did the best they could under the circumstances. They alternated shows on the Palace porch so they happened pretty frequently. Pretty much all rides were open except the obvious, water rides and carousel. A couple things like Superman and Colossus opened a couple hours after park open and Bugs closed at 8, a couple hours early. The only ride that stayed closed the whole time that shouldn't have been was Excalibur. We got awesome night rides on all 3 woodies. Screaming Eagle still running great after all these years. She is the grand dame of the park. About 40 min each from line entry to exit on Eagle and Thunder. Boss would have been easily an hour , but I had two skip the line passes and we used them there. Freeze on one train this night as well and I didn't hike up there to check but the line must have been atrocious. Mine train had an hour wait at one point but as soon as Bugs closed and the people with smaller kids left it dropped down to about 20 min. We didn't mind the crowds and wait times because we were just hanging out with no agenda and didn't really care about missing rides. Just enjoying NOT being in front of a computer. Used the mobile app to order food at JB's and it worked great! Would be happy to keep that feature after the virus that shall not be named. Also, instead of having set times for lunch and dinner they simply had it set that you had to wait 3 hours between the two meals, with snacks being available anytime. Finally! I have been waiting for them to do something like this with the food hours and have never understood why it isn't like this all the time. It totally helps spread out the food crowds instead of having rushes at certain times. Hope they keep this as well.

The rumor was they also wanted the county to be in the "yellow category" OC is still far away. Source for below: https://covid19.ca.gov/safer-economy/

^Agreed. I think the newer Intamin lapbars are actually the best steel coaster restraint currently being produced. When comparing overhead lapbars on Taron and Blue Fire, I found the Intamin ones to be lighter, less bulky, and less prone to coming down further during the ride.

Yeah you can see why it's the kind of thing Six Flags doesn't do often. A ton of labor involved. Makes you appreciate places that do it way more often. Then again it wouldn't be near as intensive if you did it before they fall apart.