Rai Fox

Crap...I'd missed that there was an accident involving one. Those rides are all new in the last year or two, aren't they? That's not looking great if one already had an accident. If what I'm reading now is correct it looks like the restraints opened on the girl mid-ride. If that's the case, maybe Knoebels is waiting on a revision from the manufacturer to keep that from happening again? I'd hate to see them never get to open the ride. Maybe next year with some luck.

Maybe I did! I'm pretty sure he's been there in previous years running that ride, too, he looks very familiar, but I've never had anyone at Knoebels complain about snapping or slow the flyers. Maybe you caught him in a bad mood or with a manager breathing down his neck? No way to know, I guess.

Two weeks ago, a few friends and I spent a long weekend hitting Morey's Piers and Knoebels. The first part of that trip is in the Morey's Piers thread...continuing here! Wildwood and Morey's had turned out to be pretty fantastic; I loved the park and the area in general. It wouldn't be easy to improve on the weekend from there...but there's one place that we knew we could count on for that! The /real/ happiest place on earth! The drive from Wildwood to Knoebels wasn't fantastic; I wanted to avoid going through Philedelphia and risking city traffic, but the route around ended up taking quite a bit longer than the gps had estimated, so it was almost 8:00 Sunday evening when I pulled into Knoebels with a couple of impatient, grouchy guys ready to get out of the car. Well, impatient and grouchy right up until about here. Because at this point, you're at Knoebels, all is right with the world, and you just can't be unhappy anymore We got ourselves checked into the campground, hoping to get my tent set up before the sun finished setting. Pulled into my usual site - I've had RI-12 every year since the first time I visited back in 2007! - unloaded, and started setting up...only to find out my tent had a broken pole. Of course it did, it had a one year warranty and it was almost exactly 13 months old at that point. I'd checked it out the weekend before but somehow it had split on the trip down. So much for being set up before nightfall! We headed to the Knoebels camp store to see if they had anything I could use to replace or reinforce the pole, or if worst came to worst I knew they usually sell tents there. As it turned out, they had the best thing short of a replacement pole. If this won't fix it... We were running out of sunlight but I couldn't resist hanging around to watch Twister for a few minutes. You sort of have to stand here and wait for the train to roar by at least once or twice before you walk past. With the tent pole mummified in duct tape, we got everything set up by just after 9:00, and headed down into the park for a late dinner. Unfortunately, while I'd made sure the park was open until 10:00 on Monday, I'd only assumed that it was open as late on the weekend night before. It wasn't, and that left us no options for food besides snacks from the camp store. It's not as if there's a lot of food in the Elysburg area...wait! There IS something. Salvation! I'll take Sheetz over most "real" fast food chains any day, so I wasn't too upset. The line at Sheetz was out the door so we didn't look to be the only people in the same situation. Food was more than decent as usual for the chain, and then it was time to head back and get some sleep before the fun the next day. Well...not quite as much sleep as I would have liked. Thanks to our "we don't need sunscreen" brilliance at Morey's, I looked like a boiled lobster and there was no getting comfortable in a sleeping bag. Eventually, sleep happened, and we all got out of our sleeping bags with considerably more enthusiasm than most mornings bring. It's hard to want to sleep in when you can hear the rides testing so close by. Tent pole all but made of duct tape did the job just fine, tent's holding together good as new. Home, for a couple too-short days Twister juuuust peeking between the trees here Time to wander down into the park for breakfast at the International Food Court! We got a good look at the newest ride at the park on the way in. It looks ready to open! It never opened. I love the quiet before the park opens. Where else but Knoebels can you wander around to watch the park wake up for the day? Almost no one here! That's promising as far as crowds and lines later. It's not the best food at Knoebels but for a few dollars, not a bad breakfast by any means. ...and I only now realized Fluff had a Full Throttle with breakfast. Of course he did... With our stomachs quite satisfied, we wandered the park for a bit, and picked up our wristbands. Still a half hour to go before opening, so we had to make a choice. We could go wait by Flying Turns and try to get a jump on that line, or we could kill time with Mini Golf. The park still didn't look crowded at all, so we took a gamble on not having to worry about lines and went with the latter option. Knoebels mini-golf is just the same as so many of their attractions; it doesn't look like much from outside but it's so much better than you'd expect. They have some incredibly creative and devious holes; this is definitely not a Par 3 kind of course. Inviting! It looks so easy! It's not. This hole is /mean/. I've seen more shots bounce through the underside of the mechanism than actually make it through a barrel And this one is just evil. Balls end up pinballing /everywhere/ While everything was opening up for the morning, I watched a chipmunk making a home for himself in here. Bet he got a rather rude surprise soon after... By time we finished, the park was open. Flying Turns did have quite a line built up, so we decided to come back later and see if it was shorter. Instead, we'd start with one of the best rides a̶t̶ ̶K̶n̶o̶e̶b̶e̶l̶s̶ anywhere. The ride before ours, no one was even /trying/. Nevermind snapping, most of them looked afraid to even get any height out of their tubs. We made up for that when it was our turn. I don't claim to be particularly amazing at snapping flyers, but this ended up being the best run I've ever had even at Knoebels. The breeze was just perfect, and I got the most intense snapping I can remember out of it. Great start to the day! So how to make it even better? The obvious way. No caption needed. It's Phoenix. You already know. We waited just a few cycles for the front seat this time, and...it's kind of pointless to say that Phoenix was running amazingly. It's always running amazingly. I'm not going to try to describe Phoenix. You've been on it and understand, or you haven't and can't possibly. But you need to. From there, we figured we'd do the antique cars, since Knoebels has one of the best courses for them anywhere, running right through Phoenix's structure. A bit in front of us in line, we were reminded of yet another reason why Knoebels is the best. Knoebels has half a dozen rides labeled as dog friendly. This pup seemed to love her car ride! So cute to see things like this. How many ride ops does it take to change a spark plug? Everyone wanted to head to Black Diamond next, I didn't have any complaints. It's an odd ride, not quite a coaster, and the story is incoherent, but the scenes and tricks are well done. I've always been a bit fascinated by the Centralia disaster, so I definitely appreciate that scene. Even the control panels have a bit of cute theming Of course at that point we were next to the log flume. Unfortunately it was a bit cold for a flume, and no one else was willing to ride. ...but the only thing worse than riding a log flume alone when it's too cold, is not riding a log flume at all... So I rode alone. Since there was no line, they didn't pair me with anyone else, so there was no weight in the log and I barely got wet anyway. Win-win, really. Knoebels is one of my favorite log flumes, and it's still up there, but I think Zoom Phloom just edges it out. Still great though. It was time to hit some of the flats towards the middle of the park, then! Disappointingly, especially after the crazy awesome Tilt-a-whirl at Morey's two days before, we had no luck with this one. Got our car stuck just swaying back and forth almost immediately and just couldn't break out of it, no real spinning at all. On the other hand, the teacups were a very pleasant surprise this time! Normally I don't particularly care for this type of teacup ride since you can't spin them yourselves, but we must have had the weight balance just right, or got the lucky cup, we were spinning like mad the entire time. Not the wildest Paratrooper around (I'm pretty sure Funspot in Orlando takes that award) but the setting still makes it one of the better ones! The Paratrooper was unfortunately where we ran into our only negative experience for the day. The Saturday before we were at the park had been a Pride event there, and while we were waiting in line for the Paratrooper, the ride operator turned to a teenager nearby and just out of nowhere came up with. "Ugh, You know saturday was 'fag fest'" and just went into an angry homophobic tirade about "the gays" and how they "convert" other people to "being homo." It just got worse from there. I know central PA is deep conservative country, and visit there accepting that I'm going to run into less-than-tolerant attitudes, but this was pretty disgusting stuff, and the language involved was...well, I'm sure you can imagine. Worse, this was all delivered at volume with a TON of children of various ages right next to him the entire time. I'm a bit ashamed that I didn't say anything then, but...again, central PA...I don't know that making a scene would have been a great idea. All in all just not the kind of thing I'm too thrilled to see at at such a wonderful place. Moving on from that...the Haunted Mansion. Still the best classic dark ride I know of, and Knoebels is taking care of it as well as ever. Either I'm incredibly unobservant and had missed more than I thought over the last few years, or there are a few new or changed scenes in there this year, too. It's great to have new surprises (and old ones. Even knowing exactly when it's coming, that damn truck...every time). Then it was time for lunch! We'd missed out on the Alamo the night before, so we headed there now. I ordered one of my favorites from the park that I have to have every year, the Lake of Gravy. There's a very tasty turkey sandwich and great crispy fries under there, too, but...really, it's a lake of gravy. Back to the rides! We figured a little time with something calmer would be good after eating. Power Surge! I love it but maybe not right after a meal. I have an iron stomach but Hunter and Fluff didn't feel quite so willing to test their own, so we headed to the Skyride. The perfect way to get a little downtime. No pictures because I can't stand pulling my phone out on a skyride, I'm always certain I'll manage to drop it. You'll have to settle for the other 10,000 beautiful pictures looking down on the park from there. We took a look at Impulse after but it was running a single car, and the queue was entirely full. I didn't want to do the math on that wait but it was a definite "nope." Great coaster but not something I was willing to spend hours in line for. Impulse's car. Singular. One. Not good. I can be talked onto a ferris wheel, but I'm not exactly enthusiastic about them (I'm fine with heights if I'm in a restraint! When it's open seating, it's not great...). No one showed any particular interest this time so I gratefully walked on by. You really can't take a bad photo of a Wave Swinger. They're just such photogenic rides! Knoebels' is a bit different (Zamperla Flying Carousel as opposed to the more common Zierer Wave Swingers); it spins the opposite direction and seems to have a slightly more pronounced vertical wave motion to it. I think I prefer the Zierer models, but it's a slim margin; they're all wonderful. Satellite! I love this ride, even if the dismal capacity makes it a poor fit for most parks these days. I'm just glad there's somewhere I can still ride one any time! The bruises from being thrown all over the cabin when you ride alone are more than worth it. I wish I remembered the name of the ride operator on the Whipper, or taken pictures of him. He was just amazing, so much enthusiasm and endless energy. Getting riders all psyched up, chatting with people in the queue like he'd known them for years, insisting on high fives from all the kids, just absolutely radiating pure fun. A person like that running a ride makes it into something entirely new; definitely the standout person for the day there. It was pretty clear that he didn't get up and go to work at the park, he was loving being there as much as any of the rest of us. And then it was time for the Carousel. Normally not a ride I'd bother with, buuuuut...we're at Knoebels. This is the time I'm finally going to get the brass ring! Definitely this time! ...I didn't get the brass ring. I'm pretty good at catching the iron ones, I rarely miss one on a pass, but I've never had the luck to actually catch the brass one in all the years I've been to Knoebels. Next time! We decided to head over and check out the line on Flying Turns, and found it with the queue about half full. Good enough! The ride crew was going for speed records too; definitely the most efficiently I've seen the more-than-slightly-complex station run. We were on in fifteen minutes or so, and as always it was a great ride. Okay. Now it's time. I've never seen Power Surge seem to get a ton of attention when people start talking about their favorite flat rides, but I'm not sure I understand why; they're absolutely one of my favorites. I used to feel like the one at Knoebels had a lot of potential but didn't run quite fast enough or entirely deliver on its promise, but since it was rehabbed a couple years ago, that's stopped being the case at all. It's noticeably faster and wilder now than I remember it being before. No one else was willing to ride it, so I was alone, and as anyone who's ridden a Power Surge knows, riding alone in an unbalanced car just makes it all the crazier. So much spinning in every direction. Have I mentioned that I love Power Surge? I love Power Surge. Downdraft had been listed on the website as being closed for a while, but we seemed to get there on the lucky day; it was a very pleasant surprise to see it running. It's such a simple ride but still so much fun; the upward swings are so powerful it just feels like the ride is trying it's hardest to throw you off. Intense and not to be missed. Then it was time for something I'd been neglecting for years upon years. I had to pull up TPR on my phone and find The Pierogi Map to make sure I had the right place...and yes, the pierogis really are every they've been said to be here. We all bit into our first one, choirs of angels sang, no one said a word more until they were gone... Since we wanted to eat so much more, I just got one order to split between the three of us there, but if I let myself I could have gone through a few orders myself. Never going to Knoebels without getting them again. No one should be allowed to miss them; I can't believe I did for so long! Then it was time to go black squirrel spotting on the pioneer train. No squirrels this time; there didn't look to be much if any food out at the feeders they keep at the turnaround for some reason. The park was running three trains, which seemed like overkill given the small crowds, but no complaints! It's one of the best train rides at any park I know, between the views underneath Twister and the long leg out into the woods. It's very peaceful and pretty out here. And then, finally, it was time for the best coaster in the park. <3 Okay, is it safe now to come out from under my desk now to continue? I can still hear the shock and outrage... But yes, I still put Twister over Phoenix, sacrilege or no. That's not to say I don't love Phoenix, I absolutely do! I'm just far more a fan of wooden coasters with more complex layouts, lots of twists and laterals and all. Twister is pretty much built for me. I love how much of it stands out as just a little different; the split lift hill, the curved station inside the helixes... This. C'mon, this is awesome. It was running great, too; it's definitely gotten some retracking in the last few years. A few years ago it was more than a bit punishing to ride, but the last couple years have been much better. It's not what I'd call smooth, exactly, but I don't think I'd want Twister to be entirely smooth. It's just a bit out of control, and that's perfect for it. For me, Twister's up there with Boulder Dash and the Beast as one of my favorites...and like those two, its indescribably better at night, too! But that would have to wait for later. I don't have pictures for the next couple hours and exactly what we did when is a bit of a blur, but we did hit almost everything in the park, and a few repeats, before we settled in for some Fascination. I'm not particularly good or lucky at that game in general, but I racked up quite a few wins that time! Missed winning the cover-all game by one light that I just could not get a ball into though.... Last year I'd finally saved up enough tickets to buy the toaster oven that I'd said I was going to win years and years back (I refused to buy one for years; I was GOING to get one from Fascination...and I did!), so I need to pick a new goal to save up for. Couldn't find anything I needed that time though, but it'll be a while before I have a lot of tickets again anyway! Fluff /really/ wanted Mexican (as always), and as much as I wanted Cesari's for dinner I was outvoted 2-1, so we headed back to the International Food Court. I got nachos and cornbread, and while they weren't anything that would impress me at a real mexican restaurant, they were definitely enjoyable, and I got a massive pile of nachos and toppings, more than I could even finish. I can't say I remember what the others ordered there. We were running out of time, especially since we had to get a very early start in the morning, but there were still things I needed to do! One was get another ride on Power Surge (Have I mentioned that I love Power Surge? ) which like so many rides is just so much better at night. The crowds by that point had thinned out to the point where rides were waiting for enough people to show up for them to run, so I ended up waiting at least a few minutes just sitting there in the ride before a few more people joined. I didn't mind. Just relaxing, enjoying the lights and atmosphere. Once they did, I got an even better ride than earlier; as soon as the cars unlocked mine dropped almost entirely sideways; it wasn't resisting spinning at all, and it didn't start at any point in the ride. The park was so quiet at that point it was almost eerie, and made for a pretty unusual setting to be flung all around on that kind of ride. We headed back to Phoenix as the sun was going down, and this time I took the third row, not that I used the seat for much after the lift hill. That's definitely the row to go for. Speaking of Fascination prizes, I'm almost certain I remember seeing these lions there a couple years back! Now they're apparently keeping Phoenix's operators company. They were there last year, I think; the wolf is a new addition to the pride. Knoebels' zoo, coming soon! Nope. No closer to opening than it had been in the morning. It's not a ride I was too set on getting on, but it would have been nice. Back to Twister for the required front seat night ride, then! Yep, best coaster in the park. Sorry. And then one more tradition to keep up before the night was over. I always make Fandango my last ride of the night. I can't quite put my finger on why I love Fandango so much, especially having ridden "better" pendulum swings like Black Widow and "It" not long before, but Fandango's still great. It's one of those rides that for me is less a thrill ride now but almost calm. Not that it's not exciting at all, it /is/ still a great thrill ride despite being on the smaller end for the type, but the rhythm of it, the sounds, everything just puts me in this blissfully relaxed state. As usual for Knoebels, the setting helps too; I love swinging up into the trees. The problem with taking a picture of Fandango at night is that it means I'm not ON Fandango. I should fix that. I'll frequently spend the last half hour or so of the day just re-riding Fandango until the last ride of the night, before heading back to the campground, but we had less time than usual this time. Hunter needed to be back in Rhode Island by 2 the next day, so we headed out without waiting for closing this time. Worse, we had to skip staying up late to make S'mores, so we could get an early enough start. So sad! We didn't have much trouble sleeping after that, and were up at 6 in the morning to get showered, grab a quick breakfast (Sheetz again!), and head on back. Overall, it was a great trip, as always with Knoebels, but we definitely didn't have the amount of time we usually try to get there, and I won't try to compress Wildwood and Knoebels into one short trip again. Fortunately I can make up for that next year. Knoebels is offering week long cottage rentals now, and current plans are to grab a big group of friends and rent one of the nicer cottages sometime next June. I figure there's plenty to do within day-trip distance of there so we can use it as a base to hit other parks, likely Hershey, do a bit of hiking and such in the mountains, and of course spend plenty of time at Knoebels itself. It'll be weird for me to not be staying in a tent there, but I think I can pass on that for one year, for something bigger and better. Should be fun!

Completely unbanked? That looks so strange. I assume perhaps glass is harder to shape into big sweeping turns. At least from that video it doesn't look to move very fast, or that could get pretty uncomfortable in those turns.

It's really sad to see this go. I know it wasn't ever quite what Disney wanted it to be, but I had a lot of fun there the few times I've been able to visit, even if it was fading a bit the last couple times. I still just can't help but feel like the NBA experience lacks any kind of Disney magic at all.

Thanks! I'll get to one for Knoebels in the next few days, at least. I'd say Grab a Weiner is definitey worth a stop; if for the fries more than the weiners. I'm surprised to hear that about Cattle and Clover; it seemed a pretty good atmosphere, but we weren't there incredibly late. I can see how it might be different later on with a different crowd. The food really was fantastic though. The maze was so ridiculously bad it would almost be a shame if they did improve it now. I can't imagine how anyone could be let down by It. I did get the red train for my first run on Great White, and blue the second, so that does make sense. It felt faster too consistently through the course to have been just the better seat.

Alright, I don't usually do TRs, and I'm a terrible photographer, when I even remember to take pictures in the first place, but I'm damn near the only one in the office here today, so let's do this. I've been meaning to hit up Morey's Piers for years now, and this was finally the summer for it. I usually do Dorney Park and Knoebels on the VJ day weekend (Rhode Island is one of two states that still gets VJ day off, which makes it a perfect weekend to travel out of state) but this year it seemed worth a bit of extra driving to swap Dorney out for someplace new. The plan was to drag my brother Hunter down with me, and meet two friends there, Fluff and Kyree (look, we're a bunch of furry weirdos, no one uses their real names...), the former of whom would join for camping at Knoebels too. Unfortunately Fluff's car was rear ended right before the trip, so I ended up driving to pick him up too, which made a bit of a mess of the timing, but nothing we couldn't deal with. So saturday morning comes along and...the weather reports seem to be getting worse by the hour. It's raining in my area already, but I'm hours away from Morey's, and I have a non-refundable room booked at the Most Expensive Red Roof Inn In America, so what the hell, no reason to call it off now. The weather seemed to clear up a bit driving down, but once we got to NJ, it was starting to look pretty bad again. Moderately threatening... We now had a car full of three hungry people, but that shouldn't be too hard to deal with in NJ. There must be a Wawa around, right? ...no such luck. No Sheetz that far east either. Distant third place. But it's food! We just grabbed snacks; we wanted to be hungry enough for Boardwalk food in a couple hours We were already running a little bit late, and Kyree looked to be getting to Wildwood early, so we'd have to rush to not keep him waiting. Hopefully we'd be able to make good time. ...Haha. Right. New Jersey. As we'd been expecting, the rain came, it came hard, and traffic came to a complete halt. No one does traffic quite like New Jersey. At one point, I took the wrong exit in an A/B pair, and had to turn around in a parking lot to get to the right side of the road. Did you know that New Jersey has fifteen minute traffic jams in their strip mall parking lots? Well, they do. The traffic didn't lighten any as we got closer to the boardwalk, so we were running quite a bit later than I would have liked by time we got parked and met up with Kyree. The rain was still coming down on and off, but we were all willing to make the best of it. We had a bit of a walk from where we parked, and considered taking the tram, but after listening to it approach (WATCH THE TRAM CAR PLEASE. WATCH THE TRAM CAR PLEASE. WATCH THE TRAM CAR PLEASE.), the four of us unanimously decided that we could use the exercise, and that we'd likely go insane listening to that announcement for the entire ride anyway. WATCH THE TRAM CAR PLEASE Despite the delays, we were there early as far as Wildwood time, and the rain was keeping people away, so the boardwalk was nearly deserted. Nothing on the piers was open yet, and the park had already announced that the waterparks would not open at all that day. Things weren't looking too promising at that point. The boardwalk looks a bit forlorn like this. Great White looks pretty good from here, but there's no signs of life anywhere near it. So what to do? Well, eat, of course! I brought up TPR to check the list of places Boldikus had recommended, and pointed out a few, but was immediately overruled. As soon as we saw it, there was no way I was going to convince people that we should go anywhere but Grab-A-Weiner. The rain was becoming a downpour again at this point, and it was close and dry. We...pretty much had to. To be fair the menu did look pretty good, too. That was a small fry. There's little reference for size but that is a foot long hot dog. The small fry looked like one of those pails you'd bring to the beach as a kid. I couldn't resist going for the Do-Wopper, their deep fried hot dog. That, and a "Small" Fiesta Fries with guacamole and sour cream. I wasn't on the boardwalk to eat healthy. Still wet, but people are coming out and the staff are optimistic The hot dog? Pretty good! I was a bit disappointed that deep frying it didn't seem to create anything all that spectacularly different from an ordinary hot dog, but it was tasty nonetheless. The fries were a step up from that; hot and crispy even after being buried in toppings, lots of flavor, and the guacamole was far better than I expected from a hot dog place. Grab-A-Weiner hadn't been one of the places I'd planned to stop, but definitely no regrets. By time we finished up there, the rain was pretty steady, so we killed a bit of time at the Boardwalk mall nearby. The hot sauce store was Fluff's idea of heaven, and he planned to go back later to try their ghost pepper challenge. They dip a toothpick in their hottest sauce and the crazy person who signed up for a torture session is expected to lick it clean, then not move or make a sound for 90 seconds afterwards. I would have loved to get pictures of that, but we just never ended up having time to go back for it. Given that Fluff grows Carolina Reapers in his backyard, I expect he would have done just fine with that one, though. Of course, all four of us are into classic games, so there was no passing up Remember When. I wasn't thrilled at the prices; $1.00 for a game that was originally 25 cents seemed a little much, but then a lot of their games are incredibly rare, and they're kept up in remarkably good condition, so it's excusable. I found the first working STUN Runner cabinet I've seen in ages, a game that I could play for hours when I was a kid, and put my name at the top of the first score list (the game keeps track of scores on each of several tracks separately) on the first try; I've still got it! We played a bit of Pinball, and debated on Fascination, though on the latter we decided to just wait for Knoebels there. Sadly, Remember When doesn't allow pictures, so nothing from there. After an hour or so, the rain hadn't stopped, so we decided to just go for it anyway. Heading onto Mariner's Pier, the central pier, everything was still shut down, but the guy working the ticket booth said that the rain should be stopping soon and they'd be opening things up, so we all took a bit of a gamble and bought our combo passes. Still wet, but people are coming out and the staff are optimistic Wandering around a bit, the skies do seem to be lightening a little Since nothing was open yet, we figured we'd wander down the boardwalk and scope the place out, see what else we wanted to do (and eat), and dodge the trams. (WATCH THE TRAM CAR PLEASE. WATCH THE TRAM CAR PLEASE.) The whole place still looked a little sad with so few people around, but the quiet was nice, too, and we had time to just take in the sights and enjoy all the delightfully tacky, brightly colored glory of Wildwood. That was also where we saw the sign advertising Cattle & Clover ("A steakhouse with an Irish soul"). That one got my attention quick. Just about as we reached the end of the boardwalk, the rain let up. Turning around, we began to see a glimmer of hope. Blue! It's blue! We could see rides beginning to test, so we headed on down to the nearest pier, just in time for It to begin its first few swings of the day. Now we're getting somewhere! We wandered a bit and watched the ride crews getting everything ready. There was still almost no one there, so we were expecting lots of walk-ons once rides opened. No activity on the flume yet, though. Worrying. If you've never watched a Gravitron's first startup after heavy rain, it's quite the show. That tarp that passes for a roof collects a huge amount of water, and once the ride's spinning it just flings it everywhere. Unfortunately that meant all over my phone as I tried to get a picture, so the wet fingerprint reader didn't want to cooperate, and by time I got the phone unlocked and managed a picture, there was only a sprinkle left. Several seconds too late for the picture I wish I'd taken The ride crew told us it would be a few more minutes before it was open, but behind us, we saw Rock and Roll, the piers' Bertazzon Matterhorn, claim first place in the race to open, and rushed on over. As a first ride of the day...eh. I've been on faster, and slower. Decent enough, but nothing particularly amazing. As we got off though, we saw employees test-riding Great Nor'Easter. Perfect! I'd never been so excited to get on an SLC before. For the most part, it lived up to what I've been hearing around here laterly. Indescribably smoother than any other SLC, almost no rattle at all. It did have a few big jolts but nothing I found too unpleasant. If Vekoma can build rides that run like that now, I hope we'll see more of them. The way this thing twists through the waterslides and structure around it makes for such an exciting ride, too. Entirely in another league from an everyday SLC. (Hunter found it painfully rough and said he wouldn't ride again. I can't even get my mind around that.) (Unfortunately now that things are actually more interested, I stopped taking as many pictures. Between being distracted by actually getting on rides, and trying to herd cats keeping my group together...) The pier isn't big so we didn't worry too much about the order, we just hit things as they opened. Tilt-a-Whirl was next, and everyone jumped into their own cars, to my disappointment; more weight in a car is usually good there. I didn't expect much riding solo, but...I don't know if Morey's ride is better, or better maintained than other Tilt-A-Whirls or if we just got lucky, but I had the craziest ride I've ever had on one. The spinning just never stopped. Absolute love for this one. Dante's Dungeon was...okay? I do have a soft spot for old dark rides, and this isn't a bad one, but the gags don't really stand out. Having live actors in there has the potential to make this one special, but none of them seemed to want to be there when I rode; just vaguely waving hands at us and whatnot. I'm sure it's hard to do too much more without being hit by a car or stepping on the electrical rail, but as it was, they didn't add much. No one else wanted to do Atmosfear, but I wasn't passing up an ARM tower. I got put on the side looking out to the ocean, which made for an usually tranquil view on the way up. I believe this ride usually has a soundtrack to mask the mechanical sounds before the drop, but it wasn't playing, so the drop wasn't as much of a surprise as it could have been; still intense though, and the brakes feel like they don't come on until ten feet above the ground. No matter how many times I ride these, there's always that moment of "we're not going to stop in time!" Great tower, though I think Knoebels' Stratosfear edges it out just on location. As I got off, we noticed Zoom Phloom was up and running, and raced for it..well, I did. No one else was thrilled at the idea of getting wet again just as we were starting to dry off, but everyone did eventually get on. Zoom Phloom is fantastic. Long layout, two great drops, lots of awesome interactions with the rides around it (Nor'Easter flying right by, what feels like inches from you!), and the under the boardwalk section...it all adds up to what's probably my favorite log flume so far. We headed over to Kong from there...I can't say I was impressed. It wasn't running particularly quick, and it might just have been the wind at the time or any number of things, but I didn't feel like I could even get much real height out of the cars, nevermind anything even approaching a snap. Ah well, not every ride can be a winner. I love the way everything's packed in so tightly, especially towards the back. I'm sure it's out of necessity with the limited space, but it makes for such unique rides, with all the wrapping about each other, and I just sort of love how it looks. Minimal themeing, just pure crazy engineering...it definitely has an appeal to me. Doo Wopper was a walk-on, so we gave it a shot. With low enough expectations, it wasn't terrible. It has a relatively weak layout for a wild mouse, but the brakes were completely off; not one touched the car until the station brakes, so I got more out of it than I expected. Mid-tier for a wild mouse, nothing to go out of the way for, but nothing to complain about when there's no line either. Flitzer was not running and didn't look like it would be; the staff had all abandoned it as far as we could see. That was disappointing, but there would be another shot at that tomorrow. We'd been saving the best of Surfside Pier for last though. It was time for It. If you've ridden It, you already understand, and if you haven't, I'm not sure you really can understand how different this thing runs from other Fireballs. It is just batshit insane, it runs like it's trying to do its best to throw you from the ride. It spins faster, it swings higher and harder, it crushes you into your seat and launches you out of it, and it does it all with you strapped into barely-there restraints. One of the most intense flat rides I've ever ridden; it absolutely lives up to the hype and more. I could have ridden it for hours; Hunter and Fluff loved it but both said their stomachs could only handle one, so we'd have to go back for more later. Instantly one of my favorite flats anywhere though. We headed down the boardwalk (WATCH THE TRAM CAR PLEASE) to Mariner's pier. By now the weather had turned around entirely; puddles drying up and the skies looking downright pleasant. The boardwalk looks like a different place entirely once the sun comes out and the bright colors come to life We passed by the bumper cars, as there just weren't enough people to make it worthwhile; what's the use of bumper cars without people to bump? We started with Rollie's Coaster; it didn't look like much but the station was empty. It was just about worth the time we waited in line, too. The restraints are just not built for adults on that; sitting almost on the floor with my knees jammed in against me did not make for a comfortable ride. The coaster runs alright; at the very least it's fairly smooth. It just doesn't do a lot. We headed to the back and found the powered monorail and the go karts not running. The latter was disappointing; I really wanted to try them with their under the pier layout. Ghost ship was open though, and I'd heard good things about that. Like everything else I'd been excited for so far, Ghost Ship did not disappoint at all. Unlike Dante's Dungeon, the actors here were getting far more into their roles and really having fun with it. The set designs are great, the whole attraction seems higher budget than I would have expected for a boardwalk, and it goes on for far longer than it looks like it should from outside. Some of the stunts are simple but incredibly effective; one tunnel feels like it's closing in on you as you walk through, and by the end of it we were almost crawling to get through; I'm not particularly claustrophobic but it was intensely unnerving, in the best kind of way. GREAT stuff here. I did feel like there was a bit of unused space, but perhaps when the park's not so dead, there would have been more actors in there? I was the only one in the group who had any intention of dealing with a Boomerang, so I rode Sea Serpent alone. I have to ask, who did they sacrifice, and to what otherworldly deity, to get a Boomerang to run like this? I'd thought Zoomerang at Lake Compounce was about as good as it got, but Sea Serpent was /very/ noticeably smoother, and felt faster too. Maintenance, weather conditions, blood sacrifices, I don't know what it comes down to but very definitely the best Boomerang I've had the chance to ride. The Wave Swing was...a Wave Swinger, and since I love Wave Swingers, I have no complaints. The elevated position made it a little more thrilling, a little nicer views, though it still doesn't quite compare to Lake Compounce's crazy fast one, definitely one of the better ones for the scenery. There's no such thing as a bad Wave Swinger Maelstrom was still down, as expected after the Ohio State Fair accident. Sad, with how I love those relatively rare rides, but expected. I hadn't had my hopes up for it, but still a bit disappointing Instead, we got on Riptide, their swinging ship, after being treated to a very New Jersey exchange. A pair of kids on the ride before us started panicking and asking for the operator to stop the ride, which he did. Of course, rides don't stop immediately, and they started shrieking that he wasn't stopping it fast enough, which of course set of the kids' parents, and ended up in an...intense three way confrontation that seemed quite stereotypically in place for the Jersey Shore. Much censorship would be required to reproduce it in detail...Yikes. Still, we got on the ride...aaaand it immediately broke down. Oops. Well, out of all the rides there, it wasn't a super high priority, so we just moved on. The Waltzer here was running visibly slower and without the spinning of the Tilt-a-Whirl on the other pier, so we gave it a pass and went for the Teacups instead. Now, Hunter and I take teacups /seriously/. There is video somewhere of us and our father years back on the SFGAdv teacups, where the ride op was letting the fastest spinning teacup stay on for another ride, and us getting in four rides in a row before we were too tired to take on more challengers. Unfortunately a lot of teacups are badly braked these days, but we're always excited to try out a new one and see what we can do with it. Unfortunately, at Morey's, that's a big nothing. These were the worst braked teacups I've ever tried to spin; we could barely even get ours to move. One of the bigger disappointments among the rides there. Pirates of Wildwood next! I had absolutely no idea of what to expect going into this ride, and I'm glad for that, since it made it all the better. Taking the first turn in the ride, the neon colored "3D" made me think I was going into another Garfield's Nightmare, and I was ready to hate it, but...Pirates of Wildwood is a very different ride from that tragedy. More of a playful parody on "real" pirate rides, it follows a bunch of pirates literally raiding the amusement piers...It's silly fun, it doesn't take itself seriously at all, and I laughed my way through the entire ride. Far more fun than I expected. We were getting through the major attractions pretty quickly, and anything we'd missed was closed or nothing anyone felt any particular need to do, so we figured it was time to get the last pier, then dinner. We took the walk on down the boardwalk WALK THE TRAM CAR PLEASE to Adventure Pier, and Great White. Great White had the longest line so far; for the front row, we waited about ten minutes. In the front, GW was a solid enough coaster; not a ton of airtime or forces, but pretty fast, very smooth, and a decent layout with some fun high banked turns. Nothing that would hit my top ten list, but fun and easily re-rideable. We got off and the rest of the group decided they were tired and wanted to just sit for a bit. Fine with me; time for me to go back for a second ride! This time I remembered what I'd been told and got in line for the second to last row...and one ride before mine, they decided it was time to add a second train to the track. I wish I'd gotten the whole thing on video; the whole procedure was so drawn out and almost comically inefficient. I couldn't really bring myself to complain though when the waits had been so short everywhere else, and it ended up being more than worth it. The difference between the front and the magic seat on Great White is HUGE. In front it was enjoyable; in back it feels like an entirely different coaster. The relatively tame ride gets replaced with one with some great pops of air, it just feels faster the entire way around. I did get the other train that time and it's possible that some of the difference was there, too, but...second ride pushed GW much higher up in my list. It's still not going to knock Phoenix or Twister out of their place, but...great stuff. Great White definitely deserves more love than it seems to get. Morey's looks amazing at night; so much packed into one skyline The sun was going down now, and we were getting hungry, but still had a couple things we wanted to do first. Since we didn't know better, we gave the Chamber of Checkers a shot. ...Uh. Essentially you walk into a room with a bunch of doors. Most of them are fake, with things that flash or honk at you when you open them. On the third or fourth try, you find one that opens out into a small "maze" of chain link fence in back. A couple staff people stand out there and give you apologetic looks while you walk past the fences back to the entrance/exit. Did they just...get bored partway through building this thing and never finish? Is there supposed to be more to this? The website shows what looks like actual maze walls, not just fences. As is, this thing is just a couple minutes of WTF that we could laugh about, but be very glad we hadn't had to pay actual tickets for. Dinner time? Nope, not yet. One more very, very important stop first. BOAT TAG! I discovered the Boat Tag attraction at Knoebels just in time to try it once before it was removed, and I've missed it since. I was not passing up a chance at another one, upcharge or not. I drove one boat with Kyree as my turret gunner, Hunter driving the other with Fluff in the turret, and a couple of other teams out there at the same time as us. I can't say exactly why I love Boat Tag so much. The boats are cramped, smelly, slow, hard to manuever, shooting things rarely has much effect... ...but once they close me into this thing, it does't matter. This thing may as well be a proper battleship. I'm going to war and loving every second of it. I can't imagine it's nearly as much fun from outside the boats And I wasn't the only one. Everyone loved it and wanted to go back for more...but dinner was calling first. We'd planned on boardwalk food, but that ad for Cattle & Clover was still in my mind, and a quick google search found it only a few blocks away. Well, good beer and real meals probably would beat junk food, right? 30 craft beers and extensive whiskey list. Got my attention now. We spent a little while at their outdoor bar while we waited for a table, and I tried their Shepherd's Ale while I relaxed there. It's an Irish Red that's produced exclusively for them by a local brewery, and it's fantastic. It didn't take long to get our table and things just got better from there. For something between a steakhouse and a pub, the menu is fairly extensive; lots of steaks, sandwiches, and burgers, but all sorts of other specialties as well; fish, ribs, meatloaf, lamb...and then their Irish specialties. We started with a couple appetizers - broccoli bites and fried pickles. Our server (who was awesome the entire time) warned us that the broccoli wasn't like the usual cheese and battered kind you usually get in that area; no batter or cheese on these, just a light panko dusting and a peanut butter sauce. Both were delicious; I've never devoured broccoli like that before, and the fried pickles (giant slices of their house made pickles) were the best I've had anywhere. And then dinner itself. I went with their Irish Torte; Corned Beef, Irish Bacon, bangers, and roast potatoes in a gruyere cream sauce and a pastry crust, topped with Honey Jameson Mustard Carrots. I quite simply can not come up with words for this dinner. I don't have the culinary vocabulary to describe it, but it was absolutely one of the most amazing things I've ever eaten. The carrots alone were mouthwatering and I don't even particularly like carrots. The others got shepherds pies and short rib mac and cheese; all were (almost) as good as my Irish Torte. While we were eating, a local band was setting up, and went into a huge range of covers from the expected Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murhphies on to ska and southern rock. Great stuff, and lots of fun. This is supposed to be Theme Park Review, not Restaurant Review, so that's enough of that, but seriously...if you're going to Wildwood and have any love for a good Irish pub, you really need to stop in there. It's just one of those places that gets everything right. This place. Right here. Find this door and go in it. Do it. We'd planned on going back for more boat tag, but we were exhausted and knew we had to get an early start the next day, so we headed back to our cars and our hotel for the night instead.. Great White is calling, but the others want to get some sleep. Another day, Great White. Off to our $300 a night Red Roof Inn. Which...was a Red Roof Inn. In the time it took me to unlock the door, go back to my car, and return, my roommates had the place looking like we'd been there a week. Skills. The hotel was clean and comfortable, at least, as I've come to expect from the chain. The location and view...um...maybe not 0 a night material. This guy. This guy right here. Even among the other trailers...this guy. We started the next morning off with donuts from Fractured Prune. I think it's safe to save I've never had donuts quite like that before. I can only imagine how unhealthy those were, but...there was something about how I wasn't at the boardwalk to eat healthy. The toppings were all amazing, gooey melted chocolate and berry sauces and just about everything you could think of. Don't let the small size of the donuts fool you though; they're filling. I couldn't quite finish the three I ordered. From there we raced back to the Piers to get there for waterpark opening. Raced there quickly enough to forget entirely about sunscreen. The little things that come back to haunt you later... For their location and size, Morey's waterparks look great. Well kept up, and even a bit of themeing packed in there, along with the typical Morey's tangle-of-rides Most of the slides at Morey's waterparks are fairly generic, but generally big and pretty good, with a couple exceptions in either direction. The adventure river felt a little underwhelming, with not a lot of "adventure" to it; not that different from the supposedly calmer lazy river. The Sky Pond Journey was about the most New Jersey ride imaginable; a long cluster of traffic jams where we had to wait several minutes to go anywhere in each pond. On the other hand...the Sidewinders may be my new favorite waterslides. They don't look like that much, just a couple turns running into moderate sized speed slides, but...I've never gotten airtime on waterslides like these. They're fast and each of the sections of the drop has water jets that help to almost throw you into the air just as the slide drops out from under you. Several times in my runs down them had serious time with me airborne with my mat between myself and the slide, and none of the three even close to touching. There are times when you're well above the sides of the slide, wondering if you're even going to come back down in time to make it through the tunnel section. It's like riding Phoenix, on water. Unfortunately I made one of the worse decisions of the weekend and forgo taking sandals with me; they're usually a nuisance at waterparks, having to find somewhere to put them between rides, and all. Usually I just tough it out and deal with the concrete on my feet. The boardwalk, however, is...a boardwalk. With boards. You can see where this is going, a well as I should have. We actually managed to walk all the way down the pier between the two waterparks (WATCH THE TRAM CAR PLEASE) and back without the world making me pay for my poor forethought. We made it back down most of Surfside pier, past the flume, next to the Gravitron, fifteen feet from the end of the boards and the start of the waterpark, when I put my foot down and felt the Spear of Destiny go through it, or perhaps it was Gae Bolg... I was pretty fond of the boardwalk, but I really didn't want to take a chunk of it home in my foot...after a lot of hopping about and cursing, and quite a bit of minor surgery on myself, I managed to get most of it out so I could actually walk, but that pretty well used up the last of our waterpark time; we needed to get food before we headed out. After changing back into dry clothes, I did stop to buy a few ride credits and sneak in a ride on the Flitzer, which was up and running that day. Pretty unique little coaster, not like anything I've been on before. It's nothing I'd go out of my way for again, but the swooping drops and turns are kinda fun. Surprisingly, while we were at the Mariner's Pier waterpark, Maelstrom was up and running! Unfortunately I was in a bathing suit at the time and had no way to buy ride tickets, so I didn't get a chance to get on it...but it does look to be back in normal operation. We hit Mack's for pizza - I'm not generally a fan of thin crust pizza, but Mack's was among the better of what I've had, not the most memorable food I've had but no complaints - and then it was time for Kyree to head back towards home and for the rest of us to head for the only place that could improve on the weekend so far from there - Knoebels! Despite concerns about the weather, and sunburn and splinters from a couple poor choices, it ended up being a fantastic day and a half at Wildwood. I love the atmosphere and look of the place; the rides are well maintained and most run great cycles. It seems like, while a lot of their rides are fairly commonplace models, the ones at Moreys just seem noticeably better than any of the others; It, Nor'Easter, and even their Tilt a Whirl were just miles ahead of anything similar. The food at the boardwalk was good, the food a couple blocks away was even better. Even with the lack of lines and waits though, I wasn't quite satisfied with how much I got to do; if I'd only been there for the rides it would have been plenty, but there's just so much more to the boardwalk. I'd love to get more time to explore a bit; that will just have to wait until next year though! Inside was more subdued than I expected. Actually kind of pleasant, really.

Well, waiting on that rumor was the whole reason I haven't actually been there yet. I gave in and booked a trip this weekend...so, far as my luck with such things generally holds, pretty good odds there I just saw an article about the state considering investing a lot of money in rebuilding the boardwalk itself. I don't know if it would have any effect on the parks, but I can see them potentially trying to get a big new attraction in to capitalize on people already coming to a revitalized boardwalk, if it happens.

Thanks guys. I'm not letting the weather scare me off; I already paid for what has to be one of the most expensive Red Roof Inns in the country, so there'd be little reason to call it off now. I just wanted to have an idea of what to expect. I should be there shortly after opening, so if it's dead enough that they need to close early, I'll probably have gotten in everything by that point, anyway. Unfortunately, as far as ERT...not for me; Coastin' by the Ocean was...not a thing I was aware of! I probably should have done a bit more research. Still, I'm sure it'll be fun one way or another

As should come as no surprise to me, having planned a trip I can't cancel at this point...it looks like it's going to be rain, possible thunderstorms, tomorrow for Morey's Piers. How are their operations in the rain? Is it likely that most rides will still be running? On a scale from Lake Compounce's "I felt a raindrop, shut it all down!" to Knoebels' Liquid Sunshine here...

The Beast, late on a pitch black, foggy night. Almost definitely the single most amazing ride I've had on any coaster. I don't know what else could ever live up to that. ...Fortunately, Knoebels in 6 days, so if any other coaster can follow that up...

Interesting that that bulletin doesn't seem to cover the other similar rides like the Move-It, even though it's essentially the same passenger gondola. I wonder what that means for them. Either they think they aren't as vulnerable to corrosion and this isn't needed, or this text/fix doesn't apply and they aren't likely to be reopened at all soon?

This...does not make me feel better about what happened but at least it's that much closer to finding a way to keep it from happening again. At this point I just hope blame ends up where it's deserved and that no one else ends up hurt by this if they didn't cause it. I hope they can figure out what caused the corrosion and make sure it's the last time it ever happens.

I'd missed the whole announcement about a VR ride there. A new motion sim set to Irish mythology? If this is any sort of spiritual sequel to Corkscrew Hill, and if it's halfway decent at all, I'm more excited about this than any new coaster for 2018! Please be good please be good PLEASEBEGOOD

Ahh, you're right, I'm confusing Golden Nugget with Kennywood's Gold Rusher! But my point stands as far as, I thought it was a pretty popular ride!

Wow...the hate for Black Diamond is intense. I've always enjoyed it as a silly, classic ride. No, it doesn't have a story, but then a lot of old dark rides didn't. It's just fun, cheesy effects and scenes, a few mild but fun hills, and a rather nice Centralia scene at that. Given how many people were so excited to see it saved from Kennywood and rebuilt, it seems strange to hear people saying they want to see it torn down! -edit- Sorry, Hunt's Pier, not Kennywood! Confusing Gold Rusher with Golden Nugget!

Favorite park: Knoebels. I mean...come on, do I have to explain? It's Knoebels. There's no more perfect park on this planet. Least favorite: This one's trickier since I've never been to a park I really disl-...wait. No. Lakemont. Sorry. Lakemont. Times a thousand, Lakemont. I've never been so certain I was going to die on horribly maintained rusting and rotting deathtrap rides. Lakemont. I actually had been about to say Hershey; I know, maybe unpopular opinion, but I just never seem to be able to have a good day there. It's always incredibly crowded, their operations are horrible, it's baking hot every time and there's limited shade...I don't hate it but I can't really like it either... But, Lakemont. Easy pick.

Don't know, but Knoebels is good at responding to questions on Facebook or Twitter. Shouldn't be hard to get an answer there.

Is it an allergy thing or a taste thing? If it's the latter you can order them without onions. I generally do. If it's the former then nevermind, I believe they're cooked with them. It's just a taste thing. The taste of them just makes me violently sick. I'm sure it's entirely psychological, but I've never been able to get over it. I'll be at Knoebels in a week and a half or so, so if I can get them without the onions I'll try them then.

Five favorite foods at Knoebels. Okay, that's gonna be a challenge. Open faced roast turkey sandwich @ Alamo. Just sooo good drowning in a lake of delicious gravy. Sicilian Pizza from Cesari's. Other pizzas there almost as good. Sundaes from the Old Mill. MUST be eaten under the water powered rotating canopy or it doesn't count. Traveling Taco. Yes you can get them anywhere. No, they're not the same. Waffle ice cream sandwich. Honorable mention to the chicken and waffles at the Alamo; I wanted to pick from five different places though. Apologies for my heresy for not including the pierogies; I can't do onions so I've had to pass on them. I know. Has anyone tried the new Nickel Plate Bar and Grill yet? Does it live up to the rest of the Knoebels food?

It sounds like water may have been able to get inside of the hollow arm, possibly while it was disassembled for transport. Corrosion that significant sounds like something that should have been noticed, though...

I am SO excited to get on that thing next weekend. I've been on more than a few Afterburners and their like but it looks pretty clear that none of them compare to It.

Wildcat's 90 years old. A classic coaster like that shouldn't ride glass smooth! It needs to be a lot less painful than it used to be, but I wouldn't want it riding like an RMC either.

First time I've ever seen a Technical Park Loop Fighter. That looks like it's worth a trip to Brockton for on its own!

That article isn't giving the entire story. I could be wrong (but I'm FAIRLY certain I'm not) that that was the issue that came up years back where they decided it was a good idea to add a gusset plate to strengthen that part was that showing structural problems. All examples of the ride were given that upgrade. That was dealt with, in what seems to have been a competent and responsible manner. That article looks to be trying to make it out to seem like they found issues and just ignored them. They didn't; they fixed that. Unfortunately it looks like a different source of cracking and fatigue was also going on that was never noticed...