Doug in So Cal here - former regular on rec.roller-coaster in the mid-late 90s. Nice to see a thriving discussion on the WWW!
Went to Knott's yesterday (late afternoon to closing.) Have season passes this year! Noticed that Ghost Rider will be down today thru 7/13 per the Knott's website. Anyone know why? I'm guessing ride rehab - the ride was so rough yesterday that I didn't really get a lot of enjoyment out of it. Any airtime was offset by the anticipation of severe jarring at the bottom of the hill. It's starting to remind me of MM's ill-fated Psyclone. Hopefully they devote some TLC to the ride and restore it to the fantastic ride I remember ten years ago.
Crowds not too bad; most ride waits 20 min. or less. Silver Bullet had the longest wait, close to 30 minutes.
Other items of note -
Silver Bullet still a one-train operation, with the other train torn down in the maintenance bay, not looking too different than our last visit in late April. What's going on there?
Got a ride in on Xcelerator, but 10 minutes after we got off (around 6:30) people started leaving the queue; there was obviously a major problem. A cast member was posted at the entrance to dissuade arrivals from queuing up. Felt sorry for the poor folks on the train not in the station who were stuck there for however long it took to unload them. We didn't see the ride operate for the rest of the evening.
Also rode Supreme Scream, Windseeker, Riptide and Pony Express. The rides we didn't have time to go on appeared to be operating well. Monte still faithfully launching every few minutes.
All in all the ride operators seemed efficient and well mannered. We were in the queue for Sierra Sidewinder at park closing and they allowed all people in the queue to ride, even though with that ride's low throughput they had to run it until about 10:25. I thought that was a nice gesture.
Edit: Forgot to mention they've installed some really interesting lighting in Camp Snoopy. It was kind of trippy, with various colored light strings wrapped around the trees and stuff, and 60s imagery (peace signs, "LOVE," etc.) projected on the walkways. The waterfall/cave area had some wild stuff around it, too. Even if you don't have kids, it's definitely worth a walkthrough after dark.
