CrazedZooChimp

Now I'm no CGA expert, but that cut-out image oddly puts the hyper right through where Vor--er, Patriot, currently resides. But in seriousness, it reminds me of the location there was talk about it going before. So I guess we might have a huge hyper coaster looming right above Vortex? (won't get used to calling it anything else) I would figure that the Invertigarden is going to be used for some new ride, so it would make sense that a new coaster might start around there (unless that's where the tower ride would go). Is it possible to interpret the increase in noise around Grizzly and the location of the hyper coaster in the center of the skyline to mean Grizzly could be replaced by a hyper coaster? Although I guess if the "skyline" image is roughly accurate for the shadow part of the EIR (and assuming it is viewed from the front of the park), it would seem like those new attractions would be North/East of Drop Tower. Maybe over the Go-Karts or something? I'm not sure it could go over the back storage areas/parking lot as those are in "zone 4" according to the shade diagrams on page 159. Ahh well, fun to speculate, hopefully we learn more in the near future. Either way, I assume the garden is not long for the park

So I did end up stopping by the park for a few hours on Monday (roughly 10-2). It was really empty, and lucky for me GhostRider and Silver Bullet were both running two trains! Managed to easily get rides on everything I wanted, watched the Christmas Carol show, and wandered through Ghost Town a bit. Got two rides on XCelerator, front and back rides on Silver Bullet, and front and back on GhostRider (plus one in the middle). My longest wait of the day was probably the four or so cycles I waited for the front of GR. Operations seemed pretty decent on GhostRider as well, they were getting trains out roughly every 2 minutes, just about as the second train returned to the station (had 4 operators checking seats). If I ever finding myself in Southern California with a Monday off in December again, I'm going to make sure to stop by again. I'll probably put a few photos up over on Coaster101 in the next couple days (or tonight), but here are a few I took from the park (it was also a pretty nice day, warmed up in the afternoon). I wond

Oh woah, I hadn't realized that Pacific Rim had been replaced. Is that just for Holiday in the Park?

That week the park is sort of half open, with some of the rides operating (they do this most of the winter season). I'm pretty sure the Giant Dipper is always (or almost always) one of the open rides, not sure if Undertow usually is. Best thing to do is probably call the park the morning of (or day before, even a couple days before) and they should be able to tell you what's open. Tickets and parking are cheaper on these limited ride days If it's pouring rain they might not be open, but someone who's been in more winters will probably know. https://beachboardwalk.com/Hours/Limited-Ride-Days

I usually just go in the park on the weekends to walk around and ride the coasters during the week. With that, the Knott's app usually shows 1 hr 30 min to 2 hours for Ghostrider and approx 30 - 60 min for Xcelerator, Silver Bullet and most of the other popular coasters. Ghostrider, even with two trains, still only pulls about 400 to 500 people per hour so the line doesn't move fast. Why is the capacity so low? It seems like it would be almost double that. The dispatch time per train even with two trains running is every 3 to 4 minutes which gives you approx 15 to 20 dispatches per hour times the average riders per train to get capacity. I am guessing about 20 people per train with single riders and occasional missed rows. With one train running it is more like 6 to 7 minutes per dispatch and good luck getting 10 trains out per hour. The ride is long, the break run is long and slow, and they don't dispatch with two trains until the other train returns to the brake run. They really should add a single rider line...

Yeah, I'm not great with drop towers. Definitely would never get on Falcon's Fury. It's something about not having a track keeping me held aloft makes me nervous (like, if a roller coaster breaks, you're not going to go splat into the pavement below). Tatsu always makes me a little nervous when it raises you into the Flying Position too, although that's also one of my favorite rides so I guess it doesn't really scare the crud out of me.

I'm not sure if I'll want to ride Patriot 15 times in a row, though

Nice, they haven't said when it's going to open yet, right? It seems like with how quick the painting happened and the sign being up it could be opening relatively early in the season...(I assume that's just wishful thinking, though)

Definitely. If you get there at opening I think you could get on Ghostrider, Montezuma's, Xcelerator, Boomerang and Silver Bullet before noon. I would also propose riding them in that order. If you can stay a bit longer, I'd say you could also get on Supreme Scream, Log Ride, and a couple others before 2pm. During that day, waits in the park should be 0 - 10 minutes for pretty much everything besides Ghostrider; which will likely be 15 - 45 min long depending if they have both trains running. Awesome, thanks guys (and all others)! I spent a few hours in the park over the summer and basically just rode GhostRider, so maybe I'll go through everything else...

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, ~35 miles CA Great America, ~45 miles Santa Cruz Boardwalk, ~75 miles Thanks to the horrible traffic in the Bay Area, though, the distances can be deceiving (Great America tends to be a shorter drive than Discovery Kingdom).

Hi Knott's regulars, any guesses how crowded the park might be on Monday Dec 12? I'm going to have some time to kill that afternoon before flying back up to Northern California, and have my CF Platinum pass, so was thinking of swinging by the park. But, probably only will if it wouldn't be too crowded. Think it's worth my time for a few hours?

I talked to Charles Laureano, the maintenance supervisor for the park, about this at the media preview, and he said the yellow train should be ready in a week or two. Glad to see them doing the poor man's fastpass, it's at least a partial solution to the operations of the VR. Hope they keep it up (and New Revolution should do that). I wrote up my full thoughts on it at Coaster101, but in general I think I agree with you. I maybe didn't find it as bad towards the middle/front as you did, but yeah, the back row sucked. I only rode in the front without the VR, and it was actually quite smooth up there, crazy big difference. For the most part in the middle I didn't find it too bad, but it was definitely hard to actually "lock on" to any of the gargoyles with your head shaking around, but that would have happened even if it were smooth just with the number of quick twists in Kong. My summary would be it moved Kong from "unrideable" to "ride once per visit near the front" quality. I did like the full interactive VR as compared to New Revolution, but think it's better on slower, less intense, rides.

Really good insight, thanks Charles! I was there this past Sunday, and it was the busiest I've ever seen when at the park, but even then it was maybe a 15-20 minute wait for Medusa, 40ish minutes for Joker. The only thing with a crazy line was White Water Safari (makes sense since it was 90 or so). I normally go in Winter/Spring and rarely have any issues with crowds (except for food), so count me in the camp of "try again on a weekend in November/December. I can add the data point that I had a friend process other peoples passes a few weeks ago, and this weekend when I processed my pass I didn't need any ID or anything, so I would think it's OK to process a friends (I bet especially if you purchased both).

So pretty! While riding Vortex it's last weekend reminded me how relatively boring it is, even if it isn't a lot more exciting it sure will look better.

I meant out of nowhere as in, nobody expected their announcement today. All the focus was on the other Cedar Fair parks making their announcement today! I probably should've made that clear in my original post. Yeah I don't really know why they didn't hype up their announcement at all like the other Cedar Fair parks did (or Six Flags is doing), weird. It is an exciting upgrade, though I was hoping the ride was going to be moved to a different location in the park (which would open up more room in the middle). Still, it hopefully adds a 3rd good coaster to the park, which is all I can ask for. Wish it was somehow getting longer...

Yeah, the things that made me really like it (aside from being a fan of the series) were how good the 3D looked (I think it's the sharpest 3D effects I've ever seen) and how good the live actors are. I'm amazed how good they are at interacting with the effects. I've seen two different actors and they both player it slightly differently which I enjoyed as well. Actually my biggest issue with it was that I found that I can't hear what the actor is saying in response to what's going on-screen with all the other action happening. I feel like I could have used behind the seat speakers or something just for the voices. I do kind of wish that it was longer, which using both sides would have helped with (since they could have been staggered), but I think it doesn't bother me much since I sort of know the background. I guess a longer, indoor, line could have also included more background information (like what the different aliens are).

Glad you had a good time at the park! GS is definitely one of my top 5 wooden coasters (it might be top-2). There are rides that keep up their paces as well as it does. I wonder if I should re-ride Vortex, I don't think I've been on it in over a year. Did you get a chance to "ride" the new Mass Effect attraction?

Yeah, I feel like the real announcement for SFDK is that Kong MIGHT be getting tolerable restraints. But, the press release makes it sound like they only have a month to do it. Is that actually enough time to upgrade them (or I guess just put new trains on)?

I'm hoping for like full neck braces.

Well, at least they mention new restraints and track enhancements. But, yeah, even as someone who liked the New Revolution VR, I have no idea how this isn't going to be horribly painful and nauseating. Unfortunately every park was going to get VR, and this is really the only ride at SFDK that would get it (killing the capacity on Medusa or Superman would be bad). I kind of hope it fails so they finally remove it. It is a good point that it might make it actually feel like you're having the crap beaten out of you by monsters though...

Yeah, Gold Striker is really the only one that has any significant wait, but if you go there first/last it won't be that bad (when I was there for Taste of Orleans I think it was maybe a 30 minute wait). You should have no problem getting on everything of interest. I usually eat at the food court near demon, but there are a few decent indoor options too. I haven't eaten at any of them in awhile, but I used to like the fried chicken at Maggie Browns (between Gold Striker and Whitewater falls).

Neat! I assumed they would repurpose a lot of the lighting stuff they set up for Taste of Orleans for Winterfest (and probably some of the decorations).

Hey hey, me too! First time since the rework, it was awesome.

Unfortunately, no. Disappointing. The oeprators seem to generally be pretty efficient, I feel like they'd have no problem getting people in with one. Oh well.

Knott's doesn't have single rider lines for any of the roller coasters, does it?