VegasBaby

Be sure to come back and post a review of the ride. I'm really anxious to read people's thoughts on this coaster. It looks like a home run for the park, but I'm interested to see what the actual ride experience is like.

They already have a proper family coaster They really don't have a proper family coaster. The two "family" coasters at BGW have height requirements of 46" (Invadr) and 48" (Verbolten). When I think of family coasters, I think of rides with 40-42" height requirements that the whole family can ride together. (Most kids hit 42" by the time they are 5 years old.)

I hope it stays like that until the end of the month when I visit for the first time! LA schools get out on June 7th and Santa Clarita schools end on June 8th, so you should be good. However, there will be Grad Nights on May 17-18, 24-25, 31 and June 1st, so you may want to avoid those days if you can.

I also made it out to the park this week to take advantage of the non-existent crowds. It was my first time visiting this year with my new membership. They opened the member gate promptly at 10am and then let us into the park at 10:20am. I went straight for Fu11 Throttle like I usually do and got four quick rides in even though it was only running one train. I then went up the hill to X2 and managed six rides without leaving the station, which was pretty much all I could handle. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely love X2 and it's one of the few rides that still scares me a bit each time I ride it, but it's not something I can marathon 10-20 times in a row. I then moved on to Superman, which is definitely a ride I can marathon and managed 12 rides in just over an hour. I have never visited the park when it's been this dead and it was absolutely wonderful. I thought the ride ops were doing a great job getting the trains out despite the low crowds. They also allowed me to stay on rides when nobody was waiting in my row or to stay in the station for re-rides. I made my way around the park hitting up Tatsu, Goliath (still smooth and fun), Lex (no VR for me) and Twisted Colossus. TC was only running two trains and I only got 2 duels out of 12 total laps, but that was pretty decent considering two train ops. The station ops were doing their best to get people to hurry up so we could race. I finally rode the retracked Apocalypse and I have to say that I'm a fan. It's nowhere near GhostRider smooth, but it's running better than it has in years. I managed four rides without getting off, where in the past Apocalypse has strictly been a one and done ride. These kids sitting behind me had ridden it 16 times in a row and were trying for 20, which I'm sure they were able to do. That corner of the park was an absolute ghost town. It doesn't look like there has been much progress on the Crazanity site. There was no vertical construction to be seen and I didn't see any construction workers at all in that area. I'm sure it will go up fast but it's pretty disappointing that they won't have it ready to open by Memorial Day. Revolution was closed all day, so I don't know what's going on with it. And Green Lantern remains closed, but that's no loss as I refuse to ever ride it again. Overall it was a fantastic day at the park and I managed to get in 46 total rides. If you have to chance to hit up the park before CA schools get out for the summer, I'd highly recommend it. Final ride count: FT 8 X2 6 Tatsu 2 Superman 12 Goliath 6 TC 6 Apoc 4 Lex 2

As someone mentioned earlier, the Utah Olympic Park in Park City is a must do if you have an extra day. They have an all day pass which gives you unlimited access to all of the summer activities like zip lines, alpine slides, ropes courses, drop tower, and tubing down the ski jump hills (my personal favorite). There’s even a bobsled experience that I’ve great things about but haven’t tried yet. You may want to check the schedule and make sure the summer activities are still open when you visit. We try to hit up the Olympic Park every summer along with a Lagoon trip as it’s not a bad drive from Vegas. Lagoon is a funky little park with some fun coasters and classic flats. Cannibal was a real game changer for them and I’d love to see the park add another ride of that caliber.

You want to get there about 20-30 minutes before opening as Knott's usually opens the gates before the actual opening time. If you are staying at the Knott's hotel or are a season pass holder, you can get in the park at 9:30am instead of 10am. I would go straight to Ghostrider as it typically gets the longest line out of all the rides. After Ghostrider, I would head to the back right corner and hit up Hang Time, Xcelerator, and Supreme Scream. They should be walk-ons for the first hour or so of the park being open. From there you can just enjoy the park at your leisure. The log ride and Silver Bullet have great capacity, so don't be dismayed if they have long lines--those lines move quickly. Don't miss out on the Mine ride (classic dark ride) or Montezooma's Revenge (the last Schwarzkopf shuttle loop still operating in the US). My new favorite place to eat in the park is the Boardwalk BBQ. It has a nice selection of BBQ items (ribs, wings, pulled pork, tri-tip, etc) and the portions are huge. For sides, I would recommend the mac & cheese and the baked beans. And be sure to get a funnel cake with boysenberry topping.

Vegas has lots of great entertainment options and there are many ways to save on tickets. There are half-price ticket booths similar to TKTS in NYC that sell discounted tickets the day of the show. There are also deals listed on Travelzoo that you can purchase prior to coming to Vegas. If you've never been to Vegas, I'd recommend checking out one of the Cirque Du Soleil shows as they are all pretty amazing. There are also a lot of food and entertainment deals on Groupon, so that's worth a look as well. If you want a really nice dinner, Circus Circus has one of the better steakhouses in town. I know that seems weird, but it is actually very good and always ranks high on the Best of Las Vegas voting. http://www.tix4tonight.com https://www.travelzoo.com/collection/entertainment/las-vegas https://www.circuscircus.com/en/restaurants/the-steak-house.html

It's not a great rapids ride, that's for sure, and you do get incredibly soaked. There are much better rapids rides down the road at Knott's and DCA. I really don't think anyone would miss it, especially if they built a major coaster in its place. It's just too bad that they removed Log Jammer instead of Jet Stream when they built Fu11 Throttle, as Log Jammer was a superior flume ride IMO.

I couldn’t agree more, a Giga like Fury would be huge for the park. I love B&M dive coasters, but a giga would be a better fit for the park. I also think it would be a lot more marketable, especially since Knott’s is opening their own version of a dive coaster next month.

They are testing Hangtime a bunch right now. With the station work almost completed, I hope we get an opening date soon!

I am an average height and build (5'10", 180lbs) and didn't have an issue with the Skyrush restraints. They are tight for sure, but I wouldn't call them painful. As Boldikus stated above, they release a little in the brake run and that was the only time I ever noticed how tight they were. Also, this is not a hands in the air type ride. And I am totally a hands in the air guy, but not on Skyrush. I love sitting in the rear wing seats and hanging on for dear life. It's the only coaster I've ever ridden where I felt like i was going to get thrown off the ride. It's defintely something you have to experience for youself as words don't do it justice. (That's me in the red shirt below.)

Wow, the Coco Cay renovations look incredible! We just got back from a RC cruise that stopped at their other private island, Labadee Haiti, and we absolutely loved it. Labadee had so many activities for the whole family (we have kids 14, 10, and 8) and was the highlight of our trip. I will definitely be taking another RC cruise to see Coco Cay when the additions are completed.

good weather today and spring break. And the Boysenberry Festival, that’s the trifecta for long wait times! Glad to see Xcelerator finally back open though, I’m going to try and get a visit in next week. It’s been way too long since I’ve ridden it!

Honestly, I don’t think that you’ll need it. We went on a Tuesday in August and walked on Manta at opening and then rode it again with a short wait. We rode Mako 4 times in a row and never waited more than 10 minutes. We rode it a couple more times later in the day and it was still only a 10-15 min wait. We did wait about 45 minutes for Kraken, but that was with the stupid VR. Now that they’ve taken the VR off, you won’t have that problem.

This x1000! I was so happy when they announced the new lap bar trains for Revolution but it was short lived when added the terrible VR to it. Looking forward to riding it a lot more this year the way it was indeed to be ridden!

That's interesting as it goes against what the SF rep told me, which is not a surprise as the memberships are so new and the reps might not have all the info. I would expect them to keep the old membership prices pretty steady though as they don't want cancellations. I've been paying $6.50 a month for my current gold membership and that price has been steady for about 3-4 years.

I had some questions about the new memberships and chatted with a SF representative. Once you purchase the membership, you are locked into that price forever. So even if they raise the monthly price, it will only affect new memberships and not current membership holders. So it makes sense to get a membership now and lock in the low price going forward.

Good to know, I'll hold off on upgrading for a bit. You would think they would have some sort of deal or something for existing membership or pass holders to upgrade to the new memberships.

So I just spoke with a SFMM representative using the online chat feature and she said that the membership prices will never be lower than they are now. She also said that once your purchase the membership, you are locked into that price forever, even if the membership prices go up in the future (which I'm sure they will). The free soft drink feature means that you will get a new unlimited sports bottle each year. I am currently a gold membership holder but she said there's no way to upgrade and that I would have to cancel my current membership to buy the new one. I am probably going to get the Platinum membership as it comes with the free sports bottle each year and bigger discounts than the gold plus. I am interested to see how often they do exclusive ride times for membership holders and how the first to ride new attractions feature works.

I wouldn't worry too much about that. The Knott's website still lists Xcelerator as TBD. We've heard from a few sources that they are waiting on parts, so at some point it will re-open.

I toally agree with you here. Outside of a large scale B&M Dive or Hyper coaster, this is probably the best option to replace Boomerang given the space and budget restraints. The best part is that it kept the 48" height requirement, which wouldn't have happened with a Dive or Hyper coaster. I think this ride is going to be a huge hit with both enthusiasts and the GP and will probably lead to more Gerstlauers at CF parks. Personally, I can't wait to ride it and really hope it's open in time for the Boysenberry Festival.

The Knott's Hotel has a free shuttle to Disneyland, so it won't cost you anything if you ride their shuttle to Downtown Disney.

Because it’s painful and and not any fun, that’s why. There’s a reason why Six Flags didn’t build any more of them.

Didn't the location in Utah have a bungee jump tower as well? I remember visiting Utah in the mid-90s and bungee jumping off a tower in the parking lot of some kind of family fun center. It was a pretty good deal too because I think you paid by the hour instead by the jump. It was pretty dead the day we went, so I got in like 7 or 8 jumps before my time was up.

I couldn't agree more, I can't wait to ride Kraken without the VR again. I really hope this VR on coasters trend dies out soon. It really doesn't add anything to the ride and the dispatch times are beyond horrible.