VegasBaby

I wish I could make it for the preview, but it just doesn't work out with my schedule. I'm excited that the ride is opening on time and I'm very interested to see what TPR members think of it. I will be in SoCal in a few weeks, so I'll be able to check it out for myself then.

I would hope not, they can't compete with Disneyland on any level IMO. Knott's has always been successful BECAUSE they were not Disneyland nor did they ever try to be. I think thrill rides are an integral part of Knott's success and I hope they don't lose sight of that. Totally agree with this, Knott's has a long history of being on the cutting edge of thrill rides and it would be a mistake to abandon that. Starting with Corkscrew (the first inverting steel roller coaster) and Montezooma (first Schwarzkopf flywheel coaster), and then continuing with rides like Surpreme Scream (tallest drop ride when it opened), Xcelerator (Intamin's first accelerator coaster), and Pony Express (first motocoaster in the US). Knott's has never been shy about pushing the ride envelope and bringing new experiences to the park. The great thing about Knott's is that the park appeals to such a wide demographic from families with small children to thrill seekers. Most of the park additions over the past decade have been focused on new family rides and renovating classic rides. I think it's time to shift focus to the thrill side of the park. Refurbing GR with topper track and new trains should be priority #1. It doesn't need a full RMC makeover like Twisted Colossus as the layout is still great, it's just gotten extremely rough over the years. Priority #2 should be a new thrill coaster as the last new thrill coaster was Silver Bullet over 10 years ago. I would love to see something unique to the SoCal market like a B&M hyper, a winged coaster, or even a mini-hyper like Lightning Run. Priority #3 should be a new slide tower or even a water coaster for Soak City. Priority #4 would be replacing Boomerang/Riptide with a launched coaster like Superman/Tempesto. I'm a big Knott's fan and we get season passes every year, but I think additions like these will continue Knott's history of thrill rides and keep them competitive in the crowded SoCal amusement market.

I'd go with this park as well. Wasn't it the largest theme park in the country once SF combined it? Hard to believe that such a huge park is now gone. It would've been fun to visit at the height of its glory. Hard Rock Park would've been cool to visit as well. It's not often that a completely new park gets built from scratch and some of the rides (Nights in White Satin, Led Zep coaster) looked interesting.

I have a conference in SoCal in May, so I am going in a day early to visit Magic Mountain. It's been over 10 years since I've been there, so there are a lot of rides that will be new to me. Also, I convinced my wife to take a family trip to Philly this summer, so we'll be hitting up Hersheypark for 3 days in June. Can't wait to try out the Intamin trio and the new indoor spinning coaster. My youngest is excited to be able to ride a looping coaster as SooperDooperLooper only has a 42 inch height requirement! It's the only looping coaster I know of that has a height requirement of 42 inches.

I think Knott's has done a pretty good job with the park additions over the past few years, but there's definitely a need for a Ghostrider refurb and a new thrill coaster. Most of the additions the past few years have been targeted at the family demo and rightly so as that is Knott's primary market. I know my kids have really enjoyed the family coasters (Sierra Sidewinder, Pony Express, Coast Rider) and the Camp Snoopy/Log Ride/Mine Ride renovations. Iron Reef looks like another solid addition to the park as it was lacking a quality dark ride. However, Silver Bullet was the last thrill ride addition (not counting the relocated Windseeker) and that was 11 years ago! I still love Ghostrider's layout but it's gotten so rough that I usually only ride it once per visit now. There's no need for a full RMC makeover like Twisted Colossus, but the ride is screaming for a topper track refurb. GR used to be one of the top woodies in the country and I would love to see it restored to its former glory. With a topper track makeover, it would almost be like getting a new ride for the park. There's also a huge need for a new marquee coaster and I'd love to see a B&M Hyper/Giga at the park. That would give them something unique to the SoCal market and would really complement their current coaster collection. I look at all the recent Cedar Fair additions (GateKeeper, Banshee, Fury 325) and think that it's time they showed Knott's some love. After all, its got the highest attendance of all of their parks, so the money has got to be there for a major coaster addition.

Thanks for the update, it's good to hear that pretty much everything is in place. I was there last month for spring break and it looked like there was a ton of work left to do. Knott's already sent out emails for a season passholder preview on May 13th, so they are going to look really bad if the ride isn't ready in time.

Glad you are getting a chance to visit the park, I think you'll really enjoy it. The new family raft slide, Beach Blanket Bingo, is a lot of fun and it's a nice long, twisty ride. The "trims" you see in that Wild Surf photo aren't trims at all, they were steps for the workers to use going up and down the slide. We went to the park yesterday and the wooden steps were all removed. Wild Surf is scheduled to open on Memorial Day weekend and it looks ready to go, I can't wait to try it out. It was a little chilly yesterday but it kept the crowds away, so every slide was a walk on. My son and I were able to marathon Zuma Zooma, the trap door body slide, and had a blast. I love these trap door drop slides and Zuma is probably my second favorite after the Scorpion's Tail at Noah's Ark.

Totally agree with you, Thunderbird has really upped HW's place in the amusement park world. Carrowinds and HW were always parks that I wanted to visit but they were never too high on my list. With the additions of Fury 325 and Thunderbird, they have really turned themselves into must-visit destinations (at least for me). I also like how B&M continues to innovate and push the envelope by adding size & speed (Fury) and launch elements (Thunderbird) to existing coaster concepts. Thanks to everyone who attended the media day for posting your photos and reviews, I will definitely be taking a trip to HW in the near future!

I don't think that 1200 riders per hour is a very realistic expectation for this ride. In order to reach that number, a train would have to be dispatched every 36 seconds. In the previous video, it looks like there are 38 seconds between trains, but I don't know how realistic that number is when you have to start loading actual riders. I think a number around 960 (45 seconds between trains) is much more realistic but even that will require the ride ops to really be on their game. I'm very interested to see what the actual cycle times are once this thing is open to the public. If Lagoon can actually push 1200 riders per hour through this coaster, then I will be very impressed!

Totally agree, I love what they did with the Boardwalk area that replaced Perilous Plunge. Plunge was actually a decent ride as the drop was pretty much straight down and completely insane. However, the cycle time was terrible and the lines were always long and slow moving. I know a mouse like Coast Rider doesn't excite most of us but I think it has been a big hit for the Knott's target family demo. Plus, the height restriction is only 44 inches, so it gives the younger kids another coaster option besides Sierra Sidewinder and Timberline Twister. The gliders and the scrambler were also good uses of the other available space and have family-friendly height restrictions of 36 inches. The area looks especially good at night with all of the lighting that they added. Now they need to fix Riptide and get it re-opened or replace it with a thrilling flat. An even better solution would be to rip out Boomerang and Riptide and replace them with a launched coaster like Superman at SFDK.

I was at Knott's two weeks ago for Spring Break and it looked like there was a ton of work left to be done (from what we could see on the outside). All of the Knott's advertising has featured the 5/15/15 date and they also have a season passholder preview scheduled for 5/13/15. It's going to look really bad if they don't get the ride finished on time. On another note, we were there for the Boysenberry Festival and it was a lot of fun. For $25, you could buy a tasting card that featured a bunch of the special food offerings. We bought two of the tasting cards so we could sample everything. Our favorites were the Boysenberry BBQ wings, fried alligator with boysenberry aioli, and the boysenberry dessert flautas. We also tried the legendary Fun Bun (deep fried cinnamon roll with boysenberry cream cheese frosting), it was pretty good but I was glad we just got one for four of us to share. The park was fairly busy, but most of the ride lines moved pretty well with the exception of Xcelerator. It was only running 1 train and the ride ops consistently left open seats because they never asked for riders to fill in the open seats. It was a consistent 45-60 min wait until later at night. On the other hand, the Silver Bullet ride ops were fantastic, even in the middle of the day it was never more than a 15 min wait and they tried to fill empty seats whenever they could. Montezooma also had good ops and was running great for a ride that's almost 40 years old. My 8 yr old son loves that ride and we were able to get 8-10 rides every morning before there was any line. Tasting Card, worth the money!

Has the park released an opening date for Laff Track? We are heading out there in June and I'm really hoping it's open by then.

When the ride was first announced, they said it would have physical sets and effects in addition to the 3D screens. But even if it's mostly just the screens, it can still be a lot of fun if done right. CF is very aware of how competitive the California market is, so I doubt they are going half-assed on this ride.

Cedar Fair has done a great job with Knott's, they've been able to keep the charm of the park while adding new rides to stay competitive with the market. CF inherited a crap ride with Wind Jammer and replaced it with a world class Intamin launched coaster. They've added some great family coasters in Pony Express, Sierra Sidewinder, and Coast Rider. They've expanded Camp Snoopy and did much needed updates to the Log and Mine rides. This year the park finally gets a dark ride in the old KBT/KOTD building, which I am looking forward to despite the negativity some have towards the ride. I think there's still work to be done (the water park needs another slide tower and a new thrill coaster is needed), but I don't think anyone can say CF has been a bad owner. The new GM has a history with the park and seems to really understand what people are looking for at Knott's, so I think the park is in great hands.

Exactly, Hershey has a great mix of family and thrill coasters and this will be another great addition. One of the reasons we're making the trip to Hershey this summer is that the park has 5 coasters (including Laff Track) with a 42" height limit. SDL is the only looping coaster I've ever seen that has a 42" requirement, so it will be my daughter's first ever looping coaster. There really is something for everyone at this park.

I finally convinced my wife that we need to take the kids to Hershey, so I will also be making my first trip to the park in June. I'm thinking of going the 2nd or 3rd week of June as it sounds like the crowds won't be too bad yet. The preview night is a great idea, so I plan on using it to hit up Laff Track, Farenheit, Storm Runner and Skyrush. I'm also thinking of staying at the Hershey Lodge as you get an extra hour on the preview night and then you get into the park an hour early. Does anyone know if all the rides are open during early admission or do they just have certain rides running? Any other tips would be greatly appreciated. I've really enjoyed reading through the forum in preparation for the trip, so I feel like I've got a pretty good gameplan. Everyone seems to really love this park, so I'm excited to finally be able to visit it.

Cannibal looks amazing, definitely going to have to take a trip to Utah this summer to check it out. Thanks for the constant updates and pictures!

The new slides look great, can't wait to check them out next month! I wonder if the Wild Surf slide will be more or less intense than the Proslide Tornado funnel type slide? I'm just glad they installed the raft conveyor belts, lugging those huge rafts up 6 flights of stairs would suck.

I'd love for Voyage to be open by Spring Break. I'm planning on going to the park the first weekend in April, so it would be great if it was open by then. As for the ride time, I read there was going to be 600 feet of track, so a 4-5 minute ride time would be a reasonable estimate.

Tix4Tonight is a good place to get discount tickets, but they are generally only available the day of the show. If you want to get advance discount tickets, check out the http://www.travelzoo.com/entertainment/las-vegas and http://www.broadwaybox.com websites. They both have Vegas sections that list all the show discounts available.

So are they going to use the arcade for part of the ride? It would be really cool to have an indoor themed queue like Star Tours for this ride.

This is exactly what Knott's is doing and it seems to be working pretty well (the park had its most successful year ever in 2013). Knott's has positioned themselves as a value alternative to Disney that the entire family can enjoy. We've had season passes for the last four years and I really like the recent additions (wish they would've been able to find a way to keep Windseeker though). Voyage sounds like it will be another great addition and it offers something that's been missing at Knott's (an interactive dark ride).

Very excited for the new dark ride, I think the concept art looks amazing. Knott's did a first class job with the TMLR and CMR renovations and it sounds like Voyage will be on the cutting edge of dark ride technology. I also like that the ride will incorporate the existing Knott's rides into the story and not just be some random underwater excursion. I was really encouraged when I read about Ouimet's 5 year plan for the Knott's and I think this ride will be a great addition to the park. Hopefully a killer new coaster and another slide complex for Soak City are next parts of the plan, but I trust that Ouimet and Raffi will continue to make the right decisions for the park.

Shane--We had a great time at Cowabunga Bay this summer and already bought our season passes for 2015! You did a great job of training your employees, as everyone we encountered was friendly and made each visit to the park a great experience. (I even met you once while you were working the Dole Whip counter!) The new 4-person raft slides sound incredible and will balance out the park nicely. I think our favorite feature of the park though is the wavepool since it actually has big waves! So many wavepools are just weak and not very fun, but we would spend half our time at the park in the wavepool because it was so awesome. Congrats on a great opening season and many future seasons to come.

I agree that Knott's next three additions should be a dark ride (which is likely happening in 2015), a major coaster, and a new slide complex for Soak City. They've done a good job of honoring the past in updating the TMLR and Mine Ride, and I think the Boardwalk and Camp Snoopy additions were excellent. However, now it's time to focus their attention on other areas. It's been 10 years now since Silver Bullet and 8 years since anything was added to Soak City (Pacific Spin in 2006).