Arthur_Seaton

Standing in line for TC (line is out of the station and down toward Scream). One of the custodial staff opened a trash can to clean it and released a biblical amount of bees. Minutes later we got the "Twisted Colossus is experiencing a delay. We don't know how long etc. Please see closest team member with questions." Closest team member is busy trying to fight off a swarm though. TC line, from just outside the ride entrance, took 75 mins. The ops were as fantastic as ever but are just no match for the GP who, when told to enter the train will stand and stare at it unsure of how such moves work. Ride was as great as ever though. Got a perfect duel on lap two. Missed duel on lap one because a couple decided to unpack their bags before riding. Ride op actually called them out (as everyone was staring at them) and said "this train will no longer be racing." Clearly the crew is very aware of the time envelope and do their best, but until the park bans luggage, infants, stuffed toys, and basketballs from entering the line, racing will be precarious. Went to grab a single-rider ride on Lex before leaving only to be told that they no longer offer single rider in the hour prior to closing. They told me this as a gondola with two empty seats was prepped to start, no less. Anyhow, I expected it to be busy today -- but it was still busier than I and, I assume the park, had guessed it would be.

Took a quick run up to the park to process seasons passes and get a ride on the semi-fixed Apocalypse. That "Is It Packed?" site is way off today (it's usually pretty good I find). I figured it would be pretty busy today but several queues are spilling out of their entry ways and a few rides are listed at 2 hours or so. The Apocalypse queue has filled the switchbacks in the newly retracked area and it seems that they're only running a single train as it's a solid 5 minutes between trains passing. The last few trains that have passed by have also had several empty seats, so I'm guessing they're only letting a small amount of people into the station at a time, but not enough to fill the seats. Edit: Second train added now. The train that was running appeared to have several seats that weren't operational as they were empty every time. Edit 2: Queue took 50 mins (longest I've waited for that ride since it first opened). The turn out of the station into the lift and parts of the final figure eight (not all of it) are moderately smoother (although nothing like its opening years). Bottom of the first drop, the rise up into the first turnaround, and the hill up into the station fly-through are very rough still. It's still a great woodie, but it's also still in rough shape. And yes, all the queuing is done outside. They let about 15-20 people at a time and the entire pre-show area is a walk-through and the station is completely empty. I assume this is because if you leave the GP in those pre-show rooms too long, they'll have the screens unbolted, props tipped over, and the place destroyed in under a day.

Yeah, you just flash your pass at the gate and you're in. For the first visit before you process your pass, just show the parking attendant your confirmation — preferably with barcode (on phone or paper) and they'll let you through.

That's great news! Roughness from the first drop up to the station fly-through is pretty much to be expected as the train is hauling äss at that point. It was that post fly-through section that was the most brutal by far. I'm glad that saw most of the rehabbing.

I was there a couple of weeks ago and it was pretty much a walk-on for most of the day.

Do you mean entrance to the building or entrance to that cave / mineshaft thing? I went on a busy day not long after it had opened, and the line started at the point where the track does the first 180-degree turn to the right before the lift. Inside the station, all of the lower level switchbacks were being used and on the upper level, half were being used. That took about an hour. The problem is that you don't really know how many sets of switchbacks you'll be facing until you get in the building, but if all are being used, and the line is all the way out to the cave, definitely more than 90 mins and maybe even longer. I can't imagine it getting to that point though.

Yeah, if you watch any of the online videos of the other JL rides, you'll see it. It's just a projected loop and the car tips back a little bit. Good to know! To be honest, when I've ridden these rides in the past, I usually just watch. I'll have to give it more effort next time. I recently rode Den of Lost Thieves at Indiana Beach and that required shooting to animate the props, but the guns really were broken there!

It looks legitimately scary! That's why I'm hoping they don't do anything too extensive or cartoonish.

Hopefully Sally Corp. has their act together at this point and is selling a product that's reliable for a high-traffic park. If there is a problem, though, it seems like that's where the focus should be directed. The VR problems that are popping up all over the country, for example, seems to be the fault of the hardware provided to the parks as it's not a problem just isolated to Six Flags. Although I haven't ridden many of these video game rides (I've been on Justice League, Toy Story, Iron Reef), I was never quite convinced that the guns did much of anything as there was just so much stuff flying around and blowing up on the screen that it felt more like watching a palimpsest of every Michael Bay movie ever made. I seem to recall scoring pretty well on the Knotts one considering that I spent much of the time checking out the props and shooting at my co-riders.

It's definitely a consistent theme I'm not a fan of the JL rides but I am looking forward to seeing the impact this one has on the park. Seems like a fantastic choice from a reliable manufacturer so I think it'll be a big hit. It would be great to see that area increasingly populated by more flats over the years. In fact, the whole area would be well served to house a kind of modern carnival environment — updated, high-capacity classics with solid lighting and whatnot.

I highly doubt that. I hope not. I used to love the other ghost train they had until they updated it. I still like it, but I really dug the old cheesier version. I've never done Fright Walk though so I have nothing to compare it to, but it looks like it maximizes the cheese factor right now.

I really want to check out Fright Walk before it gets revamped as, I'm guessing "revamped" here means neutered. From what I can gather, it's a decent size maze as it is. I know it gets panned as being too dark / cheesy etc., but that's right up my alley. Never mind; I guess they've already shut it down :cries:

Nope, love Ninja! One of the better rides at the park. Although I found The Bat to be a more intense ride, Ninja provides excellent mid-tier thrills. I'll ride Batman if people I'm with want to ride it, but I'm kind of over the design myself. X2 has the best operations in the park right now. The crew is on top of things and very rarely stacks trains. It and TC are on the CF level of operations. Tatsu is still terrible though. I have to agree, X2 has had good operations for some time. Given how cumbersome the trains are and how challenged many of the GP can be in terms of basic motor skills, they churn out trains super fast. That's largely due to the fact that they're militant about no loose items in the station; they usually have someone posted at the top of the ramp who will send you straight to the locker if you decide to bring luggage on with you. Also, they do that thing where they keep the station largely empty, only allowing enough people for maybe one or two trains in at a time. The fact that there's hardly even a line for it to begin with also helps. Tatsu ops are hit or miss. They rarely run both stations, and the ride itself has glacial dispatches because of the design. They've been limiting station access a bit as well, so the bulk of the wait is in the swamp-pen. It's rarely less than 45 mins it seems, even on quiet days.

I don't recall the trains being that different from a standard arrow looper, but I do know what you mean about feeling folded over. I think that might be due to how low the seats are to the bottom of the car though? They all give me that kind of feeling — like you're almost riding inside the track as opposed to above it. With that said, I found Corkscrew to be extremely jarring. A combination of Arrow's crappy transitions with that hideous airtime hill. I rode it in the front, got launched way out of my seat and slammed back down again very hard. I spent the rest of the ride trying to defend myself against the layout!

Oh, I forgot Superman -- that one's great as long as there's no line I've ridden Drop of Doom a bunch of times but it still freaks me out to this day — even though I find the drop itself to be fairly tame. As far as Tatsu goes, I dislike the flying position. I think it's a fine ride — not too rough etc. — but I feel like I have to strain my neck just to see where I'm going. The best part of that ride, for me, is still the lift hill — which I think was a piece of design genius.

I've ridden X2 many times and yet it's close to the top of my "skip it" list at SFMM; I'll jump on now and again if I'm feeling masochistic. At its best, it flings you around like a rag doll. At it's worst, it flings you around like a rag doll while trying to smash your skull open. First drop, raven turn, and second drop are pretty great but the fun tends to stop there. I've had the most luck sitting toward the back on the inside seats but even that's too unpredictable now — especially in those final flips where you're fighting to defend yourself from being attacked by the seat / restraint. The good thing about it these days is that there's rarely anyone in line. Part of the problem seems to be the way the seats bounce combined with how shuddery the rotations are, but I don't see any real way of fixing that problem outside of a complete re-tracking / train redesign. With that said Apocalypse, Scream, Viper, and even Riddler in recent months have all climbed high on my "skip it" list due to how jarring they've become. Scream seems to go from tolerable to terrible and back again on the fly, whereas the rest have been consistently rough for some time. Apocalypse vacillates between moderate jackhammering to severe depending on the train (hopefully the retracking will help as the layout is fantastic). Viper isn't too rough if you ride defensively (or try that seat Robb mentioned which I'll be trying on my next visit) but it's just a shoddy ride overall — especially the parts after the MCBR. The last two rides we took on Riddler featured some spectacular headbanging that actually drew blood. Green Lantern, however, has been permanently off-limits for me since it first opened for many of the reasons expressed by others. When I go to the park these days, it's basically for Füll Thröttle (my favorite ride there), Goliath, Twisted Colossus, Ninja, and occasionally the mine train. As far as the new area goes, I'd love to see the park really invest in comprehensive light packages. They've come a long way in that regard, but having visited Cedar Point at night recently, I've seen what can be done. I think a slew of flat rides would be killer with a comprehensive overhaul of much of the back of the park.

Tough call. For me it wouldn't be — even if I'd never seen it before. We always ride it when we're there, but aside from the show buildings scattered throughout, it really is a tourist thing more than a thrill ride — one that offers a glimpse into the film industry (and does it very well). If you're local to the area, it feels a bit redundant — like taking one of those star tours buses around Mulholland or something. The King Kong section is good, and the Fast and Furious section is similar (although I prefer the Kong thing), but $40 would be hard to justify. I'm glad it's not an upcharge attraction at the park, but the situation you're in has basically made it an upcharge attraction for you by the sounds of it. If you love TV and movies and have never spent much time in Hollywood, it'll hold more appeal than just the shows stages but $40 is steep.

^ Bummer, but understandable I suppose. It probably reflects poorly on the park's investment in new shiny tech when guests voluntarily opt out of it.

I was scoping out some of the props from the lift hill of Ghost Rider a couple of days ago and saw all the Paranormal Activity stuff getting loaded in. Glad that one's back as it was last year's highlight along with Tooth Fairy. Sad to see Forevermore gone though although I guess it overstayed its welcome. Is it me or do they have fewer mazes this year?

No. They can barely keep up the fire effects on X2 and Apocalypse, I don't see them keeping a high tech ride like JL running at an optimum level for more than a few seasons Ha! It is a shame that the fire is usually turned off on X2 as it's a nice touch, but I suspect that most of the park's energy is spent on just keeping the ride itself operational. There's a good reason why that ride design never took off and bankrupted the manufacturer. Kudos to SF for keeping it operational for so long! The fire's usually working on Apocalypse from what I've seen, but I hear that ride is down completely right now due to the need to retrack it. I guess time will tell on how well a Sally ride will hold up but from what I've seen, they're pretty durable -- especially in high-traffic parks.

I really can't see it being too much of a problem. I rode one of the JL rides at another park and, aside from some basic practical effects, it's really just a series of video game projection screens. I can't imagine that there would be too much maintenance beyond plugging the thing in, turning it on, and maybe occasionally changing a fuse or wiping spit off an animatronic. It seems like durability for tech-heavy rides comes down to how well they're developed and set up by the companies offering the tech these days. Arguably, the problems that parks (not just 6F) have had with VR tech isn't the fault of park operations but a failure of the cell phones that they use and dodgy programming. Colossus' difficulty in dueling isn't the fault of the ops (who are usually excellent on that ride), but getting a train out of the station in time is difficult because of the way the ride was designed. These JL rides are built by a long-standing well-reputed company that, I would assume, is selling a product that's largely self contained and reliable — kind of like the B&M of the dark ride world. I know that other installations of the ride have experienced breakdowns and whatnot, but I can't think of many rides in general that don't experience breakdowns. I guess time will tell! For the record, I personally hope it's not a JL ride but I certainly see the logic in getting one at SFMM: the GP loves them.

^ Hope you have as much luck as I did! Re: Soak City — I've never been, so I've no idea. I'm sure others here can help, though. There's a lot going on at Disney so I'd be inclined to say maximize your time there. Unless something happens crowd-wise at Knotts, I'm not sure you'd need 1.5 days there. Granted, my report above comes from the position of just riding the rides. If you wanted to take in shows, eat food, and soak up the atmosphere, it'd take more time and effort. Also, the amount of rides I clocked in is largely because the ride-ops were allowing instant re-rides.

I rode Mean Streak in both the back and the front and found the front more enjoyable. I was surprised that I didn't find the ride to be that rough though. It was far from smooth obviously, but I've ridden much, much worse. I do agree that Blue Streak was also rough, and I even found Rougarou's second half to have rough, headbangy spots (although not quite on par with the current state of Scream and Riddler at SFMM but heading in that direction). I find Apocalypse at SFMM to be way more jackhammery than Mean Streak (which, I hear, has also shut down now for an overhaul) and several of the rides at Kings Island were at least as rough too (Beast, Racer, Vortex, Flight of Fear). Mean Streak's design was a bit of a wasted opportunity but it wasn't the absolute nightmare I'd expected it to be. Two rides was enough for me though.

Thanks! And no, I haven't eaten at Portillo's. To be honest, I rarely eat at theme parks.

I bought a CF Platinum pass as I knew I’d be hitting several CF parks over the summer and promised myself that I’d cram a few visits to Knotts in during the fall and winter to get my money’s worth. Aside from a brief visit to process my pass a month or so ago, I hadn’t spent much time at the park outside of Halloween events — which are really all about the mazes — for several years. While only visiting sporadically since the late ‘90s, I’ve ridden everything there a number of times and so the pass was never really worth it to me for Knotts alone. When I visited a few weeks ago, the place was packed so I took a quick ride on Silver Bullet and the new Ghost Rider and then bailed. I’ve always enjoyed Silver Bullet but I was a little disappointed by how tamed Ghost Rider felt in comparison to what it was in its prime. Anyhow, today I decided to bunk off from work as I checked online and it looked like the place was dead. I arrived about 2:30pm and planned on maybe staying until 6pm, but I ended up staying until the park closed at 8pm. Everything was a walk-on all day — even Ghost Rider at one point, with 20 minute-waits later on. The result is that I got to experience the park in a way that I usually miss when attending the Halloween event and was able to pay closer attention to the rides. Because the place was so quiet, ops were not only allowing instant re-rides — they were challenging guests to see how many consecutive rides they could take, doing a fantastic job of accommodating anyone who showed up at the turnstile with riders wanting to go for another spin. As the result, I got a ton of rides in. Xcelerator (11 rides) Mid-afternoon, this was pulling a 2-train wait at most. Later in the afternoon, it was so quiet that the ops were encouraging riders to marathon it. I managed 7 consecutive rides and was able to enjoy Xcelerator in a way that I hadn’t in years. I’ve always considered it to be the most intense ride in the park but I haven’t ridden it for some time as the place is usually too busy. I rode Top Thrill Dragster a few weeks ago for the first time (which I loved), but Xcelerator feels considerably more powerful to me. Perhaps it’s the downscaled elements and the relatively short launch track, but whereas TTD was rendered intense mainly due to its height, Xcelerator’s launch feels far more like a slingshot to me. Also, and I don’t recall this from the years prior, but the train blew over the top hat producing far more ejector air than I ever recall it doing. I grey out embarrassingly easy with positive g-s, but I felt myself slipping from the negative g-s going over the peak that lasted all the way down the other side; the top hat made me feel instantly dizzy several times. In relation to TTD — which crawls over the top by comparison — Xcelerator’s top hat was very intense today. I don’t know if anything’s changed over the years — or perhaps it’s because I haven’t ridden it in such a long time — but it seemed like a new ride today. Still smooth, still extreme, and still very fun. Better than I remember it! 10/10 Silver Bullet (5 rides) I’ve always loved this ride. I remember when it opened how disappointed coaster fans were by it and how it was often pegged as “forceless” in relation to other inverts. I’ve never quite understood that as I’ve always found it quite forceful (especially the final helix). Because this ride rarely develops a long line, we usually ride it at haunt so I wasn’t quite as estranged from it as I was Xcelerator. While I know folks find the first drop to be lame, I can’t say that I find many B&M invert drops to be that exciting to begin with so part of me enjoys that gradual slope down as, once you hit the loop, the forces kick right in immediately. Plus, the over-banked dive turn is one of my favorite elements on any B&M and I find that it carries the same disorienting and stomach-lifting feeling of a good zero-g. Also, I think the pacing of the ride is excellent (it’s more than just a catalog of inversions), and although I haven’t been on that many B&M inverts (several Batman clones, Banshee, Raptor), it’s my favorite of the ones I’ve ridden. 9/10 Ghost Rider (7 rides) When I rode it a few weeks ago while picking up my pass, I was taken aback by how different it felt. Today I was able to pay closer attention and ride it in different seats to get a better perspective. Mid-afternoon, I got three consecutive rides as the station was empty (it broke down and I just happened to walk by when they opened it back up). Later, the line filled maybe two switchbacks on the top floor. By night time, the line was at the bottom of the stairs in the lower level of the station, but even then, it only took 20 minutes to get on. A few new observations: I don’t know enough (anything, really) about coaster physics / engineering to say for certain, but I hypothesize that the weight of the old trains produced greater momentum in the drops with greater lag climbing out of the drops. In other words, the ride feels to me like it’s lost some of the speed dynamics that it once had while still retaining the same overall speed; the speed changes, now, aren’t quite as abrupt as they were. Of course the reduced roughness also makes it feel far more disciplined, and both of these changes are obviously for the best to preserve the structure. With that said, I did find that toward the end of the day, the ride loosened up somewhat and started to feel a little more like the old Ghost Rider. My last ride was at night, in the back seat with hands up, and it felt almost as out of control as the ride did in the past. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but I couldn’t help but think that the new version is settling in a little more now and is starting to regain some character. As far as airtime goes, I went full-nerd and took mental notes: In the front seat, there’s great floater air on the second hill and the hills before the final helix. The first bump after “the drop” would probably eject you out of the train if you had no restraint. In the back: solid floater on the second hill, and solid ejection on “the drop.” The first drop had some floater air in the back seat, but not much. The first drop overall is a bit of a waste. It’s not pitched steep enough to push you forward and it pulls out quick to accommodate that turn at the bottom. It's a shame they didn't reprofile it to make it more exhilarating, but it still gets the ride off to a good start. Also, I seem to recall the drop back into the structure coming out of the first turn around over Beach Blvd as having some air in the old version, but that’s a bit of a dead zone now. Laterals are still present in both the upper and lower Beach Blvd turns and very much so in the helix. The laterals, however, are comfortable so I suspect that they might not feel as aggressive as some would like. To be honest, I'd love to see parts of the ride enclosed — especially that final helix as there's not exactly much to look at and it doesn't take that turn too fast. Darkness would certainly give it more of an edge. So, where I was disappointed when I rode it a few weeks ago, I do think the original “spirit” (sounds lame, I know) of the ride is still there. The re-tracking / re-training is obviously going to help keep the ride around for years to come, and it’s elevated in my mind now to something closer to what it was in its first years. If you ride it, my suggestion is ride in the back, at night, with arms up. Some of the old craziness returns when you do that but without any of the pain. Still one of the best wooden coaster layouts I've ridden. 8/10 Montezooma’s Revenge (4 rides) Always loved it; always will. I used to ride Thunder Looper at Alton Towers when I lived over there, so this one’s special for me. The station was desolate, so the ops would tell people jump back on again. I love the catapult feel of the launch; it’s not instant like Xcelerator, but it doesn’t take much to get you to full speed and you can feel the mechanism let go quite early in the launch, underscoring the sensation of being catapulted into the circuit. The loop makes me start to grey out when I sit toward the front of the train (lame, I know) but I find that all seats are good on this one. Schwarzkopf FTW. 8/10 Jaguar (1 ride) I haven’t ridden this since it opened years ago. It was actually fun to revisit as I’d forgotten how crazy-elaborate that queue line is — similar to The Mummy at Universal. I seem to recall the ride being kind of rough in the past but it wasn’t bad at all today. It’s a weird coat-hanger layout and, at time, feels more like park transport than a coaster. Even though its a once-and-done kind of ride, I quite enjoyed it. 6/10 Boomerang (1 ride) NOT as bad as I recall or anticipated. I’ve been on far too many of these rides and, not only do they tend to bash your head in, they’re kind of boring too. The head banging wasn’t bad here — just going in and out of the boomerang inversion itself. The ride looks great — nice, bright paint job to fit the area. Still, it’s more of a once-and-done in a lifetime than a once-and-done in a visit. 4/10 Coast Rider (1 ride) I rode this when it opened as well and recalled enjoying it the first time I tried it. I don’t know if it was braked more this time — or perhaps I preferred my initial introduction because it was nighttime — but it was just boring today. Heavily braked before the turns so the typical wild mouse effect was sort of neutralized. A solid coaster for the kids though and they were eating it up (well, the few kids that were there). 3/10 Sierra Sidewinder (1 ride) I also rode this when it opened and never rode it again, but I do recall thinking that it was more intense than it looked the first time I tried it. My opinion was basically the same today: for a spinning coaster, it’s a nippy one with some forceful moves packed into it. It’s a great design and sits nicely in the little area that’s carved out for it. The last spinning coaster I rode was Whirlwind at Seabreeze and I really liked that one too. Before that, it was Pandemonium at SFOT but I think this is a much better ride than Pandemonium overall. I was kind of happy that my car didn’t spin that much as craning your neck to see what’s coming up on this can prove painful if you take a tight turn at the wrong angle. I did, however, see a couple of cars that were spinning like crazy. Fun ride that I still contend is gnarlier than it appears. 7/10 Pony Express (1 ride) There’s a pattern developing here: I rode this when it opened and never returned to it again — largely because when I do visit Knotts, the line for this is longer than the track. It was fun to re-ride it today after not having been on it for so long, but there’s really nothing to it. Although I’m no fan of gimmicky ride positions (especially B&M stand-ups and flyers), this one isn’t too uncomfortable and riding an extended and heavily themed version of this concept might be fun. In fact, were it to be maybe four times as long, with multiple LIM launches instead of the one flywheel, interacting more with the rapids ride, I think it’d be killer. As it stands, it’s cute but that's about it. 5/10 Timber Mountain Log Ride (1 ride) Still impressed by this every time I ride it. There’s so much detailed packed into this ride, and the balance between old-school and updated animatronics / sets is really special; you can’t help but notice a million new things every time you ride. The ride itself is such a great layout, and the overall effect of the mountain and immersion makes it one of the best log rides there is. It lives up to all the hype for pure fun and history, but I do wish they’d return to transforming it for Halloween as log rides during Haunt was always one of the season's highlights. 9/10 Supreme Scream (1 ride) I’m no lover of drop towers but I will ride them. In the past, I found SS to be pretty thrilling. But then, once I’d ridden a few of the gnarlier drop towers in existence (Lex Luthor for example [but honestly, the ones at Scandia and Knoebels are the most horrifying to me]), SS was filed as “tame” in my mind. I rode it on my last brief visit and found it a little more intense than I remembered. Today’s ride felt more like a fun, so it’s back to “tame” in my mind, but still worth a ride for the view alone. If you hate drop towers, this is actually a good one to break through your anxiety. 6/10 La Revolucion (2 rides) I think I rode this many years ago but I’m not quite sure. Anyhow, I don’t usually like spinning rides but I quite enjoyed MaxAir and Delirium when I visited CP and KI recently even though I found both to be more relaxing than thrilling. My new-found enjoyment of spinning rides meant that I had to revisit this one — and I loved it. To be honest, I found it more intense than the CP and KI spinning discs although the feeling of speed or height that you get on those wasn’t really present here. To me, this was a good mashup of the CP/KI style disc crossed with a giant swing like Skyhawk. This didn’t make me dizzy at all, and the zero-gravity effect was pronounced. Really fun and I'll elevate it to a must-ride for subsequent visits. 7/10 So, what was originally going to be a quick spin around the park ended up being a solid afternoon of coaster riding. I’m really glad I bought the pass because it made my summer trip worthwhile and it was especially good to get to revisit Knotts in a way that I feel like I’ve skimmed for some time. The place looked fantastic (except that area by the mine ride which has always looked “under construction” to me), the staff were really friendly, and operations were solid throughout. The level of detail in Ghost Town now is impressive, so hopefully they'll be able to carry that into other areas of the park that would benefit from a new coat of paint. Of course, the big highlight today was that the place was so empty, so I’ll be sure to try and hit a few more dead days before the year’s out. A few pics, but not many: This was right after the ride re-opened following a breakdown. There were very few people around at that point. This picture shows most of Pony Express' layout. The paint looks great on Boomerang and makes Xcelerator's paint look a bit sad. I don't recall Xcelerator taking the top hat as fast as it was today — but I'm probably misremembering it. Great views and a relatively tame ride. I remember when this opened and recall thinking even then about how well done the entrance was. Marathon time on Xcelerator. This is a very photogenic ride, but you've seen them all at this point. Ghost Town was a ghost town.