WestCoasterKing

So no coaster for Knott's then? I'm not talking about an Infinity coaster. I was using a standard 8 seat euro-fighter as an example of the capacity that an 8 seat RMC Raptor would have. How many rides do they have that exceed 800 pph? Silver Bullet, and maybe Ghostrider on a good day? That hasn't stopped them from putting in lower capacity rides even in recent history. Xcelerator, Silver Bullet and Montezooma's Revenge are all 1,300 plus riders an hour. GhostRider and Jaguar! are both 1,600 plus. Even Coast Rider, Sierra Sidewinder and Pony Express are in excess of 900 an hour. But Boomerang was 760 riders an hour. Whatever replaces it needs to be in excess of 1,000 riders an hour. An RMC Raptor or a Gerstlauer Euro-fighter don't do that.

I posted this from a couple weeks ago and I'm reposting it now in response.

The park has a 75t Height Limit, Is on 70 acres, and according to Six Flags 2006 Reports- Has less than 5 million people within 100 miles. Where's the Potential? 100 miles? What an arbitrary distance. Within 170 miles you hit both Portland and Vancouver. That's another 5 million. That's actually not a bad idea.

And that's what I'm hearing as well. They have worked with Mack several times in last few years but the last Intamin was 2010 if I remember correctly. As for the new type of coaster I think they are clearly referring to a completely new kind of coaster and not a manufacturer or something they or America doesn't yet have. That rules out stuff Europe has but the US has yet to get. As such I think it's clear it will be a Raptor or TRex because those are the only new types of coaster out there. I don't think Knott's gets one though. They know KBF doesn't need another low capacity ride. I think CGA gets it and KBF gets the Intamin whatever it is.

Knott's does not need another low capacity coaster. Raptor has 8 person trains. Euro-fighters also have 8 person trains and most of them seem to have a capacity of less than 800 riders per hour. That's too low.

I wish CF would buy Wild Waves already. The park has so much potential.

Well considering the two wooden transformations are Mean Streak and Hurler that means the Knott's coaster will either be the new type or the renewed relationship. The latter is obviously Intamin but I'm really curious what the new coaster type is.

Ok, coaster sex is my new favorite.

Cannibal is actually out in the middle of nowhere, and not easy to include in a theme park trip This is the truth. I've only been to Lagoon once myself.

Completely new kind of coaster. Sounds like a Raptor or TRex.

Rob: ow ow ow ow

"Weeeeee!!!" Love when grown men aren't afraid to act childish on rides. Last year I was at my local park Wild Waves and I was screaming "Yeehaa" on the wild mouse coaster and this kid behind me says, "Dude stop being such a (homo)!" I just ignored him, walked off the ride and kissed my hot wife and my baby girl. Then I turned and winked at him and walked awsy. Thank you, Rob for helping bring it my inner child.

Freeway Coaster and Rewind Racers, Adventure City, Anaheim CA. I was at Knott's to ride the Ghostbusters refurb and sometime told me about this little kids park down the street. So I went and plopped down $17 bucks to rice there two kids coasters. No shame.

You mean inverted strata aqua trax? I don't get the excitment over aquatrax. Looks boring. It's not a real watercoaster so what's the big deal? So it has a couple of launches. Whoopie. New Knotts entrance. I'm still working on it. but the current entrance is way too small for todays crowds.

what if it's a dive wing coaster?

You guys on the east coast are so lucky.

Okay, I admit I can't think of any non-carnival cases at a "major" park where a restraint failed. Even my Fireball was at a carnival. That said the belts still don't bother me. I don't see how added redundant safety systems are ever a negative thing. I do agree with Rob though, Disney has the best system. Their lines move fast.

Nothing is fail safe. Any mechanism can fail. The fact is that they have failed on rare occasions. Checking something daily didn't keep it from failing. Millions of people fly every day without incident but occasionally something fails and people die. The fact remains that not one guest has fallen from any ride that had properly working seat belts. But in the past year alone several have from rides without them. I don't know about you but that tells me something.

I thought Tremors and TT have been both been completely retracted by now. More topper track on Tremors?

When they charge as much as theme parks do for parking, the structure can make them money in the long run. I actually thought about that after I posted and did some math. Let's say 4 million guests and the average is 4 to a vehicle that's 750,000 cars in a year at $15 per equals $11.2 million. Yeah I guess I'm wrong

I support seat belts. In the unlikely and rare if ever chance the bar failed you won't die. I don't care if it adds a few seconds to the dispatch. Ratchets and hydraulics and everything else can fail. It would be a freak accident but that's why we have redundancies. In case of freak accidents. I had the OTSR fail on a Fireball once. The buckle saved my life. My personal opinion is that seatbelts should be the law. Period.

Personally I don't like the idea of moving the warehouses and maintenance shop across the street. For one it would be a logistics nightmare. Secondly they are already losing the south lot to expansion. Moving the backstage areas to the north or west lots takes away yet another. If they do that then the only option would be a multistory parking structure, and I can't see CF spending $50 million plus on something that doesn't make money. But I guess if it gets them the maximum amount of new park space they'll figure it out.

I was skimming through posts from the past year to help catch myself up on the goings on here at TPR and I remember seeing some posts on Knott's Berry Farm expansion which I thought were interesting if not a little over the top crazy. Among the ideas posited were building a massive multi story parking garage, rebuilding all new back stage buildings across the street, building a new hotel, even moving Independence Hall and making a brand new entrance plaza. Personally I think a parking structure and relocation of Independence Hall are expensive projects that don't necessarily pay for themselves. Remember that neither Knott's nor Cedar Fair are on the level of Disneyland when it comes to generating revenue. That said, a new hotel isn't a crazy idea and neither is relocating some of the older back stage buildings to open up some new space for park expansion. Both are projects that will easily pay for themselves. With that in mind I took a few moments to put together my own plan. One that isn't so crazy and unrealistically expensive.

This is roughly the current Knotts property. Please excuse the crudity of this mock up. This is the Westside property. Yellow is the west overflow parking lot. White is the employee parking lot. Note: We don't know exactly where the new fire station will be. For those who were asking about the backstage areas here is a crude overview outlined in yellow.