The Knott's Berry Farm (KBF) Discussion Thread

[Dan the Coaster Man]

8 hours ago, Vital808 said:

Hey guys.... I moved to San Diego last year from Philly and thinking of hitting up Knott's for the first time this Sunday 1/30. Been checking the website and it has listed Xcelerator as closed for the last week+ but I thought it just opened back up after the repaint? Does anyone know if it has been open? Also, is MR still open or did they close it down again for the refurb?

Thank you!

I saw someone on instagram at the park today and MR was open

[thrillseeker4552]

Supposedly, the reason they delayed Montezooma's closure was because Xcelerator, Supreme Scream, and Log Ride are all down for refurb currently. And yes, Xcel did just re-open from the repaint in December. I was a little surprised it's down again too.

[coasternut]

^ I was at the park today and Xcelerator was closed. I've heard, it will be for quite sometime.

Yes, Monte was open. I got lots of rides today.

[CedarFlags]

Xcel has been bouncing back and forth between open & closed.  I wonder if they're working on it during the week and opening it for the weekends?  They used to do that with Ghostrider.

[Vital808]

We went to the park on Sunday and Montezooma, Xcelerator and Supreme Scream were all open! (the website said Xcelerator and Supreme Scream would be closed). Xcelerator only had one train onsite (thought it had two at one point?) and Supreme Scream only had one tower operating so Fast Lane was a lifesaver. The log ride was still closed for refurb. 

Quick thoughts from a first time visitor:

- Loved the charm of this park....definitely better atmosphere than some of the other smaller cedar fair parks. I loved how there seemed to be coaster track everywhere interacting with the paths. 

- Park was packed! Lines for food seemed to be pretty painful all day and looked like all the ride queues seemed to be an hour+. I'd probably even get Fast Lane on a slower day here since most of the coasters seem to be pretty low capacity and the loading procedures seem to skew towards FL. Loved that there was that TGIF's right out front that was basically empty and much easier to get beers lol. 

- Coasters:

1. Hangtime - 3x - Surprise of the day. Much better than I was expecting, probably my favorite in the park! 8.5/10
2. Ghostrider - 3x - Great traditional woodie. I feel like these are becoming rarer and rarer with all the RMC-ing and gimmicks going on with older woodies. Still riding very smooth after the retrack. Only slight disappointment is I thought there would be more airtime. 8/10
3. Xcelerator - 2x - Probably the best launch I've ever ridden and actual airtime going over the tophat! Easily put this above Kindga Ka and TTD. Length is the only issue with these rides. 8/10
4. Silver Bullet - 3x - I was expecting this to be at the bottom of my B&M inverts list and...... it didn't disappoint in that regard. That's not saying its a bad ride by any means but it just doesn't seem to do much. I understand why that first drop has to be so shallow but man what a terrible way to start lol 7/10
5. MR - 1x - happy I got to ride this in its original form before the refurb. The standby line seemed pretty brutal as half of the seats were roped off and they reserved every 3rd train for FL. 6.5/10
6. Sierra Sidewinder - 1x - went on this one after a few beers which was not the best idea. I think this might have been the only spinner I've been on so not sure how it compares to the Gerstlauer ones. Seemed like a pretty solid intermediate coaster. 5.5/10

Had a great time. Pretty easy trip from San Diego so hopefully will be back next year for the giga!

 

 

 

[Rusty Nail]

Last week for Montezooma's Revenge.

[coastercoaster5]

48 minutes ago, Vital808 said:

We went to the park on Sunday and Montezooma, Xcelerator and Supreme Scream were all open! (the website said Xcelerator and Supreme Scream would be closed). Xcelerator only had one train onsite (thought it had two at one point?) and Supreme Scream only had one tower operating so Fast Lane was a lifesaver. The log ride was still closed for refurb. 

Quick thoughts from a first time visitor:

- Loved the charm of this park....definitely better atmosphere than some of the other smaller cedar fair parks. I loved how there seemed to be coaster track everywhere interacting with the paths. 

- Park was packed! Lines for food seemed to be pretty painful all day and looked like all the ride queues seemed to be an hour+. I'd probably even get Fast Lane on a slower day here since most of the coasters seem to be pretty low capacity and the loading procedures seem to skew towards FL. Loved that there was that TGIF's right out front that was basically empty and much easier to get beers lol. 

- Coasters:

1. Hangtime - 3x - Surprise of the day. Much better than I was expecting, probably my favorite in the park! 8.5/10
2. Ghostrider - 3x - Great traditional woodie. I feel like these are becoming rarer and rarer with all the RMC-ing and gimmicks going on with older woodies. Still riding very smooth after the retrack. Only slight disappointment is I thought there would be more airtime. 8/10
3. Xcelerator - 2x - Probably the best launch I've ever ridden and actual airtime going over the tophat! Easily put this above Kindga Ka and TTD. Length is the only issue with these rides. 8/10
4. Silver Bullet - 3x - I was expecting this to be at the bottom of my B&M inverts list and...... it didn't disappoint in that regard. That's not saying its a bad ride by any means but it just doesn't seem to do much. I understand why that first drop has to be so shallow but man what a terrible way to start lol 7/10
5. MR - 1x - happy I got to ride this in its original form before the refurb. The standby line seemed pretty brutal as half of the seats were roped off and they reserved every 3rd train for FL. 6.5/10
6. Sierra Sidewinder - 1x - went on this one after a few beers which was not the best idea. I think this might have been the only spinner I've been on so not sure how it compares to the Gerstlauer ones. Seemed like a pretty solid intermediate coaster. 5.5/10

Had a great time. Pretty easy trip from San Diego so hopefully will be back next year for the giga!

 

 

 

Awesome. Xcelerator is going through a refurbishment that is why there is only one train, for most of the season it has been running two trains (prior to the re-paint). 

[Rusty Nail]

Quick update from today

Closed rides.

No movement on Montezooma yet.

Supreme Scream has reopened but only with one tower.

Green Tower

Xcelerator is back open on weekdays (for 4 weeks it was only operating on weekends)

Wipeout has been closed since Sept.

Lastly Log Ride still has a week or two left of refurbishment.

 

[wrs28330]

Theme Park Review was invited to experience the opening weekend of Knott's Boysenberry Festival! 

The tasting card has raised another $5 in price compared to the last event to now be $50 for adults, but now offers a 6th tasting item. 

Here are a few helpful tips for attending the event:

-We recommend starting at food locations towards the back of Ghost Town instead of making an immediate left towards the booths near Ghostrider, as just like with Halloween Haunt, a large number of attendees go there first. Come back to the booths near Ghostrider at the midpoint of your visit. We very much enjoyed the "Boysenberry Lane" section of the festival which offered a large food booth with many umbrella-shaded benches to enjoy your Boysenberry overload!

-If rides are a priority during your visit, we recommend you arrive right at park opening, and ride as much as you can. With a park opening of 9am, and arriving at 10am for our visit, we were surprised to see a 120-minute wait for Ghostrider, 130-minute wait for Silver Bullet, 30-minute wait for Pony Express, and a 45-minute wait for HangTime, just 1 hour into the operating period.

-Many food items can be found at multiple food locations, so check to see if one of your desired items can be found at a location off the beaten path.

The event is scheduled to run through April 24.

To plan your Boysenberry overload, visit this link for more details:

https://www.knotts.com/events/boysenberry-festival

We love these continual Knott's food festivals, giving us a reason to come back again, and again. Thank you so much to the Knott’s team for your hospitality!

Welcome back to the Boysenberry Festival!

This suits us:

First item: Boysenberry Filled Donut Open-faced Chicken Sandwich topped with a Bacon Jam and Arugula (though it seems just to be bacon bits and not a bacon jam, as a bacon jam and boysenberry seems redundant). 

Mini Crab Sushi Roll with a Boysenberry Aioli. Surprisingly refreshing on a warm day, and one of the seemingly best "values"!

All-Beef Meatballs in a Boysenberry BBQ Sauce on Mashers. Consistently great year after year!

Boysenberry BBQ Chicken Pizza. Picture=Terrible. Taste=Perfection!

Trio of Sausage with Peppers and Onions on Boysenberry Polenta. Another "good value" dish, very sharable. The sausage and peppers were good, though the boysenberry polenta didn't translate for us.

Boysenberry Mudslide. Yes, yes, and yes again!

Now for desserts! You can (jokingly) choose between either the listed "Boysenberry Mousse Chocolate Cake", or the written out "Boysenberry Mouse Cake"!

Either way, you can't go wrong!

Our favorite sweet item of the day!

Finishing up with a Boysenberry Pie Bar!

We visited Town Hall in Ghost Town to learn a bit about Knott's history.

The Blacksmith is always a great place to see the old-time charm of Knott's alive and well.

Oh hey, Catawampus!

A fun photo backdrop in Boysenberry Lane just beyond Ghostrider. We highly recommend this area.

Finishing up with a bit of entertainment, we visited the Camp Snoopy theater and enjoyed a show with the Peanuts friends:

Finally, The Bird Cage Theater in Ghost Town present a Melodrama, all centered around Boysenberry Schnapps! What could be better than that...and air conditioning!

At more than 30 minutes in length, this is a great way to enjoy the shade and relax between Boysenberry courses!

Thank you again to Knott's for inviting us to the opening weekend, and here is to a great Spring full of food!

 

[cfc]

Hmm--I'm not a fan of "donut sandwich" concoctions, but that chicken-and-Boysenberry-donut thing looks pretty tempting. I'd definitely go for the Boysenberry Mousse Cake.

[thrillseeker4552]

Looks amazing, thanks for all the photos. Can't wait to visit at the end of the month. This is my first Boysenberry Festival since... 2017 I think? And the park hasn't had one since 2019 (well, a proper one with rides open, etc.) so I'm sure they're thrilled about it too!

[Nrthwnd]

Ooooh, I really want to change any of my future plans, for a spring visit to Knott's during this event, and that other kingdom, over there.

Instead of the Fall.  We've done a lot of September visits in the past. Maybe it's time for a (ahem) Spring Fling one!

^^^ Great TR. Thanks for sharing it all.

[jray21]

Great report! I would love to attend this event one of these years!  

[coasternut]

The word is Xcelerator will be down for an extended (several months) period of time again. It's currently listed as closed on their website. Bad news with Monte being closed until next year.

[Garet]

I was going to joke that Screamscape will move on from Kumba and claim this one's end of life instead but...

Quote

I was sent some bad news for Knott’s Berry Farm this week, as it seems Xcelerator is down, yet again. I’m not sure of what the issue is this time, but I don’t believe this was scheduled downtime as Xcelerator was down prior to the closing of Montezooma’s Revenge for painting.
    While I’m not saying that Xcelerator is done by any means, we had previously heard that Knott’s was getting somewhat tired of all the downtime issues they have with the coaster and some in the company feel that the year-round operations of Knott’s may just be too much stress for Xcelerator.
    Now if only that rumored Giga coaster would arrive to pick up the slack…

 

[KBrylczyk]

^ JFC Lance get your head out of your ass already...

[VegasBaby]

Xcelerator isn't going anywhere, especially since they just spent a bunch of money to repaint it!

[jarmor]

When does painting a ride constitutes its safe from leaving?!?  Carowinds literally rebuilt thunder road then got rid of it.

[coasterbill]

Yeah, they just painted this ride like a month ago. What a jackass...

[KBrylczyk]

58 minutes ago, jarmor said:

When does painting a ride constitutes its safe from leaving?!?  Carowinds literally rebuilt thunder road then got rid of it.

The difference is Thunder Road was an old (and fairly boring) coaster that hardly drew a crowd. Nobody really gave a hoot that it got the axe, save for a few of you weird ones.  Xcelerator is iconic to Knott's and is extremely high-thrill. You can't think about Knott's without associating Xcelerator with it. Yeah it's short but it packs more punch in those ten seconds than I did on prom night.

[coasterbill]

There are instances of rides being removed right after being repainted / re-tracked... whatever but they're few and far between.

When you combine the fact that it was painted a month ago with a crazy new color scheme AND the fact that this guy just had two instances where he posted a stupid rumor like this and was shot down publicly by the park almost immediately then (while possible) the odds of this rumor being true are insanely, insanely, INSANELY low and even if he thought it was credible he'd be sort-of a jackass to post it after the last two times. Also, I know that he said he's "not saying that Xcelerator is done by any means" to cover himself, but that's what the entire rest of that post was implying.

 

[Doppel Looping]

4 hours ago, KBrylczyk said:

Yeah it's short but it packs more punch in those ten seconds than I did on prom night.

Did you last ten seconds on prom night?

[thrillseeker4552]

Not gonna lie, I've had some suspicions lately that Xcelerator may be on its last legs for the park, but ever since they dumped a bunch of money on a fancy color scheme that definitely couldn't have been cheap (and they even painted it post-Dragster incident), that solidified for me that it's staying for a while longer.

I'll be at the park in a week so that'll stink if it's down but I'm really just going for the Boysenberry Fest anyway.

[Manic Monte]

Well either way...the ride is closed for who knows how long right before peak season...AGAIN. 

No way I can put a positive spin on that.

[RideThroughTime]

17 hours ago, thrillseeker4552 said:

Not gonna lie, I've had some suspicions lately that Xcelerator may be on its last legs for the park, but ever since they dumped a bunch of money on a fancy color scheme that definitely couldn't have been cheap (and they even painted it post-Dragster incident), that solidified for me that it's staying for a while longer.

I'll be at the park in a week so that'll stink if it's down but I'm really just going for the Boysenberry Fest anyway.

New paint doesn't mean anything. King Cobra at Kings Island was repainted in 1999, and then removed in 2001. I'm not saying that Xcelerator is going to get removed. Just that new paint does not prove a ride is staying.