Knoebels Discussion Thread

[coasterbill]

Yup. They're open an extra hour because of the crowds and because it took so long to get the wristbands because they're Knoebels and that's how they roll.

 

Crowds are much more manageable now. Having an awesome day!

[Physical]

I couldn't believe how slammed the park was. Easily 4 times the crowds I experienced at PPP last fall. It was so bad, after we got our rides in on Phoenix, Twister, and Impulse (which took 2 hours) we just left and went to Hershey instead. We had to skip the Flyers and the Skooters but we ended up having a much more enjoyable time at Hershey, where everything was a walk on all night. Knoebels typically handles crowds well, but there were just too many people there, there aren't enough rides to handle that amount of people.

[coasterbill]

Did they decide to stay open an extra hour due to the crowds? It's 6:45, I'm nearly on Impulse, and the park hasn't cleared out at all. All the rides are still running with people on them.

 

EDIT: They stayed open longer, I just snagged two more rides on Twister (which is back to its ordinary walk-on self). The park is still going strong as of 7:20 but my brother is cold and hungry so we're leaving. I hope none of the peeps here ducked out at 6.

 

The Twister crew was ridiculous. Even the line spilling out the entrance was only 20 minutes. They had trains waiting to dispatch every time and they had to stand there and wait to send it so they wouldn't block stop it from dispatching too fast. Phoenix crew was great too but they only had one train because they were working on the transfer track and work isn't quite done yet. Tons of re-tracking on both coasters (not that they needed it).

 

Ride Count

Impulse 1x

Twister 1x

StratosFEAR 1x

Haunted Mansion 1x

Flyers 1x

Flying Turns 1x

Phoenix 2x

 

We didn't have time for the chairlift, paratrooper, Black Diamond, Skooter, Caesari's or Downdraft

 

Still a great day though! And those Piergoeis...

[A.J.]

Did they only have the main handstamp building open? Last year they had a few portable units set up in the nearby area to deal with overflow.

[coasterbill]

I think that was the only one they had open. That was really my only critique of the way they handled the situation.

[Physical]

They had a few temporary handstamp places. We still waited nearly 20 minutes for ours. I gotta say the retracking on Twister has transformed that ride into something truly special. There's one /very/ slight rough spot at the bottom of the second helix, but the rest of the ride is Phoenix smooth.

[I Like Theme Parks.]

They had a few temporary handstamp places. We still waited nearly 20 minutes for ours. I gotta say the retracking on Twister has transformed that ride into something truly special. There's one /very/ slight rough spot at the bottom of the second helix, but the rest of the ride is Phoenix smooth.

I thought Twister was somewhat smooth during the past 2 seasons, so I can't wait to try it this year!!!

[Myntiepwny]

So I have what is possibly the most stupid Knoebel's question ever, but I've been several times and am left with one question: Why does the park smell like it does? Is it burning kettle corn? Some food they serve that nobody else does? I don't think it is the rides, because it is not an oil smell, it is really sort of a burnt sugar smell. It was especially strong Saturday. No other park smells like this throughout the park--so what is it?

[I Like Theme Parks.]

So I have what is possibly the most stupid Knoebel's question ever, but I've been several times and am left with one question: Why does the park smell like it does? Is it burning kettle corn? Some food they serve that nobody else does? I don't think it is the rides, because it is not an oil smell, it is really sort of a burnt sugar smell. It was especially strong Saturday. No other park smells like this throughout the park--so what is it?

The smokey or burnt smell could be campfires, but I don't think many people would be at the campground during this time of the year. But later in the year, the campfire smell is very strong around Twister, and I love that. So that's why Twister is #1 on my top 10 best-smelling coasters. I'm pretty sure the sugary smell could be kettle corn or the toasted nuts with cinnamon near the Flyer. Probably some food.

[Physical]

So I have what is possibly the most stupid Knoebel's question ever, but I've been several times and am left with one question: Why does the park smell like it does? Is it burning kettle corn? Some food they serve that nobody else does? I don't think it is the rides, because it is not an oil smell, it is really sort of a burnt sugar smell. It was especially strong Saturday. No other park smells like this throughout the park--so what is it?

 

It might be the exhaust from the propane powered rides. Not sure I'd describe that as burnt sugar, but other than all the fantastic food everywhere, that's the only thing I can think of that would smell different than any other park.

[coasterbill]

I think it's campfires. You can smell it on your clothes when you leave. Always loved that... it just screams "Knoebels".

[Myntiepwny]

If it is just campfires, I don't wanna know what those people are burning....

[ejot]

Had a really great day at Knoebels, the park was very dead, maybe 300-400 cars in the lot, and I packed in a ton of rides for the 6hrs they were open. It was cloudy and COLD but only rained for a few minutes in the mid-afternoon. Got there at 11:30, and since I was alone and it was BOGO deal, found an odd numbered group and offered my "get one" to them. Headed over to Phoenix and queued up third. Right at noon they fired her up, sent one test train, and opened the gates. Second row on the first train of the day put a huge smile on my face. Followed up with:

 

Phoenix again

Flyer (solo ride and he let me go for like 5min)

Twister

StratosFear

Impulse

Downdraft

Power Surge

Whipper

The awesome pierogies

Carousel (got 6 rings)

Skooters ... no line

Impulse x2

Skooters ... most amazing Skooters sesssion ever., so many hard hits... everyone started clapping after the ride

Cheese on a stick

Flyer

Twister x2

StratosFear

Phoenix x3

Gasoline Alley

Phoenix x2

Flyer

Paratrooper

Impulse x3

Downdraft

Carousel ... 7 rings!

RotoJet

Flyer.. epic snapping

Haunted House

Phoenix x3

 

Flying Turns was down for the weather. Really wanted to spend some time on Fascination but just ran out of time. Skloosh was running -hahaha - but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, was really thinking about it though. The updated Haunted House is great! Couldn't have had a better day, Knoebels operations blow me away every time. Incredible ride cycles, incredible atmoshpere. Even little things like letting dogs in the park gives it such a special feel. I'd forgotten how great their Paratrooper runs too. Could have happily spent another 6hrs doing another 35+ rides.

[njcoasterguy34]

I went yesterday as well and had an awesome time, too. It is nice that they let dogs in, if only people would clean up after them. One of the times I went last summer I ended up stepping in dog dirt.

[neil009]

If it is just campfires, I don't wanna know what those people are burning....

 

Campfires seems the most likely option (the campground is extremely close and spans almost the entire length of the park), but I wouldn't be surprised if it's some kind of local industry smell. Doesn't Knoebels also own a lumber mill that's right next door? Maybe there's some burning involved in that?

 

I had much better luck with Impulse and my poor, poor pelvic bone this year. I tried the trick of scooching down in the seat when they check the lap bars so I had a good amount of room at the start of the ride. I got some pleasant airtime over the first drop this way, and it didn't get nearly as tight by the end. I hope this works every time, it really was extremely painful last year.

 

Twister is back to running as well as it ran two years ago. Last year wasn't *quite* as good, but now it's back at the top of its game. It's really amazing how much it's improved since like six or seven years ago, when it would come to a crawl at the top of the helix. Now it flies through the whole thing and it truly is an intense world-class ride, right up there in my eyes with the Holiday World woodies.

[coasterbill]

I feel like if Twister were at just about any other park it would be regarded as a world class coaster. Unfortunately at Knoebels it's overshadowed by Phoenix but that ride is really damn near perfect.

 

... then again if it were at just about any other park it would be awful because it's the type of ride that needs tons of maintenance every season and Knoebels is more than happy to provide it. At a corporate park I would expect it to be rough and trimmed. There's always tons of new wood on Twister. It's been perfectly walking the fine line between out of control and amazing and rough since the day it opened without ever crossing that line.

[coneyislandchris]

I feel like if Twister were at just about any other park it would be regarded as a world class coaster. Unfortunately at Knoebels it's overshadowed by Phoenix but that ride is really damn near perfect.

 

... then again if it were at just about any other park it would be awful because it's the type of ride that needs tons of maintenance every season and Knoebels is more than happy to provide it. At a corporate park I would expect it to be rough and trimmed. There's always tons of new wood on Twister. It's been perfectly walking the fine line between out of control and amazing and rough since the day it opened without ever crossing that line.

Well said Bill. I always feel like Phoenix and Twister are the perfect complements to each other, and it's amazing to have a park that routinely keeps them both in top shape.

[glowskull9]

Had a good time bringing my entire family (3 generations) out this past weekend. I've never seen it as crowded as I did on Saturday, it was crazy.

 

I remembered from last year that they had those portable handstamp trailers open on the side of the main window, but they didnt open them until I had waited for a little bit already unfortunately, but whatever. Went to flyers immediately, though my young nephew who I rode with didn't want me to move the sail at all, much less snap it. We then let him drive the old time cars over at gasoline alley, and phoenix was not open at the time.

 

In the end, we were able to go on all four coasters once, waiting a long time for every one except impulse, using the single rider line so we were able to get on immediately (he didn't go on that one). They were running two trains on twister, so even though the line was longer than ive ever seen it (it coming out of the queue!!!), it was still not too bad. The flying turns line was excruciating as they only had 2 trains running, and i swear i've seen it with at least 4, but i could certainly be making that up.

 

When we went to wait on line for haunted mansion (had no idea they were going to have new effects so that was really nice!) it was past the ticket booth. These two older ACErs stood behind us and were like "WHY ARE WE WAITING!? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" and i was like im on line and they said "WELL WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE IN FRONT OF YOU THEY DONT HAVE TICKETS! THEY CANT HAVE TICKETS! LETS GO AROUND THEM!!!!!" and i said "No, they're on line too. We're all on line. This is a line." and he said "IVE NEVER SEEN A LINE THAT WORKED LIKE THIS!!!!" what a guy.

 

Thanks to suggestions on this thread, I got the *Good* pierogies. They were fantastic!! Not deep fried like the ones at the tritater stand, so that was nice.

 

We didn't get around to playing Fascination on saturday, but we went back for a little bit on sunday and were able to play...and the park was just empty.

 

The only thing that I dont like about these off season days is that some of the food stands that I really like are closed: The Aloha stand, the lemon/orangeade stand, and the potato cakes stand near skloosh.

 

But a good time had as always.

[A.J.]

I've said this before, but Phoenix, Twister and Impulse are a near-perfect trifecta of roller coasters. Classic wooden, modern wooden, modern steel; Airtime, laterals, positives; front, middle, rear of the park.

[RAWKIN_coaster38]

We were there on Saturday and had NO IDEA it would be that busy! We would have arrived at the park way earlier if we had known. Some of the GP we talked to were shocked as well.

 

This was our first time at the park and I have to say... it completely blew away our already high expectations! It was just FUN. None of the rides we did weren't fun. The pizza was really good and inexpensive, the ride operators were really quick and efficient, employees really nice, park had a lot to do (we felt like we didn't even scratch the surface!), very well maintained and friendly atmosphere.

 

What we were able to do:

 

Black Diamond

Haunted Mansion (got some good scares out of me )

Phoenix x2

Twister

Weird twirly ride by the kiddie coaster

Bumper cars (definitely blew away any other bumper car I've ever done!)

Flyers x3 (I've never been the best at snapping, but these ones were AWESOME and I was able to get the technique down a lot easier and get some great snaps!)

Cesari's

Fascination (just a few quick games, I can see how people spend so much time and money on this addictive game!)

Indoor spinning rave ride

 

Unfortunately, Impulse just had way too long of a line and we passed it up for more rides on other things. We were going to ride Flying Turns (and heard they were keeping the line open until 7:15) but when we went over there at 7:10, we learned they had cut off the line for some coaster enthusiast group. Does anyone know which group this was?

 

It was awesome that Knoebel's stayed open later so we could do as much as we did! We got in our last ride (the indoor ride) around 7:30. Also, apparently some people rented out the flyers for two hours after that for their 25th anniversary. Relationship goals right there

 

I definitely can't wait to get back to this park!

[coasterbill]

From Instagram

[coneyislandchris]

^ Charge your damn phone, man!

[coasterbill]

^ Charge your damn phone, man!

 

My phone is always cheating death. I like to keep it interesting.

[SigilX]

^ This. It seems like Haunted Mansion has a non working Vortex tunnel room but I'm not 100% sure.

 

I spoke to some DAFE members at a convention, and they did say the Haunted Mansion had a Vortex/ Barrel room, but for some reason it was deactivated. I'd love to see this area and the Dungeon area get some TLC.

[njcoasterguy34]

I've done the Haunted Mansion a couple times. I don't find it all that scary. There are a couple rooms that make me jump a little but nothing that makes me cower in terror.

 

I do admit the ride is very well themed, though.