The Knott's Berry Farm (KBF) Discussion Thread

here's a few shots i took of Calico River Rapids while walking by today.

Looks very nice, and it is definitely a much needed improvement. After the log ride and mine ride got upgrades, the rapids getting a similar treatment seemed inevitable. I’m excited to check it out this weekend!

Calico River looks fantastic. I love these rapids rides, and it's pretty awesome to see so much attention going to refurb this one. I enjoyed the previous version quite a lot, so really looking forward to trying out this version too.

^ Me too, although I'm not sure if David will be into it, when we're there this September.

Then again, the possibility of getting soaked will call for some strategic "clothing plans".

EDIT: Just thought of it. I'll put David at the "water guns", hoping when we float by, it'll backfire on him.

Fun fact: Bigfoot is actually hidden on the mural along the wall of Warehouse P that you see behind the ride.

^ Too bad they didn't consider adding a Catawampus hidden somewhere along the ride.

Rode Calico River Rapids today and it was pretty good. I will give a lot of props to the queue as they did a real nice job building the new “show” house and incorporating the ride experience into it. Some fans are criticizing this but literally the way it’s laid out there was no choice. As for the ride, the theming is great but you’re on a rapids ride, no one is looking at anything except the next possible rapid that may soak them. It really takes away from the amazing job Knotts and Garner Holt did. I paid close attention on the three rides I took to see if anyone looked at the theming, and not one person did. Which is an absolute shame. GP aside, the update is amazing in every way. The TNT portion is gold, I found myself just standing there for a long time enjoying it all. The riders and the TNTer’s were both having a great time. And yes Bigfoot is way better in person!!! My only question is why aren’t the waterfalls working??? And why haven’t they for a long time now?

Overall: 8.5/10

Bigfoot Rapids: 3/10

^Well, I'd do my best to look at as much theming as I could see (depending which way

I was facing/turning). Thanks for your quick review of the attraction!

But I have never been to Soak City..... until today. So after 20 years how did it go???? I have to say it sucked!!! This has to be the worst big chain water park in the world. Absolutely terrible. It’s nothing but a concrete jungle with no charm, no rides, and no fun.

First off I wouldn't say Knott's Soak City is no fun. But it is one of those waterparks I visited as a local a couple years ago after a decade of waiting, and I never went back. It's OK but I'm not really a fan of flat terrain water parks, and Soak City is one of those which leads to a lot of flat concrete. It's a shame considering if they added a little bit of imagination and A LOT more trees, it could feel less "artificial." The slides are all risen on those non-themed supports, and after growing up on parks like Raging Waters and the now gone Wild Rivers which have/had quite a bit of terrain built slides, it really leaves a lot to be desired when things are just plopped down. But Cedar Fair wanted another gate for the Summer so non-local guests had "something else to do" and I think it's there just for that. I think if they would have bought some dirt to create big hills and a more terrain-like atmosphere, the park would be much better received.

Rode Calico River Rapids today and it was pretty good... My only question is why aren’t the waterfalls working??? And why haven’t they for a long time now?

Man, those waterfalls used to SOAK guests to the point of walking out and literally pouring water out of their shoes. I don't know why they were ever shut off, or why they're not used again, but considering the couple times I've ridden it the past couple years, and the current POV's of the updated themeing, the ride really doesn't get you all that wet anymore. It would be great if they turned those things on during the summer months to really drench folks the way it used to.

I'm wondering if it's one of those things to get ridership up as if you really got soaked the way they used to, people would be less willing to get on the ride. Getting soaked SUCKS if you have to deal with wet clothes, shoes and socks the rest of the day. I think Roaring Rapids at SFMM is still pretty good at getting the riders wet though.

BTW there used to be a photo at the entrance of Big Foot Rapids of the waterfalls being on with a quote saying "You will get wet, you might get DRENCHED!" with the waterfalls on. Literally emphasizing if you were one of the unlucky ones you might just land under one of those waterfalls, but I can't seem to find a picture of it anywhere. The closest one I found is below, MAN you would get SHOWERED! LOL!! Ahhh, those were the good old Big Foot Rapids days...

^ I've seen a lot of parks turn off the waterfalls in cooler months. I really wish river rapids rides were in water parks.

I used my shakey cam to get an off-ride video of the rapids ride plus a few photos.

[youtu_be]

Entrance

Outside queue

Queue house

Queue house

Queue house

Lift

LOL, that cabin queue is pretty livable, I'd say. And yes, it obviously looks like you can't appreciate all of the new stuff they've done, to the sides of the waterway. Depending on how you're spinning and turning, heh. But in your video, I did see several people seeing a few of the animatronics in action. Like that wolf, howling.

Great shots and video, thanks for sharing.

^ I've seen a lot of parks turn off the waterfalls in cooler months. I really wish river rapids rides were in water parks.

Gyeongju World has an interesting system in that the water park has a back gate that leads directly into the area of the theme park across from the splashdown boat and it becomes a water park ride during the hot summer months and the rapids and flume become the only water rides for the theme park guests,

That line queue looks interesting. Very fitting with the Knott's Berry Farm old west theme.

Some excellent design work on the part of Knotts and Holt on this makeover.

I am so looking forward to visiting Knott's again, in September.

And Disney. And the wonderful Knott's Hotel. And Mrs.Knott's Chicken!

My last shot, inside the park. Sept.11, 2016. I call it, "Buh Bye!"

I am so looking forward to visiting Knott's again, in September.

And Disney. And the wonderful Knott's Hotel. And Mrs.Knott's Chicken!

And here it is at its new location in Jakarta:

Blowing stuff up!

^ So was it true, that sometimes these things "backfired"

spraying water on the unsuspecting culprit? i.e. Yourself?

Or did you not see this occur while you were there?

Great shot, by the way.

^ So was it true, that sometimes these things "backfired"

spraying water on the unsuspecting culprit? i.e. Yourself?

Or did you not see this occur while you were there?

 

Great shot, by the way.

I visited yesterday and yes, I saw it occur. It is a very small spritz of water (imagine a squirt gun), so it won't "soak" you. Just a small surprise for some of the smaller kids messing with it!

In general, I loved the revamp. Operations were excellent (the entire queue from under the entrance sign to loading took 50 minutes). Part of this is because there are no real "cattle pen" areas of the queue, which is very nice for theming and keeping guests entertained with scenery. It all looked very well put-together, especially the log cabin portion of the queue. I'm glad Knott's did this and it was long overdue.

^ So was it true, that sometimes these things "backfired"

spraying water on the unsuspecting culprit? i.e. Yourself?

Or did you not see this occur while you were there?

 

Great shot, by the way.

Thanks. They don't backfire but one of the three levers is already broken hehehe.

I am so looking forward to visiting Knott's again, in September.

And Disney. And the wonderful Knott's Hotel. And Mrs.Knott's Chicken!

 

And here it is at its new location in Jakarta:

Had a GP that thought the cobra roll on Hangtime was kept from Boomerang. She didn't believe me when I told her Boomerang was on top of a hotel in Indonesia. I promise I'm not crazy!

Rode Calico River Rapids today and it was pretty good. I will give a lot of props to the queue as they did a real nice job building the new “show” house and incorporating the ride experience into it. Some fans are criticizing this but literally the way it’s laid out there was no choice. As for the ride, the theming is great but you’re on a rapids ride, no one is looking at anything except the next possible rapid that may soak them. It really takes away from the amazing job Knotts and Garner Holt did. I paid close attention on the three rides I took to see if anyone looked at the theming, and not one person did. Which is an absolute shame. GP aside, the update is amazing in every way. The TNT portion is gold, I found myself just standing there for a long time enjoying it all. The riders and the TNTer’s were both having a great time. And yes Bigfoot is way better in person!!! My only question is why aren’t the waterfalls working??? And why haven’t they for a long time now?

 

Overall: 8.5/10

 

Bigfoot Rapids: 3/10

I asked that very question during one of the West Coast Bash Q/A's and was told that they were having problems with people trying to "move" out of the way of the waterfalls and it was a Safety Issue as Guests were trying to stand up...

Went to this park on Tuesday, was planning to see how crowded it was before buying a fast lane but it was slammed with ghost rider at 2 hours pretty much all day so I'm really glad we ended up getting one. Well worth the money and got a ton of rides in that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.

We really enjoyed this park and it's got a solid lineup of fun rides. Ghost rider was an absolute blast, just wish I could have gotten some night rides in but the park closed at 8pm. It looked awesome with the orange lights at night.

Hangtime was awesome. Calico River Rapids was fantastic and I was surpised by the level of the theming, we rode it a bunch of times and the animatronics were great. We got wet but not soaked and honestly that's the perfect combo for me when we aren't in a water park.

Pony Express was the first time I've been on a ride like that and while I enjoyed it I'm glad we had fast lane because I wouldn't have waited on the lines it had because it was just too short of a ride. It made me really look forward to riding Tron when that opens at Magic Kingdom though.

The 3d shooting game Voyage to the Iron Reef was a great surprise, we never expected it to be that good. I wish more Cedar Fair Parks had these types of rides over the awful plants vs zombies and the just ok Boo Blasters. The actual game play and video was way better than Justice League as well.

The log flume ride was great but I don't know if it was just our log or what but there was so much water inside of it that we had to keep our feet up on the inside bars because they would have been submerged in water if we didn't. We didn't even get very wet from the ride either. Also this ride wasn't part of fast lane even though the map says it is so we waited till the end of the day and hoped on line and waited 5 mins to get on. It had a really long line the rest of the day.

Overall an excellent experience at the park and would definitely stop by again if I was in the area.

Went to the park tonight for a few hours mainly to people watch and wander around. Figured it'd be too busy to ride anything (it was), and most of the rides had hideous lines.

Tried the Ghost Rider single-rider line for the first time though. It should work in theory, but they'd need multiple groupers for it to function well. The group of four in front of us (two adults and two young kids) waited in the single-rider line then, when placed into the line that runs parallel to the main queue, jumped the railing — basically single-rider right up to the station, then the regular line from that point on so they could ride together. They got caught but the grouper was so slammed trying to get the rest of the crowd to follow instructions that he ended up just letting them through. Anyhow, my guess is that the regular line was probably close to 90 minutes, and the single-rider line ended up taking 40 minutes for about 20 single riders.