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Knott’s Berry Farm Buena Park, CA Weather: Sunny, 90’s Crowds: Light So far this season has been all about going back to parks that have added several coasters since a previous visit. My last (and only other) trip to Knott’s was in January of 2004, and Silver Bullet and Sierra Sidewinder have both been added. One was better than I expected, the other was more of a disappointment. Keep reading to find out which was which! We were staying in the West Hills, which for those of you who don’t know LA, is essentially the opposite side of the city from Buena Park and Knott’s. It was a Monday, but a holiday week Monday, so we were cautiously optimistic we could make the drive in 90 minutes or so, with traffic. We were on the road at 10am to avoid the rush, and our plan worked, we were at the park not too long after 11am. The big change when you first enter the park is quite obvious, Silver Bullet towers over the entry plaza, and pretty much the entire center of the park. The quiet parking lot and chatting employees led us to believe crowds would be light. Surprising news, but we were happy to hear it. Of course, SB was first up, and an almost empty station greeted us. I have heard some pretty bad things about this ride: boring, slow, pointless. So needless to say, my expectations were low. My pessimism quickly turned to surprise even before we were off the lift, I love a coaster that takes place almost entirely over the midway and spectators below! Sure, the first drop left something to be desired, but everything else about this coaster was top notch. Great pacing, great inversions, a killer helix at the end. The weird fake-out flip is unusual, but in a good way, and actually pretty fun on the left side of the train. Why do people not like this ride? Are they bored by B&Ms? Well, I love the inverteds, and this one was terrific. No, it’s not in the top tier of inverteds, behind Alpengeist, Top Gun, etc., but it deserves more then the mediocre reviews I’ve heard. What it may have lacked in overwhelming intensity (a la Batman and Montu), it made up for with amazing visuals as it ran over the park (a la Great Bear and Raptor). I put it ahead of Talon and the Dueling Dragons, just for reference. Our next stop was where we found some disappointment. The wait for Sierra Sidewinder was about 25 minutes, which was not unreasonable for being a family ride, and having just opened 5 or 6 weeks prior. For what it’s worth, the queuing could have used some shading, ANY shade at all would have done. In fact, almost the entire park is terribly exposed to sun. You’d think they’d figure to address that in Southern California. As for the ride itself, it’s a unique one for sure, a custom spinning Wild Mouse style, but the cars are arranged in trains of 4. The spinning is random (i.e., not controlled electrically or mechanically, only the result of physics) and occasionally, entirely absent. The only way to ensure even a few spins is to be in a car with only three people or severely overload one side. Otherwise the even weight will reduce the spinning to almost nothing. We started the ride backwards, and slowly turned forward by the time we got to the end. That was it, no whipping, no high-g spins. All in all, a novel concept, not the best execution, and not worth waiting for again. So there were the new coasters, 2 on the day, and a respectable 9 on the season. I’d like to get that into double digits, but I’m scratching my head as to where I could get one more without going too far. Either way, that brings me up to 233 in total, which is getting damn near respectable. We continued our counterclockwise loop around the park, which brought us to Montezuma’s Revenge next. There’s a reason these rides have survived, simple, but effective. I love me a shuttle loop. Jaguar followed, definitely a unique family coaster. I can’t help feeling that I’m IN Roller Coaster Tycoon when on this ride. Both were walk-ons. We skipped a few non-coaster rides, the heat was starting to get to us, but I wanted to get on Xcelerator before lunch. I don’t care that I had been on the biggest version of this ride not 4 weeks ago in New Jersey, a 0-80mph launch in 2 seconds is nothing to overlook. The wait was short, a 2 train wait and we were in the last car. Intense launch, airtime over the top, great drop, fun overbanked turns, it’s a great coaster. As much crap as I give Intamin for their shoddy products, when their coasters happen to be running and safe, they are hard to beat. We found the nearest air-conditioned eatery, and as expected, the AC was far more satisfying than the food. Daring back into the heat, we re-rode Xcelerator and hit the nearby Supreme Scream (S&S Turbo Drop). Why this isn’t a combo tower, I don’t know, but MAN is it tall. We tried to find Disney from the top, but seemed to be facing the wrong way. No matter, it would only have made us sad anyway. Heading counterclockwise again, we decided to go on Boomerang for some reason. Ugh, so I think I’m done with these rides. Unless there’s a credit involved, of course. Whatever, you don’t get to 233 without putting your body through some pain! We watched the crazy people get drenched by jets of water on the top spin ride and enjoyed the cool mist that found onlookers. Next was a beer stop (surprise, surprise) at the only place in the park you could get it without going to a sit-down restaurant. I’m not sure which was worse, the fact that the saloon was somehow NOT air-conditioned, of the overwhelming pity we had for the performers who were putting on some kind of wild west revue. They wouldn’t even let us out onto the adjacent deck, as the door had a sign that read “No alcohol pass [sic] this point.” Way to spell, Knott’s. Not as refreshed from the beers as we would have liked, the train was up next. Pretty uneventful, as it really only loops the back half of the park and goes through some uninteresting backstage areas. Watch out for those train robbers though, their interactions with the crowd can be quite painful. Needing a quick thrill, we hit the nearby Silver Bullet, this time in the front seat. Awesome. The jerks at Knott’s have a very unusual no (strapless) glasses policy on every coaster here, but I wasn’t going to sit in the front without being able to see. As expected, the glasses didn’t budge even while in the front seat, and I got to enjoy the impressive view. Heading back into the Old West theme, we went on the Calico Mine Train. This is an old scenic railway meets a mine ride. While I don’t count this in my rankings (I faithfully go by the www.rcdb.com listings), I really wonder why it’s not included. It’s a train on a track that uses gravity to go downhill, and has a lift hill to bring it to the peak of its circuit. You don’t get much more coaster-y than that. After the stifling 20 minute wait for that, we needed a real break. Coincidentally, the Snoopy ice show was about to start, and we figured it HAD to be air-conditioned in the arena. We were right, and it was such a relief, no wonder the crowds were so light. The show was actually pretty entertaining; the featured skaters were really quite impressive. An ice cream break found us wondering what was left, pretty much just Ghostrider. Another quiet station and two train operation had us on in no time, towards the middle of the train. Yikes, after the glass-smooth B&M and Intamin on the other side of the park this one was unfortunately jarring. Maybe it was our exhaustion, maybe it was a crummy seat, but one ride was slightly more than enough. I didn’t feel it was worth dropping down in my ranking, which I will often do when a subsequent ride is disappointing, but it’s not like this was in my top 10 anyway. We probably should have waited for the front row, one the chance that it may have been any smoother there. Having hit the majority of the park in about 6 hours, we were thrilled the light crowds let us get through everything even before 6pm. We had other plans for the evening while we were in the south LA region, so I got one last back seat ride on Silver Bullet before heading out. Again, this ride deserves more acclaim. No, it’s not the best inverted in the world, but it’s only disappointing if you expect it to be! Overall a very fun, if HOT, day. Again, we really lucked out with the crowds and were glad people smarter than us didn’t brave the heat. I like this park; it’s a great middle ground between the theming of Disneyland and the thrills of Six Flags Magic Mountain. It’s not especially close to reaching either, but definitely the best park in the middle of that spectrum on the west coast. Back to Trip Reports
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