Knoebels/Dorney Park/Great Adventure TR 10/10 and 11

[gad198]

Overview:

I had read some trip reports from others who had gone to Knoebels, and decided that one day I was going to go. Fast forward to this weekend. I checked the weather forecast for this past weekend on Wednesday...rain-free. I called my brother and asked him if he wanted to take a quick park trip; he agreed, and we figured that we would head east. I also noticed that Phoenix Phall Phunfest was being held at Knoebels, so we decided to head there on Saturday and then do a quick Six Flags Great Adventure trip on Sunday.

Knoebels:

We arrived at the park around 5. We pulled up to the lot and noticed there were hundreds of cars parked in a meadow. We found out that the Covered Bridge Festival was running at the time, and it is apparently a very popular event. We eventually made our way through the festival setup and found the parks front entrance (if you want to call it that, because there's not really a sign directing you!). We made our way back to get our Phunfest admission stuff, got some Cesari's pizza (which was just OK at best...the pizza looked much better than it tasted!), and waited for the park to reopen at 6. Our plan was to ride the flyers right at 6 to avoid a long line, but we overheard someone saying that they weren't going to allow any snapping. Never heard of that! Anyway, right at 6 most of the crowd started making its way back to Phoenix as did we.

The Phoenix stands at a meager 78' tall. Much of the layout is hidden from the entrance and even from most of the queue line. We found the entrance, and ten minutes we were in the backseat. I love the old PTCs with just the buzzbar and no seat belts! The ride in the backseat is good, but doesn't leave you with the feeling like it should be a top 5 coaster. The airtime is there, but it's not as intense or as abundant as I would have thought. We figured we'd get back in line and try the front, opting for seat 1-3.

MUCH. BETTER.

I'm not sure that this was the magic seat on this coaster but it sure felt like it! The airtime on the first couple of drops wasn't as good from up here, but the second half of the ride made me stand up on at least four different occasions. We caught a night ride later in the session in the same seat, and it delivered even more air! The second half of this coaster is simply outstanding. The ride tracked very nicely, and it's pretty evident the park has taken good care of this ride. The ride crept in my top 5, and I can see where the love of this coaster comes from!

We took a ride on Twister, which was running really fast! The layout of the coaster leaves a bit to be desired, but the night rides we had on this were fun. This is only coaster in memory that not only rides better but also smoother in the back. We took two rides on this and then rode the aforementioned Flyers. Apparently, the word about them not allowing snapping was false, as enthusiasts were snapping to their hearts content. It's really fun to see what some of most experienced veterans can do in those things! The flyers were fun and it was nice of the park to allow us to work the sails.

We opted against the bumper cars. My brother's back was bothering him a little, and judging by the looks of the cars circling the track it didn't look like a bumper car rally was what his back was looking for! I will say that I was surprised that the bumper cars weren't faster than they were. They may have been a shade faster than Holiday World's, but what they may have lacked in pure speed they more than made up for in hit value. Watching people go airborne in a bumper car is quite a sight!

Knoebels is a nice old school park. It's beautifully situated in a mountainous valley and the park really blends in nicely with its surrounding environment. The park really is a "park", as I'd be apt to say it's a forest that happens to contain an amusement park. As advertised the food prices were very reasonable, but unfortunately we didn't have the opportunity to sample anything other than the pizza. We did try some of the birch beer (both white and blue), and I thought it was interesting. Root beer is better IMO but it was worth trying at least once. The park really does have loads of charm. We had a really good time at the park, and will definitely be back in future years, presumably when Flying Turns opens.

Thanks for reading, and our Dorney Park and Great Adventure trip will follow in part II, coming tomorrow.

[The Interpreter]

Neato! I know someone who is very much looking forward to the reports on the rest of your trip!

And I am glad to hear that I am not the only who thinks Knoebel's pizza is not all that. The rest of the park more than makes up for it! Did you ride the dark ride?

[gad198]

^ I did not, unfortunately. We finished eating just shy of 6, and we wanted to get in some other rides. The line for the Haunted Mansion was long enough that we knew we could get on other things quicker, and it worked out that way, but we just never made it back. I've heard a lot of good things about it, and see that it's usually ranked pretty high in the Golden Tickets, so I'm a little disappointed we didn't get on it. Is it better than Spiderman or Curse of DarKastle?

[The Interpreter]

In a word, no. But it is very, very good.

[gad198]

As promised, here is part II of the trip report...

Phunfest at Knoebels was scheduled to go through 10 pm. My brother and I talked about the fact that we had done what we wanted to do there, and looked at the time...7:30. Interesting...you know, Dorney Park is only an hour and a half away...let's do it! We hopped in the car and drove off to Dorney Park, which was scheduled to close at midnight (more on this later).

Dorney Park:

We got to Dorney Park around 9:15. We went to the park last year around this same time when temperatures were in the low 40's, and I've gotta say that was one of the coldest days we've ever experienced at a park. The park was also way beyond crowded (Talon had a 45 minute wait time and Steel Force was an hour, and cars were parking on the grass). We pulled into the lot and noticed it was way less busy than at the same time last year (coincidentally, our Platinum Passes worked without incident). We decided to get two of the credits we missed on our last trip first, so we headed to Possessed.

Possessed is Wicked Twister at Cedar Point with just a straight back spike instead of a twisted one. We waited three trains for the third to last row (toward back spike). I thought that the back spike would be a little bit more thrilling than it was, especially with the holding brake working. Having said that, the ride, while not thrilling, is fun enough. Probably not worth more than a 10-15 minute wait, but fun enough for what it is. Grade: C+

We headed to Steel Force next, the parks Morgan hypercoaster. There was a one train wait for the third to last row. The first two drops were really nice, and it has some really nice forces at the bottom of each hill. The helix was a little too drawn out for my taste, but the drop off the blocks and bunny hills back to the station were really good. The ride also rode as smooth as glass, something I wasn't expecting at all. I find it amazing that Morgan coasters (Mamba at WOF, Steel Force, and Phantom's Revenge) are generally smooth, but Arrow coasters, essentially using the same track, are generally not (Tennessee Tornado at Dollywood excluded). This, to me, is one of the underrated coasters out there. Grade: B+

Our night got really tricky from there. We wanted to hop back in the Steel Force line to try and front seat, but noticed that they closed down the line, saying there were some mechanical difficulties. OK, well, we'll just come back. We rolled over to Hydra, noticed a train rolling through the course, but the line closed. The attendant at the front of the line said the ride was closed. Interesting, given the fact we just saw a train roll through the course! A guest asked him how long it'd be, and he said it was closed for the evening. What? Really? I looked at the time...11:10. OK, strike two, but we're still good as long as Talon is open. We knew it was going to be bad when we didn't notice a train rolling during our four minute walk back there. Line closed, and strike three. I swear I remember the signs saying the park was open til midnight. The park did have signs out in front saying they would close at midnight, and signs on the windows indicating their Haunt hours, also showing a midnight close. I wanted to talk to Guest Relations, but there was no one in the building and the lights were off.

I still don't know the reason they decided to do this, but to say that this was poor taste by the park would be selling this short. The park wasn't that busy, so I'm sure that this was the reason they decided to shut down early, but doesn't the park have some responsiblity to make sure that guests know this by at least making an announcement? Randomly closing rides and shutting the park down early is a sure way to get bad guest satisfaction ratings and leave a bad taste in their mouths. Listen, I understand if you want to shut down the park early due to attendance, but at the very least you need to let everyone know. They didn't. I could only imagine if something like this happened at a bigger CF park like KI or CP.

Dorney Park is actually a nice park. They have a good variety of rides and enough to do to keep you interested. They've got a nice flat ride selection, but they need a good dark ride to round things out. There are only two things I don't like about the park: (1) their parking lot exits are terrible. Last year we waited for a good half hour to exit, and even with a sparse crowd on our visit this year we still waited seven or eight minutes with only 30 cars in front of us. (2) Navigating the park is really difficult unless you know for sure where you're going. A lot of the paths just dead end into something. There's signage up directing you to the rides, but it's not entirely clear where some things are until you get right up on them. I do like the park as a whole and I'm sure we'll be back. Compared to some of the other "smaller" CF parks, I like this one better than WOF and Carowinds (for now, although that will surely change with the B&M Intimidator). Grade: B-

Six Flags Great Adventure:

We got inside the park right as they dropped the ropes at 10:30. We knew from reading other trip reports that everyone goes to Kingda Ka (which they did), so we ducked to El Toro instead.

El Toro right at opening was a walk-on unless you were waiting for the first six rows. We figured that we'd probably need to snag a front car ride while the wait was short, so we opted for row 3. Intamin rides are generally better in the front, and last year our best rides were in this row, but our first ride felt a little more sluggish than our rides last year. The airtime during the first few hills wasn't quite as intense, although the ride was still very good. We noticed that they were allowing re-rides, so on our way out we hopped into the last row...

The difference in the last row was night and day. We were nearly standing up on the first three hills and the hill over Rolling Thunder. The only real knock I have on the ride is that after these aforementioned hills the ride is over for all intents and purposes. There is a lot of track that simply doesn't do all that much, and for an ADD coaster guy like yours truly who enjoys rapid-fire elements I'd rather use the track to get in some bunny hills or something (like, on Phoenix at Knoebels). I will say this...Voyage IMO is still a better ride but El Toro's first three hills and hill over RT cannot be beat on any coaster, anywhere. If the second half had the same fun levels as the first half it'd be my #1, but it's solidly in my top 3. Grade: A-

After a huge crowd (probably 1,000 people, and this isn't exaggerating) made their way to El Toro we knew our riding there was done, so after three walk-on rides we headed over to Bizarro. I liked the coaster as Medusa, so I was curious to see how much of a difference the rebranding and new effects the ride made. Answer: they just didn't affect the ride experience much. The speakers they have for the on-board audio garbled much of the sound, and many of the effects went by fast enough that I really didn't notice them much. Having said that, our second-to-last row ride was good. The zero-g roll is my favorite inversion anywhere, and I love the fact that B&M designs perfectly shaped elements, taken at just the right speed for optimum smoothness. I haven't ridden a bad floorless yet (and yes, that includes Scream! at SFMM...I like everything about that coaster sans the parking lot setting ), and would love to see KI get one of these (after they get their B&M inverted, hehe). Grade: B

We took the Skyride over to the other side of the park and got on Nitro. Nitro did very little for us the last time we were there, and I wanted to get the same ride everyone else got when voting for the Golden Tickets. We hopped in the last row, and I will say that the ride was a little better this time around. The first drop is the best on any B&M hyper I've ridden to date, and even with the MCBR turned on we got an absolutely stand-you-up-out-of-your-seat pop of airtime off the block. After our ride we got back in line and waited 10 minutes for a second row ride. I must say that I get the adorement of this ride now. There was good floater air on every single hill! I really like this ride. I don't think it's as good as Behemoth or Diamondback, but it's right up there. B&M hypers are some of the best rides in the world today (minus Raging Bull), and I am really glad to have one in this part of the country. Grade: A- in the front, B in the back.

We spent the rest of our short time at the park checking out the rest of the park and just kind of taking in the scenery. Great Adventure is such a fun park. There's a lot of coasters (obviously), and I think the park does have a lot of character. They need to add a few flat rides and dark ride, but I really like this park. The scenery is beautiful and the park has really turned things around. We definitely had a great time. Grade: B+

Thanks for reading!

[PhantomTheater]

Possessed is Wicked Twister at Cedar Point with just a straight back spike instead of a twisted one. We waited three trains for the third to last row (toward back spike). I thought that the back spike would be a little bit more thrilling than it was, especially with the holding brake working. Having said that, the ride, while not thrilling, is fun enough. Probably not worth more than a 10-15 minute wait, but fun enough for what it is. Grade: C+

Possessed was Steel Venom from Geauga Lake, and IMO was beter then WT. The holding on the back spike is one of the best experiences out there.

Our night got really tricky from there. We wanted to hop back in the Steel Force line to try and front seat, but noticed that they closed down the line, saying there were some mechanical difficulties. OK, well, we'll just come back. We rolled over to Hydra, noticed a train rolling through the course, but the line closed. The attendant at the front of the line said the ride was closed. Interesting, given the fact we just saw a train roll through the course! A guest asked him how long it'd be, and he said it was closed for the evening. What? Really? I looked at the time...11:10. OK, strike two, but we're still good as long as Talon is open. We knew it was going to be bad when we didn't notice a train rolling during our four minute walk back there. Line closed, and strike three. I swear I remember the signs saying the park was open til midnight. The park did have signs out in front saying they would close at midnight, and signs on the windows indicating their Haunt hours, also showing a midnight close. I wanted to talk to Guest Relations, but there was no one in the building and the lights were off.

I still don't know the reason they decided to do this, but to say that this was poor taste by the park would be selling this short. The park wasn't that busy, so I'm sure that this was the reason they decided to shut down early, but doesn't the park have some responsiblity to make sure that guests know this by at least making an announcement? Randomly closing rides and shutting the park down early is a sure way to get bad guest satisfaction ratings and leave a bad taste in their mouths. Listen, I understand if you want to shut down the park early due to attendance, but at the very least you need to let everyone know. They didn't. I could only imagine if something like this happened at a bigger CF park like KI or CP.

SF did this at GL during the Worlds of Adventure phase of the park, the end result of said behavior is well known.