USA Trip 2014 Park #3
29 Nov 2014
We arrived in Anaheim for our stay at the Super 8 Hotel. We prepped for another day of roller coasters by having a delicious dinner at the Cheesecake factory. I highly recommend the pretzel crumbed chicken!
When we arrived at Knott’s Berry Farm, we went straight to the Fast Pass booth. No more mucking around! We knew that this park wasn’t as epic as Six Flags Magic Mountain, but Terror and I still had a most excellent day. The owners had managed to fit in a great number of high quality coasters for which we were grateful.
I enjoyed the ghost town/western/gold rush theming throughout the park, which included some Christmas elements and a pop up market. Souvenirs were not high on our agenda though, as we made our way to the wooden coaster Ghost Rider. It was disappointing that even though we had a fast pass, the fast pass lines on the rides were actually quite big. I have no doubt that the main lines would have been torturous however. Ghost Rider was a fantastic bumpy ride! Terror and I both loved every second, especially the massive drop and little hills that provided a bit of air time. We rode again at night time, which was even better when you couldn’t see what was coming.
The Pony Express was quite novel, as you mounted a horse (smirk) and sped along a track after a fast launch. This was quite similar to the Motocoaster at Dreamworld, but way more fun because we got to neigh as we went.
We ticked off a couple of the smaller coasters like the Boomerang (same old same old) and the Coast Rider (crazy mouse style.) The Calico Mine Ride kept breaking down during the day, but we did manage to get on in the early evening. This was a little indoor coaster that was more like a painfully slow train that took you past a lot of animatronic action that was difficult to understand. Really glad we returned to line up for that one…
It always sucks when one of the top coasters at a park was closed (especially a fast launch one), and so we missed out on Xcelerator. I guess it wasn’t really surprising, as we did expect ride maintenance do be done outside of the busy summer holiday season. It would have been nice to compare this one to Kingda Ka and Top Thrill Dragster, but it wasn’t to be. No time to sulk though, as it was Silver Bullet time!
Silver Bullet was a pretty manic suspended coaster! There were a few loops and rolls which were all quite smooth. We enjoyed the scenic ride over a little water section, and appreciated a good track that took over 2 minutes to get around.
After making our way around Fiesta Village eating nachos and singing Feliz Navidad with the street parade, we jumped on Jaguar which was a traditional enclosed train on a run of the mill track. We were way less bored on Montezooma’s Revenge, which was a fast launch half pipe with a loop at one end. For a simple set up, we loved the intensity and went on numerous times. I have a bit of a soft spot for these kinds of tracks and their fuss free thrills.
We nearly skipped the next coaster as it looked like a kiddy track called Sierra Sidewinder. This was our first time on a coaster where you sat in small round trains that spun around as you zoomed along the track. It was brilliant fun and there was a lot of centrifugal force. I am glad we didn’t make the mistake of missing it, because it was hilarious.
Terror and I had a solid day at Knott’s Berry, using every hour available to get as many repeat rides in as we could. We had planned to go again the following day, but felt like we had made the most of a single day and decided against it. I would love to go back one day to have a play with Xcelerator, and also the new coaster Hangtime which opened in 2018.
As we were off to Disney California Adventure in a couple of days, we decided against using our ‘free’ day to visit Disneyland park. Were we losing our stamina, or was I just disinterested in Disneyland? Either way, we had an LA Lakers game to get to the following evening, so did some sight-seeing around the Staples Centre instead.
Roller Coaster Ramble 