Knott's Berry Farm

[Jake S]

Knott’s is the only park in SoCal with a regular, good ‘ol Ferris Wheel

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but is there a reason the wheel at DCA or Santa Monica Ocean Park don’t qualify? If anything, I’ve always thought of the Knott’s wheel as pretty so so because of its size and traveling carnival aesthetic.

 

[Freak]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but is there a reason the wheel at DCA or Santa Monica Ocean Park don’t qualify? If anything, I’ve always thought of the Knott’s wheel as pretty so so because of its size and traveling carnival aesthetic.

Well, but regular good ‘ol Ferris Wheel, I meant a bench-style carnival wheel. DCA is a big wheel and the Santa Monica one is well…I guess that one is technically a carnival style wheel. I just like the old Ferris wheel at Knotts lol

 

[Rideguy70]

I get what you're saying, I'm a fan of the traditional carnival style ferris wheel as well. But at the same time, for a heavily attended theme park, it's a capacity nightmare. They're better at smaller, less attended parks and fairs. I mean, how many times did anyone regularly ride it? I think I went on it a total of 2 times since it opened.

 

[JaySalahi]

Few things...

The land clearing under Silver Bullet could that be for the Truck ride? It would make sense to see the train then. They never mentioned where Woodstocks air mail is moving too. So maybe that's where the trucks are now, they said it will be by the post office? maybe they make a little thing there? Idk why they would do that as it would be way more pricey but a thought. Probably just for train enhancements tho.


And again there really isn't room for a Dark Ride in Camp Snoopy. Berry tales for example not counting the little gift shop/bathroom building or counting the queue area is about 180x100 feet... The theater, Red Barron and Meet and Greet Zone together are all only about 150 feet long. Then width, 100 feet from the stage coach would be inside Sierra Siderwinders plot touching the Helix track. So no pathway.

So even two stories with a queue, that's a beyond tight fit that's way way expensive for less capacity than A theater, Meet and greet area and a flat ride.

Knotts needs to expand a bit first before they can comfortly fit a proper peanuts dark ride in.

 

[Freak]

Some potentially encouraging news regarding Monty: Some people were seen inspecting the site. Glad to see some movement. Probably scoping out the site to see how they can fix it…or to tear it down. Bet let’s hope they’re inspecting it to fix it.

 

[Stryker]

Some quick updates.

I asked the associates manning the Ferris wheel while it was down about the new Off-Road Rally that’s replacing the Rocky Mountain Trucking Company and they said Huff & Puff will be going away and that plot would be used for its expansion. Honestly, this makes the most sense. RMTC already runs under Monty’s rear spike so unless it eats into Monty’s queue, there’s really nowhere else for expansion.

The M&G between Grizzly Creek Lodge and Flying Ace is behind walls. This could be the where Woodstock’s Airmail gets relocated.

My kids have outgrown Camp Snoopy so we don’t visit it much other than to ride the train, Sierra Sidewinder or Linus Launcher but we’re all excited for the upcoming changes and this will add a few new or revamped rides for us.

 

[deadbydawn]

Looks like we have an official answer on closures for the Camp Snoopy updates.

 

[deadbydawn]

Another small update, but for a while now there has been "VIP Lounge" listed as something you get access to with the Prestige Pass. Today, Knott's announced the Calico Social Hall will be opening on January 1st 2024 and will be located in Gertie's Dress Shop across from the blacksmith in Ghost Town. It will offer complimentary snacks and water, as well as have soda fountains which can be used if you have a drink plan or refillable cup. It will not be open during Scary Farm or any other special ticketed event in the park.

 

[Stryker]

If it’s entirely in the dress shop, that’s a pretty small area. I believe behind it is the back room of Spurs and hopefully that will be the actual lounge. You enter the dress shop and then thru another door/doorway to access the lounge.

Since it’s not available during KSF, it can be converted back for use with the Boo-fet.

The FAQ states complimentary iced water, chips and cookies.

 

[Rideguy70]

Visited the new Prestige AP lounge that opened up in the park today. It's surprisingly nice! You enter through Gertie's Dress Shop, but once inside, there's a new hallway that leads to a fairly large room behind it. It has plenty of seating, snacks (chips and cookies), soda refills, water, TVs, charging stations, and some merch. One table had a checkerboard on it, and it appears you can request pieces to play. It's also decorated with some (probably reproductions) of log ride concept art.

Downsides: there are no windows, so it feels a bit confining and dark despite it's relative large size, and the Wifi is terrible.

See some pics on my Bluesky (which are viewable publicly even if you don't have an account--I just despise Elon so much, I'm trying to move much of my postings there): Rideguy70 (@rideguy70.bsky.social)

 

[Jerroddragon]

From reddit posts and seeing videos I think AP needed to be blocked out the last two weeks of the year, seems like insane crowds for a park that doesn't normally see that many guests and lines for 30 mins for food to me seems like there is an issue with how many people are being allowed the last weeks of the park

 

[Freak]

From reddit posts and seeing videos I think AP needed to be blocked out the last two weeks of the year, seems like insane crowds for a park that doesn't normally see that many guests and lines for 30 mins for food to me seems like there is an issue with how many people are being allowed the last weeks of the park

Or you could just choose not to go the last two weeks of the year.

Why miss out on that sweet revenue? If AP holders really want to go let ‘em. I’ll gladly wait two weeks for the crowds to die down.

Speaking of which, I checked the USH wait times to get an indicator on if the NY crowds have died off yet. NOPE. Guess I’ll have to wait one more week to go on some rides.

 

[Jerroddragon]

Or you could just choose not to go the last two weeks of the year.

Why miss out on that sweet revenue? If AP holders really want to go let ‘em. I’ll gladly wait two weeks for the crowds to die down.

Speaking of which, I checked the USH wait times to get an indicator on if the NY crowds have died off yet. NOPE. Guess I’ll have to wait one more week to go on some rides.

Disneyland shows why

You can clearly still make profits and block APs.

Also maybe if Knotts trained its staff on how to load rides quicker then I wouldn’t care but when I hear the paid Q’s are taking long it shows your taking in to many guests.

Guests shouldn’t just suffer because APs refuse to stop going, I’m a USH AP and of crowds got too much where they needed to cut APs dates, I’d understand but the AP at USH is on sale so clearly they aren’t near that yet

I’ve also gone to USH many times the last few weeks, moving are still enjoy able I was about to on Monday get MK, panda, slop, sully fun land flat ride, the tram water world done by noon and that’s with me making the mistake of starting with panda

It’s knotts, knotts and parks at WDW seem to have operations issues for guests right now

 

[Freak]

Disneyland shows why

You can clearly still make profits and block APs.

Also maybe if Knotts trained its staff on how to load rides quicker then I wouldn’t care but when I hear the paid Q’s are taking long it shows your taking in to many guests.

Guests shouldn’t just suffer because APs refuse to stop going, I’m a USH AP and of crowds got too much where they needed to cut APs dates, I’d understand but the AP at USH is on sale so clearly they aren’t near that yet

I’ve also gone to USH many times the last few weeks, moving are still enjoy able I was about to on Monday get MK, panda, slop, sully fun land flat ride, the tram water world done by noon and that’s with me making the mistake of starting with panda

It’s knotts, knotts and parks at WDW seem to have operations issues for guests right now

I mean if they want to block out APs during hell week, they can totally do that. Disney is different because they can. Knotts apparently doesn’t because they want to cash in on those locals blocked out of Disney. More money. Plain and simple.

Can Knotts improve their ops? Oh absolutely. They really need to work on that. At the same time….they are a business, they do what they want, and they can choose whether or not to block out APs. I personally think it’s good they have no black out dates and I support that. Literally any other time of the year that’s not a holiday or a holiday weekend is more enjoyable, so I’ll just go then.

 

[Jerroddragon]

I mean if they want to block out APs during hell week, they can totally do that. Disney is different because they can. Knotts apparently doesn’t because they want to cash in on those locals blocked out of Disney. More money. Plain and simple.

Can Knotts improve their ops? Oh absolutely. They really need to work on that. At the same time….they are a business, they do what they want, and they can choose whether or not to block out APs. I personally think it’s good they have no black out dates and I support that. Literally any other time of the year that’s not a holiday or a holiday weekend is more enjoyable, so I’ll just go then.

I mean, I said my peace I have no issues with the parks having people but Knotts is the out outlier with how bad the Ops is of the major theme parks in Southern CA and until they can have a better system, I just think blocking out APs or at least all but the highest one makes sense because I can tell you if I went now and everything had the 2-3 hour wait times, I'd almost never be back. I'm paying to go to your theme park and it's bust fine but if your unable to get guests through even food lines quickly and even the fast lane can take up to 30 mins on some attractions, it at least makes me have just zero interest in going when I can go to Disneyland and sure I'm paying more but at least my money is going towards a park that knows how to get people on and off rides and food lines quickly

 

[Rideguy70]

You also pay 3-4 times more money for a Disney AP

 

[Jerroddragon]

You also pay 3-4 times more money for a Disney AP

So general guests should just have a bad time?

Once again if Knotts had better ops go for it but I'm not behind a company doing slow loading and creating lines and then selling you a fast lane just for fast lane to have a ton of people and slow it down even more.

It's two weeks, the AP's can visit from last week of Nov and have 3 weeks in December for Holiday stuff and if they want to go again buy a ticket. I for years wanted Disneyland to put limits on the AP and funny enough once they did the parks became less crowded, and now Disneyland at anytime of the year is nice to be at with fair wait times

 

[Rideguy70]

I'm just saying it sounds as if you're expecting Ritz-Carlton level service at a Comfort Inn. They're just not on the same level. And it's not that there's anything wrong with a Comfort Inn, but at the same time, there's a reason those chains are priced so differently.

Also, you can definitely make the same argument about Disney over-selling Lightening Lane... I've seen so many posts where the LL is horrendously long.

But at the end of the day, if you feel the park isn't being run well, you don't have to go. Honestly, my husband and I were seriously considering dropping our Knott's passes for 2024 because we honestly weren't enjoy the park as much as we used to. However, we were curious to try out the benefits of the Prestige Pass (which sort of do address many of our concerns), so we're giving it one more year and see how it goes.

 

[Jake S]

In my experience, Knott's isn't slow-playing attraction operations in an effort to sell more FastLane. They're just not particularly interested in investing in their employees to keep turnover low, nor are they particularly interested in fully staffing their attractions. That's arguably worse, of course, but the cynicism is very surface level.

Knott's entire appeal at this point is being a place for those who can't afford (or are unwilling to pay) to go to Disneyland. They retain whatever semblance of goodwill they have with their customer base by not requiring reservations or blocking out their passes. That means they deal with very uneven crowds (I bet this time next week it'll be a literal ghost town) but at least that's a pact we've all signed up for.

 

[deadbydawn]

Disneyland shows why

You can clearly still make profits and block APs.

At the end of the day, Knott's is a local park. They know, especially now, that a lot of people are priced out of Disneyland and they aren't going to close the gates on their new/returning Season Passholders during one of most in demand times of the year. Aside from that, offering no blackout dates is a selling point and they aren't going to introduce them now just because they are busy during...well the busiest time of the year.

Guests shouldn’t just suffer because APs refuse to stop going,

I visited Disneyland in October with a paid ticket. My wife and I only go once or twice a year now as we are no longer passholders. We ended up leaving in the afternoon because it was so busy. Food lines were long, attraction lines were long and there was nowhere to escape it. So as paying guests, we cut our day short and had a terrible experience. My point here is it happens at Disneyland just as often as it happens at Knott's, if not more (Knott's still has some kind of "off season").

Also maybe if Knotts trained its staff on how to load rides quicker then I wouldn’t care but when I hear the paid Q’s are taking long it shows your taking in to many guests.

I'll be the first to admit that Knott's has probably some of the worst operations when it comes to food services and rides. It was like that in the 90's and in the 00's. I agree that should change, but that is the way it has been for a long time.

As a Season Passholder, you have the choice to decide when you go and when you don't. I personally choose to check out Merry Farm at least once around the time it starts and call it good for the rest of the year because I know it will get progressively busier. That is the same reason we opted to skip our Universal Studios visit this season.