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Park News - (3/19/12) According to MiceChat’s interview with new Knott’s GM Raffi Karprelyan, Knott’s and Cedar Fair have been talking with various dark ride manufacturers about some ideas for new dark rides to add to the park. And with that I say… about damn time! Its nice to see a new can-do attitude about dark rides at Knott’s under Raffi and Matt Ouimet, when the previous holdback was the old Cedar Fair management’s fear of being compared directly to whatever Disney was doing down the street. When I quizzed a former Knott’s GM about this very topic years ago, I was flat out told that no matter what Knott’s did, it wouldn’t be as good as Disney, “so why even try?” It was this attitude that saw Kingdom of the Dinosaurs shut down and sit empty for almost a decade.
    For even more talk with Raffi, check out the latest edition of the Season Pass Podcast recorded during the West Coast Bash event.
    (3/14/12) A huge trip report from the West Coast Bash event at Knott’s Berry Farm and Six Flags Magic Mountain can now be found at Theme Park Review.
    (3/9/12) Westcoaster dropped into Knott’s this week for a look around and has noticed a lot of little in park improvements under way. They are also in the process of ripping up the narrow parking lot behind the hotel now too… which is curious to say the least. Anyone know what’s up? Just infrastructure improvements or something else?
    (2/29/12) Pictures taken during a backstage tour of Montezooma’s Revenge show off all the hidden bits and pieces of the classic Schwarzkopf ride and launch system.
    (2/27/12) A West Coast Bash it was revealed by Knott’s that the park was looking into the possibility of buying some new trains for GhostRider in the future. I would guess they may be looking for some lighter train designs that would keep Ghostie from tearing itself apart so fast. Given the CCI heritage of GhostRider, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were considering buying some Timberliners from Gravity Group.  Anyone know more?
    (2/8/12) Westcoaster has posted a nice status update from Knott’s Berry Farm this week. Lots of little things going on all over the park, though sadly, no construction in progress on any new rides for 2012.
    (2/1/12) A special backstage tour at Knott’s Berry Farm of the railroad roundhouse, including a tour of the Edna car being restored, has now been added to West Coast Bash. Click here for details.
    (1/25/12) Good news from Knott’s this week as Westcoaster reports that Monty is back up and running and the park has opened the new themed entrance portal to the Calico Mine Ride. Currently the park has the Log Ride, Balloon Race and Bigfoot Rapids closed for winter rehabs. Note: The Knott’s website also listed GhostRider as closing down for rehab starting today as well.
    (1/24/12) A new backstage tour of Silver Bullet has been announced for West Coast Bash on Sunday, Feb. 19th. Check out the details and how you can buy tickets here.
    (1/18/12) Theme Park Review has announced that a special backstage tour of Montezooma’s Revenge will be part of the West Coast Bash event at the park on February 19th. Tickets are selling quickly, so if your interested in the two day event coming to Six Flags Magic Mountain (Feb 18th) and Knott’s Berry Farm (Feb 19th) then don’t wait until the last second.
    (1/11/12) A quick photo update from Knott’s Berry Farm has been added to Westcoaster this week.
    (1/6/12) Westcoaster has put up a year in review update this week for Knott’s, showing off the progress, changes and new projects that have been taking place throughout the year like Windseeker and the return of the Sky Cabin.
    (12/27/11) Well what do you know… Knott’s finally reopened the Sky Cabin at long last over the winter break.
    (12/16/11) Westcoaster drops into Knott’s this week and take some pictures of the latest projects in the work as the Haunt is now all gone (well… mostly gone) and they’ve begun a needed rehab on the Calico Mine Ride.

Ride Rehabs - The following information is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate.
Boomerang - NOW CLOSED through Mar. 9
Xcelerator - Mar. 5 through Mar. 23

2011 - Windseeker - (8/25/11) Westcoaster has posted their coverage of the opening of Windseeker at Knott’s Berry Farm, with shots from both daytime and night rides. A nice POV video from the ride itself has also been uploaded to YouTube and embedded below.

    (8/23/11) Good news for Knott’s Berry Farm, as Windseeker is now finally open. The early word is that the new excessive motion damper system is actually working as intended as well, so no bumping of the cars has been reported yet.
    (8/10/11) It looks like Knott’s version of Windseeker has been hit by some delays as well, as some issue has come up that will delay the opening by an additional two weeks. From what I’ve been told, the premier party has now been bumped back to August 27th. Testing of Windseeker is now taking place however, and some new pictures of it have been posted to Westcoaster in this week’s update.
    If you look closely at the ride arms as shown on this page, it seems that a new and more powerful motion damper system, different from what we’ve seen on the other three Windseekers, has been installed on the Knott’s tower. Creating a second ‘ring’ around the ride carriages.
    (1/6/11) Screamscape sources have confirmed to us that Knott’s new Windseeker ride will be moved to a new home in the Fiesta Village area. Due to this site change, the old existing SkyCabin tower will be allowed to remain it seems. For how much longer, no one is saying, though I think the time has really come for it to leave the park, as it really should have left when they removed the SkyJump parachute drop portion of the tower.
    (8/25/10) Knott’s started off early Tuesday morning by announcing Windseeker, their 301 foot tall $5 million Wind Seeker ride from Mondial. The large tower ride will replace the current Sky Cabin tower ride, and feature 32 2-Seater gondolas at the ends of arms that will swing out to a 45º angle once they reach the top of the tower. Check out the official site for an animated video of the ride in action. Personal note, I’m glad to see that a giant “K” will placed at the top of the tower, a nod to the park’s old Sky Cabin / Sky Jump tower. Though I’m less thrilled about the name… Windseeker sounds too much like Wind Jammer, which cursed that area of the park for too long.

Halloween Haunt 2012 - (2/29/12) ThemeParkReview has posted images and concept shown during West Coast Bash about the rebirth of Dominion of the Dead for this year’s Haunt.
    (2/20/12) Accoring to some tweets released during West Coast Bash over the weekend, Dominion of the Dead will return as an all new maze in 2012 for Knott’s Scary Farm. The new Dominion of the Dead will replace Lockdown.

2013 - Giga Coaster - Rumor - (9/21/11) Westcoaster stops by Knott’s once again to check out the Haunt build up duing crunch time, as well as checking on that new land clearing. According to the latest rumors, this could be for the park’s long anticipated new mega/giga coaster, though at this point in the game, we may be looking at a 2013 opening or perhaps even a late 2012.(9/21/11) Westcoaster stops by Knott’s once again to check out the Haunt build up duing crunch time, as well as checking on that new land clearing. According to the latest rumors, this could be for the park’s long anticipated new mega/giga coaster, though at this point in the game, we may be looking at a 2013 opening or perhaps even a late 2012.
    (9/12/11) There may be hope for some kind of new attraction in the works for Knott’s after all it seems, as the latest update over at Westcoaster reports that two sites near GhostRider have been cleared suddenly, sites which should have nothing to do with the Haunt construction taking place elsewhere in the park.  Curious… anyone know more?
    (8/11/11) It has been awhile since any new rumors have leaked out from the Knott’s camp, as they have been very busy trying to play catch-up with Windseeker all summer, but once again the rumor of a large hyper/mega/giga coaster project in the works for the park’s next big attraction has been reaffirmed.
    (6/27/11) This rumor is a bit out there… so please take it all with a big chunk of salt in case it’s entirely bogus, but I’ve been sent a short list of very impressive stats for what Knott’s next coaster project MIGHT BE.  As I said… this is all very out there right now, and if these stats are even close to being true for a possible 2012 project, Knott’s is going to have to start work on this project very soon.
    Now, you might be asking yourselves, if the rumor is so wild, why do I post it at all? Simply because the stats match up with what I’ve been hearing about for the past year… that Knott’s was in the process of designing their version of version of Intimidator. This is said to be an Intamin Giga-coaster of the highest degree, with a custom layout inspired by both Intimidator 305 and Millennium Force. In short, Knott’s could be on the verge of building what many might consider to be the best roller coaster in the world.
    While I don’t know anything really solid about the layout, it very well could travel throughout quite a bit of the park. Many might recall all those crazy survey markings that appeared throughout about half of the park about a year ago. The overall length of the ride is rumored to be just shy of 6000 feet, putting it just slightly behind Disney’s California Screamin’ coaster in overall length. As for the height… we’re talking about a coaster that could stand just shy of 340 feet with an amazing 85º first drop back down to Earth. As long as the actual height of the first drop was at least 328 feet, I believe the top speed of this coaster would hit at least 100 mph. That would make this ride the tallest and fastest NON-LAUNCHED coaster in the entire world. One for the record books for sure… now if only our crystal ball is clear on this one. Wait and see… wait and see…