Knott's Berry Farm or Magic Mountain?

[Chadwyck]

I'm planning on taking my wife and 2 daughters (11 and 5 yrs old) to a southern CA park but I dont know which one: KBF or SFMM. I personally have wanted to go to SFMM for as long as I can remember, but with all the bad press and rides being closed so often, we may decide to go to KBF. We went to Disneyland 2 yrs ago and I wanted to go to a coaster/thrill park so I thought SFMM, but Im not so sure now. We're hoping to go sometime in April but nothing is definate. Does anyone have a preference and why?

Any input would be greatly appreciated. :D

Chadwyck


Previous park experiences:

SFOG in the early to mid 90's
King's Island once in 96? or 97
Cedar Point in ? late 90's before MF

[Harpo]

Personally, I prefer Knott's. They don't have anywhere near as many thrill rides as at Magic Mountain, but I definitely prefer the atmosphere at Knott's. To me, it feels like a friendlier park.

I've been going to Cedar Point since 1970, never missing a year. Naturally, that park feels like home to me. My first visit to Knott's was in 2000. Since then, I've been back every year, and it already feels like a "second" home. I simply find it to be a more comfortable place to visit. It's also home to my favorite wooden coaster, GhostRider. (Well, tied for my favorite, with Hersheypark's Wildcat.) Plus, I really like Mrs. Knott's chicken! (I'm not really a big fried chicken fan, so if I really like some fried chicken, that's saying something.)

Having said that, Magic Mountain does have more thrill rides than Knott's. It's closer to a traditional amusement park (although there is some theming), whereas Knott's is a little bit like a blend of a theme park (sort of "Disney on a tighter theming development budget") and amusement park.

I had planned on going to Knott's in December, but weather and health issues squelched it. I'm still hoping I can find a way to visit in February, although air fare from Detroit is currently looking a bit high for the times I could visit.

[Chadwyck]

Hey thanks for the response, Harpo. I was hoping you would reply. :D

Chadwyck

[Harpo]

I'm always glad to help in any way I can!

[RollerC]

Knotts...they just git Silver Bullet and they have other great rides like Xcelerator...

[aoshi]

Knotts Berry Farm. They have more to do, in my opinion and it seems there are less people at Knotts then at Six Flags. It depends on what you want to do, however. Six Flags is definetly more Roller Coaster oriented, as they have 6 or 7 coasters while Knotts has 3 or 4. Knotts Berry Farm, on the other hand has more of a family oriented feel to it, and seeing as your bringing your kids this is why I think Knotts would be better.

btw ride in the front seat on Xcellerator.

[Chadwyck]

Thanks for the repiles RollerC and aoshi67. :)

Yeah, because of the kids I think we might go to Knotts instead of Magic Mountain. My 5 yr old is only 44" so she cant ride everything, though Im sure she would want to. :D Maybe the wife and I will make a special trip, just she and I, to Magic Mountain. I really want to ride X.

Chadwyck

[Harpo]

If you do go to ride X, my suggestion is to be there right at the park opening, and head straight to X. I've only been to the park 4 times since X opened, but, in each case, the wait quickly became more than 2 hours, which appeared to be largely due to inefficient operations. Heck, one of the times I rode X, I waited 1 hour to get on, and that was with going directly to the platform -- I didn't have to wade through any of the queues. The entire 1 hour wait was on the platform, where trains were being sent approximately one every 5 minutes. (I have a tendency to time the coasters for factors of length of ride and amount of time between train launches. In general, in my experiences, the Six Flags chain has had the longest launch times I've encountered.)

By the way, Six Flags has 16 coasters (2 are junior coasters), while Knott's has 7 coasters (1 which is a junior coaster). Adults can ride the junior coaster at Knott's, although it's a VERY tight fit. As I recall, adults can ride one of the two junior coasters at Six Flags. However, I should mention that I've never seen all of the Magic Mountain coasters running on the same day -- in every visit I've had, there's always been at least one, and usually two or three, that have been closed for the day. Now, like I mentioned, I've not visited there a really large number of times. I believe I've made 6 visits there. Compared to Cedar Point, where I tend to make around 15 visits per year, visiting the park every year for 35 years, six visits lifetime to Magic Mountain is quite small! But, in six random visits to Cedar Point, unless there are adverse weather conditions involved, I generally would find all the rides open for the majority of the day, with rare exception. (Dragster was an exception in its first year due to lots of technical difficulties, but it improved significantly during its second year.) But, as I indicated, I have a much larger sampling for Cedar Point than for Magic Mountain.

My point, however, is to be prepared for at least one of the 15 coasters that adults can ride at Magic Mountain to be closed. I've only seen Flashback open once in my visits. (Not really a big loss -- of the 492 coasters I've been on, that's the only one I feel should be turned into scrap metal due to being an absolutely horrible ride. Strictly my opinion, of course.) Ninja has only been open on half of my visits. Superman was closed on my last two visits.

[Chadwyck]

Hey Harpo,

No big deal to me if Flashback is closed. I had the misfortune of riding it at SFOG when it was called Z-Force. I thought my head was gonna come off my shoulders. Not a really fun ride. :down:

The # of coasters IS why I want to go to SFMM but it seems we may go quality over quantity and go to KBF. :cool:

BTW, is KBF near SFMM? We will be driving from Phoenix, AZ and another couple of hours wouldnt be too bad...

Speaking of Phoenix, I recently heard "the rumor"...that Arizona is getting a Six Flags theme park. Everybody and their brother has heard some variation of it. Its quite amusing considering SF's financial situation...but one can hope...:rolleyes:

Chadwyck

[leonardofury]

From what I've heard SFMM rarely has all it's rides running, In fact it has a reputation for it,as far as I can tell.

[soundgodz]

I went to MM once and Flashback was down, but it's supposedly closed whenever the water park is open becuase the noise makes it hard for the life guards to hear cries for help. Knott's is open every day, just like Disneyland and DCA. MM is only open on weekends until, I guess April when they start their real season. There were only 15 coasters when I visited in Fall 2002, and of them, Flashback was just closed, Deja Vu opened slowly, X was in operation with 2 trains, one side of Superman was in refurb, but the other side closed on Saturday and never came back up, couldn't ride one of the two kiddie coasters without a kid and didn't do the other one. So, of 15 we rode 10. These are just impressions. I honestly couldn't tell you one over the other. My last trip and my next trip we'll do all 4 parks, DL, DCA, KBF, and SFMM, but we don't have kids.

[RCTTalk]

Originally posted by Chadwyck
I'm planning on taking my wife and 2 daughters (11 and 5 yrs old) to a southern CA park but I dont know which one: KBF or SFMM. I personally have wanted to go to SFMM for as long as I can remember, but with all the bad press and rides being closed so often, we may decide to go to KBF. We went to Disneyland 2 yrs ago and I wanted to go to a coaster/thrill park so I thought SFMM, but Im not so sure now. We're hoping to go sometime in April but nothing is definate. Does anyone have a preference and why?

Any input would be greatly appreciated. :D

Chadwyck


Previous park experiences:

SFOG in the early to mid 90's
King's Island once in 96? or 97
Cedar Point in ? late 90's before MF

First of all, if you have 2 daughters, I would suggest taking them to neither of those parks, unless they love big coasters. I would take them to California Adventure or Disneyland because it's fun for the whole family and I'm sure it would be much better for your 2 girls to be on a ride, rather than watching you ride on a ride.

If the Disney Parks are out of the question, then I suggest Knotts. Very cool theming and a few kids rides.

[Harpo]

Originally posted by Chadwyck
BTW, is KBF near SFMM? We will be driving from Phoenix, AZ and another couple of hours wouldnt be too bad...
Chadwyck

As I recall, Magic Mountain is about 60 to 70 miles north of Knott's. It has generally taken be about 90 minutes to drive from Knott's to Magic Mountain, and about 2 hours to drive from Magic Mountain to Knott's. (It always seems that I run into worse traffic when driving south through L.A. than when driving north. Seems odd, since I would rather expect that most of those who are driving south must, at some point, also go north, but, apparently, not at the same time as I was!)

Adventure City is a kids-oriented park about 2 minutes south of Knott's. Also, it takes about 15 minutes to get between Knott's and Disney. I've generally had very good experiences staying at the Knott's Radisson, which is within easy walking distance to the entrance of Knott's.

[Xzentrificenceo]

Harpo,

Regarding X and load times. There are good crews and bad crews. They recenlty had an incident the resulted in what many feel was a bad move. Basically they kicked all of X's Ops. off and moved new Ops in. This was a blunder of the highest degree. That set aside there are plans I have heard of to greatly improve load times. 3 Trains on X possible? Well according to people I know in the park YES. They are going to be closign X after next season for about 6 months to redesign the station. The plans as I understand them are to lose the unload area and have 2 loadign sections. This will allow for improved load times as the trains don't have to move from unload to load. The ability to load 2 at a time will also speed up the line. I have heard that in the meantime they are going to lose the seat rotation from unload to load which will help load times for now.

Ok now to Ninja this coaster has issues with cool temps. It just does nto like them, hence it tends to open later after it has warmed up a bit. Superman Last time I was there it was up and running and should be good to go for a while, though I would only ever count on one side being open at a time.

Xcellerator- hmmm this has got to be one of the most boring coaster I have ever riden, the first couple of times the launch is good but after that I just got bored. Ghostrider Not much to say other than one of the most kick butt Wooden Coasters EVER!!!! I could ride that 20x a day and still enjoy it. I have not yet ridden Silver Bullet but from what I hear it is a typical B&M ride it and you will enjoy it but at the same time one B&M is like another B&M (for the most part).

Now to Chadwyck,
You must consider you kids in your choice of parks. The 11 year old may very well have a ton of fun at SFMM but unless your 5 year old is tall and fearless she may not have as much fun as at KBF. The kids area at SFMM is rather small and adults can only take it for so long. At KBF there are kid friendly rides all over the park with only a few bigger rides. I know that with my 2 youngest 4 and 9 I will not take them to SFMM because one is too small and the other is still not to keen on inversions. My 14 year old I take several times a year to SFMM and am trying to take to CP this summer. I guess I am suggesting that you talk with the kids and find out which park they would like to visit after all if they are not having fun then nobody will.;)

[Harpo]

One of the things I did notice about X that surprised me -- when they were running just one train (as they were on that day, in spite of a 2 hour wait, which made no sense to me), it seemed they could have done the load and unload in the same spot, thereby greatly improving the transition times. It would have meant the unload people would have had to walk to the unload area from the load area, but the platform looked big enough to allow that to happen. I suggested it to Guest Relations, but they didn't seem too receptive to, well, pretty much anything I was trying to mention to them. Of all the Guest Relations offices I've visited, the one at Magic Mountain has, by far, been the least pleasant. They just didn't seem too interested in the guests. (I mentioned before that I like to give feedback to the parks, both good and bad, so I've talked to quite a few Guest Relations folks.)

[soundgodz]

As I remember, X unloads and loads in two different sections of load platform, as do the Dueling Dragons, RnRCoaster, and a few other coasters I've been on. Now X is a different animal because the cars load from both sides. As such, if you loaded and unloaded in the same area, then the incoming and out going passangers would be mixing together. I am only saying this as discussion, and not slagging off any other suggestions. Would you really want a 64 person Chinese fire drill every time you'd board the trains?
Oddly, I had issues of ride op safety over Riddler's Revenge, and did complain to Guest Services, and found the people I dealt with to actually seem to care. OK, I haven't been there since Sept. 02, so anything is possible by now.

[Xzentrificenceo]

Harpo it is a ride policy that they unload and load in different spots at the time. I know that they are trying to get the line for X under control and the new changes should help. Again it is hard to get teh best employees when you only pay minimum wage to high school or recent grads.

[Chadwyck]

I am suggesting that you talk with the kids and find out which park they would like to visit after all if they are not having fun then nobody will.

How true! Thats why we will probably end up going to Knott's. Although my 5yr old IS fearless, she's just not tall enough (only 44"). My 11 yr old will be happy at either park. Also, there are some pretty good package deals at the Knott's Radisson as mentioned by Harpo.

Sounds like Knott's it is :D ...now I gotta convince my wife:p

Thanks again to everyone for their input. This difficult decision just got easier. :D

Chadwyck

[Harpo]

Yes, I do understand the ride policy. However, there are times when better policies are available -- that all comes down to management. Management has to be willing to look for and implement better solutions. If they're always looking for better solutions, then the operations can keep getting better. This view probably comes from the perfectionist in me: Improvement is always possible, so always look for ways to improve. Feeling satisfied is a hinderance to continuous improvement.

Soundgodz, you're right about the layout for X. If they were to use just one platform, they'd have to wait for outgoing riders to clear the platform before opening the gates for the incoming riders. Based upon my timing analysis when I was analyzing the ride, it still would have been faster, when using a 1 train operation, than using separate platforms. It'd be about a toss-up for 2 train operation, and dual platforms would be helpful for 3 train operation.

[Xzentrificenceo]

Should SFMM stick to the plan the daul station with 3 train ops will happen for 06. Also they need to bring back the crews that know how to run X quickly and smoothly. I know that the old X crew is not happy running Deja Vu.