Sean: After lots of Magic Mountain construction, it seemed time for a large Knott’s Berry Farm Update! So there I headed on a chilly Presidents Day, with quite the crowds. In this update we’ll take a look at the HangTime progress, the Peanuts Celebration, Montezooma’s Revenge’s status, Xcelerator, and a ton more!

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Upon arrival I was welcomed by the squad of famous Knott’s chickens and roosters that roam around the Farm and Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant.

But soon I realized it was not going to be a pretty day for pictures, as temperatures dropped, it started raining, and there was some unfortunate wind.

The good news is though… TIMBER MOUNTAIN LOG RIDE HAS REOPENED! The sad news… the ride has some modifications after the park got a lawsuit thrown at them. The ride’s splash down and station return now have higher water levels that are easier to control and the ride has new signage with safety warnings.

In addition the animatronics on the final lift-hill no longer tell you that they are “about to timber up in here”, but rather that “there’s a drop ahead, to sit right up, hold on to the handrails and keep your feet on the ground”. It feels out of touch, but luckily these changes meant the ride could reopen.



The park was abnormally crowded. Or perhaps that’s because I went on a holiday! Good to see the crowds stick it out in the considerably cold weather for Southern California.

The track work for HangTime is now finished, as you probably saw in another one of our recent updates, and the ride is looking beautiful from any angle.

Shout out to the park for running Supreme Scream with all three towers when there’s even a moderate line! <3

Speaking of towers… I was very interested in finally getting on Sky Cabin now it recently reopened, to take pictures of HangTime from above. Too bad that it was too windy to operate the tower. A little note: the entrance of Sky Cabin has now moved to the Xcelerator midway, next to Boardwalk BBQ.

Xcelerator remains closed, but just in case you may (for some reason) have thought it had reopened. It has not.

The uplifting news is that the Xcelerator train (red) has been reassembled and is currently located in the station.

I truly hope that means that the launch mechanism is repaired and that they are starting to test for the ride’s reopening. I think we’re all ready for Knott’s to have some more coasters open…

A coaster that soon too will open is HANGTIME! We’ve shown the pictures of the completed track before, and we will again.

The corkscrew in the back is beautiful and very tight! I can’t wait to see the relatively large 16-passenger trains navigate through! Note that, though it’s tough to see, the magnetic brakes have all been installed on top of the lift/holding brake.

Remember the famous angle from the Boardwalk where the Boomerang track wrapped around Supreme Scream? Now we have HangTime wrapping around the 325 feet tall structure.

A few noticeable and important things have been added to the lift hill structure.

In the center a metal bar with wiring attached to it was added, next to the lift hill steel pipes with presumably the same function have been added.

Here’s a bit closer look:



The station building is well underway, which will have a similar feel to that of Xcelerator, at a smaller scale of course.

Look at that beautiful Horseshoe element <3

Here’s a closer look at the station building, which still looks a bit bare as of right now.

The back wall of the Calico Mine Ride show building (on the right) is currently being repainted to more beach-sand like colors.

The HangTime exit is a gift shop, which is coming along quite nicely already!

Here’s one last look at the entire HangTime project before we move on with this update!

The new-for-2015 attraction: Voyage to the Iron Reef is already in its 4th season of operations, and is still quite popular on busy days. The great news is, the ride has received several new projectors keeping up the incredible HQ quality of the screens, as well as a new scene!

Pony Express was hosting a healthy line and operating two trains. I secretly kind of liked this ride, but now I have ridden it once since I made the trek to Shanghai to ride TRON: Lightcyle Power Run and just do not like Pony Express anymore.

In case you missed it, the park is celebrating the Peanuts Celebration, kites and balloons can be found all around the park. It’s quite cute actually!

Besides the balloons, the park has also been doing amazing in the landscaping and flowers department lately, all over the park planters are looking beautiful!



The park’s most popular coaster is GhostRider, so it should be no surprise that this too hosted a very healthy 90-120 minute wait today.

The fire pit next to GhostRider’s pre-lift, just outside the park, was on today. It was clearly loved by many. Nice little touch Knott’s!

Silver Bullet too had a nice set of switchbacks filled, which for a capacity beast like this is hard to do nowadays, and as usual it is running very smooth.

Look at that beautiful landscaping and the brand new flowers below the ride <3



Speaking of beautiful sights below Silver Bullet…

SOL SPIN WAS OPEN. In all my visits the past few months the park’s new-for-2017 ride was closed, and I was very pleased to see it open.

One ride that I wish was open is Montezooma’s Revenge, which is probably my favorite coaster at the park nowadays.

The ride’s train is stored on the launch track, and is undergoing minor upgrads and refurbishments.

A few of the fiberglass pieces have been removed from the vehicles.

The real work is taking place on the ride’s flywheel, which is in charge of launching the ride to a quick 55 mph speed.

For those of you concerned that this ride had an unexpected break down which will take months to repair (like Xcelerator), rest assured… this was a planned maintenance window. Montezooma’s Revenge is scheduled to reopen in a few days on February 23rd, just in time for the weekend.

Can we all agree that the Knott’s Berry Farm Camp Snoopy is one of the prettiest kiddie areas?

Which also happens to feature one of our favorite spinning coasters!

I’ve had some really good rides on Sierra Sidewinder lately!

Even though it was cold, I wanted to stay around for the park at night, as it just always looks wonderful at night.



Turns out that for Presidents Day Weekend, the park changed the light package of Supreme Scream to red, white and blue!

And with that note we get to the end of this Knott’s Berry Farm Update!



Thank you for checking out this new Knott’s Berry Farm Update! For all the details regarding this year’s Boysenberry Festival, please click here! We also advise you check out our Six Flags Magic Mountain CraZanity and Boardwalk Tour Report!

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