Knott's Berry Farm reopened its Camp Snoopy land this morning, following the latest refresh of this trend-setting, 41-year-old children's land.
Camp Snoopy established the model for single-franchise children's lands in theme parks when it opened July 1, 1983. Over the years, Knott's has made several changes to the land, most notably with a major refresh in 2014. Now, 10 years later, Knott's has swapped out several Camp Snoopy attractions once again.
The biggest improvement is the replacement of the old Timberline Twister roller coaster with the new Snoopy's Tenderpaw Twister Coaster. This Zamperla Family Coaster offers a smooth ride with several decorative elements that provide nice visuals for its young riders and their companions.
Unfortunately, Knott's operations promise to make this upgrade a frustration for many Camp Snoopy visitors. There's only one side to the station platform, meaning that all riders must exit the way they came before a new group can board. Knott's did not design a staging area for the next group of riders, either, choosing instead to load the next train single-file from the queue after the previous train unloads.
That's also the point at which Knott's operators are measuring children to see that they meet the 36-inch height requirement, or 42 inches to ride alone. Also, only one adult may ride in each of the 10 two-person rows on the train. Individual lap bars must close to a "green zone" for those adults - a test I barely passed at 5'9" and 160 lbs. As a result, I timed that it was taking about five minutes to sort and test everyone to load each train on this one-train ride. Throw in a double pass on the 30-second course, and Snoopy's Tenderpaw Twister Coaster was averaging about 10 cycles per hour this morning. At about 15-16 riders per train, that's not an hourly capacity to keep the queue from overflowing - especially once you factor in 50% of the coaster's capacity going to Fast Lane customers.
Elsewhere, Knott's has transformed the old Rocky Mountain Trucking Company into Camp Snoopy's Off-Road Rally, expanding this track ride's course to take over area formerly occupied by the now-removed (and much missed) Huff 'n' Puff. The new Jeeps are nicely themed to various Peanuts characters, with cute license plates that match each character.
The other two refreshed attractions in Camp Snoopy were not available this morning. The Beagle Express (the rethemed Grand Sierra Railroad) was closed, while the new Sally's Swing Along camp swing ride remained behind construction walls.
Otherwise, the following rides remain in Camp Snoopy:
Gone is the old Camp Snoopy Theater, which has been demolished and replaced with the sun-baked Beagle Scout Acres. Knott's has promised shade and a fire pit by mid-summer for this patch of artificial grass and its picnic tables. Also closed off is the old cave and barrel-bridge area, meaning that Camp Snoopy remains without a playground space where kids can run around and enjoy themselves rather than waiting in queues for rides.
Perhaps if Knott's gets more aggressive with character meets in Camp Snoopy, this High Sierra-themed summer camp can feel like the Beagle Scout Jamboree that it is meant to be. Getting everything open will help, too.
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As much as I've been a champion for Knott's over the years, they've been slipping consistently. Shame to hear this redo didn't go well.
This area should not have opened in the state it's currently in. My guess is Cedar Fair mandated the park open what they could to avoid missing out on the 4th of July (especially since Top Thrill 2 is also going to miss it) despite the area being, from what I've heard, at least a month from full completion. Combined with several other major closed attractions and one train ops on pretty much all their coasters, Knott's is in really bad shape right now, and a half complete Camp Snoopy only enhances that image. Despite being local, I'll definitely be waiting until August/September to actually go see this new area...hopefully by then everything will be done.
As for the coaster, operations sound the same as a vast majority of single train junior coasters operate, so I'm not really blaming the park for that one (especially since the ride wasn't handed over to operations until Tuesday). No, it will never hit the 750 rph Zamperla says it's capable of, but once the crew gets dialed in I expect they'll be able to get ~300, which should be satisfactory for demand once newness wears off. Also, the ride does not offer Fast Lane, so kids won't have to watch other kids constantly bypass them.
It did have Fast Lane yesterday. Maybe that was a one-off, but people were using it via the exit.
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How can you open a new kids land, and not have all of the new attractions ready to go? Very disappointing to hear that Cedar Fair didn't consider operations when installing a new coaster. It sounds like trying to ride the new Snoopy coaster is going to require some serious patience, and a lot of kids falling in that 36"-42" range that require a companion are going to be prevented from riding because their parent is too large to ride. It's possible the State of California might have mandated the height restrictions for this coaster, but when you're building an attraction designed for kids, you've got to make it as accessible as possible, particularly if companions are required for smaller riders.