The 2018 berries have bloomed and gone dormant for the winter. It was a whirlwind year for Knott’s which saw it’s most successful season ever last year. Let’s take a look at the highlights from the year past.

2018 In Review

January

We started our year at Knott’s with the MiceChat New Year’s Eve bash. We filled our bellies with fried chicken and boysenberry pie. Now that’s how you start a year right.

In January, Knott’s launched its inaugural Peanuts Celebration. This event shined a spotlight on the Peanuts gang throughout the park. There were a bunch of brand new shows, photo ops, character meet and greets, even an overlay of the Grand Sierra Railroad that featured the classic Peanuts characters.

And for the first time ever, Knott’s brought in Pig-Pen to join the gang.

Keeping the look of the classic Peanuts comic strips, they had some fun, albeit campy, photo ops in Camp Snoopy.

And when night fell, Woodstock’s Music Festival featured the Jelly Of The Month Club.

Out in the California Marketplace, Snoopy Headquarters and the Game Shop closed to make way for a larger Peanuts Headquarters store and it was a huge improvement compared to the previous two shops.

February

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The Sky Cabin returned to operation after a major break down stranding guests in the air for 5 hours back in December of 2016. It was a long wait.

We also were able to get a pretty good look at the Hang Time construction.

Also in February, Timber Mountain Log Ride returned after a short refurbishment with some noticeable changes.

An insider sent us the following note:

Knott’s Berry Farm has had issues with the Log Ride in recent years involving guests (especially younger guests) receiving injuries including missing teeth, bloody noses, and a broken eye socket. The main problem stems from the final drop and splash landing causing boats to decelerate rapidly causing guests to hit their heads on the safety pads. Knott’s was compelled by the State to make safety changes and regulate a sensor responsible for water levels in the lagoon. They were also required to “enhance the means by which they provide safety instructions to patrons as they board the ride.” And here is where I feel Knott’s has overstepped the court order, affecting show conditions on the ride. I am fine with all the safety added at the loading dock, but they have also added a safety spiel to the final lift hill, just at the big climax of the ride. Very disappointing and I hope they’ll work with OSHA to come up with a solution which doesn’t involve ruining the ride experience.

As a result, new safety signage was installed outside at loading, as well as printed on the inside of the log padding. Additionally, there were new safety messages installed that play during various points of the ride, such as the lift hill and at the final plunge.

Construction for Hang Time continued, as did the construction for the gift shop and coaster station.

Such a pretty attraction with its huge loops and compact design.

March/April- Boysenberry Festival

What’s Spring Break without the Boysenberry Festival?! This year introduced the Tasting Card lanyard that provided guests 8 tear-off tabs to use at 8 preselected food booths, similar to the type that Disney uses for their festivals. While their options are fairly limited compared to other local food festivals, they’ve still got some incredible food offerings. However, the best differentiator regarding this lanyard was the cost; Knott’s Tasting Card was only $30, whereas down the street at Disney, their card costs upwards of $60.

Here are my favorites from the food booths: the Boysenberry Elote and Boysenberry Gilled Sausage with Boysenberry Relish, Ketchup, and Mustard.

We even caught Dusty making a personal Boysenberry Pie.

And you cannot miss (year-round) the Boysenberry Cookie Sandwich.

Also, the entertainment was top notch as our favorite shows, Boysenberry Bedlam and Snoopy’s Boysenberry Jamboree, returned.

By the end of March, Knott’s was testing out Hang Time getting ready for its big opening.

June

Come June, Hang Time opened for guests to hang loose on.

The coaster is a Gerstlauer Infinity Coaster with a top speed of 57 mph and 5 inversions. You start off your ride with a vertical 150ft lift hill, followed by a 96-degree drop after a 4-second brake stop at the top. And in a rare moment of agreement, all of our staff felt that the ride was a thrilling and smooth heart-pounder that contained some novel moves. It’s a great addition to the park. 

Oh, poor Dusty got a chance to hang in there, to our benefit… but it sure did look like he might die for a moment there.

At night the coaster is lit with chaser light that follow the train around the track.

Ghost Town Alive was amazing as always. We wish they’d do sesonal versions as well.

Ghost Town Alive is interactive theater which happens in the streets of Calico all day long! This year’s story begins with Peg Leg’s gold nugget being stolen. There was also a fun storyline about the ownership of the town and who would be elected mayor (which the guests in the park helped choose)

The bulk of the day’s activities is actually a dynamic game, and guest’s decisions change the outcome.

At the end of the day, the adventure would conclude with a Founders Day Celebration, where the election results would be revealed.

Also during the summer, Knott’s pulled engine 41 off the line for refurbishment and the 340 came on the line. We wish Knott’s would alternate the engines more often, perhaps running two at once on busy days.

Now comes the Summer entertainment. There was a hit and a miss. Let’s start off with the unfortunate Calico Mountain Jamboree.

This new show definitely tried, but was ultimately less than spectacular. It mixed a storyline that had potential, but contained too much bad dialog. Add odd music selection, stereotypes, and an ending that has a predictable explosion, and you’ve got a show that was skippable. There were two rolling logs on stage that were barely used, but I don’t think an additional stunt would have saved the show. Hopefully something better will replace it next year.

Now for the hit, the delightful Beach Blanket Beagle. This show was amazing for all the reasons Calico’s Mountain Jamboree was not, great dialog, great story, and a fire dancer.

Hang with me, we are half way through the year. We don’t want you to come up too quickly, you might get the bends.

August

Coming into August we see that name of the Hollywood Hits Pizza Stand has been changed to Beachy Keen’s Pizza to match the show playing in the Shultz Theater, Beach Blanket Beagle. Knott’s also started to serve Dole Whip soft serve as well as Boysenberry soft serve here as well.

Between Hang Time and Sky Cabin, Wipe Out was reinstalled as it was previously removed to allow for Boardwalk BBQ expansion and Hang Time construction.

Also during August, Knott’s added some Ice Cream carts around the park, one for each land.

Outside the park, the Cinnabon that in the Market Place was replaced by Knott’s Bakery Express.

September

Scary Farm returns for one of its strongest seasons ever!

As the sun sets, the Fog roles in…

New this year was the Scare Zone, Forsaken Lake.

Also new this year were two mazes. Almost everyone loved the Depths:

Fog, lasers, animatronic squid, Nemo’s lair – this maze had a little something for everyone, and it was BEAUTIFUL.

The second new maze, Dark Entities was also strong and had incredible lighting.

HERE.

October

This year I finally had a chance to check out the Family Friendly, Knott’s Spooky Farm – the daytime Halloween celebration in the park.

Knott’s Spooky Farm allows children aged under 12 to dress in costume and trick-or-treat in Ghost Town, plus limited time entertainment. Spooky Farm only ran weekends.

If you would like to read up on my visit to Spooky Farm and can click HERE.

Also in October, Big Foot Rapids went under a suspicious and unexpected “refurbishment.” At the time, daily temperatures across the South Land were still in the upper 80’s to low 90’s and most water-ride refurbishments wait until January to take advantage of the cooler weather and lesser crowds. . .

November

Coming into November, that suspicious refurbishment of Big Foot Rapids was confirmed to be a complete overhaul of the attraction. The new version of the ride will be called Calico River Rapids and will be tied into the theming of Ghost Town. The attraction will feature animatronics, fully realized show scenes, back story, and music. With the folks from Garner Holt Productions behind the redo, we are super excited about this one (not Star Wars excited mind you, but thrilled none the less).

Now, if they could just remove or hide the ugly and pointless Pony Express.

Merry Farm

Knott’s Mary Farm is one of my favorite times of year at the farm. And this year Knott’s stepped up their game with new decorations to the Boardwalk area of the park.

Also new this year was a special holiday light show on the Hang Time coaster.

And of course we always love Snoopy on Ice and “It’s the Merriest Christmas, Charlie Brown.”

While the show is a bit long in the tooth, it’s also heartfelt, beautiful and one of the best holiday theme park shows anywhere.

December

Over the last few weeks, Knott’s has installed new signs at the entrances. First off is in the Main Parking Lot, welcoming guests to “The Friendliest Place in the West”.

The second one is along the Beach Boulevard. Knott’s had replaced their billboard with a digital sign. Here’s how it looked last week:

But, as of this week, the billboard was already gone:

Heading into the park the week between Christmas and NYE. . . was incredibly crowded.

It was like swimming through salmon all week.

Line queues filled up to brim for every attraction and many overflowed…

The line for Coast Rider wrapped around the entire queue and down the walkway.

The line for the Carousel stretched through Fiesta Village

Knott’s even opened the Boardwalk Ballroom as extra seating to help with the lack of seating capacity.

Over in Ghost Town, the previous gift shop and mission model shop have been pulled out and is being used as extra seating for Sutter’s quick service windows.

There are some things we did not notice in our last update like some Instagram photo walls which have been set up.

Moving over to Calico River Rapids, we can start to see some survey markers popping up around the site. We expect most of the work to begin in the coming weeks.

Speaking of Calico River Rapids, Knott’s released another concept art image for attraction.

Let’s look at all the little details in this years Christmas decorations:

I love these wreaths around Iron Reef. I just wish they did a better job of hiding the wires.

Over at the Soccer Challenge, the cutouts have Santa hats.

Aong the walkway between Silver Bullet and Fiesta Village, there are some nice new/old props.

The nativity scene is in a slightly new location this year.

Merry Farm ends this Sunday, January 6th. If you haven’t seen It’s the Merriest Christmas Ever Charlie Brown and Snoopy on Ice, be sure to do so quickly.

And of course, to close out the year, Knott’s had the best theme park fireworks show in Southern California . . . Disney had to cancel their fireworks shows due to high winds. Both Knott’s and Universal did their shows, but only Knott’s had the big shells. I picked the right park!

Coming up in 2019 we have the dates for Peanuts Celebration and the highly anticipated Boysenberry Festival:

MiceTrip 2019

Walt Disney World and Caribbean Cruise

For information on this magical MiceTrip, please contact:

[email protected]

We hope your new year is the best yet and we’ll be back with you down on the Farm before you know it.