Knoebels Trip Report

Our final roller coaster adventure of the year brought us back to Pennsylvania. The ultimate goal of our labor day mini-mega-trip was Hersheypark located in the town of the same name. However, given it is about a 7 ½ hour drive from home to Hershey we decided to split up the journey south. We ended up leaving Thursday night staying in Warsaw, NY about an hour south of Buffalo. Hershey was only about 4 hours away from Warsaw and since we didn’t have tickets to Hersheypark on Friday we decided to take a small detour to Elysburg, PA and spend the afternoon at Knoebels Amusement Resort.

Knoebels is a bit of an interesting place. It's sort of a half campground half amusement park setup located in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. The park is very old school. There is no admission price, instead you pay per ride by either purchasing a ticket book or an all-you-can-ride wristband. Of the parks we’ve visited it's the most similar to Waldameer. In that trip report I described Waldameer as less of an amusement park and more of a permanent fair. I would use that same description for Knoebels with the caveat that it's a much nicer fair. Knoebels is not only bigger than Waldameer but it's also much more well kept.

Going in I didn’t know a ton about the rides at Knoebels other than Phoenix. In the amusement industry the annual industry awards are called the Golden Ticket awards. Phoenix has won the award for the best wooden coaster six times including each of the last three years. Phoenix and the relatively close proximity of the park to Hershey was ultimately what brought us to Knoebels.

The weather on Thursday was overcast but no rain. We got to the park around 1 staying till about 4. During that time the park was busy but not slammed, everything being about a 15 minute wait except for the Flying Turns. We were able to ride all the coasters which is pretty much the norm at all non-Six Flags owned parks.

Coasters

Black Diamond

Technically a coaster but this is more of a dark ride. The theme is that you're on a minecart going through a haunted mine. Decently entertaining, but not very scary. The animatronic are decently impressive considering the park this ride is located at.

Flying Turns

Another super unique ride. This is what's known as a bobsled coaster. You have your standard chain lift but instead of track you descend down a trough. Bobsleds are pretty old-school no one builds them anymore and you don’t really see a ton of them left. The ride experience was more intense than I expected. The car makes some pretty sharp turns as you descend the course. Nothing crazy compared to a lot of other rides I’ve done but I thought this would be a kiddie coaster and it was more than that for sure.

Impulse

The first of the Euro-Fighter rip-offs we rode on this trip. Pretty good ride; it's smooth with some interesting inversions. The vertical lift as always is quite unnerving, I’m still not sure if I love or hate these. Impulse also pulls some high g’s in the valleys as well. I’m a fan but also think the one ride was enough.

Phoenix

The main event! So is it the best wood coaster in the world? No, but it's pretty damn good. Phoenix is rather unassuming when you walk up to it. It's not super tall, it's not super long, and it really doesn’t look a lot different than your average old wooden coaster. But Phoenix, probably more than anything I’ve ever ridden, maximizes what is. The airtime on this ride is truly special. It is the most forceful of any wood coaster I’ve ridden. This is primarily due to the trains still using the old-school fixed position lap bars known as buzz-bars. You absolutely fly out of your seat during the out-and-back layout particularly during the last barrage of airtime hills. The Beast is still my favorite wood coasters but Phoenix slots in comfortably as my number two woodie.

Twister

If I showed you a picture of Twister and Phoenix and asked you what was the wood coaster winning all the awards you’d probably say Twister. It is way more imposing of a ride than Phoenix as you walk up. The ride experience however is a much different story. I can’t say I’m a fan of this ride, it kinda does nothing. It's rough with no real forces of note. Reminds me a bit of The Grizzly at Great America being taller and faster than the other wood coaster in the park but far inferior in terms of the ride experience.

Conclusion

Knoebels is much different than your average park. Similar to Kennywood it really leans into its old school charm. It's good that parks like this still exist and do well. Things would get boring if everything was run in the “chain park” style. It's fun to go to places like Knoebels and experience another kind of park.

I enjoyed our time here. The park is well kept. Operations wise it's pretty good as well. Like a lot of similar parks there is a lot less process when loading the trains which allows for decently speedy operations. The operators might not be as fast but that doesn’t really end up mattering too much when they have to check five less things.

Now that being said I don’t really feel the need to come back here anytime soon. Knoebels is conveniently located for future trips to further parks on the east coast. For example it's only three hours from Six Flags Great Adventure, a bucket list park. But given its closeness to Hershey I’d rather spend a day there on my way further east than go back to Knoebels. That's nothing against Knoebels similar to its best ride Phoenix it makes the most of what it is. But it is relatively limited compared to some of the best parks I’ve been to and that's perfectly ok.

With Knoebels in the rear view mirror our final destination of a coaster packed year was in sight: Hersheypark!

Bonus riddle: does a chicken at Knoebels make a sound? Don't ask Jayme she doesn't know either.