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Disneyland – Anaheim, California
 Emerging from the untamed jungles of themed hyperreality in its rawest, most base form, we encounter a time and a place in which man was able to discover something beautiful out of the primordial soup. Just as the real New Orleans created a rich cultural paradise in the Louisiana swamplands, so too did Walt Disney manage to craft an environment slightly more conducive to the emotional riches of storytelling from a swampland of sterilized imitation. While both attractions ostensibly belong in the same “adventure” genre and use many of the same techniques, Pirates of the Caribbean gets right much of what Indiana Jones Adventure got wrong, despite the difference of nearly thirty years of innovation between the two.
A book is not afraid to show that it has a cover and is made of bounded paper, nor is a stage play afraid to call intermission or bring the cast to the stage for a round of applause, even if their characters are supposed to be dead. A good story is never ruined by the conscious revelation that it is, in fact, an invented work of fiction. By contrast, Indiana Jones Adventure was deathly afraid anyone would realize it was actually an amusement park ride, and went to great expense to make sure every loose end was covered up or accounted for so that one might be tricked into believing the adventure was real. But unlike the newer effort, Pirates of the Caribbean is not ashamed of the fact that it peddles in fiction, and in fact it even contextualizes the story in a way that openly acknowledges the dark ride medium it uses.
The entrance façade has nothing to do with pirates or the Caribbean, instead designed with a lovely pastel and wrought-iron French Quarter architectural style, and once inside the building the queue runs past the return channel in which the boats carousel around a small beach diorama. It resembles a high-class Tunnel of Love more than what I traditionally conceive of as theme park ride, feeling as at home at Disneyland as I suspect it could feel if it were a classic at Kennywood or Blackpool Pleasure Beach. This unaffected introduction caught me off-guard, as I was half expecting something that tried to remove the attraction from the world outside and set us in the Caribbean before we even boarded the attraction, much like the version at Disneyland Paris. Even though the lack of building space was as much a necessary blueprint restriction as anything intentionally envisioned by Walt, I actually liked this approach better than the more grandiose Parisian Pirates entrance.
The atmosphere changes as we move deeper into the building, with low light levels magnifying the perceived amount of space inside the station as we wait for our pupils to adjust, the loading area lit only by orange, glowing lanterns. Taking a seat on the six bench boat (an absence of seatbelts make for extremely fast dispatch times) we’re set adrift on a very slow current through an idle Louisiana bayou on a summer night. The amount of measured restraint with this early scene is impressive. Rather than a constant supply of stimuli out of fear we might become bored, the opening scene trusts its audiences will be engaged with the attraction and takes a good two or three minutes to complete, giving ample time to establish the atmosphere, with fireflies dancing in marshes, a dinner party in progress on a nearby plantation house, and the gentle twangs of a banjo plucked by an old resident of a small wooden shack (the vaguely recognizable ‘pirates life’ theme foreshadows the upcoming action in a way that’s not clunky or obvious). The limited color palate of dark black shadows and backlit, swamp haze blues, accented only by the occasional orange firefly or lantern, creates an indelibly impressionistic scene, aided by the equally sparse but effective aural elements. It’s a creative introduction, obviously in part designed to integrate the ride into the New Orleans motif, but it should also call to mind the rich history of American literature that takes place in the waterways of the American south, and frames Pirates as an extension of that literary context.
 Then as we leave behind the bayou, the peaceful tranquility slowly gives way as the rumble of a waterfall grows nearer. We tip over the edge and are sent hurdling to the bottom with a real splashdown that somehow manages to avoid spraying any water onto the riders. We have now left behind the world of old pirate stories shared around a Louisiana campfire, and have been forcibly flung into the mysterious world of pirate stories itself. We are hit with a second waterfall; these feel much steeper and faster than they really are due to the open, restraintless seating. We navigate an array of flooding caverns, a metaphysical dreamscape seemingly halfway between the realms of the living and the dead, between reality and memories. Populated by skeletons frozen in time, the slow, haunted rendition of the famous theme song and disembodied warning that “dead men tell no tales” betrays the fact that, in this universe, dead men can tell tales. A lightning flash over a sinking ship in the middle of a torrential storm, the skeletal remains of its captain still standing at the helm, is perhaps one of the most lasting images to be found anywhere in the canon of Disney dark rides.
But you know what they say, it’s not the destination that matters, it’s how you get there. That’s true of Pirates of the Caribbean. From this brilliantly imagined netherworld we eventually emerge at our story’s destination, the “real” world of pirates, where we at first find ourselves caught in a cannon battle between two warring galleons. We then enter the town of Puerto Dorado, which has been overrun with robotic pirates doing what pirates do best: pillaging, plundering, swashbuckling, and attempted gang-raping, just like you’d find in any good family theme park. It’s everything we had been waiting and hoping to find when we first set sail, yet now that it was actually in front of me and we had left the atmospheric, slow-simmering first act behind that made Pirates so unique, I felt a little bit deflated. Where will the story take us from here? What compels the narrative now that we’ve discovered the lost world we were searching for? There are bits and snippets of exposition happening in individual scenes, but nothing to tie it all together. It seems our story is resolved by getting to point at the different gags, and comment on how amazing the audio-animatronics are.
To be sure, these scenes are technically the most amazing in the entire ride experience. Some are fairly rudimentary (the “chasing wenches on rotating turntables” gag is quite obvious to everyone) but others are quite impressive (sword fighting pirates rock!). Some effects have been updated, most notably including some newer figures from the film series, and you can see the evolution of the technical design work lined up next to each other. Historically this is the primary reason the ride was developed: to be a showcase for the burgeoning craft of animatronic design, as the originally proposed viewing gallery would not have been sufficient.
What I find most interesting about this sequence is that the development and reliance on audio-animatronics is generally assumed to have been initiated because hiring real actors would have been too expensive. If it weren’t economically unfeasible, populating pirates with living thespians seems like it would result in a better, more realistic pirates ride. That real humans are better than fake humans is only a logical outcome, right?
But then when we actually imagine how the ride would feel if there were live actors in those pirate costumes, paradoxically the attraction seems like it would be worse off. Part of it is because despite the nuanced first act and noble theme park geek delusions, the element of storytelling is not all that important, and the ride is still judged by a technocentric aesthetic criterion where everyone is commenting or thinking about how creative the designers were to be able to manufacture this environment. “How’d they do that?” Fake humans are better than real humans because fake humans are modern marvels of technology that, most importantly, appear expensive. Real humans are ordinary and stupid, and nobody wants to pay just to watch them stand around at their job like we do every other day of the year unless their job involves them taking off some or all of their clothes.
But it’s also because there’s also something discomforting in imagining that these pirates had a brain behind their eyes and could feel feelings. We embark on this journey to the artificial Caribbean to become voyeurs of sorts, to curiously watch a stranger world up close but without becoming a part of it. It’s the same with cinema: we want to have the solipsistic satisfaction that our perspective is the only one that truly matters in this fictional universe, and the people we’re watching can’t watch us back. The pirates are things, representational objects, and they must not have their own subjective content. If they do, then our awareness of things is reflected back on ourselves. We become another physical prop in this setting rather than a non-positional camera obscura, and this world is suddenly haunted by the awareness of the other’s foreign perspective. It is only of robots whose glassy irises you can look deep into and never sense a motivation to avert eye contact.
It’s been nearly a quarter of an hour by the time the pirates decide to torch the place, at which point it’s becoming time for us to escape back into the world from which we came. Now how are we supposed to do that? According to the logic of Walt Disney, because we discovered this world by going down a waterfall, the only way to get back out must be to go up a waterfall. This is exactly what we do. Just as the first waterfalls are narrative devices to signal the boundary lines between reality and fiction, so does this final effect signal a return from the fictional world of pirates to the slightly less fictional world outside of New Orleans. It’s an inspired idea, although unfortunately it doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in theory. The way they manage to create this ‘magic’ is by pulling the boats uphill with a standard chain lift while water pours down and around the incline. It’s not immediately obvious what purpose this lift has besides the immediate mechanical benefit to solve the spatial problem of getting us back to ground level, and it takes several moments to work backwards to figure out what it represents for the overall story arc.
Rather than unnecessary Johnny Depp animatronics, I’d rather a significant upgrade be applied to this last effect. First of all, to ease the intuition over this backwards logic, the water should flow upward rather than downward so we’re not sailing ‘against current’, which I imagine wouldn’t be too difficult to figure out. Secondly, it should hopefully be as exciting a finale as the first two plunges are. Chain lifts are not exciting, and it was at this point that I was starting to get a bit fidgety with the whole ride. To help heighten the illusion that we’re falling up a waterfall, the boats should be quickly whisked to the top at a variable speed that accelerates as we approach the top (but nothing more than 10-15mph, to be sure). I think LSM technology is far enough along that they could easily appropriate the systems used on the uphill waterslides on a larger scale to achieve this effect, with all the appropriate anti-rollback and blocking safety measures. It would give our voyage the rousing, magical finish Walt Disney intended it to have, would help curb the tediousness that starts to grate after a quarter hour sitting on the same ride, and could even give capacity a slight boost (or at least there wouldn’t need to be as many rafts in service at the same time).
Overall the Disneyland version of Pirates of the Caribbean remains one of the best rides in the park, as well as one of the best dark rides you’ll find anywhere in the world. It’s one of the rare few dark rides that are allowed to breathe as they tell their stories, taking ample time to establish setting and mood. Unfortunately, as lovely and accomplished as the narrative framing is to create a compelling story, the picture inside the frame is only a hologram: lightweight, and not really there when you examine it closely. They’re pirates. The name is the story. It’s an attraction in which both creators and spectators value technology above all else, and for everything Walt Disney was able to get right on his last theme park attraction, it’s missing that key ingredient that distinguishes real human storytelling from a series of human-initiated events. What that ingredient is, I’m not certain. But if I want dark rides to compete with other artistic narrative media, I’m going to have to keep looking elsewhere.
Our search took us through the heart of New Orleans Square, an extremely impressive avenue that’s lined edge-to-edge with French-Creole architecture, and festooned with glittery bead strings and ornaments celebrating a never-ending Mardi Gras. Part of me wishes New Orleans Square could serve as a model for every other themed environment, as they got the intimacy level perfect. Rather than a large, centralized midway designed from the utilitarian perspective of crowd flow control, there’s a series of smaller pathways that wind and curlicue around buildings and under balconies and promenades, keeping the energy levels from dispersing over a wide open field, especially as we are dazzled by the ornate, colorful details that are typical of Royal Street. It invites a desire for exploration as well as an appreciation of the fine details in a way that other themed environments often fail to do.
Yet at the same time New Orleans Square is also one of the worst Disney theme zones because it’s a simple imitation that imagines nothing new or original. It’s so close a copy of the real French Quarter New Orleans that Louisiana politicians have been able to film their campaign commercials here, and no one was the wiser until someone noticed the Disneyland trash cans in the background. (Really.) The question becomes, why am I enjoying this city architecture in Disneyland when I can get the real thing without a passport or gated admission ticket? Convenience is the only answer I can think of, as well as not having to deal with some of the less savory element of modern New Orleans. That’s reasonable, but not very romantic. Ideally a themed environment this immersive should spark a desire to return to Disneyland as soon as possible, but instead I found New Orleans Square made me long for Rome, Paris or Barcelona, places which look just as amazing as the Disneyland version, but also have the advantage of being real and letting me explore for more than a minute or two before I reach the outer boundaries into Frontierland._______________
Granted, those cities don’t have an iconic dark ride built in the middle of them, let alone two. At the far end of New Orleans Square we come upon an elegant white plantation house that, without the demarcation sign, one would never guess was actually The Haunted Mansion. It seems so characteristic that Walt Disney could not tolerate anything remotely imperfect or blemished in his park that even an abandoned house of the undead must be presented in pristine condition. Why pirates and ghosts were tolerable inside the buildings when no traces of them were allowed to tarnish anyplace reachable by daylight remains a mystery to me. Yet in retrospect I’m quite glad Disney’s Imagineering team chose the exterior look that they did. Ramshackled haunted houses have become such a theme park cliché, and it’s made more foreboding by the fact that it appears like a normal house on the outside, the sort of place you remember as a child spending the summer weekend with relatives, with all the creaky doors and portraits of dead great-grandparents.
Once we step inside the aesthetic quickly changes, I would argue too dramatically as it doesn’t match up with the building outside. We’re led into an antechamber where we’re given a cordial introduction from our disembodied ghost host. As he speaks there room begins to stretch vertically, the ordinary portraits on the wall revealing a gruesome scene as their bottoms are elongated… and in a particularly dark twist atypical of Disney, the voice suggests there’s always his method as a means of escape from the mansion, whereupon the lights cut out and a flash of lightning reveals for a split second the corporal remains of our host dangling from a noose directly over our heads. It’s a powerful, macabre image that not even the more ‘serious’ Tower of Terror next door is willing to go quite as far to achieve.
It is curious, then, that the Haunted Mansion never attempts to out-shock this initial effect once we’re loaded into the ride’s omnimover “Doom Buggy” carriages. Even though the Mansion’s debut in 1969 makes it one of the original ghost trains, to this day it still manages to quietly upend theme park conventions beyond merely the unexpectedly clean façade. The narrative trajectory of most horror stories generally starts with a lighthearted, normalized ethos, and eventually progresses into a deathly dark pathos. We’ve all seen those movies: a laughing, playful family or group of friends walks into the creaky old house, and later they walk out transformed into a scarred and bloodied (if not very dead) set of individuals. The moral of this story is always the same. Life is fragile and death is Serious; the grave is more for the dead than it is for the living.
How radical, then, is the Haunted Mansion, which starts with a dramatic, silent suicide, followed by the undead spirits rapping at the door and a séance, then progresses to a full-scale ballroom dance, and finally concludes with a graveyard bash teeming with dancing and singing undead revelers to an upbeat, jazzy performance of ‘Grim Grinning Ghosts’? In this mansion, it is life that is Serious and a confrontation with death is the only way to finally ‘escape’ and have a bit of fun; the grave is more for the living than it is for the dead. By the time we reach the end the humor has gone straight slapstick. We approach a set of three comical-looking hitchhiking ghosts, the setup to a joke where the punchline is we round the corner and see a reflection of our buggy in which the ghost appears to be sitting right between us. This hallway is otherwise completely barren and fits nowhere in the mansion. It’s just one last special effect joke for its own sake, a final gotcha moment so that everyone who steps off the platform is grinning and laughing as much as the mansion’s residents are.
Still, if there’s one fatal drawback to the Haunted Mansion, it’s that too many visitors are going to be on the edge of their seats not because these themes of life, death, and life-after-death energize the narrative arc so much we can’t wait to find out how it ends, but because they’re trying to figure out if they can spot the riggings that show how they achieved the ballroom hologram effects. As fond as I am of my quasi-Heideggerian death-begets-life interpretation of the Haunted Mansion, it’s unlikely the majority of other riders will even consciously notice the shift in emotional tone between beginning and end. Everywhere we look, technology abounds, begging us to admire it. The special effects are so numerous and varied that it’s impossible to not develop an appreciation for the Imagineer’s work while one is still on the ride. While I’m sure the Imagineers appreciate this recognition (hell, that’s probably why half the effects got included, just to prove to themselves and the world they could build them), it’s very difficult to get lost in the fictive dream of a ghost story if the technical details of the format itself are more attention grabbing than the story itself.
 A real ghost story should feel spontaneous, and we watch scary movies half-believing that the events are happening as we witness them (certainly that explains the initial runaway success of the Blair Witch Project). I can’t speak for everyone, but I was always conscious of how precise and scripted every element of the Haunted Mansion had to be. The rising narrative action tends to correlate exactly to the size and complexity of the special effects, and I think it is no coincidence our emotional state seems directly dependent upon how much money and research we believe was spent before us. To find out the house is haunted by real magic would almost be disappointing, as working within the confines of normal physical laws seems far more improbable. By no means is this problem new for Disneyland, nor (I’m sure many would argue) is it even a particularly bad problem to be cursed with… but that doesn’t make it go away.
Somehow, between the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, I think there exists a dark ride that’s approaching the ideal I’m searching for. Pirates is able to frame the dark ride experience as an original mode of storytelling such that the symbolic intent is better understood, and Haunted Mansion uses the progression of effects to create an emotional narrative arc that’s not completely devoid of intellectual content if you know how to interpret it. If we could somehow contextualize the Haunted Mansion as a symbolic ghost story and make the special effect techniques feel organic rather than attention-grabbing, then I think Disney would have a true masterpiece that would deserve attention from art critics and the non-geek world at large. As it is right now, we’ve got two fairly decent mechanical magic shows saturated with accomplished set designs and plenty of childhood nostalgia. Since my first time with both these rides was necessarily absent of nostalgia, my personal sojourn for the ideal themed attraction would continue.
Elysburg, Pennslyvania – Friday, June 13th, 2008
Am I really, finally at Knoebels? I never had the pleasure to go to Disney as a young child, tragically denied that once-in-a-lifetime experience all children must have– of getting out of the family car in the middle of a vast Florida parking lot, wide-eyed with wonder that the seemingly fictional utopian dreamland that you’ve heard about nearly since birth but never thought you would actually see is really, really, REALLY right there… somewhere, beyond that small sea of cars. I think I got as close an approximation to that experience as I can ever hope to get in my adult life as we pulled into the parking lot for Knoebels.
Knoebels is a park I’ve always felt like I should have been to, but somehow never have. It was on my radar ever since the 1990’s when all those Discovery Channel specials heaped loads of praise on the Phoenix for being the idealized “small park classic coaster”, and then there was the opening of Twister in 1999 to make it a 1-2 punch. My first real attempts to visit were in 2002 as part of a three-park visit in Pennsylvania that, due to some unforeseen complications just a few days before departure, ended up only including Hersheypark. The year after I finally managed to get Dorney Park in but Knoebels was left in the dark as well. 2004 marked my third return to Pennsylvania in three years with a second visit to Hersheypark as well as a stop to Kennywood, but again somehow Knoebels just couldn’t quite fit our schedule. It always seemed to be that one park in the region that was second or third on my list of to-do parks when the time for only one or two parks were available. In 2006 with the announcement of Flying Turns it was in the back of my mind to maybe make a weekend visit later that year if they could get it open it time. After their 2006 flood delayed things I put Knoebels at the top of my travel plans for 2007, but less than two weeks in advance of leaving that August it became clear that it still wouldn’t be open, so we made a quick swap in plans to include Busch Gardens and Dollywood (both with spectacular new for ‘07 steel going in that year) instead. Now here it was 2008 and I was finally, finally, finally going to make it no matter what, and it was all so perfect as well. Pennsylvania was ripe with new attractions everywhere (Kennywood’s Ghostwood, DelGrosso’s Revolution, Dorney’s Voodoo, and especially Hershey’s Fahrenheit and Waldameer’s Ravine Flyer II) so it just made perfect sense that this was the year, with the now opened Flying Turns, that I would finally make the holy pilgrimage to the Mecca of quirky small parks everywhere.
Wait, did I say the now opened Flying Turns? Even a year after the ride was supposed to have opened after it couldn’t quite open in time for the autumn before, it’s still nowhere near close to opening soon. I at least don’t have to kick myself for having just missed it since all signs are pointing to it still not being ready to go for the start 2009 as well… this has led to an odd situation where a small park like Knoebel’s now has three 2009 rides listed on their RCDB page, with their purchase of the currently in-storage Golden Nugget Mine Ride from Morey’s Pier and the sudden replacement of the aging High Speed Thrill Coaster with a new kiddy ride from Miler; it makes Knoebels look like a Six Flags park circa 2000.
 Walking into the park at first almost seemed unreal to me. It’s somehow both the smallest, most unassuming place you’d ever care to visit, and yet larger than life at the same time. It is a full-fledged resort park, after all, so I suppose you could say Knoebels is technically closer in leagues with Cedar Point or Disneyland than would a “large” stand-alone park like Dorney. It’s never really clear when you’re actually inside the park. You pass by some miscellaneous welcome signs, some makeshift mercantile stores, various camping or administrative buildings that aren’t actually part of the park, and then rides just start to fill in the landscape one-by-one until you realize you’re standing in the hub of the park and you haven’t gotten your tickets yet. Too bad, too, because my normal impulse when I first enter a park is to jump right into whatever empty ride queue I happen to be standing right next to. Well there’s a ticket booth right in front of us with no line, that’s good… except they only sell individual ride tickets, and I’m definitely getting the unlimited all-day pass. That’s down around the corner, I’m told. So after a short scout out in that general direction I happen upon a gigantic mass of people lined up in front of a couple small log cabin pavilions. The wait to get an all-day pass ended up totaling me about an hour and ten minutes… well the good news is that the heat wave that plagued the entirety of our trip so far has finally passed for the first day of comfortable mid-70’s temps. Also, Knoebels is a damn fine place to people watch. I was worried that Knoebels, being a more off-the-beaten-path sort of establishment, might be filled with white trash, but the crowds here were very eclectic and friendly, all here to have a good time with their families, like the way people used to be in those old 1960’s and 70’s made-for-TV movies. My dad by this point was well-worn out from our previous eight days of coaster riding so he decided not to wait with me for an all-day pass, instead opting to enjoy the cooler weather on a nearby shaded bench while toying with more of the features on his camera (this is also why there’s a much larger quantity of pictures of me on my Knoebels Flickr page).
More than an hour inside the park and I had yet to ride anything. I was just getting my wristband, realizing my extended wait was due to the fact that they had assigned the trainee to the most visible window location where the most people would tend to queue, including myself. Alright, finally ready to roll! I decided to get right down to business and quickly joined the queue for the Phoenix, which was out the entranceway. I see, they’re only running one-train operation. This may take a while. I’m doing the math in my head as I realize after waiting an hour for an all-day pass for $34, individual tickets for this ride only cost $2.00, and with a wait like this how many times can I expect to get on it throughout the day? I also had never realized that the entire midway in front of the Phoenix is just a sprawling field of gravel, the kind that likes to get lodged in the heel of your show.
What the hell!?! This isn’t the Knoebels I’ve dreamed about! That Knoebels is quirky and charming with rides shaded beneath huge trees, not placed on top of a parking lot, and plenty of quick lines and friendly, competent ride ops, and you never have to worry about if you’re being over-charged. After all I heard about it I expected the Phoenix to appear larger than life, but instead I was looking at it and realized it was just there, a small and insignificant ride that happened to pick up a large following who rode it on a better day than I, and now I’m really wishing that my dreams of Knoebels were turning into this reality. The line’s moving forward a bit, but to be honest there was a moment when I almost felt like bailing so I could say, “No, wait, there’s still some purity left to my vision of Knoebels, I want to save my first time for later when the moment’s actually right.”
Neurotic I am, I know. Taken out of context I doubt anyone would guess that above quote was in reference to an amusement park and not something more intimate and life-changing. Actually that attitude all took place in the span of about five minutes. They then added the second train, which drastically changed the pace of the queue and got me into the front row of what once seemed to be a another hour’s long wait in ten minutes. I got my first ride on the Phoenix. Three minutes later I met up with my dad who was  chilling at a nearby bench to await my assessment.
“How was it?”
“It’s in my top five for sure.”
I didn’t intend for that to happen! But I kept going over it in my head and realized it did. It was most certainly better than the Thunderbolt which is my current #5 wood, and I was trying to figure out if the quality of the ride, forces and progression would even outdo my #3 pick of Shivering Timbers.
Shit, maybe… What did I experience on that ride?
 The Phoenix gets started with a mini pre-lift loop that takes place in a tunnel, mostly to allow the beginning of the lift to be staggered behind the station by several yards, so the entire first leg of the ride will fit within the parameters. The tunnel however is completely sealed off from any imaginable crack or crevice that might allow a trace of sunlight in. Besides the requisite desire from anyone gendered female in the 11-16 age range to shriek as loud as they can as soon as they are consumed in the engulfing blackness (and anyone else who does not meet the above criteria but would secretly like to join in the shriek fest anyway—don’t worry, no one can see that it’s you!) this opener is actually far more effective to the overall flow of the ride than many fans of the ride might acknowledge. The complete disintegration of any spatial relations allows one to clear their mind from the strings attaching them to their objective reality for a moment, so that when you emerge and are once again submitted visual senses, you are now in an altered, clarified state of consciousness in which all focus is on the ride before you. This is the coaster enthusiast version of Buddhist enlightenment, if you will.
After this little opener and the train passes the atom-like cupola at the crest of the lift the ride proceeds into a very straight-forward, logical progression of flat turn lulls spaced between an ever-increasing amount of airtime found between, with a slight, steady increase in pacing thrown in for good measure. This is the most classic example of coaster storytelling, a design pattern that dates nearly as far back as when coasters were able to incorporate turns to make a complete circuit and remained the only form available for designers until they were able to figure out how to build turns that needn’t be flat and elevated, and even then it remained a popular design as late as the 1990’s. The Phoenix does it best. There is the singular first drop, interspaced by an elevated turnaround, followed by a series of two airtime hills, sandwiching another elevated turn-around, a series of three airtime moments, a third elevated turn-around, and then the four-in-a-row airtime pop finale. There is not one moment or maneuver that is superfluous to the Phoenix. No dog-legs found halfway along an otherwise straight run, no hills with profiling that needlessly distinguish themselves from the others (a possible exception being the double-up/double-down, but the air is very consistent). What distinguishes the Phoenix from other coasters is that there are no features that try to stand out from the others. Most people who have been on the ride and loved it show appreciation for the coaster as a whole, instead of singling out certain ‘big moments’ that the modern tendency of coaster design has us doing. The turns and hills are all very uniform, with the only difference between them being that as the ride looses speed to friction and the hills are reduced in scale the timing between them becomes tighter for that steadily increasing pacing effect.
 The Phoenix is championed as having “a lot of airtime” which I think is a misleading turn of phrase since it implies the essence of the ride is found in it having traditional forces which is not at all what is happening here (bring on board an accelerometer and I doubt the Phoenix will outperform many laid-back family coasters in terms of raw numbers). Those regular kinds of forces are always described in a way that evokes something external to the body acting upon it, against your free will (à la El Toro’s ‘extreme ejector air’). Here, the airtime seems to start within the body, it is yourself that becomes free from the normal physical barriers of a materialist world, and with that freedom you choose to levitate upwards. It can only be likened to that moment immediately after death when your body looses all physical dimensions and you begin your ascent into heaven as a free spirit, it is that ethereal of an experience.
Well, needless to say I treated myself to a few more rides on the Phoenix, in the back row and the Herb Schmeck seat, both also quite exquisite but truth be told the front was still the place to be. Actually I found the greatest advantage of riding in the back that was largely absent from a front seat ride was the ability to watch the people in the rows ahead of me and share in their collective joy in riding the Phoenix. I remember one ride (I think I was in row 1-3) in which the two would-be tough, disinterested teenage boys in the row ahead of me were giggling like schoolgirls by the time we reached the final series of bunny hills, which for me was the most satisfying part of that particular ride experience. With every ride there is a new opportunity for a unique, shared social experience that will set it apart from the last; twenty-four unrelated strangers all somehow connected in their uniform delight as the coaster goes through its motions. Modern rides are placing more emphasis on the individual’s riding experience with separate seating arrangement, engulfing personal restraints and staggered rows or ‘stadium seating’… all of which could be justified in the name of increased safety, intensity and better, unobstructed views of the action, yet it’s also ultimately somewhat alienating, and forgetting of the original social intent of why amusement parks were devised in the first place. I can’t help but be reminded of the reverse effect cell phones have had on contemporary culture as well, instead of increasing interpersonal communications and strengthening social bonds they have instead reduced them, serving as a means to alienate people from their social surroundings. A slightly flawed analogy, I know, but I think it helps illustrate the point I’m trying to get at and how Knoebels represents a refreshing break from this trend of growing alienation both in the amusement park bubble and outside in the whole of society.
A few laps of Phoenix under my belt within less than a half-hour it was clear that crowds weren’t going to be anywhere near an issue as I had originally feared, so it was time to check out the rest of Knoebels. I first found myself waiting in line for their Flyers flying scooters ride, a ride model from my understanding that has quite a large cult following, and this installation in particular is apparently the equivalent of Spinal Tap. So I was quite a bit curious to see what the fuss was about. No doubt it ran much faster and better than any other flying scooter I had ever been on, but the connoisseurs speak much about a phenomenon known as ‘snapping’, which I have never been able to completely understand, much less achieve. It sounds as if one is able to get enough lift that they have a moment of slack in their cable on the descent thus creating a snap. Now I was able to observe a cycle or two of this ride while in line as well as my own cycle that consisted of some pretty aggressive maneuvering of my paddle, and I must say if my understanding of what constitutes snapping is correct, then I would like to declare it a fable. While an extra speedy rotation might allow for more height to be achieved, that comes at the expense of increased centrifugal forces, which will ensure that unless you are somehow able to completely invert your scooter, the cable will remain taut at all times. To actually achieve a ‘snap’ would require that some inward force is somehow exerted to counteract the outward forces of the rotation, and while there were some perilously low-hanging tree twigs nearby that I suppose an expert could possibly bump against if they mustered a lot of swinging momentum, I really don’t see how ‘snapping’ is even physically possible, let alone something that could be achieved by itself if the ride is fast enough. Perhaps someone can correct me and explain exactly how it is done.
One other flat in the area I later tried was their indoor Cosmotron, which I was anticipating a great deal after flying through DelGrosso’s Space Odyssey six days earlier. I must say I actually foundDelGrosso’s version to be the better ride, with a more varied special effects package and more intense program. I guess that’s really all they have over there, so Knoebels shouldn’t be too worried about the competition. I also would have loved to have taken the Roto-Jets for a twirl, they just looked so amazingly retro and picturesque surrounded by so many tall trees, but between the fact that the median age of those in line appeared to be born well after Clinton left office, and with no other flats aficionados to justify my standing in such a line, I somehow never ended up climbing aboard.
I think the order of events after that were a few laps on Twister before getting some food. Lines were quite expedient for Twister as well, despite my first wait starting well down the steps out of the station. What I think did it was that there are no seat-belts or airgates to be found anywhere near the ride (and this was even more true of the Phoenix, with its single position buzzbars instead of individual ratcheting lapbars), everyone was able to quickly get in and sit down as soon as a train came to a halt, and could have lapbars down and ready to go within seconds, not having to worry about messing around with their seatbelts. Not only does the lack of seatbelts allow for added rider freedom without sacrificing any safety that isn’t already redundant, but they allow for one less thing for the ops to check. One of the girls checking restraints unfortunately only had one arm to work with, but she was able to get her entire side of the train checked in under thirty seconds, blowing away every other park for dispatch times I’ve ever been to. They would consistently have one train ready for dispatch while the other was just circling the helix that surrounds the station, and then have that train ready to dispatch while the other one was circling the station. Quite an impressive feat. The only ride crews I would possibly rank above Knoebels are Dollywood’s Thunderhead crew (for friendliness, courtesy and efficiency) and Cedar Point’s Magnum crew (sheer capacity, being statistically the most popular ride in the park yet frequently with waits under 15 minutes while other lines in the park last more than two hours).
 In keeping with this spirit of efficiency myself, on one visit to the back seat I noticed that only on girl probably around 14 years old was waiting ahead of me, her two friends waiting for the row ahead. Well 1+1=2, and I always hate it when I’m forced to wait an extra ride because there are two single riders ahead of me who each want to ride separately instead of riding together, so I ask her if it’s alright if I ride with her. “Uhh… sure” was my reply. Followed by much nervous giggling.
Note to self: While I might like to think of myself as some sort of rational, Hegelian species-being, neutralized and divorced of all social roles and labels, the fact is that that is not what a 14 year-old girl thinks when a 20 year old college student who hasn’t shaved in several days asks her if they can sit in extremely close proximity to each other for the next couple minutes. I mentioned in my review of the Phoenix how the more social setting can create new experiences with each ride. The same is true of the Twister, and this particular ride could be labeled as a distinctively ‘awkward’ experience compared to all the rest.
This report would not be complete without mentioning the food, for which I believe they have won the Golden Ticket Award every single year since the award’s inception. Looking over the map it seemed the International Food Court would be the place to dine, which was true, as they had a huge menu. I can’t say my food was best of any amusement park in the world, but it was decent, and I’d probably need more than one meal at the park before making any definitive declarations. It does make me wonder why the quality of in-park meals at amusement and theme parks across the country is so noticeably lower than what you’d find outside the park. If it’s not concession-style dining, then it’s low quality, and if not low quality, then it’s overpriced (and normally some combination of the three). There must be some fundamental difference between having a restaurant operated as an entity within a larger business versus as its own independent business, perhaps in the way they deal with food distributors, or the way management is structured, or maybe it’s just the lack of a free-market competitive environment that’s found inside amusement parks. When I think of great, affordable (and clearly profitable) restaurants I’ve been to in cities like my hometown, I can’t help but think, “why would it be so hard to run an establishment exactly like this but within an amusement park?” Maybe it’s just because amusement park patrons would always leave such lousy tips.
 There’s another consistent award winner at the park that I was curious to see if it lived up to the hype as well: The Haunted Mansion. This ride is not included all-day, all inclusive wristband (along with the pool and their chairlift), supposedly because Dick Knoebel wanted to retain the open, up close feel to the ride rather than block off sets like is found on most other dark rides, but had to find a way to prevent kids from getting bored with it after multiple re-rides and possibly jump off the attraction and vandalize the props. It’s easy to see why that could be a problem, as this ride is very tightly packed together, it’d be quite easy at points to reach out and touch whatever is jumping towards you. That said, I unfortunately don’t remember too much in specific from the ride, other than that it had a very claustrophobic, traditionalist feel to it. The nostalgic value is apparent for Golden Ticket and DAFE voters, and I can’t say I’ve ever been on another old-school dark ride that rivals the Haunted Mansion. Still, I can’t help but feel that if modern-day creative designers could work with the same freeform parameters and props the Haunted Mansion has, a better ride is at least imaginable, since the Haunted Mansion is mostly just a mishmash collection of retro gags. If it were still around I’d have to vote for Nights in White Satin as my favorite dark ride, just because it’s on a whole different level from every other gag-based dark ride in existence, even though I still felt in many ways it was a flawed attraction. I will therefore declare Haunted Mansion as my new favorite dark ride (best competition it had in my book was Indiana Beach’s Den of Lost Pirates), although I still say my personal scariest dark ride experience was the Haunted Hotel or whatever it was at the defunct Myrtle Beach Pavilion. Haven’t been on it since I was seven. All I remember was nervously trying to convince myself there wasn’t anything to be afraid of as we go through the first scenes. Then with a loud crack of lightning, two skeletons I was not anticipating very quickly jump out of a bed and scream. Hands up and over the eyes! What a pansy, but hey, I was seven, and those slumbering skeletons still remain etched in my memory to this day, lame as I’m sure I’d find it now.
Hidden farther back in what is obviously the older section of the park were several more rides worth trying, first up being the Satellite (aka Roll-O-Plane, aka Salt and Pepper Shakers). I wish flat ride manufactures would continue making rides this evil. Two arms that rotate in a vertical 360 degree loop, with a carriage attached to either end that rotates horizontally on its axis rather than vertically like a Ferris wheel. No problem, right? Well, there’s the slight problem of what the cars want to do when they go past vertical, and they’ve got to start flipping on their port and starboard sides to remain on an even keel, all while you’re pulling some heavy g-forces as the arms swing you around the bottom. That’s what’s called a fun time. I’d love to get to Georgia’s Lake Winnie sometime to try their Fly-O-Plane, the only remaining version of that O-Plane model left in existence.
Also in the area was the High Speed Thrill Coaster, which has gained notoriety as being the best children’s coaster for adults, thanks to a six-cylinder Chevrolet engine hooked up to the chain lift that can be adjusted in speed per the ride op’s discretion. I wasn’t expecting it to be running full tilt on a normal operating day, but watching a train cycle before me it was clear that this (loud!) kiddy ride could provide quite a bit of sharp ejector air even in normal mode from the back row. Seating choices were first-come first serve, and while I found myself behind a nervous little kid with his mother, they opted for a middle seat while I then took the back. The first lap was more of a warm up (the motor needs the train to hit it with some speed from a prior before it yank it up at top speed), but even then a bit of air was present from my perch on the first go round. While I’m ready for more, that nervous kid I mentioned earlier clearly had enough and before we got our  second lap the mom was indicating to the operator that they need to tone it down. So he does, and I barely creep over the hill on the next lap. And the next, and then next, until it’s over. On the exit I was about to get in line to try it again for a *proper* High Speed Thrill Coaster experience, but a cavalcade of kiddies just beat me and I decided it wasn’t worth waiting at least two cycles for a re-ride of a kiddy coaster. I figure I can try it again next time I’m at Knoebels, it’s been here since 1955 after all, so it’s not like it’s going anywhere soon. Unfortunately as I already mentioned earlier in this review, the HSTC is on its way out for good this season, so I guess I’ll never know what the full potential of this unique attraction was really like. Since I never got to say anything while at the park, I’ll say it here:
Thanks a lot, kid, for freaking out on my one and only ride of this classic. I may have been a wuss on dark rides at your age, but at least I knew how to compose myself on a kiddy coaster. I suppose I’ll have some small solace in knowing that someone like that probably won’t get laid until they turn 30. Come to think of it, it’s probably best I never said anything.
Another ride I’ve heard much about and needed to try first hand was their Scooter bumper cars. These are quite excellent for bumper cars, although for a proper bumper car experience it’s always better with friends. Knoebel’s version has an ovular corral layout to it, which tends to result in a lot more side-slams, where two people are cruising side by side and one, or both, quickly veers into the other. While not quite as satisfying as a head-on or deflected head-on collision (usually only possible with an open-floor layout), that’s probably the best in this case, since the heavy steel Lusse cars are able to really slam each other around and a head-on collision would probably result in whiplash.
My dad bought tickets to join me on the final three non-coaster rides of the night as well, which ended up being the Giant Wheel (mostly to get photos, although it’s amazing how much of the nearby park remains hidden from view thanks to the trees), Flume (a bit wet and a nice setting), and later that night, the Looper. That last one ended up being an exercise in futility, since the looping ability of the cars depends on the riders input. To describe the ride to those not familiar, it’s basically a set of ten or so two-person cars that look like wheels set around a giant turning axis. There’s no up or down motion like on a Himalaya or anything, it’s just slowly rotates along a flat circle, with the individual cars spinning upside down. The way I think it’s set up is there’s a pedal and pivoting handlebar, and adjusting these just right will cause our wheel to lock in against the spinning mechanism and we’ll start flipping. The only problem was, no one on the ride staff ever really explained how to do this besides “use the pedal”, so we kept on rocking as far back and forth as we could push our car while trying to grind the pedal or the handlebar down in various ways, none of which ever had any effect. Fed up with that, I decided I needed one last flat before the night was over, preferably one that I could simply sit there and ride rather than be forced to be an active participant, and the Fandango (a KMG Afterburner, I think?) answered that call. Set next to the Phoenix’s far turn in a relatively new corner of Knoebels, it feels almost like you’ve left the park by the time you get to it, as it’s situated on a large gravel field next to an access road to the campgrounds. This is partly what I love about open-gate parks like Knoebels, is that this small road is actually the fastest pathway to get between the Phoenix and Twister, although there were no lights along it like a traditional midway so it was a bit of a stumble in the dark as we hurried to get final rides on each of these coasters.
Twister is interesting. Despite all the shout-outs this park gets in enthusiast circles, between the food, classic flats, the Haunted Mansion and especially the Phoenix, I was always surprised and suspicious by the general silence surrounding the Twister. It has a pedigree that seems like it should be a much more celebrated attraction, being a redesign of Denver’s much-loved Mr. Twister, featuring skid brakes and efficient operations, and perhaps most importantly it stands as the perfect counterpoint to the airtime laden Phoenix. Is it just that straight airtime hills are that much more popular than twists and turns, or was there something else I was missing. The Twister wasn’t (gasp) rough, was it? After trying out both first-hand, I can honestly say I’m still at a loss for why Twister usually plays such a second-fiddle role to the Phoenix.
 Twister starts off with a threesome of nearly identical turnarounds, making the bread of a lift hill club sandwich. While the split lift hill by itself would be unique enough, I found that by having three identically shaped turns (characterized by a short left turn downward before sweeping right, where it eventually climbs upward and slows to a near stop once again) really added a lot of to the overall ride. Each progressive turn piles on a few more laterals at the base, while each is also situated a good 50 ft. higher than the previous. There’s also a clever psychological trick, in having the first two turns  (the one out of the station and the one splitting the lifts) both end with just another lull. The same effect is achieved on the final turnaround, but instead of a complete lull of another lift lift, there’s only a moment’s pause perched on the pinnacle of that hill, before it dives down the steep dive into the dark tangles of knotted wood below.
Front or back, that first drop is fantastic, feeling like it ought to belong to a ride much bigger than what we’ve been made to anticipate. The train surges up into an elevated turnaround that’s slightly reminiscent of the starter three we just had, only this one is passed over much more quickly since these curves now work as the pause between the real action which is these very steep drops. The second drop is nearly just as great as the first, supplying airtime to all seats while once again diving down down down into the shadows of the lumber cobwebs.
From here it quickly transitions into a fast and forceful double inclined helix. So this is why they call it the Twister. Plenty of mean, lean and sustained laterals with speeds that ebb and flow as train climbs and descends the tilted helix. It’s not just a beautiful centerpiece from off ride (especially from the exit ramp which it fully encloses) but from on-ride as well, signaling the extended midpoint between the steep suicidal plunges found in the first half to the faster paced, more tightly plotted second half.
Alright, so maybe the second half doesn’t work quite as well as everything that came before it. Truth be told I’d have to check a video to figure out exactly what the ordering of the proceedings were in the second half, but I guess that’s kind of what you want out of a twister, a layout that can never be fully comprehended or expected even after multiple re-rides. It makes some fast, high banked turns deep within the super structure mixed with some drawn-out, oddly banked bunny hops. The fact that there’s very little airtime over these I suspect may be part of the reason Twister is overlooked by enthusiasts preferring the Phoenix’s abundant air over every hill, but that’s why these two rides are perfect counterpoints to each other. A cool underground tunnel finishes off one of the final turns, emerging to a final dip before sliding into the curved skid brake runway that leads back to the station.
While it might not be on quite the level of intensity of some of GCI’s more recent creations (although don’t underestimate that centerpiece double helix) and it’s certainly lacking much of the pure joy to be found in the Phoenix, for me Twister would rank very highly as a coaster designer’s coaster, a ride that features a full canon of different moves and maneuvers, never getting pegged down as a coaster that only does one thing, yet never being remembered as a coaster that’s just a random mishmash of different things. It’s tightly plotted, a bit elusive, a bit more vexing when first trying to figure out exactly what it’s ‘about’, but with enough re-rides (especially at night, when the superstructure underpasses and final tunnel are pitch black… thank you Knoebels for keeping the lights off around this ride) I really came around to appreciating this ride more as an equal to the Phoenix rather than simply ‘that other wooden coaster”.
Speaking of the high and mighty Phoenix, I should mention that throughout the day the Phoenix suffered a fall from grace in my books. Throughout the afternoon and especially on the last evening rides (including the last ride of the night in the front row) the airtime seemed to grow weaker and weaker along the course, eventually only really present on the final row of bunny hops. I couldn’t figure out if the ride was slowing down as the day wore on, or if the giddy effects of the airtime were starting to wear off on me after several re-rides and I was simply beginning to look for more out of this coaster than just a series of straight hills and flat turns. Whatever it was, by those final rides it was clear that Phoenix was no more in the top five for me. At the end of the trip my appraisal of the Phoenix sunk to number 15 on my wooden coaster list. Perhaps a bit harsh given how much I loved my first few rides on it (I still rate Shivering Timbers based on how I remember it running back around 1999 rather than present-day conditions) but I think if it weren’t for those first rides there would be little holding me back from dismissing it altogether based on how poorly it performed later in the day. I still remain optimistic that I can catch it on a better day sometime soon in the future and my original praise of the ride can be restored, but I suppose that would depend on if the ride really did slow down throughout the day (seems improbable, normally wooden coasters speed up as the grease warms) or if the more troubling conclusion that I grew board of the floater airtime was what really happened.
 Knoebels or Kennywood? It’s almost unfair that these two giants of small parks have to be located in the same state since the comparisons between them become inevitable. Why can’t I just say they’re the two best preserved small parks left in the country, the only other places that can even begin to compare to either that I can think of are Indiana Beach and Denver’s Lakeside Park (probably some others I haven’t been to as well, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk jumps to mind). They’re really quite different breeds of park. Kennywood is a perfect preservation from its 1920’s to 1940’s glory days, presented with an almost Disney-esque flair for modern audiences. Knoebels is, simply put, directly transplanted from the 1960’s, a slightly seedy rural resort park then, just as it is now, just as it will most likely always will be. But I suppose if I must choose… Kennywood. I won’t feel too guilty since online polls and the Golden Ticket Awards have shown a clear tilt towards Knoebels and I love being in the minority of Kennywood supporters. I suppose my initial reservations towards Knoebels didn’t help much but I still must tip my hat to the Pittsburgh icon. Kennywood is much more logical and better presented in its shoehorning of quirky classic attractions around one another.  Knoebels, while perhaps slightly more authentic with their homespun retro charm, is basically a respectable fairground in the middle of a forested mountain valley. I had a sense standing in Knoebels that one corner of the park was very much like any other, while Kennywood has many unique sections. Plus, I have to give the edge to Kennywood for a better selection of rides. Flats are pretty neck and neck, but between the trio of authentically classic wooden coasters to match Knoebel’s three (one relocation and two re- creations, one still under construction), and Kennywood’s three dark rides to Knoebel’s one admittedly superior attraction; plus the Exterminator (though soon to be matched by the Golden Nugget) and the phenomenal steel cornerstone that is Phantom’s Revenge… if a friend asked which to do when they only had the time and budget to do one, I would find myself recommending Kennywood before Knoebels.
Overall a great park, and it’s definitely at the top of my list of parks to revisit in the near future, especially with both Flying Turns and the Golden Nugget (I believe to be renamed ‘Black Diamond’) on the horizon. Just one park left to the trip, featuring possibly my most anticipated single attraction: Waldameer.
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