Knoebels

Visited: October 4, 2019

Attending: Brian and Doug

Doug and I had never been to Knoebels before. It’s only two hours from us, which is just a bit further than Hershey or Great Adventure, but it’s in kind of an inaccessible part of the state, and we really didn’t know much about it, as it doesn’t advertise much. We considered going earlier in the summer, but changed our minds. Because I’d joined ACE, I got notified about the Phall Phoenix Phunfest (which should be PhunPhest, but oh well). We decided to drive up and attend the free preview night for a couple of hours. Preview night is really just that -- a little preview for people who came to the area to stay the night and do the festival on Saturday. But hey, we live kinda nearby, and preview night is free, so why not? We hoped more things would be running, but it was just Phoenix, the antique cars, and a kiddie ride. But that’s fine, right, because we’re here to ride Phoenix!

Phoenix

Shortly before I’m writing this, Phoenix won the 2019 Golden Ticket Award for best wood coaster for the second year in a row, and it’s been in the top four for over a decade. If it’s so good, why didn’t I visit earlier? Because I thought it was just hype. The stats are middling for a wooden coaster, and some of the coaster folk I follow have ridden it and come away unimpressed. So I was prepared to be underwhelmed. As it turned out, I was more impressed than I expected to be.

The deal with Phoenix is that it has almost no restraints -- no seat belts, and only a buzz-bar that comes nowhere near your body, even if you’re a larger person. (It does have seat dividers, which I think is a good thing.) So when you get air, you come all the way out of your seat. The phrase “standing airtime” was invented for this coaster. I assume it’s safe enough to pass Pennsylvania inspections, which are fairly strict, given the number of parks in this state. But the lack of restraints is pointless if the coaster itself can’t deliver the airtime. It’s there, but maybe not where you expect it to be. We took our first ride in the back, because that’s normally where the airtime is. The first drop was nothing special, nor was the second hill, and I was starting to be disappointed. However, there’s a speed hill on the way to the third hill, and that’s where I started to notice that the train didn’t seem to be losing any speed. There’s a double-up followed by a double-down, a fast turnaround, and then a sequence of bunny hills heading back to the brake run, and I was flying out of my seat for all of that.

Then we tried a front-row ride, and the magic really happened. Again, the drop is nothing but a starting gun, but I got good air on the crest of the second hill, and the bunny hills at the end were even more intense. We rode a total of seven times, and we found a lot of variation in the experience. We had one ride without a full train, and that didn’t seem nearly as fast or intense. Most of them were nicely intense and airtime-filled, which was excellent, and it’s not so intense as to prevent rerides (which is good, because it was the only coaster open).

I still don’t think this is the best wooden coaster in the world -- El Toro and Lightning Rod are both next-level experiences. Which is the point: Phoenix can’t compete with those rides, but it’s not trying to. Of the other coasters in its class, for example Comet at HersheyPark or any of the various Cyclone copies, Phoenix is the best, and I think it would still be even if it had seat belts. I’m glad we went up for this event, and although we’ll have to go back to ride Flying Turns and the other Knobel’s coasters, I’m glad we got to focus just on Phoenix for one night.