Earlier this week we shared our Boysenberry Festival Update so today we're going to continue with Knott's and take a look around the park and a general park update. Lots of updates on Iron Reef as well as a lot of "offseason" refurbishments. Get your Fun Bun and Boysenberry Coffee ready. Before we get started, the other day we joked with Knott's that we'd LOVE it if the FunBun theme song would be released as a Ring Tone. Well, never ones to disappoint, they put it up in a DropBox yesterday and tweeted it out. So be sure to download it if you want some FunBun love every time your phone rings. We'll start off with Iron Reef, which, as you'll see the old Beary Tales/KOD building is getting a huge facelift. These are supports for the roof which the awesome @ParkandCons tweeted pictures of out yesterday. Some cool artwork A peek inside, nothing really to see here. Some cool chalk artwork is out in the boardwalk. They even tell you where to stand to get the best picture. But we don't play by the rules. =) From the Sky Cabin Elsewhere in the Boardwalk the water is drained as it's getting ready to be re-painted. It seems to have faded very quickly. Xcelerator pieces. :( The FastLane queue is also open on the ride. There's an awesome new mural in Virginia's but there were a LOT of people checking it out. We'll try to get some nice pictures on a less busy day. Lastly, how about some ride photo's. Got a nice pic of Xcelerator from the Sky Cabin. Some in our group hadn't ridden the new Peanuts train, so I was able to get some Sierra Sidewinder pics. How about some Zoooooom from the train as well. That's going to wrap it up for this update. We should have another Knott's update in a week or two as some of our site contributors have yet to get down to the Boysenberry Festival. Have a great weekend everybody!!! Media DayWe'll start off with some nice panoramic views of the new park entrance. This looks really great. Review of Fury 325 from Lauren: It was great! For the typical audience that is going to ride this coaster, it's going to be a really great experience. There's a lot of whishy-washy reviews on this, but most of the people at media day are roller coaster fanatics. The roller coaster fanatics are jaded and have traveled all over the wild to ride the tallest, fastest, and wildest coasters. This ride compared to Helix in Sweden? Helix wins 10x over, but this ride wasn't built exclusively for these roller coaster fanatics. This coaster is an awesome addition to Carowinds and is going to bring a lot of excitement to the park. The front seat was my favorite by far, which is very uncommon for me to say about a B&M coaster. The front seat was full of an insane amount of wind, beautiful views, and it's fair share of airtime. The back seat was also a close second to my favorite seat. However there was a shake to the row 3 end seat I rode on towards the end, enough shake to it to give me a slight headache and sit out on a few other rides on it. If your looking for airtime, intimidator does give you a little more. But if your looking for a great thrill, plenty of adrenaline, and a really good ride overall then Fury is it. Don't let the jaded ones fool you, it's definitely a must do and worth the trip to Carowinds!!! Before the festivities begin, let's take a look at some Fury merchandise Prior to the ride opening, they were doing some more testing. The ceremony kicked off with Mike Fennel Carowinds VP and some words from South Carolina Gov, North Carolina Gov, the Mayor of Charlotte After the ceremony it was time to get some pictures of the ride in action, and of course ride the coaster. Alright, that's going to wrap it up for our Media Day report. We'll likely have some more pics and info in a few days. The coaster and park opens for the 2015 season this Saturday (3/28) so be sure to head out to Carowinds and take in their new amazing coaster. Thanks to Carowinds for inviting us out to their festivities and a VERY special thank you to Matt and Lauren who were able to cover the event for us. It's very much appreciated. Yesterday we headed back out to Knott's for the 10th Annual Knott's Coaster Run. I had previously done this event 3 years ago and I have to say this years event was great, some things better, some things not so much (which we'll get into below). We also have some Iron Reef pics from our visit last Wednesday. Our Sunday morning started about 2 1/2 hours after our Saturday ended. Due to the time change we were up way too early with too little sleep. The start line at about 6:00am After getting our bibs, hanging out a bit, seeing some of you who came out, we started to get in our corrals. And this was the one big issue of the day. The corrals made no sense. Usually corrals are sorted by your projected finish time. Now, I'll be honest, I can't remember if I put in a time when we registered, but I don't think we did. It seemed that the corrals were sorted by registration date, which makes NO sense. Hanging out in Wave 6, behind walkers and people with strollers. Even the people behind me were confused, or they were confused at how tired I looked. LOL. Now I'll admit, I'm not the fastest runner, usually around 10:30 per mile on my normal runs, but I admit it and will always put myself in an appropriate corral/wave/whatever. My wife walked the 5k and stated in the back, as it should be. Corral issues aside though, I will admit, that there was enough gap between waves that it really wasn't as big of an issue as it could have been. But catching up to the previous waves walker 3-4 minutes after the race started was kind of weird. Headed into the park And here is the BIGGEST improvement over the last time we did the Coaster Run, actually running through the park. The last time we did it we ran around the park, but never in it. So this was awesome. Beware of Boomerang supports Log ride looks awesome in the morning Running through Ghost Town Lines for character pictures weren't that long at all Fog Alley Heading out of the park Looping around the Marketplace, through the tunnel and into Soak City Believe it or not, this was actually my first time in Soak City. We'll certainly be checking it out this summer. The 5k/10k split. If you did the 5k, your course was entirely on Knott's Property (which is awesome). For the 10k the 2nd half of our race was on nearby streets, which was totally fine. Lots of great staff out to cheer you on. I ended up finishing the 10k in 1:03:46 and a pace of 10:07 per mile. Not my best, not my worst by a long shot. The 2nd half of the race was faster due to not having to dodge strollers and walkers. And of course, no day at Knott's would be complete without some Boysenberry Pie. After a tasty breakfast at Mrs. Knott's, a post race selfie, showing off the medal in a theme park. =) Overall, I'd give this race about a 8 out of 10, it's well organized, the course is great and the minor weirdness regarding the corral placement aside, we had an absolute blast. I would suggest having people with strollers at the very least start in the back next year. If you are pushing a stroller and can pass me more power to ya. But we'll certainly be back next year. Moving on to Knott's Iron Reef construction, they are starting to work on the outside of the building now. And apparently the ride vehicles have shown up at the park as well. The station is receiving a bulk of the work Ground work for the building An overview of the work area, looks like the brick is staying. Not sure what they are doing on this end yet A peek inside Around the rest of the park, is this thing ever open anymore? Jaguar was closed for a brief refurb, but was back open over the weekend. Montezooma's Revenge just returned from it's rehab and is running great as always. Lastly, not sure when these were replaced (probably been awhile) but they look great. I don't normally go into Camp Snoopy, just always find it weird when I'm without kids. =) Alright, that's going to wrap it up for this update, we hope you enjoyed it. We'll be back at the park on the 28th for the Boysenberry Festival. Looking forward to trying out lots of great food. |
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