Opening Day

Today was the Opening Day for the 90th season of Knoebels, and it was our fourth year in a row of being there on Opening Day. We went on opening day the last three years because they offer a "buy one get one free" sale the first two days of the season. Three years ago we had to wait a long time (45 minutes) to purchase our handstamps, but the last two years we avoided that problem by purchasing our tickets online ahead of time. Although they are selling handstamps online this year, for some reason they were not selling the opening weekend tickets online. I thought if we got there by 11:15 we would be early enough to avoid the worst of the line or at least ensure that we were riding rides when the park opened at 12:00 (or 11:45 as usually they start the rides 15 minutes before the official opening time). Well we were running a little behind schedule (we looked at a house we are considering buying prior to going to Knoebels), and then we encountered a massive line of cars just to get into the parking lot so by the time we actually got in the very, very long handstamp line, it was already 11:40. I feared the line would take more than an hour because we were back farther than we were three years ago, but the line moved more quickly today. I thought we would make it through in 30 minutes, but then the woman in front of us had issues with her credit card which held us back so in the end it took us 35 minutes to get our handstamps, but still that meant we were on our way to riding rides at 12:15.

The past two years the crowds were very reasonable on opening day meaning that the lines were very short (and nonexistent in some cases). Well that proved to be true for *most* of the kiddie rides, but it was absolutely not true for the big rides. Usually they ride the Phoenix many, many times in one day. That was not the case today. Thankfully it improved the last few hours of the day or we might have been better off just purchasing ride tickets instead of handstamps. The weather wasn't really that great (in the high 50's and cloudy) although thankfully it didn't rain at all. I was amazed to discover how many people at the park today traveled five or more hours to get there. I talked to people from Ohio, Kentucky ,western PA, etc. One many told me he drove eight hours to be at the park today. Although it wasn't nearly the bargain that it usually is (when you consider money spent compared to number of rides ridden), the truth is that we didn't pay any parking, didn't buy any food in the park (we packed a lunch and used a Wendy's gift card for dinner on the way home), and between ride tickets (for me) and for the other four we spent a grand total of $63 to spend seven hours riding rides. That is a fraction of what it will cost us to spend a day at Sesame Place in June or Hershey Park next month (and an even smaller fraction of what we spent last year to spend a day at Disney), and we are going on discount days at those two parks as well. We have just been really spoiled at Knoebels in the past. We are planing to go again in June on a week day (either a Wednesday or Thursday), and we're hoping that day the crowds will be more typical of our past experiences with Knoebels.

Nadia was thrilled to be over the 48 inch mark for the first time, which meant she could ride 8 rides that she previously couldn't ride because she was too short. Also, it meant there were 7 rides she could now ride alone that previously she could only ride with an adult, and some of those rides are not ones Paul or I can handle these days so she had never ridden then. When you are 48 inches tall you can ride EVERY ride at Knoebels, and you can ride all but one ride by yourself. You have to be 52 inches to ride the Impulse steel roller coaster by yourself. She was REALLY looking forward to riding the Impulse, but she didn't want to wait in line an hour or more so it didn't happen today. Paul is not willing to ride that ride, but I was going to use $3 in ride tickets to ride it with her. This evening the wait was only 40 minutes, but at that point we were getting tired (and very hungry as it was way past our usual dinner time). We will make it a priority when we go in June. She did ride 7 new rides today, and Ian one 1 new ride just because for the last 4 years we didn't know it existed. OOPS! We thought we knew the park like the back of our hands, but they had opened a new roller coaster in October 2011 that we didn't discover until recently. Hopefully in June Nadia can ride the other rides she is now tall enough that we didn't have time to ride today, and hopefully it will be warmer so we will be wanting to do the Skloosh and the flume. The flume wasn't operating today, the amazingly the Skloosh was. I could not believe that when the temperature was below 60 degrees that some people wanted to get soaking wet and walk around the park in dripping wet clothes. Crazy!!!

Most of my pictures are of Oliver because I spent the first few hours with him in the kiddie ride area. Also, it is a lot harder to get pictures of kids riding the big rollercoasters and such. The only kiddie rides that Ian wanted to do were the big pillow (sort of like a trampoline) and the ball pit (twice). Otherwise none of the kiddie rides interested him. Nadia would have enjoyed the ball pit as well, but she was too busy riding roller coasters. It was the first time we were at the park and she didn't ride ANY kiddie rides aside from the kiddie roller coaster. Also, it was the first time none of the kids rode the kiddie fire engine, any bumper car, the ferris wheel, or either of the two carousels. Oliver still loves the train rides. The park was *supposed* to close at 6pm today, but they actually decided to stay open until 8pm because of how heavy the crowds were. The lines were even long for buying food (not that we bought any)! We lasted until about 7:15, and even though the rides were still open we were all tired and hungry as we had eaten an early lunch before we entered the park. Oliver actually fell asleep before we got to Wendy's so he didn't have dinner tonight. Oops! The rest of us ate in the car on the way home. We got home at 8:15 and put the kids straight to bed. As he was brushing his teeth, Ian hugged me and said we were the best parents in the whole world. Well I am sure that is not a true statement, but I am glad he feels that way. I am glad my kids enjoy amusement parks as much as I did when I was their age! I will post more pictures later. It is time for me to head to bed as well!