Coaster reviews

Smoothness

This is just kind of another kiddy coaster. It’s a larger kiddy coaster with a launch. Not really any force to it though. Nothing really to complain about given it’s a kiddy coaster, but nothing really that’s super exciting.

Duration

It’s a standard issue Vekoma Junior coaster. Goes around twice which is nice. Nothing too special but this model is always one of the top kiddy coaster models out there

Nice surprise! Location Fun Airtimes Dead spots

This is my favorite of the Las Vegas coasters. This ride gets a ton of hate because it's really janky and badly paced. Both of these criticisms are true. However, it's still a fun ride. The first few drops are really fun. It has a pair of solid inversions. The helix was forceful. This ride completely fails to deliver airtime every time it tries, but it's big and powerful and makes up for its jankiness and lack of airtime with pure fun factor.

Inversions Pace Intensity Headbanging

This is an extremely intense and fast-paced ride. It's super aggressive. I don't know what it is about this ride but it takes this fairly standard series of Arrow maneuvers with just dramatically more force than Arrow coasters typically seem to do. This would make it one of Arrow's best coasters if it wasn't so dang janky and rough. The jank is typical Arrow jank, where every transition kinda sucks, but this is paired with some roughness throughout the layout that leads to some serious headbanging, especially in the front. I loved this ride for its aggressiveness, but it does not run well.

First Drop Hangtime Dead spots

This is a very fun ride, anchored by two standout moments with a ton of nothing in between. The first drop on this ride is powerful. You build up a lot of speed coming off the lift hill and the small trains get absolutely yanked over that drop. After that, the ride gets very slow and stays slow. Mostly it's fun, but it can be pretty forceless, especially when it wraps around itself at one point. This ultimately leads into a final moment though that delivers one of the single greatest hangtime moments on a coaster. Super fun. Definitely a solid ride, just very uneven.

Theming Fun Smoothness Capacity Dead spots

This is a difficult ride to evaluate because it doesn’t really know what it wants to be. It’s too much of a dark ride to be a great coaster but it’s too much of a coaster to be a great dark ride. Ultimately, the shooting sections are bad. The coaster sections are fun. The theming is significantly better than anything else in the park, and it’s one of the better themed coasters out there. It’s a very fun ride all in all that mostly works out to be an elite, if inconsistent experience

Layout

It’s a pretty unremarkable kiddy coaster. It goes in a pretty basic oval with no force. But you get 4 laps which is something, I guess.

Rattle Headbanging

Holy headbanging! This ride isn’t the worst of this model, but that’s a low bar. There are almost no forces aside from the rattle through the entire layout. It’s a terrible coaster.

Intensity Discomfort

The train is too small. It leads to excessive squishing around the turns. The forces and pacing could be good but the bad trains really ruin the ride.

Intensity Capacity Discomfort

This ride has some wild jank to it that isn’t always good. It also seems profiled too tightly so it slams you around a lot. Sometimes that’s fun. Sometimes it’s not. Notably it does require a full train and prohibits single riders, which on a very low-crowd day meant it sent trains fairly infrequently.

Nice surprise! Smoothness

This is almost a run of the mill family coaster. The layout is uninspired. It runs smooth. But it has onboard audio which really makes it a little extra memorable. Nothing too impressive, but in a park generally full of poor presentation it stands out.

Fun Dead spots

It’s another Maurer spinner. Probably spins a bit more than average. But like the others I’ve done, this is a fun ride with solid spinning that probably isn’t gonna be the most memorable coaster of your trip.

Airtimes Rattle

It’s definitely an old wooden coaster. Good enough layout with some decent airtime pops to make it clear why this ride has stuck around all these years. But it runs rough, as old wood coasters tend to do.

Inversions Intensity

This is the intensity king at Lagoon. Two forceful loops and two fun helices. Not a whole lot to it. Ride is smooth enough. Everything it does it does well. Bur it just doesn’t do much.

Launch Discomfort Dead spots

This ride is a tale of two halves. The launch and tower is a truly unique experience that makes this an unforgettable ride. And the first half as a whole is a strong Infinity Coaster-esque layout. But it has a really dumb second half that is kinda rough and forceless. Ride also has bad restraints that come down farther during the ride. Overall a good coaster with some serious flaws.

First Drop Inversions Rattle

Cannibal is a phenomenal coaster. It takes each element at a perfect pace for the element. First drop is elite. Most of the ride is on the intense side, but with a super graceful lagoon roll. Has a bit of a rattle that doesn’t detract from the ride.

Launch Too short

Pony Express is weird. It's clearly a family ride, but its launch is too punchy to lend itself amazingly well to that. The leg restraints are odd, and the ride doesn't stand out in Knott's lineup. It's a great intro to launched coasters type ride, but it's also Knott's worst launched coaster.

Location Duration Dead spots

This ride does some great laterals. Beautiful setting. Even a smidge of airtime. It does have a few prolonged sections of straight track that aren’t super interesting, but overall a fun ride. It’s probably not worth going out of your way to do this ride if there are any other noteworthy Southern California coasters that you haven’t ridden, since this ride is far from major population centers. But it is a good ride if you do end up making the trek.

Location

Smaller coaster in a beautiful setting. You get extremely close to the trees. A little whip towards the back

Location

It’s a solid mine train. Some fun laterals. This park is gorgeous and it takes advantage of its setting very well.

Smoothness Dead spots

It's a very smooth ride that doesn't really do much of anything. Didn't get much spinning either.

It's a family coaster. Two laps per cycle. I noticed it had a tendency to undershoot the station, so the back row would have to be pseudo-evaced.

Theming Fun Duration Airtimes

It’s a fun family coaster. Some fun launches. A few fun pops to the side. Not a very forceful ride, but it feels long, has fun theming, and is overall a good addition to this park.

Location Capacity

It’s a Maurer spinner. Nothing too special about the ride itself. But it’s on an elevated platform that lets you get a great view of the ocean.

Airtimes Nice surprise!

After riding its sister coaster in San Diego, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot out of this one. I was blown away. Lots of ejector airtime. Not the smoothest ride ever but it holds up astonishingly well for a nearly-century old coaster

Theming

The ride is set really nicely but at the end of the day it’s just another kiddy coaster

Launch Capacity Discomfort

This is probably my favorite Sky Rocket II, between the lighting effects and lack of comfort collars. Fun launches, fun layout. Just wish it had a three car train and that Premier trains didn’t just suck in general.

Disappointing!

This is a spinning wild mouse that inexplicably doesn’t spin. Once the spinning unlocked, the car just faced the same direction through the switchbacks. Once it got towards the ground it finally gave one spin, but it somehow failed at the most basic task of a spinning coaster - to spin.

It’s an older Zamperla Family Gravity Coaster, which means it has some jank newer ones don’t. I like the janky old ones more. End of the day though, it’s a kiddy credit.

Layout Rattle Headbanging Tear it down!

SLC's have a really fun layout. It's a shame that Kong is so rough. It was awful the first time I rode, and it’s awful now. This ride instilled a fear of inverted coasters as a whole in me for several years as a child. Kong is one of the worst coasters ever built.