Today was a Saturday in the middle of July. We were originally supposed to do some very small parks on the outskirts of town (a Scandia and Castle Park) but I'd decided to cancel those 2 parks due to money and time. Also, I was feeling kind of sick today. We decided to give Knotts Berry Farm a whirl. We figured we'd probably be back in the middle of the week anyway, but we'd go, take some photos, and maybe get on a few rides. In a best case scenario, maybe the park would be empty enough in the closing two hours to get on all the rides and we wouldn't have to return. (Ok, absurdly optimistic thinking but you never know...)

You simply can't believe how crowded this park was. We're talking about a park smaller then Dorney Park in terms of attractions, with it seemed like the same number of people as an Orlando park in June. This place was PACKED. Like walking in midtown New York City packed.

I've seen two other parks this packed on the trip so far. Islands of Adventure on a June weekday and Six Flags Over Texas on July 4th. However, these 2 parks, for different reasons, could handle their crowds. Knotts absolutely could not handle these crowds. All attractions appeared to have an hour plus wait with Xcelerator and Ghostrider appearing to go over 2 hours. We heard riders saying the lines were over three hours, but I assume they were exaggerating. At Six Flags Over Texas, there are more then enough attractions to thin out crowds like this. At Islands of Adventure, the combination of the line cutting passes and an interesting ambience makes the wandering around fairly palatable for me. Knotts seemed to have neither. Worse, the 2 lines we stood on for about 15 minutes each before giving up (Xcelerator and Ghostrider) barely moved. I mean barely. The dispatches were taking a fairly long time on both rides and I'm not sure why as I never got anywhere near the station. The situation on Perilous Plunge looked to be the same.

Look, I'm a smart guy. I know not to go to a park on the weekend. But this place was just crazy. It was like Knoebels had the crowds of Disney show up and didn't know what to do.

Well, we'll be coming back to Knotts sometime this week and will also be covering the other major parks. Let's hope the others can handle their largest peak crowds better, and that Knotts is A LOT less crowded when we return.