Theme Parks : Sunday in the Parks With Calendar : Knott’s Berry Farm: Willy-Nilly Wonders

Welcome to Sunday in the Parks with Calendar--the Sequel. And please fasten your seat belts.

For our second annual survey of Southern California’s major theme parks, our intrepid reporters visited the parks on a recent Sunday, unannounced. Accompanied by family or a friend, they bought tickets, stood in lines, sampled the park’s rides and menus and withered in the heat.

Afterward, they put in calls to the various park publicists for assistance in compiling our comparison chart. (Some of those publicists would have preferred that we attend their parks during special “media days”--when the parks operate without a glitch and are especially clean and when we might have been wooed with “cuts” in line, as well as special edibles.)

It’s no surprise that Sundays in the park have changed since the serene turn-of-the-century depiction “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jatte,” by French artist Georges Seurat, (the inspiration for our illustrations). In fact, Sundays keep on changing, as the parks continue in their mania to always be one step/ride/attraction ahead of the competition. So how do they measure up? Read on:

Two new thrill rides and a light and water show have just opened at Knott’s. So let’s hope those thrill seekers haven’t stuffed themselves with chicken dinners and/or boysenberry pie before climbing aboard.

The $2-million XK-1 is billed as “a revolutionary new flight ride,” which “will allow riders to actually pilot their ‘aircraft’ and come as close as possible to experiencing the actual sensation of flight without a real airplane.” Using a control stick, 1,200 riders per hour will “climb, dive or perform a full 360-degree barrel roll in either direction--seven stories off the ground.”

Then there’s the $1-million Whirlpool, an indoor, lights-out experience with 12 cars “spinning wildly in different directions” taking riders to “new dimensions in disorientation.” Set in a simulated underwater environment, this one can handle 960 passengers per hour.

The new Incredible Waterworks show, situated in Reflection Lake between Camp Snoopy and the Wild West ghost town, will feature multiple streams of water soaring 100 feet high to coordinated music. During the day, “hundreds of rainbows” will be seen. At night, the $1-million attraction will have “high-powered colored lights, lasers and pyrotechnics.”

What’s that? Fireworks alongside Camp Snoopy and just outside the Church of the Reflections? Oh well. Knott’s works--in strange ways.

In fact, the third-largest theme park in America in attendance (after the two Disney parks) can never be accused of being overly planned.

A conglomeration of several themed areas, plus some “orphan” attractions that fill the nooks and crannies, the park is like one of those rambling old farmhouses that gets bigger and more interesting as new wings are added willy-nilly.

What in the world is a time-travel ride, which takes passengers back to the era of the dinosaurs, doing in the Roaring ‘20s square with a Dixieland jazz band outside and a Space Age arcade underneath?

Unlike other theme parks, Knott’s began as an afterthought--a collection of amusements to keep people entertained while they lined up for chicken dinners served up by Cordelia Knott, wife of park founder Walter Knott, inventor of the boysenberry.

The park’s heritage is evident in its homey atmosphere and impressive availability of food, from cinnamon rolls to barbecued ribs to Mexican dishes, plus the usual fast-food fare. And a host of boysenberry products. And of course, there’s the famed Chicken Dinner Restaurant on the edge of the park (before you pay your park admission fee).

Between and among the food outlets are shops, a Western ghost town, a Mexican village, and a carnival in the aforementioned Roaring ‘20s. As we said, it all seems slapped together. But it works.

In fact, the park’s numerous little attractions seem to keep the big ones from getting those horrible labyrinthian lines that plague other parks. The Log Ride, a cool, watery cruise through a logging mill and a forest and finally down a long drop, drew a line of only 11 minutes at 3 p.m.

The longest wait--25 minutes--was for Bigfoot Rapids, the year-old ride that mercilessly drenches some patrons and sprays others.

Knott’s has several other “big” attractions, such as Montezooma’s Revenge, the Calico Mine Ride and the Corkscrew roller coaster. For small folk (and their parents), there’s also Camp Snoopy.

Its 6 acres of boulders, waterfalls and trees in a High Sierra theme includes about 20 rides and attractions for children 7 and under.

Perhaps the most popular (and fanciful) children’s ride is the Flying Ace Balloon Race, which gently lifts riders in baskets under huge, colorful hot-air balloon replicas.

Knott’s Beary Tales has been transplanted into the Beary Tales Playhouse, a walk-through funhouse in Camp Snoopy. With a boysenberry pie factory, a ubiquitous pie-thieving fox and other large animal characters having various adventures, the playhouse is a mild diversion for adults and an imaginative journey for the kids, with buttons to push and stairs to climb. My 5-year-old loved crawling through the various tunnels, but my 2-year-old was frightened by the funhouse mirrors and dark areas that feature Day-Glo frogs bouncing up and down and paddling through a swamp.

For some reason, Montezooma’s Revenge, that curlicue ride to Hell, is a peanut’s throw from Camp Snoopy’s peaceful balloon race, punctuating the proceedings with enormous volume (and screams). It seems an odd place to put it, but then. . . .