I agree with you for sure Star Wars land feels sterile but to be honest. They should've just built Rise of the Resistance in Tommorowland or something. I feel Disney builds too many E ticket thrill rides. Even Rise I feel doesn't need the drop and excludes a lot of families for having it.
Didn't realize 4 year olds can go on this, that's pretty good actually. Yes six flags and knotts are all in on coasters sadly. Kids can basically walk around with their parents all day or go to the kid land with a few rides in each park.
I wouldn't consider Knotts "all in" on coasters. There are only six. Disneyland has four. Most of Knott's rides are accessible for kids under 40".
They had more they've just remove them or replace them with newer coasters. But seems 90% of Knotts ride announcements are for coasters.
Except it isn't. Hang Time was the last coaster install that replaced a boomerang coaster in 2018. Currently Knotts is down two coasters. Montazooma is never coming back and the Camp Snoopy one is being replaced with a new version that little kids can ride. last ride annoucements since Hang Time in (2018) have been flat rides for Camp Snoopy, Beary Tales and updated raft ride. Hardly 90%. More like zero.
Will these work?
www.adventurecity.com
Will these work?
Calico Mine Ride
Timber Mountain log ride
Bear-y tales return to the fair
Calico Rapid River Run
Butterfield Stagecoach
Surfside gliders
Pacific Scrambler
Balloon Race
Sky Cabin
Charlie Brown's Kite Flyer
Carrousel de California
Hat Dance
Dragon Swing
Calico Railroad
Ghost Town
If you want a bunch of stuff two year olds can do there is always Adventure City in Anaheim. (only five miles from Disneyland and Knotts).
Adventure City Family Amusement Park, Fun Attractions & Games
Adventure City Amusement and Theme Park offers family fun featuring thrill and kiddie rides, the best attractions and entertainment, roller coasters, petting zoo, birthday parties and group outings, arcade games, and food/treats for the entire family.
Knotts has some really great entertainment for all ages.
From a train perspective it’s a real steam train which is pretty cool (that might be changing with the redo of the land) - to me it’s pretty similar. You go by snoopy scenes instead of storybook land.
True. Unfair comparison. No theme park in the country outside of Universal is going to make those kind of rides. Even Disney hardly makes them anymore. However there is charm to have a simple ghost train. The only one that can compete and is not owned by a multi-billion dollar entertainment conglomerate is Efteling in the Netherlands which totally outdoes most Disney/Uni parks.
Looks like it closed https://www.ksbw.com/article/pea-soup-andersen-buellton-closed/46342280I adore Pea Soup Andersen's! Hap-pea and Pea-wee (Do you get it?), working hard to split the peas for your soup!
That place is fantastic. The original one is near Solvang (Buellton?) as I remember, we went to it a few times in the 60's and 70's. But the most memorable one for me was the Santa Nella location on that desolate stretch of I-5 up the Central Valley. So many family road trips on that freeway coming and going in the 70's and early 80's when my folks were still alive, during and after my little sister graduated from Stanford. We always got the "Traveler's Special" with each meal, which was about a $1 add-on to any sandwich or entree, and it included a glass of milk, coffee or tea, an ice cream shake for dessert with a ridiculous paper straw that collapsed into mush on about the third slurp (decades before straws were a culture war issue), and an endless all-you-can-eat supply of pea soup with a little wicker basket full of different Danish crackers and butter pats. Do places even still do butter pats? That's a lost art.
My father, a proud Swede, would invariably mention to us after a visit to Pea Soup Andersen's as he was merging his giant Lincoln back onto the freeway that lunch was great and the Danes were good people, but they were ever so slightly inferior to the Swedes for.... a bizarre and endless array of reasons that could involve anything from modern furniture design to cheese making to the effective management of SAS airlines. While my mother smiled patiently in the front passenger seat until she could interrupt him with the bold announcement "Look, cows!".
There was also a Pea Soup Andersen's I used to go to in Carlsbad right off I-5 at the flower fields when I was coming/going to the family beach house in La Jolla, but it closed in the early 00's and became a TGIFriday's of all things. Except TGIFriday's was too cheap to retheme it, so it still has this giant Danish windmill towering above it for no good reason that must be very confusing for younger yet thematically aware freeway drivers.
But the absolutely MANDATORY event for us with any stop at Pea Soup Andersen's was the family photo in the plywood cutout in the parking lot of Hap-Pea and Pea-Wee (Seriously, do you get it? Tell me you get it.) splitting the peas for the soup. Honestly, if you didn't get that photo, you can't really say you have been to Pea Soup Andersen's.
Driving alone and just had the Traveler's Special for lunch? Ask a stranger to take your photo, they won't mind!
I took my daughter on Space Mountain when she was tall enough to ride it. She screamed through the entire ride. I asked did you like it? She said yes. I asked do you want to go again? She screamed Noooooo!!!! and burst into tears. Now this girl will do every gut retching coaster on the planet. A child should ride a ride when she is brave enough to do not because she is tall enough and the parent really wants to do it.
