Thursday, May 21, 2015

Knott's Berry Farm Ready for Visitors to Journey to the Iron Reef


Journey to the Iron Reef, Cedar Fair's second entry to their "Amusement Dark" line of rides, is now open to the public at Knott's Berry Farm.

The new ride is the most recent to utilize space in the park's Boardwalk area that was once home to both Knott's Bear-y Tales and Kingdom of the Dinosaurs.  These former dark rides featured elaborate sets and themes but no interactive features, something that Journey to the Iron Reef has added.  On the new attraction riders are taken on four-seater submarines down under the park's Boardwalk pier in order to freeze-blast the Kraken Queen and her army of steampunk-inspired baddies who are dead set on destroying the park.

And elaborate story, yes, but one that has been well received thus far.  The new ride has already garnered long lines during previews.  The freeze blasters allow riders to blast the underwater creatures for points, creating a great re-ride factor to see who can get the most points.

The ride mostly utilizes high definition screens throughout the ride, but most have been pleasantly surprised to see plenty of sets and other effects mixed in between them.

Don't watch if you don't want to see the ride, but here's a recent point of view:

Without the 3-D glasses the film is a bit blurry, but you get the idea here.  Overall it appears to be a very well put together attraction, and in a lot of ways an improvement over Wonder Mountain's Guardian at Canada's Wonderland.

It seems that Cedar Fair might be taking 2016 off from these rides, but even if so I'm looking forward to seeing the 3rd iteration of the experience soon after.


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