Phoenix Phall Phunfest 2005

The Phoenix Phall Phunfest is a halloween event held at Knoebels Amusement park in Elysburg, PA in conjunction with the Covered Bridge Festival.

We planned to camp Friday and Saturday night, enjoying the festival Saturday but our plans were spoiled by the weather. We arrived Friday evening at around 7:30 to find the rain coming down just as hard here as it had been all the way accross PA. After arranging to upgrade to a platform site we began setting up our tent in the rain. Its making cold just thinking about it. We got the tent up and attempted to throw a tarp over the top, but our new for 2005 tent was too big for it to cover completlely. This worked out to be the biggest mistake of the trip besides not cancelling the Friday portion of the trip. After some beers and boredom we tried to sleep but awoke to wet pillows, wet shirts and spoiled spirits. Our tent had puddles along the sides and every non water friendly piece of clothing or blanket was wet. Yuck!

After a long, wet night, we awoke and dicussed our options and luckily found a Hampton Inn 14 miles from the park. The hotel was clean, easy to find and had a good continental breakfast in the morning.

So we took our tent down, cleaned up and headed out to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Mmmm.

We wanted to check out the Covered Bridge Festival before the Phunphest and had about…8 hours to kill. Hmm. Monica wanted to get a water wicking shirt to go along with her new pants and had convinced me to do the same so we headed out to find a sporting goods store. After digging around a mall and finding nothing we moved along to Insert town name and found an outdoor store. We both found what we wanted, thermal drying underware. These things are great! With the new thermals, hiking socks and rain coat I was dry and warm the entire rainy evening.

A movie was on our list of things to do, and we saw Flightplan. Good thriller movie that kept us both guessing.

After the movie we checked into the hotel to clean up and change into our new clothes. While changing Monica commented on the opening at the front of my pants and reffered to it as a “cute hole for your little pee pee.” I had a laugh and said, little is not a word any man wants used to describe that. Anyways, we changed and headed to the event.

The Phun Phest

After roaming the booths at the Covered Bridge Festival we purchased our tickets and headed into the park for Phun!

Phoenix

The PhoenixOur first ride of the evening was Phoenix. I was really curious what my opinion would be this time after riding four world class woodies this summer, and it hasn’t changed. Phoenix is still my favorite wooden coaster. While the rides all evening were not as out of control as they were last summer they were still a blast.

The tunnel had a number of black light graffiti paintings, strobe lights and fog early in the evening. Touches like this made this event really special and put a smile on our faces all night.

The ride itself was dark, and the out section over the Antique Cars had fog at the bottom of the hills leftover from the Haunted car ride. The ride is so smooth from the middle bench it almost feels like a B&M! Airtime was mild, but the smiles were extreme.

Haunted Mansion

The Haunted HouseWe wanted to get on the Haunted Mansion before it closed for the evening, so we headed there next and had a fun ride. The Haunted Mansion is sensory overload from the second you go in till you are done. Lots of scares and good times.

After the Haunted Mansion we wanted to use our free pizza coupons. This was our first time eating at Cesari’s and I have to say the hype was warrented. The cheese slices were really good, the sauce was sweet, very similar to NYC style and the crust was fresh.

Twister

Mike Myers a ride op?The Twister queue was all done up as well, including a ride op dressed as Michael Myers walking slowly around the platform checking restraints and never coming out of character as well as Halloween music playing from underneath the platform.

The ride itself again was not as out of control as I recall, but still was really great. The first drop, turn around, drop, double helix was as intenseas it was smooth. Great!

Heading down the exit ramp held another surprise, a garbage can had a trigger that would cause the lid to pop open with lots of noise and light. It really scared the crap out of Monica and I. Details like this made the night really special and worth the suffering we were put through the night before.

Bumper Cars

Bumper carsI have heard the stories, knew that these were the #1 rated bumper cars and knew they packed a punch. Holy crap were they fun. Monica and I have never had as much fun, nor been as scared as we were on these bumper cars.

Our ride cycle was stopped as soon as we started, the ride operator, whom everyone seemed to know, said “You have all done this before, turn around and go the other way” and started up the ride again. Lots of big hits, spin outs and laughter insued. Everyone in queue was cheering when a big hit was given. All in all, great times.

Haunted Antique Cars

Vampire ride opThe amount of work they put into this was staggering, it was an entire dark ride outdoors with numerous scares throughout the ride. While the line was long, it was well worth it. A number of the ride operators were in costume and character, including this guy who struck up a vampire conversation with Monica.

Final Thoughts

While the camping wash out was really dissapointing, the Phun Phest was worth all the cold and wetness we suffered through the previous night. The attention to detail was great, and made the event so much fun. After one PPP, we are planning on making it an annual trip.

See all photos from PPP 2005

Comments (8)

comments

  • CBCyclone

    Believe it or not, the 2005 Phunfest, despite the monsoon-like rains, rates as one of my favorite Phunfests. Knoebel’s is ALWAYS a blast. It’s just too bad they only ran one trian on the Phoenix. I could have logged 50 rides if they had both trains running. I haven’t seena PPP crowd that small since 1997 (jsut over 750).

    On the RRC newsgroup a few days prior to the event Bill Buckley talked about a earlier Phunfest that was held in a driving downpour and what a blast it was. His final comment was LET’S GET SOAKED! His post was so grea tthat I decided not to let a little thing like rain ruin my phun!

    Did you make it back to the park in time for the 20th anniversary ceremonies? It was great to see Moyer back playing Yellow Rose of Texas and Pennsylvania Polka on the trumpet. Also Ed Juncolous was on hand from the Herschell Parts Company which is located here in North Tonawanda, NY (about two miles from my house). I knew Ed slightly from my volunteer work for the Herschell Carousel Factory Museum, but had never had any real conversation with him except in passing. Anyway I had an in-depth conversation with he and John Fetterman about the Looper project. Fetterman told me that Ed was the one who put the park on to the Looper being available for sale. They were considering buy a highly modified version of the Looper before Ed told them about the unmodified Looper that the park eventually bought.

    Anyway, thanks for your post regarding the 2005 Phoenix Phall Rainfest (LOL) Hopefully 2006 will be dry and sunny.

  • Ryan

    We weren’t there for the ceremony, I think we were in another area of the park, and when we got back to see it we were a few minutes too late.

    I really hope this year is nice enough to camp, I really wanted to stay after and hang out at the bon fire, but we were so sick of being so wet that we just went back to the hotel room.

    Thanks for the response! Maybe we will see you there this year.

  • CBCyclone

    This is the first year we didn’t stay for the bonfire. My friend Dave had his fiance and her best friend with him. They are NOT rain people at all. SI Dave took them back to the hotel in Bloomsburg around 4 PM then came back at 6 for Phunfest. I knew he wasn’t keen on being there without Gloria, so I made him a deal. We stayed until the announcments by Dick, then took off back to the hotel.

    I don’t mind cool, as long as its’ dry. Back in 2003 it rained on Friday night and most of the day Satuday, but then stopped around 4 PM. It was cold but clear and dry in the evening which was ok.

    The warmest PPP I can remember was back in 1997. It was around 70 degrees at night and just great weather. My first PPP in 1995 was also a warm evening. I think it was in the low 60′s. I rememebr wearing a light jacket and a t-shirt.

    Are you a Monty Python fan. I’m thinking of doing a Python costume with my family for this year’s PPP based on the Holy Grail. If I can work it out, it should go over big.

  • CBCyclone

    Quote from Ryan: “After the Haunted Mansion we wanted to use our free pizza coupons. This was our first time eating at Vincents and I have to say the hype was warrented”

    Actually the stand is called Cesari’s, not Vincent’s.

    Did you go back to the parkk on Sunday? It was warm and overcast but a t least it was dry. I ran into Todd Long walking through the craft show and we went with another enthusiast (can’t remember his name) to ride the Phoenix. Got my last three rides of the year in.

  • Ryan

    Thanks for the spelling correction, fixed it!

  • CBCyclone

    Are you going to the 2007 Phunfest? If so are you camping? This will be my first year camping for the event with the crowd from Camp RRC.

  • Ryan

    No, I have a wedding the same Saturday sadly. Seems like there will be great weather this year.

  • CBCyclone

    It was a great time. The weather was sunny and actually a bit too hot. Camping was great though. We camped in the Texas Panhandle with the folks from the RRC newsgroup (Todd Long, Walt Breymier, Ted Ansley, Ted from Coasterfanatics.com and others.

    On Saturday morning after breakfast we drove out to Centralia, PA, the town tat’ shad the underground mine fire going on since 1962. Very interesting place and a great story.

    I wish all PPPs were that nice and warm and pleasant. Unfortunately I KNOW from experience that they aren’t (as do you, since you were at the Rainfest in ’05).

    MARK

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