Author: Chris Glass

Man, it’s been a heck of a journey the last two years, hasn’t it? At least for Knott’s, they had planned for their biggest Boysenberry Festival in 2020, leading into their 100th anniversary and the world had other plans. But always one to take boysenberries and turn them into boysenberry juice, we got a series of tasting events, including the most unique one, Taste of Fall-o-ween, a hybrid of a food & wine festival mixed with trick-or-treating and lots of Halloween-style performances and characters, except for one core part. Scary Farm. If you would’ve asked me what the odds of…

On May 20th, Knott’s held their 100th Anniversary Preview Event. While the park had been operating for the last few weeks for passholders, it was mainly focused on rides, helping to shake off the dust and get back in the groove. During each passholder visit, you could see more of the park getting spruced up all around ready for the real summertime kick-off, finishing off the work they began early last year after everything shut down. With the Taste of Boysenberry Festival now in the rear-view mirror, the park can really celebrate properly. And it’s a thing of beauty that…

It’s 2021. Right? Just checking. I think you can forgive us for losing complete track of time recently. In fact, it was just over a year ago that we covered the preview of the then-upcoming 2020 Boysenberry Festival, featuring some truly inspiring feasts. Then just a few short days later, everything came to a life-changing halt.It’s somewhat fitting that after a 3-month pandemic-led pause from festivals, the fifth and final Knott’s Berry Farm tasting festival is themed to the single event that gave them the experience and clout to run food festivals during the craziest times of our lives.I say…

Here we are, around two and hundred fifty days since most businesses have had to drastically modify how they operate, as we enter the final months of 2020, with a glimmer of hope that 2021 will be seeing the return of this industry to a more familiar structure. But until that happens, we’re going to be seeing each park play to their current set of strengths, and Knott’s seems to have found a reliable cadence with their tasting events. Following on the heels of their 100% sold-out Taste of Fall-o-ween experience, we’ve now entered the realm of the guy in…

Let’s have a sidebar for a second. In all my years writing for this site, I had established a pattern for the topic of the articles I’d end up writing. The longer it went on, the more focused it became. This year has thrown predictability out in the streets for a wild ride that I hope remains a once-in-a-lifetime situation. So it’s been a bit of a dry spell for me, with no Halloween events to cover, no refurb updates on Jurassic World, and not much going on outside of the parks, either. I’m not sure what the right balance…

It’s stated every year, like clockwork, but seeing how the Boysenberry Festival has grown is still an amazing sight to behold. For many years, the Fun Bun was heralded as the most amazing part of it, going unexpectedly viral for the genius combination of boysenberry glaze and a deep-friend cinnamon roll. We have now gone far beyond that single point of interest during this event, to the point where I can’t begin to cover everything that will be offered.Some opinions and facts will be stated in the coverage of the Boysenberry Festival Tasting Preview we were recently invited to, but…

This year is going to be a big one for Knott’s as they’re celebrating 100 years. That means extra attention for all of their events, extra spit and polish on everything, and they started it off right with a great presence in the Pasadena Tournament of Rose New Year’s Day Parade. This is the first seasonal event of their 100 Year Celebration (if you don’t count the final days of Knott’s Merry Farm at the beginning of the month, but let’s not get nit-picky here) and their third year honoring the little rugrats that are found around the park. Outside…

Christmas is an interesting time at theme parks in California. We want the same traditions year after year, but also new changes and replacements. It’s hard to choose what things you want to keep the most as every person has a different set of opinions of what needs to stay. I’ve learned that over the years. Every attraction is someone’s favorite thing in the world.Knott’s, if anything, is a park of roots and traditions; and their Merry Farm is a key part of that. The entire park is transformed and gets into the spirit of the season in ways that…

Has it really been a decade since the Queen Mary first started their Halloween event in 2009? Man, the time has flown by. We personally began visiting a few years after that, and it’s been interesting to see how the event has changed over the years, and what has stayed the same.The food offered has really broadened. I remember years ago where it was just regular carnival food with a spooky name. And now we have these colorful elotes that are really eye-catching. Much like Knott’s, Dark Harbor leans into its own history for the base story of the event,…

Two weeks have now elapsed since Knott’s kicked off the 2019 season of Scary Farm and it’s finally hitting its stride. The biggest gripe of reviewing Halloween events like this is that opening night can sometimes be the least accurate night of the event. As guests and performers react, the whole event shifts organically. The monsters finish warming up. The mazes work out kinks. The crowds start increasing. The weather gets less brutal. Suffice to say, even if I wasn’t reviewing this, I’d still be making multiple visits as I just have a blast every time I make my way…