Kingdom of the Dinosaurs Remnants at Knott's

I wanted to call this post "Knott's Bear-y Tales Remnants," but unfortunately there isn't much left at the Farm to remind us of that attraction....at least not around the old attraction building. There are three Bear-y Tales figures in the barn in Ghost Town that I posted about in April. Those can be seen (here.) Let's now take a look at the abandoned space that used to house two former Knott's Berry Farm dark rides. That upper deck held a large part of the queue for both attractions.

I love the neon sign on top of the building. It's kind of strange that it's still there since the area hasn't been called the Roaring 20's for many years now.

I wonder if the neon still works? I remember it being truly dazzling as the lights would "travel" around the circle and then radiate out to the "shooting stars."

If you look closely, you can still see the Hollywood Hills part of the mural that was painted behind the loading area for Kingdom of the Dinosaurs.

And some of the clouds above the hills......if you squint, you can see them.

Here's the old entrance to the queue. It now contains some sort of game of chance in which you can win.....a stuffed animal! The Laser Zone sign is for the attraction located behind it. We'll see that in just a moment.

Here's a vintage shot of the entrance. Notice the Pterodactyl on the rooftop and the dinosaurs in "relief" below the sign. The marble statue of "Rocko", the baby Triceratops is now located in Camp Snoopy. I remember prior to the opening of Kingdom of the Dinosaurs, the artist that carved this worked on it for months out in the open where the public could watch.

Here are some current shots of the old queue ramps.....

I had heard a rumor that the old attraction space had been turned into "laser tag." Well, it turns out that it's just located in a space on the ground floor next to the arcade. I asked the employees about it and they said it doesn't use any of the upstairs space.

See how popular this attraction is? Oh, and you have to pay extra to go into "The Lazer Zone." It is not included in the price of admission.

Here's more of the old queue. Some of the metal railings are beginning to rust.

This close-up shows that they have cut off and removed the concrete ramp at the bottom level.

Now let's go into the arcade and take a look at the old attraction exit.

I went up the exit ramp......it was kind of creeping me out, but I did it anyway and nobody stopped me.

There's a metal gate at the top of the ramp and it's locked. The gate was kind of "fuzzy".....it had a lot of long black dust growing on it.

Here's a shot taken through the "fuzz" looking up the exit ramp. And yes, I did get some on me while taking this pic.

This is the view looking to the extreme right.

And this is the view looking to the extreme left. The mural still looks great!

And here's a shot of the mural that I took after I broke the lock, pulled back the metal gate and ran up the ramp!

Okay, even if the gate hadn't been locked.....I'm not THAT brave. This photo was actually taken about nineteen years ago after boarding one of the ride vehicles.

I wish Knott's would put some kind of dark ride back into this space! The park really needs another family type of attraction. How about a Peanuts/Snoopy dark ride since those characters are used throughout the park? Or just bring back Knott's Bear-y Tales! I'm sure Rolly and Chris Crump could recreate it perfectly!

We'll take a look inside the Kingdom of the Dinosaurs attraction in an upcoming post.