Knoebels: PPP Weekend 2025

Another year, another PPP weekend. This one is a fixture on the calendar at this point — same park, same cottage, same friends, same rhythm. Roll in Thursday, settle into Memory Lane, start working through the ride list, put dinner on the fire, and let the weekend unfold. By Sunday you're tired, a little sore from a weekend of wooden coasters, and already thinking about next year.

There's something about doing the same trip every year with the same people that changes the experience over time. The park stays mostly the same year to year (which is part of Knoebels' whole thing), but the memories layer up. You end up with running jokes, specific rides at specific times of day, food stops in a specific order, and a growing cast of friends who show up at the same event every fall. PPP is as much a reunion weekend as it is a coaster trip.

About Knoebels

Knoebels is one of those parks that people who care about amusement parks care deeply about. It's a family-owned, free-admission park tucked into Roaring Creek Valley in central Pennsylvania, and it's been operating continuously since 1926 — just past the 99-year mark on this visit, with the centennial coming up in 2026. The Knoebel family still runs it, and the park's whole identity is built around being the anti-corporate-theme-park: no gates, no paid parking, shaded groves of old-growth trees, hand-crafted rides, and prices that feel like they were set 20 years ago.

The "no admission" thing really matters. You can walk in, buy a book of tickets or a wristband, and ride what you want. You can also just walk in to eat, or to sit by the creek, or to ride the carousel, or to do nothing. It makes the park feel more like a public space than a commercial attraction.

Knoebels' coaster lineup isn't the biggest, but pound-for-pound it might be the most interesting in the country:

• Phoenix — the park's namesake for PPP. Originally built in 1947 as the Rocket at Playland Park in San Antonio, Texas, and scheduled for demolition when the park closed in 1980. Charles Dinn and the Knoebel family relocated it piece by piece and reopened it in Elysburg in 1985. It has been regularly ranked among the top wooden coasters in the world ever since. The combination of buzzbar trains (no headrests, no seatbelts, just a single lap bar), aggressive ejector airtime, and a layout that hasn't been softened by decades of "improvements" makes it a coaster that a lot of people consider their all-time favorite.
• Twister — the park's other major wooden coaster, built in-house by the Knoebels in 1999 and based loosely on Mister Twister from Elitch Gardens. Intense, dense, and genuinely underrated.
• Flying Turns — a wooden bobsled-style coaster that the park spent roughly seven years building. Opened in 2013 after a long, famously troubled development process. There are only a handful of wooden bobsled coasters in the world, and this is the one that matters.
• Black Diamond, Impulse, and the rest of the steel lineup fill in around the wooden headliners.

And then there's the Haunted Mansion — a classic dark ride that enthusiasts regularly rank as one of the best, if not the best, traditional dark ride in the country. It looks unassuming from the outside and then genuinely startles people inside. PPP evening rides on the Haunted Mansion, in October, are a small annual pleasure.

Memory Lane Cottage

Staying at Memory Lane is the right way to do Knoebels. It's a small private campground — separate from Knoebels' own cottages and campground — sitting 80 yards from the park entrance in Reeder's Grove. There's one vintage cottage (the one we always stay in), six log cabins, and a restored trolley car that has been converted into lodging. The whole property has a slightly hidden, hole-in-the-wall feel, tucked into the same kind of dense tree canopy that makes Knoebels itself feel shaded and cool even in summer.

The vintage cottage is exactly what it sounds like — older, lived-in, comfortable in the way that a family cabin is comfortable, with a fire ring out back and enough space for both families to spread out. Being 80 yards from the park means you can walk home for a nap or a jacket or a snack at any time, which is critical for a four-day weekend where the weather can swing 30 degrees between afternoon and midnight.

Sharing it every year with Deanna, Dan, and Ethan is half the reason we keep coming back. It's become its own tradition — groceries planned together, meals cooked together, the kids treated like honorary family at this point. Ethan keeps getting taller every year, which is the kind of thing you only notice in annual-trip slices.

PPP: Phoenix Phall Phunfest

The centerpiece of the weekend, Phoenix Phall Phunfest, was on Saturday, October 4, 2025. PPP is an enthusiast event — you have to be a card-carrying member of one of the approved groups (ACE, GOCC, Coaster Crew, etc.), or a registered guest of a member, to get in. The format is roughly: show up during the day, hang around during regular park hours, and then after the park closes to the general public, enthusiasts get the run of the place for exclusive ride time, food, a souvenir swap meet, raffles, and music, with everything culminating in a late-night finale.

Some of the running features:

• Exclusive Ride Time (ERT) on Phoenix, Twister, and other marquee rides. Walk-on rerides, night rides, and the rare experience of riding a wooden coaster at midnight in October with the smell of woodsmoke and fall leaves in the air. You don't get this at a corporate park.
• Souvenir swap meet — enthusiasts setting up tables to trade/sell patches, shirts, pins, maps, ride parts, old POP signage, and the general detritus of a life spent visiting amusement parks. Always worth a walk-through.
• Food — Knoebels stays open, so you can keep grazing through the whole evening. Pierogies, Alamo cheesesteaks, tri-taters, Old Mill fries, Bakery apple fritters, the inexplicably well-loved Cesari's pizza, caramel apples. You do not leave hungry.
• Friends from all over the country — the other critical piece. PPP pulls enthusiasts from every region, and the weekend functions as an annual rallying point. Every year we run into the same people we haven't seen since, well, this time last year, plus new faces. The park becomes a slow-rolling reunion for a couple of nights.

The 2025 PPP ran a full slate of this, and the weather cooperated — crisp enough for jackets at night but comfortable during the day, which is roughly the ideal central PA October.

The rest of the weekend

Around PPP proper, the rest of the trip was the usual mix:

• Food. Knoebels is probably the best-eating park in America, and four days is enough to hit essentially the entire lineup. The pierogies, Alamo cheesesteaks, the Old Mill fries, the bakery, the apple fritters, the tri-taters — all present, all accounted for. The cottage also had enough meals cooked in to balance things out, because four straight days of park food is a dangerous prospect even for people who like park food.
• Campfires. Central to every one of these trips. Fire pit, cheap chairs, cold air, whatever someone brought from the store, long conversations that go later than they should. This is the part of the weekend that doesn't show up in ride counts but is really what you remember.
• Rides. Lots of them. Phoenix repeatedly, Twister several times, Flying Turns, the Haunted Mansion, the Grand Carousel (and yes, grabbing for the brass ring), the Looper, Skloosh!, the Skyride. The usual rotation.
• People. As always, the best part. Both the Matechaks and the wider PPP crowd.

Final thoughts

The PPP weekend has turned into one of those fixtures on the calendar that you measure the rest of the year against. The park doesn't really change. The cottage doesn't really change. The food doesn't change. The Phoenix doesn't change. That's the whole point. What changes is you — a year older, a year further into the ongoing tradition, another year of stories layered onto the same park.

Knoebels celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2026, which is going to make next year's trip something special. Already looking forward to it.

Same time next year.