mich311e

Looks awesome, can't wait to ride it without the OTSR!

I live in Phoenix and drive by Castles & Coasters every day. I always feel like I'm going to fall out when I ride Desert Storm! It's like the lap bar doesn't click down enough or something. I do agree they've done a fantastic job maintaining the park. I've been going there since the early 80's when it was Golf & Stuff. I don't think the bumper boats were there in the 80's, just goofy golf and the arcade(s). (There used to be 2 arcades). The place is very sentimental to those who grew up in the area! Great review and pics.

Here's my quick trip report from Friday October 2! We got to the park about 10ish. Got up to entry area and entered thru the gold pass member line. Stood at the "rope drop" area and it dropped about 10 minutes before the park opened. My first stop was the bathroom though! We were going to head to YOLO but it didn't appear to be open. So we did take the Orient Express up the hill and road Ninja first since my husband needed a warm up. Then 2 rides on Superman all by ourselves! It was our first time riding facing 'backwards', as we hadn't rode the ride since 2008. It was super cool and the ride ops were great and friendly! Then we rode Apocalypse in the front row, which we loved. Then I rode Tatsu (husband not a fan). Then Goliath, Buccaneer (I love that one!), and Lex Luthor Drop of Doom (husband not a fan). We got on Twisted Colossus next! We totally loved it and got the dueling action on our first climb up the lift hill. I only wish I would have got back on for a second ride, we planned to hit it at night though. Then I rode Scream (husband not a fan). Scream looked so nice with the paint job. I do find I'm having a hard time (I'm almost 40!) with more twisty rides and inversions. That will probably be my last ride on Scream. The loops on many of the other rides don't bother me. On the way out of the park we hit YOLO and loved it! We really think it's a great ride. We left the park to get lunch and had an excellent happy hour at Claim Jumper on the Old Road - great beer and appetizers, really good prices! We also hit the hotel so I could shower (wore sandals in the morning, and had to kick those off for 3 rides - dirty feet, yuck). Came back to the park around 6:45 and it wasn't crazy! We were able to secure a spot in the back of the front parking lot. We started going through some mazes and got in a few night rides. We did Chupacabra then I rode X2. I do love X2, that first drop is so amazing! I do miss the music they used to have with Drowning Pool's "Let the bodies hit the floor" and Aerosmith saying "Going Down" and I think Rage at the end? That was the best. I did, however, feel the pain in the back of my legs near the end of the ride that I've read about here before. I don't recall feeling that before. It was like calves - calves- HEAD. And I took a hit to the head. I must have looked dazed when I got off the ride because a woman who was getting on was asking if it was really that bad. I said, oh no, it's fine. But the combo of the restraints squeezing me down in the chest area and hitting my head meant I needed to catch my breath a minute. I still think it's a really awesome ride and I will definitely ride it again. I opted to skip Viper because my head was already hurting after X2. We rode Apocalypse at night (Shadows of Evil) and it had about a 30 minute wait. We were in the middle of the train this time and that and the darkness made it a much more intense ride! Then we rode Gold Rusher. We did some more mazes: The Aftermath, Toyz (I love this one, so cheezy and fun!), Vault 666, and Red's Revenge (I thought the set design was amazing!).(We did the Willoughby's mazes last year so didn't do them this time) Then we saw the show Unleashed which I thought was super cool! Loved the aerial acrobatics and the trampoline dudes! We were going to ride TC one more time at night but it had an hour wait and we had been spoiled all day. We were honestly tired by this point. So I got one last ride on YOLO and it was great at night. We loved all the scare zones at night. I think Six Flags does a great job. All the employees we encountered were nice and friendly. I'm a little sad it's over, as I probably won't return until my son and his friends (our best friend's kids) want to go. My son is 11 and late to thrill ride fun. I can't even get him on Space Mountain but I'm working on it. Thanks for the tips here. I love to read and stay caught up on what's going on in the park.

Nice, thanks. We usually do go in October but we don't always get there at opening on a Friday. I'm super stoked for that! It does start filling up in the evening but the days have been pleasant.

Thank you Scottiemon for all your tips! I had no idea there was an ERT event there that morning. So it does make sense to avoid that area at opening and wait until later that day. It's been years, but, multiple rides on Superman are awesome! Just curious, what is the special event that day? **Nevermind, I found it. Thanks!

Really great pics DallasAlvey! I wasn't sure if I wanted to get a maze pass again but I for sure do now! I'm looking forward to going on Friday! We only go once every year or 2. We got season passes last year because we knew we wanted to ride Twisted Colossus. We plan on getting to the park at opening, hopefully we'll be in line early. Do most people go straight to Twisted Colossus? After we ride that should we do Full Throttle? After those two I'm open to riding whatever else as we get to it but I'm really hoping Superman is up. We have missed that ride due to breakdowns almost every visit. Last time we rode it was 2008!

My husband used to be about 290 and is 6'2". He definitely could not ride Batman, he's lost weight and tried again and still didn't fit. If you have a large upper chest area the restraint just doesn't come down right. I'd say avoid Green Lantern and possibly X2 as well. Good luck, have fun!

We were given a slip last Saturday morning for YOLO. We also had slips for some of the mazes last Friday night. I appreciate them trying to limit the line cutting.

Now I'm second guessing myself. Also, this may sound like a silly question, but you can get to the park without a car, correct? I mean I think it would be silly to be forced to have a car in order to enter, but when I think about it, I don't recall ever seeing people walking up the road into the park. How close are you staying? I see the people walking up and down that hill to get into the park and feel bad for them. I don't mind a walk for exercise (I walk my dog a couple of miles each morning) but the walking at Magic Mountain involves a lot of hills. I'd recommend renting a car if it's close to the taxi/Uber costs. Did you get a gold pass by chance? That includes parking.

I have the season pass usb, that i was told they won't have in 2015. i hope that's not true. i believe it was 24.95 or 29.95 and then only $1 per photo. I buy pretty much every photo. Front gate, character, ride photos, at all six flag parks. but even at $2 a photo, it's a good deal. i believe the next best would be the all day email photo pass at some of the cedar fair parks. but it's only one day and about $30. what does suck is how magic mountain has taken out ride photos on a lot of rides. Instead of the USB it's a card they scan. I'm glad it's good through next year because the next time we visit I'll bring my son and hopefully get some pics with the characters. I also like to buy all the photos in the park but in the digital age I don't need all the prints, so I think this will end up being a good value. We got the Disney Photo Pass last December when we visited Disneyland and the photos came out so good. I love having the ride photos! It is $79.99 pre-purchased and you get any picture they take in the park: the rides, characters, meals, etc. but it's only good for 14 days in the park.

I would run to Tatsu first ...... I appreciate your reply, thank you! We went to MM on Friday. We drove from Phoenix, had lunch and checked in our hotel before getting to the park. So it was close to 4 when we got there. We were incredibly lucky with wait times. My husband was with me and he just isn't able to do rides the way he used to. We get to Magic Mountain every couple of years but used to go much more in our 20's. We did: -Goliath - loved it, it shook my hubby up a bit, he used to love that ride. -I rode the Bucaneer fun! -I did the Drop of Doom for the first time, loved it! Didn't use single rider but didn't need to. It was a 5 minute wait. -I did Batman - that shook me up more than I remembered! -We did Apocalypse. I had read that it was a rough ride these days so I was worried what my husband would think. He loved it! We rode closer to the front on Friday. No fire. -I did Tatsu, the line was so short! Just a 5 minute wait! Loved it. -I did X2, another short wait, about 5 minutes! Loved it, such a fun ride! I rode next to a guy who was riding for the first time which made it fun, too. No fire effect. -The scare zones were so cool. Definitely enjoyed those. -We did Ninja -We were going to do Superman but the line was long and we needed to use the restroom. So we had to go back down the hill since the restroom up there is boarded up? -We got some fried food and beer at Full Throttle bar. -We did some of the Haunted Mazes. The Aftermath was really good. We did Willoughby's a few years ago, it was still good. I really liked Toyz of Terror - those 3D glasses really enhanced the effect! -We were pretty tired so we called it a night. -We came back Saturday morning about 10 minutes before opening and, DAMN, it was PACKED. I was able to show my Discover to use the short entrance. -We went straight to Full Throttle! It was so great. I had purposely never watched any videos of the ride because I wanted to be surprised. I had no idea how fun it would be! My husband really liked it. He almost backed out but he's glad he went. -We went back up the hill to ride Superman finally (we haven't rode it since 2008! So we've never experienced it facing down) and the ride kept going down. We would wait out each "down time" and the ride would go again. Then it would go down. Finally after 50 minutes we were next in line! And then they announced it's down and closed, go ride something else. So we never got to ride it. -We opted to try to get one more Apocalypse ride. I forgot about it only running one train. The wait was long, probably 45 minutes, in the sun. We were smack dab in the middle this time. I thought the ride was the same in roughness as the day before but my husband said he thought it was worse! We did get the fire effect though. -We called it a day after that. Since we got season passes during the Labor Day sale we'll actually come back next year after Twisted Colossus opens. Colossus was always one of our favorite rides, especially backwards during Fright Fest! We processed our season passes at the gate, like some of the other posters said. It also worked as a parking pass the first day. I know previous posters had asked if it would work for parking. It does. When I purchased the gold passes I also bought the "Season Pass Digital Photo Uploads" plan. I wasn't sure if that would be worth it or not but decided to give it a shot. I was a little bummed after I purchased it because I thought it was only for the 2014 season. But once I got it at the park I saw that it was good for 2015, too. It was $34.99. We got our photos taken twice in the park and I also purchased the Full Throttle coaster photo. So I spent $6 on adding my photos. So it wasn't that great of a value, but, since I can use it next year it may work out to be a good value. We will bring our son with us next year, he'll be 11, but he still won't ride most of the rides. Thanks for all the tips here. I enjoy reading this forum and all the updates to the park.

Didn't mean to start a debate! Thanks for the answers!

Question for MM regulars! I read this thread frequently and I know about the single rider lines for Riddlers, Lex Luthor and Green Lantern. My question is: are there single rider lines for X2 and Tatsu? I'm going this weekend and my husband will not ride those but I will! TIA!

We went to SFMM on Friday 10/24 for the first time since October 2005. Friday was just my husband and I and we rode every ride but Tatsu. I wanted to ride it first but I think my husband was scared, having never rode it before. X2 is AWESOME! We had only rode X once, back in 2005. I think we waited for about an hour for X2 but everything else had a short wait time. We rode Superman all by ourselves, that's never happened before. When we were walking through the que we were wondering if it was even open yet. Then when we came back I said "Again!" and they let us stay on and 2 more people got on. So we had a great time. We left the park for a while to get food and came back and rode some more. We got our wristbands for Fright Fest and our Twicket - it is $10, for those that have asked. We did 3 of the Fright Fest mazes. Loved all the guys in the scream zone by Gotham City and the clown show (I can't remember their name) was great. On Saturday the 25th we returned with my parents and my 4 year old son. He's a Thomas fanatic so we hit up Thomas Town first. He totally loved it! Then we did all the kiddie rides with him, the petting zoo, the Batman Stunt show, and then the bumper cars. The park was PACKED on Saturday. I mean, it looked like the middle of summer packed! It was hard to move in the crowds and I saw rides like Riddler's with major lines. My mom was ready to leave (they took my son to Universal Studios on Friday) so we left, had dinner and took them to our hotel. My husband and I returned to SFMM at 8 pm and it was even more packed! We parked all the way over in the dirt lot! We made our way back in and went to wait in the Tatsu line. It took about an hour and 20 minutes total. At one point the ride broke down and a whole bunch of people got out of line so we moved up quite a bit! Then we finally got on. Holy cow, Tatsu was so awesome!! My husband was shaken up for a while afterward, lol. Then we headed over and rode Colossus forward then backward. Backward is so fun! It was awesome. SFMM looks great these days, glad to see the park clean and kept up!

Thanks for all the Fright Fest updates! We're going the 24th & 25th, I can't wait. Fright Fest is our favorite time to go to SFMM!