Leaderboard

but Dolly's selling the park to her partners and wants nothing to do it anymore. the dippin dots guy told a facilities/cleaning guy, who told the clerk at the stand selling the airbrushed t-shirts - and someone overheard while walking by on the way to buy Cinnamon Bread. so this CAN'T be true !!!

Thanks for the feedback... it has been passed along to the crew! We're working extra hard to provide the best guest experience we can this year, and having a blast doing it! This is my 13th year at the park for at least a part of each season, and this year's group has just blown my mind with how motivated and full of energy they are!

I wish other Six Flags GMs gave half the effort that Jeffrey Siebert gives to SFFT.

The park does seem to be off to a great start attendance wise. Seems like every post on Facebook people talk about the crowds and the park recently announced they will be capping attendance on Saturdays and if the park reaches that capacity they will only allow season pass holders and people that purchased tickets at least 24 hours in advance into the park.

Also, just a FYI to anyone who bought the Palace Platinum Pass. I bought mine with Lake Compounce as my home park and when I went to the turnstiles at Kennywood, they couldn't scan it. I'm not sure if the other Palace parks that aren't your home park are like this, but you need to have your Platinum Pass scanned by guest services. They'll then print a paper ticket that you use to enter the park.

FIRST LOOK!!! Spider-Man WEB SLINGERS Attraction at Disney California Adventure!

VARNING - ATTENZIONE This post will contain a huge amount of random photos from the opening of Liseberg today Finally time to open The park is ready for guest for the first time since winter 2019 First some information about the news in the park: two new restaurants and a dark ride called Underlandet The Liseberg rabbits tried their best to support the technical description of the new dark ride... Then it was time to ride the new attraction Then it was time to pen the park fro the public Then it was time to ride some rollercoasters Valkyria is really close to the new hotel And now on to random photos of the park:

I think Dollywood averages about a million more visitors per year. (~30% more) Maybe the paid parking helps build resorts?

Wow the coaster gods took mercy on me today! When I left it was like 75-80+% chance of rain and thunderstorms. I arrived at KW at noon and it was light drizzle on and off, eventually stopping. Got the perfect combo of dry AND crowds kept away! Went to Steel Curtain first, (since I was there an hour in figured the Exterminator line was already screwed) and the line wasn't that bad physically but took about 30 mins due to the 1 train ops. It was not the crew, they seemed to be moving and were quite efficient. It was simply the 1 train. Did 2 rides, once 2nd row once towards to rear, fun ride but weirdly underwhelming. It has it all: speed, elements, a unique layout, airtime but it was just a bit...well I guess forceless. Air was good. Guess I thought it'd have a little more oomph esp the 2nd half. Over the Phantom's which was a walk on, literally. Forgot how sick that ride is, especially in back! Knocked out Sky Rocket which was better than expected (granted expectations were low). Honestly I really liked the first half, I got back row and those drops had some (brief) pops of pretty nasty air and it was a speedy little ride. It did peter out hard after the 2nd barrel roll, the twisty part and final hills etc were pretty lame. That said running 2 trains and ops were fast, so this was also a walk on. Jack Rabbit I lucked out hard and got cut off next to board. This was great as naturally I took back row, and it also had 2 trains so the wait was like a minute. This was better than expected. I had the vibe its "eh" with the sick double down but I got some pretty good air on a couple other drops! Also by a year this now takes record for oldest coaster I have ridden. Racer was also better than expected, which again wasn't much but it wasn't too bad in back. Line was again short, only 2 cycles ahead of me, though it did move pretty slow. IDK if this is common but ONE person was doing both trains, felt bad for that woman. But yeah solid little ride. Perhaps unpopular opinion(?) but I like Thunderbolt least of the 3 classic woodies there. Exterminator's line was indeed looooooong and I know how slow it goes, by this point I was getting tired and Phantom's again was empty. I count creds but not a cred whore, so I made the choice to not wait. I love a spinner too but long wait for that or 3 rides in less time on Phantom's? Which I did, it was wild 3 walk ons, right to the train in one case it timed perfectly that I barely broke stride and jumped onto the loading train. Maybe it warmed up by this point but felt even wilder. What a ride truly. All in all this experience was the polar opposite of my last (hot as hell, crowded as hell, few rides closed/down) and in a better mood, it wasn't a bad park. I did kinda like the more forested parts and the whole fountain area by the splash boats was wonderful. Now that redemption has been had not sure I'll make a case to stop here at least for a while but considering I got near all I wanted done, (even snuck a ride on Swingshot) in 3 hours and it was not the total washout I feared, not too shabby!

They're not enforcing the out of state policy. They scan your ticket/pass and reservation time when you enter but that's it. I was at the park two days ago and I was talking to some people in line for Tatsu that said they were visiting from Vegas. I expect them to lift the out of state restrictions that they don't enforce on June 15th. If you already have a ticket and reservation you'll have no problem getting into the park. As for the 50th anniversary there's some balloons and a special sign by the entrance gate as others have mentioned and I guess they are giving out buttons somewhere. I found a 50th anniversary button inside the train for Ninja when I was boarding but I'm not sure where you get the buttons normally. They weren't handing them out when I entered the park between 10:45 and 11AM so maybe ask in one of the stores by the front entrance or guest services.

NEWS: Dollywood announces new resort as part of $500 million expansion https://wreg.com/news/dollywood-announces-new-resort-as-part-of-500-million-expansion/ https://www.dollywood.com/heartsong PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. (WATE) — Dolly Parton announced the construction of the HeartSong Lodge & Resort on Thursday, the first project in a half-billion dollar investment campaign by the Dollywood Parks & Resorts group over the next decade. The HeartSong Lodge & Resort, scheduled to open in 2023 in Pigeon Forge, is a five-story, 302-room lodge featuring a sprawling indoor/ outdoor pool complex and 26,000-square-foot indoor and outdoor event space. Located next to Dollywood’s DreamMore Resort and Spa, its the first expansion of the park since the $37 million Wildwood Grove in 2019 and the first new resort since the DreamMore opened in 2015. “I’m always dreaming and coming up with new ideas and things I want our guests to experience,” Parton said in the official announcement. “We wanted to talk about this last year, but with everything going on, we knew we needed to pause because it just wasn’t the right time to do it. Things are looking brighter and with the popularity of the Smokies soaring, there are more people than ever wanting to visit our area.” -- “I’m so proud of this place that we’ve been able to build here in the Smokies,” Parton said. “I always dreamed of accomplishing two things with Dollywood. I wanted to give jobs to the folks who live here, and I wanted to give visitors another reason to come and experience the beauty of the Smoky Mountains. We celebrated our 35th season last year, so I think it is fair to say we’ve been able to do that. I’m so happy with what we are doing to make sure our guests have a great season this year, and being able to announce the new HeartSong Lodge and Resort is just one more way we’re going to be able to help families reconnect, explore and discover together. I truly believe the natural beauty of the Smokies and the warmth of this special place will inspire every guest to nurture the ‘heartsong’ within them.”

Row 2 is my favorite on Diamondback since you hang over the edge! It's excellent in the front, middle (row 6 or 10) and back, but that's where you feel the rattle. It's a ton of fun to reach behind and touch the water spouts on a hot day too!

My birthday isn't for a few months but I just wanted to let the forum know that this would be a great gag gift for me.

They’re down to 5 haunted houses? Didn’t they used to have way more than that? I’m thinking they had one kind-of across from Gwazi, one in the Gwazi station, that zombie bullshit near Cheetah Hunt in that building that was probably used for something once but I have no clue what, like 2 houses in Gwazi Park, Black Spot, Deathwater Bayou and one by the wild mouse... right? Maybe I’m confusing a few different years and one or two of those weren’t there at the same time but still... What happened over there?

I think you can only buy parking tickets at the park. And if you buy your parking ticket early (before 3 PM), it is 2 euros cheaper than after 3 PM.

The restraints do suck! There is a bit of rattle and squeeking that's developed. I do miss the pre-incident days with the old restraints. As a side, the newer restraints, like on Kondaa, are amazing. You no longer get sore thighs from a lot of re rides with them. Very comfy!

The Pub is very nice and during the crazy lines of Covid provided a nice break to sit at and get some quick bar food and to cool off. Bartenders were good and clearly had tons of experience handling a lot of people at once. Highly recommend it when the restaurant is closed and you're looking for a similar dining experience (just with a lot less food options).

Superman's ranking is basically a "boycott" against the new restraints by some enthusiasts. The same ride went head to head against Millennium Force for 10 years and still runs just as smoothly and powerfully as it did then, so it should still go head to head with Millennium Force. The only change is the restraints.

Some obvious pics (Jack Rabbit, Racer, Magnum XL, Kingda Ka, Millennium Force, Lockness Monster). I'd lump the Coney Island Cyclone in there too, except I'm not exactly sure how other than it maybe being the first 'Ship of Theseus' coaster.

Oh God I was contemplating going Monday. I chose Ghost Of Tsushima instead. I made the right choice.

I've always ridden Apollo in the back because of the first drop. Always enjoyed the whole ride back there, but will have to give the front a try next time. On the other hand, Diamondback went from IMO the most mediocre B&M hyper in the backseat to *possibly* ahead of Nitro in the front. It feels like it wants to launch you to the moon on all the camelbacks before the MCBR.

I actually said the same thing, about KI being the better park, to a lot of people I met and engaged in conversation with in lines at both CP and KI. I'd mention how many parks I've been to (nerd alert, I know), and every time, they'd ask "What's your favorite?" Without hesitation, each time I'd say "Kings Island...while Cedar Point may have some insane coasters, and a fifth of my Top 25, their operations, employee attitude, and food service (both in quality and to my preferences) are generally horrible. Kings Island delivers *everything* I look for in a park." Oh, I guess CP's better on smoking zones too (there are four, since you can exit any gate and re-enter) haha. Honestly, if they sent Maverick down to Mason, Kings Island would have the one thing I think it's sorely missing (a nutty Intamin), and Cedar Point would become a once-every-few-years trip for me. Kings Island will, for the foreseeable future, be a multiple-trips-a-year park.

NO comments on Boss? While I certainly appreciate this report, I am going to have to issue a warning for this lapse of judgement. Thanks for posting! I haven't seen any of the new lighting yet so you have reminded me I have a reason to return!

Remember when we all thought theme parks might be doomed by COVID? It is fantastic to see all the people flocking back to parks like Kings Island. Great reports all, thank you!

Six Flags Magic Mountain May 2021 TPR is fortunate to have a handful members who provide regular updates and photos from their respective home parks around the world. Until now, however, I’ve never written a trip report from mine. If we’re defining home park as “the park literally located closest to me,” then mine is Adventure City ten miles north from Huntington Beach in what I guess is technically still considered part of Anaheim. But no one actually cares about that place and I’ve never even bothered to go. The next closest is Knott’s Berry Farm all of twelve miles away in Buena Park, exactly one mile closer to me than Disneyland Resort. Then about sixty miles farther away than any of those is Six Flags Magic Mountain. Throughout my various moves around Southern California, SFMM has never been the park closest to me, but it is the park that made me a coaster enthusiast, so in a way, it always feels like coming home. And what I mean by that is it feels a lot like coming back to your parents’ house after spending your first semester or two away at college. You feel all warm, fuzzy, and nostalgic on the drive up, but once you’ve been there a few hours, you don’t see it the same way anymore and you’re kind of ready to leave. You’ve grown, you’ve changed, you’ve experienced what else is out there, and now you just want to go drink with your friends to Europa Park instead. Six Flags Magic Mountain has its fans for sure, but in our circles it has spent the last two decades as more of a perpetual whipping boy. Even when they do something right, enthusiast praise is almost always accompanied by a hefty dose of well-deserved criticism. I think you still have to call it the chain’s flagship (I tried to avoid that pun, but it’s the right word), but how many of us can honestly call it our favorite Six Flags? I personally put Great Adventure, Over Georgia, Over Texas, and Fiesta Texas above it, and Six Flags Mexico and New England make me less frustrated. Like many things that underwhelm, I think SFMM disappoints because for all its advantages, it could and should be much better. How does a park in this market, in this climate, and with this kind of consistent capital investment, acquire this kind of reputation? There are reasons for all of these, though I’m probably not the guy on here best equipped to explain them. A wealth of information can be gleaned from the main SFMM topic. The feeling I get these days is that twenty-odd years of poor management and narrowly targeting a clientele that isn’t especially lucrative has left the park in limbo where the only way forward is doing more of the same. I think Six Flags knows this now. After a couple of branding experiments, first as “the xtreme park,” and then as a more family focused destination didn’t work out, they’ve settled into the idea that the best plan is no plan at all. It might be the only option left. When I go, I find a park mostly devoid of atmosphere that is solely reliant on a quantity-over-quality coaster collection to draw people and placate them once they’re in. That said, it’s actually a little better now than it used to be in both regards. While I don’t care for it, Justice League: Battle For Metropolis is a sorely needed dark ride and Crazanity filled the gaping “OMG WTF is that???” giant flat ride hole SFMM had to fill. And Lex Luthor: Drop of Doom is probably my favorite non-coaster ride in the park. But two big flats, a dark shooter, and a bunch of redundant kids rides all jammed into one corner do not make for a well-rounded park. I contrast this with the last Six Flags parks I visited, the two in Texas, where neither park has the same quantity of large coasters, but blends those they do have with a greater variety of minor attractions, subtle theming, and regional flair to create a cohesive atmosphere. I don’t think anything can be done to create that at SFMM. If my nostalgia serves me correctly, it actually was a bit more like that at the end of the Time Warner era in the late nineties. For better or worse, the time since has simply taken a toll. It also isn’t like there are no standout coasters which make the trip worthwhile due to their presence alone. Twisted Colossus and Tatsu are world-class rides, if not the best of their type, and X2 certainly has its good days. SFMM simply lags behind other parks with similarly large coaster collections like Cedar Point or Hersheypark. This is true in terms of the consistent quality of its coasters as well as atmosphere and two other key metrics—operations and service. No Six Flags park in my experience has been an exemplar of efficiency and guest service basics. What stands out to me about the general demeanor of SFMM’s employees is not just that they seem unmotivated or lazy (because this is true of most parks in general), but how so many of the staff exude this attitude of thinking they’re just too damn cool for their jobs. As if showing they cared was an admission they don’t have better things to do. Maybe you disagree. I chalk it up to being an L.A. thing. May 2021 was my first visit to the park in almost a year-and-a-half. Since February 2020 when a conversation I overheard at the bar at the Knott’s Berry Farm TGI Fridays (I did both parks the same day) began with, “Have you guys sold fewer Coronas since this virus thing got started?” How times have changed. Did my lengthy absence from Magic Mountain make me any fonder? We’ll see. I still get amped seeing Goliath and Twisted Colossus running when I pull into the parking lot. I’m pretty sure the original Colossus was the first coaster I rode at this park sometime in 1996 or 97. I also remember what the Colossus ride-op told my dad after he asked what they were building when the first couple of Goliath supports went up a few years later: “Oh, just a roller coaster.” Twisted Colossus doesn’t have the same parking lot coaster reputation that Scream does. I assume this is because it’s been there so long, people have ceased to remember that it is one. Hurricane Harbor… As a kid I once said, “One day I shall go.” I have yet to fulfill that promise. Despite everything I’ve said about the lack of atmosphere, SFMM’s entrance plaza is absolutely one of the best and most iconic out there. Revolution and Tatsu function as the “weenie” (as Walt Disney coined it) once you’re through the gates the same way the Disney castles do. It really is the perfect weenie for a park built so heavily around coasters. Tatsu juxtaposed over Revolution illustrates how coaster technology and scale have progressed over the decades and how Magic Mountain has literally and figuratively come full circle. It would be less visually appealing, but my one critique of Tatsu is how the final turn doesn’t dive down the side of the mountain in a climactic swoop toward the midway before climbing back up to the brakes. I’ve always felt that would make for a more exciting finale. I had a 11:30 reservation but entered around 10:45 without issue. I don’t usually buy Flashpass when I come here, but I thought the gold version would be a good idea this time since I knew staffing and on-ride capacity were somewhat limited. This was the first time I used the new app-based version of Flaspass rather than the watch or Qbot and it worked flawlessly. I hope this is what all the parks do going forward. FP definitely helped as I would not have been down with some of the moderate-length, but slow as shit queues I saw. It does a few things pretty well, but overall I’m not a Full Throttle fan. A less gimmicky version not focused solely on stats could have been a much more fulfilling coaster. I am also not a fan of the current gen Premier trains. I cannot understand how a modern coaster car can be so open, yet so restrictive and uncomfortable. Full Throttle I’m beating a dead horse here, but another thousand feet of track at the end of the layout would have changed everything about how we look at this coaster. Anything to allow a proper, full-speed descent down the outside of the vertical loop that doesn’t abruptly cut off the airtime just when it should be getting good. Maybe a low-rise speed-hill over the station and a wave turn up the hillside followed by a ground-hugging turnaround threading the loop and an airtime climb into a decline brake run. Simple but makes a world of difference. That would still keep the length at just a little over 3,000 feet too. Alas, as fun as it is to dream, such a ride was not meant to be. With the version we have, I really enjoy the launch, loop, and reverse launch from the tunnel. 6.5/10 It looks tame now, but that drop seemed like a monumental undertaking to me back in 2000 in a way the inversions on Viper, Batman, and Riddler just didn’t. It’s funny to think of how now it is generally considered to be one of the cruder and least thrilling hyper coasters. My enthusiasm for Titan does not extend to its older cousin. It would not be all that hard to photograph SFMM in a way that makes it look bad. I thought it would be more interesting to make it look as nice as possible. I didn’t ride Superman: Escape from Krypton today. I usually don’t even think about it until I hear it running. It’s fun, but a ride on it doesn’t necessarily make my day. I didn’t get to Lex either. I planned to, but even with the gold Flash Pass it became a struggle to get a lot done. Ah, the Screampunk district. I long to return to Phantasialand one day to finally see who did the steampunk theme better. You know. That old rivalry. Magic Mountain vs. Phantasialand…. If nothing else, the old regime did a fantastic job with Goliath’s queue line and station building. It’s the micro-budget Indiana Jones queue we never knew we needed. There are few coasters that waste as much speed as Goliath. Goliath I’m happy it exists, even if only for its off-brand uniqueness. I love the fact that SFMM has a plus-sized hyper coaster with three-bench trains, a straight ramp first drop, almost no airtime, a MCBR that hits harder than an eighties Arrow, a grayout helix, and one of the great all time coaster entrances. It's at once hopelessly primitive yet smoother than almost any modern equivalent. A “Giovanola rattle” just isn’t something you hear about. It is remarkably consistent in its sheer averageness. There is little logic to why I think Titan is so much better, but I just do. 6/10 The best part about a good steampunk theme is how it is steamy, yet also punk. Oooohh… steampunk. What if steampunk actually was the future? Like it turns out the solution to eliminating fossil fuels was steam power all along and all the old sci-fi authors were actually right? Just a century or two later than expected??? Oooohhhh steampunk… Twisted Colossus For me, it’s a tossup between this and Ghostrider for the title of best coaster in California, with Railblazer in a tight third. TC fills the niche of elite destination coaster I realized was lacking at SFMM once I started to travel more widely. It’s fun (more so when it races), long, intense, and has more airtime than anyone needs, but it still falls a little short of what I consider the top-tier RMCs. There are a couple of elements that don’t work well for me. One is the double-down on the green side. It doesn’t level-off enough at the midpoint to deliver a true 1-2 airtime punch like it’s intended to. Second are the twin double-ups both sides share before the second pair of turnarounds. These level off properly and work better than the green double-down, but I think they’re still taken it a bit too quickly. Not like I want it slowed down or anything, but the air comes and goes a little too suddenly to enjoy it. With TC though, the good more than outweighs the slightly less-good. I love the pair of first drops, the dueling inversions, and my favorite part is actually the climb up to the first pair of turnarounds—the two strongest and most prolonged airtime moments on the ride. This is a very solid mid-tier RMC, which means it’s still better than a top-tier almost anything else. 9/10 RMC first drops do not need size to be great. TC’s pair of them are honestly no worse than Steel Vengeance’s for me, though neither can quite match the one on Iron Rattler. Twisted Colossus doesn’t race a lot these days, which is a shame, but predictable. The green stall over the blue camelback is probably the ride’s best part when it does. My favorite element when not racing—the apex of the climb into the first turnaround. I’d rather RMC had done a single drop with a right-left shimmy instead of an abbreviated double-down here. Scream (or SCREAM!) So… most of us seem to regard this (if not Hydra) as the worst B&M floorless, but on this visit it was running GREAT! And I mean that. Usually Scream is a rattle trap, has a big jolt at the bottom of the first drop, and lightly fries you like you’re riding over a skillet due to the hot asphalt it was built on. None of that happened this time. It was fast, smooth, and dare I say approached the quality of the rides I had on Superman Krypton Coaster last October. Problem is, I haven’t been able to say that about a single lap taken on Scream since its opening season. Maybe it was freshly refurbed, I have no idea. The vast majority of rides I’ve had on this over the past eighteen years have varied from mediocre to awful and that is where I expect it to return. Hope I’m wrong, but we’ll just have to see. Based on my cumulative experience with the ride, Scream gets a 5/10. Scream was built in 2003, when the “Xtreme Park” brand had fizzled and the attempted revitalization as a family destination had not fully begun. So the ride’s presentation makes it look like nobody quite knew what to do with it (or cared) so they just did a bare bones job as cheaply as possible. When is the last time you heard someone say, “My favorite elements are cobra rolls”? None come to mind. Imagine if they had just laid some sand down and planted like nine palm trees. Would have looked so much better. I even felt some airtime going over the s-hill today. Sometimes Scream’s corkscrews are barely more comfortable than Viper’s. Not on this day. They were great! From this angle you almost think Goliath’s whole run is through a grove of palm trees. But it’s only the queue. So this one time a few years ago I was at the park by myself and ran into a couple of other enthusiasts. We started talking and hung out for a few hours. One of these dudes was wearing this floppy looking clown hat that looked like something you’d find at a Disney gift shop, but minus the character touches. When I asked him about it, he said he always loses a hat on Goliath. Me: “You mean you intentionally wear a hat just so you can lose it on Goliath?” Him: “No! It just happens!” Me: “….” So we get on the coaster and he puts the hat behind his back until we go through the tunnel. Then he puts on the hat, holds onto it through the big turnaround, and lets go as we enter the camelback. Predictably, the hat flies off his head as the train goes over the crest, and he turns around and looks back at me while holding his cheeks like the most mind-blowing thing ever just happened. Don’t be that guy, folks. Ahhh the Golden Bear Theater… Home to decades and decades of… quality entertainment…. I’ve actually never gone inside. Like many of you, I was ecstatic when it was announced SFMM would refurbish Revolution with lapbars to become the New Revolution. It’s a drastically better coaster now. In the bad old days, the best part and only redeeming quality of shoulder restraint Revolution was how it wound through a forest of trees along the hillside. But then when it came time for the refurb, some clueless exec decided they needed to cut a bunch of trees down to improve the coaster’s sightlines from the pathways. I distinctly remember a promo video with this guy saying, “We wanted to open it up a lot so people could see it.” You know. So people would know a coaster that had been there for forty years was, in fact, there. Fortunately there are still enough trees that Revolution’s (and Tatsu’s) experience hasn’t been irrevocably harmed. Revolution It broke down before I got to it and I ran out of time later, so I didn’t ride it on this visit. Overall, I’ve really enjoyed it since the refurb. It’s smooth, comfortable, and scenic. The loop delivers and is probably still the second best vertical loop in the park after Full Throttle’s. My issue, and the one thing keeping it from making a perfect Six Flags Schwarzkopf trifecta with Mind Bender and Shockwave, is how the block brakes are still applied as trims. Unless there are structural concerns I don’t know about, Revolution doesn’t need them. Nothing you can do to it will ever make it as intense than the other two and the brakes make it feel almost Goldrusher-esque at points. Regardless, we should all be thankful anyone cared enough to modernize and preserve it at all. 7/10 Rounding the path up through the Baja Ridge section. Viper’s placement still lends it a larger-than-life presence. I thought the “greatest coasters” wall was the coolest thing ever when I was a kid. And I believed it. Not that I condone actually doing this, but I think it would be low-key hilarious if someone snuck in after closing and put up murals of Expedition GeForce, El Toro, Helix, and others in their place. Ha. SFMM might not even care. It’d be cheaper to just leave it up. Looking up at Viper from here in the 90s felt like staring up at nothing short of Mount Olympus. The mythical one, not Big Chiefs. It was so intimidating I wouldn’t ride it the first time I visited. But the second time around, I was ready. Viper more than any other is the coaster that made me an enthusiast. Just look at that entrance sign. It’s perfection and typifies everything a roller coaster is supposed to represent. SFMM doesn’t make the same effort with its entrance and station structures these days. Everything about the experience of Viper was meant to be daunting. You go underneath a sign with a demonic looking snake, then you climb up the path to the main queue, where you then have to walk up two flights of stairs to the station proper, from which you proceed upward again to the peak of the nearly hyper coaster-sized lift hill. Then after the drop and the first loop, you take a victory lap high above the queue and station in celebration of what you have conquered. Viper isn’t a great or even good coaster anymore, but the psychological aspect of it works as good as ever. The bridge spanning Baja Ride from Viper to X2 is one of the most scenic spots in the park. Viper was my favorite coaster for several years from 1997 to 2001 when I made my first trips to Cedar Point, Busch Gardens Tampa, and Islands of Adventure. I knew nothing of its already by then old-fashioned technology or how to evaluate its myriad of faults. I just knew it was scary as shit and pulled the strongest g-forces I had experienced up to then. In hindsight I truly admire how my dad, who was pushing 50 around then, marathoned it with me on such a regular basis. I made him ride it over and over… Now at 33 I don’t even want to marathon it. Viper’s first loop is still a good one. Snappy and pulls hard. The second and third can be good depending on the row and the day, but they tend towards whiplash more. Viper’s second half is often determined by the MCBR. Sometimes it damn near stops you, others it slows you down a lot but still lets you carry some speed. When the former happens, you kind of fall into the harness during the slow corkscrews. If it’s the latter, you can still make a comfortable enough ride out of it if you brace correctly. Viper There’s no way around it. Like almost all Arrow coasters of its vintage, Viper has aged poorly. It was outdated only a year or two after it was built and it survives now on nostalgia and the cost-benefit analysis of dismantling it. But I will always love it and it has a firm claim in my sentimental top 5. It’s a coaster that delivers a good ride maybe two or three times in ten, but I’d be devastated if SFMM decided to get rid of it. It’s the last mega-looper standing after Shockwave, GASM, and Vortex all bit the dust and it looks primed to remain so for the foreseeable future. A fantasy of mine is for Viper to receive the Phantom’s Revenge treatment, getting new trains with lapbars and replacing all the track after the first loop. It could instantly rival Twisted Colossus for best coaster in the park. Too bad it will never happen. As it stands, 5.5/10 X2 is a coaster with a pretty cool setting and presence of its own. Now 20 years old, it still carries a mystique. A perfect pair: the last coaster of Arrow’s golden age and the one that proved so costly, it put them out of business for good. Weirdly, I didn’t like X when it first opened. I thought it was an overblown gimmick lacking in substance. I’ve grown to appreciate it over the years. Now I think it’s the second or third best coaster in the park depending on how it runs on a given day. X2 just isn’t the same for me after I fell in lust with Eejanaika a couple of years ago. Now with that coaster entrenched in my top 10, X2’s faults are a lot harder to ignore. It’s still good, but at least for me, that mystique I mentioned has diminished. X2 Somehow, with chronic one-train ops and perpetually slow loading, I still find X2 worth the wait. Hold on, that’s not true, that’s my FlashPass talking. That and I tend to visit on days I can be certain are slow. I don’t think I could ever ride this coaster and wait through the full switchbacks again. If it reliably ran two trains and cycled as quickly as any other coaster in the park (which still isn’t fast) it would be a different story, but X2 has become a novelty experience for me when the day’s conditions allow. Its reliability has improved a lot since then early years when you never had the faintest clue if would be running. That’s a great thing, because as cynical as I may sound, X2 can be a very good coaster. The first drop is absurdly spectacular as is the first raven turn and whatever they call the inversion following them. It’s after that where X2 starts to fall apart a bit. As the seat rotations get more complex and the track profiling tighter, roughness sets in. The second raven turn in an outside seat near the back of the train can be pure brutality. Riding in an inside seat mitigates it, though not completely. This is a very tough coaster to grade for me because the experience varies so much from one ride to the next. I will split the difference and say 8/10, though there are times I could have given it a 9. X opened up some great views of Viper that were not possible before. Viper-watching is an X2 queue line guest’s favorite pastime. I had something to say here, but I think I’ve now written enough about Viper to last the whole forum at least a year. If you take the winding route up from Baja Ridge past Revolution, you arrive at the… camp area. Which may or may not also be part of Samurai Summit given how it’s the location of Tatsu’s entrance and queue. This is actually one of my favorite areas of the park due to the ample tree cover and space to relax. Tatsu’s placement atop the magic mountain is so perfect I almost can’t believe the park did it. The elevation made what would have otherwise been a ho-hum first drop into a real highlight. The Orient Helpful Honda Express. It provides about the same rate of acceleration I imagine that new swing-launch version of Blue Fire going to Dreamworld Australia will deliver. An excellent terrain coaster is one that uses said terrain to do things no other coaster could. Tatsu is a perfect example. No other flyer could copy and paste Tatsu’s pretzel loop. Flying Dinosaur gives it a try by placing its midcourse pretzel loop in a tunnel, but without the elevation change the effect isn’t the same. That said, Flying Dinosaur is in totality the superior coaster. If you’re planning a trip to Japan, don’t bother going to Kyoto. If you’ve been to Samurai Summit at Six Flags Magic Mountain, then you’ve basically already seen it. The pagoda-style architecture of this oft-closed gift shop is a textbook example of the early Edo Period style ushered in when Tokugawa Ieyasu completed the unification of Japan’s once waring provinces. At the garden-like peak of Samurai Summit, Tatsu’s colors serve an aesthetic purpose analogous to the gold-plated walls of Kyoto’s Kinkaku-Ji temple. Ninja’s red station building is modeled on Senso-Ji temple in the Asakusa ward of central Tokyo. Oh my god, I really hope no one is taking these last few captions seriously. Tatsu My second favorite coaster in the park after Twisted Colossus. Tatsu is not an especially intense coaster outside of the famous pretzel loop. It’s a graceful coaster that successfully creates a flying sensation better than any other flying coaster has been able to thus far. It will probably never be equaled in this regard unless F.L.Y. rides even better than it looks, and even then it still doesn’t have Tatsu’s terrain and elevation. Tatsu is still a very smooth ride fifteen years on, displaying almost none of the rattle that has come to define Scream and Riddler’s Revenge. The train shudders quite a bit at the pullout of the pretzel loop, but that’s understandable given the speed and forces it endures in that element. Only the crazy intensity and originality of Flying Dinosaur top it among flyers. 9/10 I didn’t ride Ninja today. The 6pm operating day was already waning by the time I got up here and I had other priorities. Overall, I think Ninja is fun and the second best suspended coaster I’ve ridden after The Bat at Kings Island. I never got to experience Big Bad Wolf, though I hope to ride Vortex at Canada’s Wonderland sometime soon. West Coast Racers and Apocalypse make for a pretty nice view down the backside of Samurai Summit. It’s too bad the park couldn’t have built the beer garden (and I use that term very loosely) up here instead of the space between Riddler and West Coast Racers. Having a drink in the shade while watching the coasters from above would have been great. And somewhere around here is where I would have put it. Would have gotten less foot traffic, but that’s not my problem. Is it safe to say the whole “YoloCoaster” meme has been retired now? The Underground, home to what I think is… wait for it… the best themed coaster at SFMM. Bear with me on this. The area still looks a little sparse, but it’s a huge improvement over the desolate stretch of nothing that was here before. The dueling/racing moments look great from the midway, but I think the effect is felt better on-ride on Twisted Colossus. It doesn’t seem like the West Coast Racers trains come together as closely as they do on TC. At the very least, the midway has some great kinetic energy now. The upper story loading floor of the WCR station building. And now here we are down on the ground level of the WCR station, which is of course a complete lie. That’s just my Mustang on the dyno. I should have taken more photos from the actual ride station to help make my point, but this is why I call WCR the best themed coaster in the park. If accuracy is your metric, they captured the look they were going for perfectly. It ain’t fancy, but it’s accurate. There’s some alright airtime here, especially on the white side. If you drive the I5 and I405 enough around LA, chances are you’ll see a Maserati or two doing exactly this along the median some day. West Coast Racers I feel like saying the exact same thing in every review here, but WCR does a couple of things well while the bulk of it is somewhere between disappointing and average. Granted it’s a slightly different case here since this one is supposed to be a deluxe family coaster to some extent, but so is Cheetah Hunt and I can’t criticize that one at all. The dueling aspect syncs up well and adds to the fun. The white side has a couple decent airtime moments. The yellow side helix pulls some nice g’s. Those are fine and good. However the trains are clunky and uncomfortable, the inversions do nothing, and there’s something about Premier’s track profiling on this and other recent coasters that feels awkward to me—like they did a first draft of the heartlining and called it a day whereas Intamin or Mack would have dialed it in further. Its not for me, but I’m glad people seem to like it. 6/10 You know what, everything I said was wrong. This is the most well-themed ride in the park. Actually, I’m not sure. Maybe when it still had the Terminator IP. And the queue still has a lot of theming. But then the station is all bare wood, so…? Apocalypse I was pretty excited when Apocalypse first opened as Terminator Salvation. After years of Colossus and Psyclone stinking up the place, a fast, fun, smooth GCI sounded like just the thing. Because, I mean, GCI’s are all of those right? Well, yes, just not this one. It was smooth and fast when it opened. And it still carries that fast pace today. But it stopped being smooth real quick, though it is again now, but probably just temporarily. And was it ever all that fun? Ehh, not really. The first drop has some good air in the back when it does its mini-Wodan impression. There’s some floater on the low-rise camelback and a good airtime pop in the hitch of the elevated turn that follows. But after that it’s just… meh. Once Apocalypse enters the tunnel it commits the remainder of the layout to doing absolutely nothing. There’s no more airtime, laterals, or any of the complex transitions GCI layers into their other coasters. It just hurdles along through some flat turns and ineffectual directional changes. This isn’t a first-gen GCI like Wildcat or Roar either, when GCI had yet to adopt their current style. Apocalypse is a contemporary of rides like Prowler, Renegade, and Thunderbird/American Thunder, each of which offers a lot more. 6/10 The preshow video was pretty cool in the Terminator days. You got see real, honest to god, legit movie stars like Moon Bloodgood in a Six Flags park! I guess Common was in it too and he’s pretty famous. But I think most of us can probably act better than him. Apocalypse is running quite smooth at the moment. But the majority of wooden retracks seem to be going the way of ipe wood or GCI titan track/RMC RetraK lately to improve longevity and Apocalypse didn’t get any of that. So it may be only a matter of time until it deteriorates again. I seem to remember people referring to this as a dead man’s turn when the ride was built, but I don’t think I’ve seen the term used in a while. The last coaster I made it to this day was Riddler’s Revenge. It still dominates the skyline around the back of the park. Its position in front of the hillside has always made the world’s largest standup coaster look even larger than it is. Riddler’s Revenge was the other coaster that, along with Viper, made me an enthusiast. It was still under construction the first time I visited. The supports for the lift and first drop were up and I remember staring up at them and thinking about how they absolutely dwarfed Batman, which I had just come off. I was both terrified of and drawn to it. Once it opened in 1998, I couldn’t get enough. Everything about it was just so big. I had never seen or heard of a hyper coaster then and Riddler had this immense, twisting drop and these huge diameter loops that looked totally different and much cooler than the tighter, elevated ones on Viper. The back-to-back dive loops were my idea of coaster nirvana at the time. A typical day at SFMM for me back then was one ride each on Colossus, Batman, Ninja, Psyclone, and Revolution, and then as many as I could possibly manage on Riddler and Viper. As the penultimate standup, Riddler benefited from experience learned on Mantis and Chang. Its elements are less snappy and a little more drawn out. Probably why it stayed smooth well into its second decade of operation when its predecessors had long since gotten rough. Georgia Scorcher is my favorite standup now. And like Viper, Riddler’s Revenge has fallen deep into my rankings to the point where I rarely think about it unless I’m at the park. It’s much more re-ridable than the old Arrow, but time finally caught up with the big B&M standup too. You aren’t guaranteed a smooth ride on it anymore. Riddler’s Revenge This had always been a backseat ride for me. You got a little more torque on the twist down the first drop and a combination of hangtime plus a final, little yank in the four big loops. Nowadays it’s front or second row only for me. It took about twenty years, but Riddler finally began to get a little rough. The back is still tolerable, but if I want to ride it more than once, I have to ride farther forward. One thing I love about this coaster is how it adds plenty of non-inverting elements to the mix of inversions. The layout feels grander this way and gives the ride a more unique personality even if it can be kind of dull. On a hot day with a full train, Riddler can still deliver the thrills. 7/10 The worst-kept secret in town is the RMC single rail raptor for 2022 taking the place of Tidal Wave and spanning the distance from Batman: The Ride to Justice League. The Riddler’s Revenge Plaza is about to look pretty different in a year’s time. Assuming they name it Joker or another DC character, the new coaster could be a great opportunity to fill in the space between the current DC Universe and the Justice League/Riddler area. Combining the two into a single, larger DC Universe might greatly improve the atmosphere in the back of the park. Back in the parking lot as the day ran out and I ceased to be able to reserve anything with the Flash Pass. I may give SFMM a hard time, but I’ll always be back.

know how I kept saying that Park President Jeffrey Siebert has been teasing "something" coming to Poltergeist and I was saying how I have a feeling that it might be an enclosed "haunt" portion of the queue. . since they never use those back 6-8 switchbacks? well. . Mr. Siebert just posted THIS pic on socials. they certainly made room for . . . something. . by removing the 6-8 switchbacks in this portion of the queue!

Kennywood just hit 35 dispatches in an hour on Phantom and didn't stack once! This crew is amazing.

Not idea, I've been taking the train down . I'll check, I may try to get down Saturday morning...

The Kings Island Fireworks show is the worst Fireworks show that I've ever seen in my life. Absolutely... 100%, no contest.

Zach, you think handing her off for a night makes for a mixed bag of feelings, wait until you take a vacation without her or she goes off to camp for a week or the track you will make in the floor pacing when she takes the car for the first time, lol. Glad you had a nice visit! Shout out to the park. Yesterday not only did they treat the employees to free (and I am told fresh and "better than normal") burgers, dogs and other traditional Memorial Day food in the catering grove BUT they also gave them an employee ride night on Thunder and Freeze for about an hour and a half after close.

If you’re nervous about some rides, are G Force loads really the reason why? Lot’s of people mention Sheikra, and sure... it probably pulls less Gs than the other coasters at Busch Gardens but it also dangles you over a vertical drop 200 feet in the air and holds you there. Is that okay with you? For many, it’s probably the scariest coaster in Florida. It just depends what you’re worried about. Honestly I feel like you can just ride every B&M in Florida if you’ve been on Wild Eagle. Montu is probably the most intense, but Montu is also glass smooth. Mostly everyone seems to love it. Just rip the band-aid off and ride Montu. I think you’ll find that you can easily handle it and then you don’t have to worry.

Crowds were pretty steady Friday night. They were running 2 trains on most of the popular coasters. I rode Titan, Shockwave, Mr Freeze, Batman, and Judge Roy Scream. Tried to ride NTAG but got denied. Got green on the test seat but the ride ops couldn't get the restraint down. Bummer. It was raining today but that didn't stop the crowds. As far as NTAG, I had changed my wardrobe to something less constraining-- gym shorts and flip flops and still got denied on NTAG. I'm going to have to a skinny revenge tour of SFOT, SDC (Outlaw Run), and SFSTL (Batman) next year! That said... This afternoon I went to a great brisket place in downtown Dallas-- Terry Black's BBQ. Highly recommended. Magic Springs did kind of suck, btw. I went there on Saturday and they weren't running Arkansas Twister and X-Coaster. Gauntlet may have shot to the top for my least favorite SLC. Have a nice bruise. Ops kind of sucked as well. Only one train and they weren't trying very hard to send full trains out. Frontier City was better. Nice little park with some fun rides. Really enjoyed Wildcat, Diamondback, and Silver Bullet. Despite some setbacks and disappointments, overall, I had a fun trip. Edit to add: Also rode Joker Friday night. Only 9 new credits on this trip but my goal of hitting 400 this year is within reach. Currently at 372. I'm going to try to hit a few more of these less popular parks this summer but also return to a couple I haven't been to since the late 2000s like Carowinds and Six Flags Over Georgia.

Just about 5 weeks until my 1st ever visit, and get to knock this bucket list park/coaster (the Beast) off my ever shorter list. it's gonna be interesting that my 1st time is for Coasterstock, so there will be a lot of ERT, and I'll have to make decisions on what activities during the event to "miss" so I can experience more of the park. but I *did* just go ahead and purchase FL+ for the Saturday ($116 online). . . for Friday? will just stick to CoasterStock schedule (once released). . but I have a feeling that Sat will be PACKED, and I'm gonna wanna have that FL+ to ride a few things during the day, that are outside of the ERT sessions. (or, hell, just be able to focus on Non-FL+ rides during ERT, since I'll have the wristband for the day). can't wait! added bonus is get to hang out with TeacherKim and her son,Joel. . both very cool people.

People were bored middle of the day chatting about dumb sht. Not a big deal. And folks had moved along. But bring it up again. I think the fact a new coaster was coming had been fully covered.

Cool aerial photograph that Alabama Adventure posted just in case anybody wanted to see it. Pretty cool to see how the park has changed in recent years. Especially since 2018.