ECZenith

As a former Marine and a current cast member, applications for this robot in both fields would be nice.

The ride will definately look better once it's all painted, they would never leave it looking "messy" like that. I actually like orange better than yellow for the track, Volcano's track is yellow already and it's pretty close to this ride. I'm looking forward to seeing the ride finished, painted, and landscaped, and I love the location at the front of the park. DOMINATOR looming over the front King's DOMINION, it just works...

This looks very interesting! Hopefully it's a huge success so maybe we can have one here on the west coast someday. I love how you can pick your own song and music video, great feature!

The train looks great, lots of details! I love the fake boots where your feet will go.

T-Express looks amazing, and so do the ride operators' costumes!

I was thinking Tom Hanks myself, I didn't know he was having that hard a time finding work these days.

Yeah, my camera died halfway through the event so I used that old photo, looked exactly like that I swear.

First of all, a HUGE thank you to the following people for an outstanding event that exceeded everyone's expectations! The Alveys & TPR, Rideworld, Six Flags Magic Mountain, Branden, Mike aka Mr. Six, Jahan, S&S Power for speaking at the Q&A and all the great people I was able to meet for my first ever west coast event, and my first time visiting the park since I moved here from New England this past year. The future is looking pretty bright for Magic Mountain with all the positivity we're witnessing. Thanks again everyone for a great time! Just a few more months and I get my baby back... They cycled X2 for us on the backstage tour! Mr. Burkhart told us X2 has been redesigned for better effeciency and capacity, however there is a possibility it could give a better ride. :oD :0l Pleasant floatiness as seen from the future site of Thomas Town. Oh by the way, did I mention Six Flags left ALL of their operating coasters for ERT until 10:30? No? Well they did. Awesome job guys! Goliath is a cool beasty For me? Goldrusher's station and sign look like a million bucks now Mr. Six shows us a surviving XLR8 coach which will be fed to Ninja over time. It was sad to see this and be reminded of the disappearing Arrow suspended coasters so a hike up Samurai Summit was in order. Six Flags was also willing to tell us that within their current five year plan, they are hoping to get a replacement drop ride. All that is left of Flashback is this nose cone, the rest is now coke cans. Psyclone Cemetary: This area WILL NOT be the site of the new for 2009 coaster project, however, there are big plans for this area to watch out for! Deja Vu is undergoing its annual refurbishment including the rebuilding of the train. During the Q&A, an attendee addressed the conern of Deja's fate to which it was replied that SFMM has the dedicated staff that "takes ownership" of its rides and is willing to maintain is complex systems. This is great to hear! Who doesn't love Deja? Six Flags staff and Disney cast members in perfect harmony, how beautiful! Superman is the next coaster to be painted at the park, according to Tim Burkhart, the park's GM. Superman The Escape is one of his "babies" and he thinks it should stand out with all the other big guns. Right on Mr. Burkhart, Superman is a great ride! Our one flat-ride stop of the day was Grinder Gearworks Batman used to be the only superhero without superpowers, but if you ask me, his ability to throw off your sense of direction is pretty impressive. Got a few rides in on Riddler's Revenge Viper as seen from X2's transfer track Viper still has a good bite Revolution, Superman, and Viper were open along with Tatsu for morning ERT 2 instant classics in their debut years Batman's sidekick with my sidekick Tatsu's zero-g roll It's a very pretty monster My favorite beemer The beast from the not so far east The beast from the far east We're obviously very excited to get our ride on!

When Lightnin' Loops closed the two coasters were sent to Frontier City and SFA. I miss El Toro, grrrrr...

I definately prefer Orlando's Mummy to the Hollywood version, it's much longer and seems to have better effects, like the fake exit platform and the flaming ceiling.

Land Of Adventure looks great, can't wait to try the new Sally shooter this summer, it's like a mini Indy!

Those photos were really cool! Thanks for posting them, it's amazing to see how much they've added the last couple decades.

I've been on all the ones in the US and Dominator was easily the best of them all to me. I kind of miss its old waterfront location but KD definately deserves it, and now they have an awesome looper!

I've been waiting to see this thing in action since I first heard about it, can't wait to see the photos! The world had gone long enough without an Intamin megacoaster, its good someone finally built another one.

Love in an elevator for sure! I miss Rock N Rollercoaster, we should get one in Hollywood Pictures Backlot... that would give me reason to never leave my workplace.

This just made me very excited to ride X2! I can't wait to try out those new trains.

Here's a couple of bits of info on what's going on at the resort this week relating to the expansion plans... *The Mr. Potato Head "barker" animatronic has arrived, it's wrapped in plastic near the WDI trailers behind the show building. The animatronic figure will be placed to the right side of the facade on a podium facing the ride entrance. Hopefully they set it up soon! TSM is now running up to 9 sets of vehicles, but there hasn't been much testing recently. *It's more likely Orange Stinger will NOT be rethemed with Victorian decor and will be permanently removed sooner or later. One of the two rides (Golden Zephyr or Orange Stinger) is supposed to be replaced with a lighthouse to serve as the projector tower for World Of Color. *Monorail red (Mark VII) is being shipped back to Vancouver, I believe it might have already been sent back as it's not in the monorail shop and its not on the storage tracks. Monorail blue and Monorail orange are already being modified in Vancouver before they are shipped to California. For those who don't know, the new Mark VII monorail wasn't making turns due to a design error. Monorail crew says expect Monorail Red to be taking guests by summer with blue coming in fall and orange in the winter. *A fourth hotel is being planned, I have no idea when it will be announced. If you're familiar with how the resort is set up, and you know where the transportation hub is, where all the buses and taxis come in, this area is being considered for the next hotel. As you know, Timon lot will be closing sometime this year so ground can be broken on Carsland, the rest of the parking lot will eventually filled in, presumably with a new parking structure or perhaps some new attractions for Phase 2 in Hollywood. This would also be home to the new transportation hub. The new hotel would straddle both sides of the existing walkway into the esplanade from Harbor Blvd forming an archway and a courtyard before guests actually get to the esplanade. There's some artwork for this which I'm sure will be released if they finalize these plans.

Alpenguy, which attractions do you work over on the east side? We also have that pullup/pushdown mushroom button system on Indy and Thunder and I'm pretty sure all west side attractions with gates have the same so you're right.

Wow, B&M has been selling a lot of speed coasters in the last few years! Can't wait to see the details on this one. I wonder if it will have standard seating or those new, weird trains they have on Behemoth.

It's likely I dispatched the troop transport you were riding in the daytime, I was working the north seat belt checks for a good part of the day.

One day I was working a parade shift on the Frontierland bridge in the hub and some ducks were swimming by in the water below. A guest asked me if the ducks were real or animatronics.

I definately support this decision, and not just because I work for the mouse. Some people who rent ECVs in the parks are dangerous enough as it is, running over guests' feet and slamming into people waiting for the parade, we see it all out there... nevermind something like a segway which could potentially cause more damage. Park-rented ECVs aren't even allowed in the elevator at my attraction, because so many people who aren't used to driving them slam them into the doors on the other side of the elevator. The doors been replaced at least twice before they banned them.

My first west coast event! See you guys there! Looking forward to meeting those of you I haven't yet met.

I think adding sound is a good idea, I'm really impressed with all the new details of X2, they had me at 'tunnels' already! Can't wait to see X sporting red and black in person at West Coast Bash, just didn't look right in pink IMO. Keep up the good work MM!!

Great photos, Erik. Aquatica looks like it has some great rides. Also looking forward to your presumed coverage of that dirt pile when things start to go vertical.