MagicMountainMan

The ROI on Viper is in the red now I'm sure and it's the #1 ride that people complain about to guest relations. The amount of complaints about the ride are staggering it's kind of hilarious. Needless to say, if corporate decided to axe any coaster at Magic Mountain, Viper is definitely at the top of that list. And there is next to no true historical significance attached to Viper. Nothing that actually matters to the public or management.

Audio on Apocalypse was actually swapped and gotten 100% working but a few weeks later Six Flags corporate decided they were going to remove the audio anyway since it was scheduled to come out. X2's audio still works as well. Fire effects however are a different department than the one that works on the audio and effects for the various rides. My point is that Justice League will not get neglected A/V wise unless Six Flags corporate pulls the rug out from under their feet (which I don't see happening). And while I agree that there are other areas that still need attention, their pattern of capital investment these last few years suggests that every year we see a slightly updated themed area of the park along with a renovated bathroom or two. (This year's bathroom renovations were the Tatsu bathrooms and the Flashback plaza bathrooms that now have a gate to utilize them when the main gate plaza is full) I think sometimes you have to give credit where credit is due. These past few years have all been nice, well needed updates to the park. Sure, I think everyone wishes that it would happen faster but it genuinely seems like they are trying now.

Usually really early in the morning, before eastern time zone news goes live so every news source can pick it up that morning. Around 2-3AM Pacific if my memory serves. Maybe even earlier.

^The terror tram is the same every year, I wouldn't get your hopes up too much.

How have there not been concrete leaks? Granted that is a bit of an oxymoron, but as far as 'leaks' go this year is as good as it gets. There's a full construction site going with survey markers outlining the entire building. There have been surveys sent out affirming all of the current information. If anything this year has been full of people hoping against hope that what's right in front of them isn't true and inventing other possibilities of what they want it to be. When there's smoke, there's usually a fire.

^Wow that's pretty bad... I do hope that security found those kids and talked to them, but I realistically doubt it. If only they could get rid of the basketballs and vuvuzelas from the park...

I for one am genuinely looking forward to having a ride that will allow me to escape the summer heat and have some interactive/competitive fun with friends. Bonus points if most of the queue is inside which I think it will be.

X2 used really expensive paint, that was part of the whole conversion to X2. Since X2 got painted, Viper, Ninja, Goliath, Scream, TC, Revolution, Batman, Superman, and other stuff I'm probably forgetting have all gotten some paint. Viper looks pretty bad again, Ninja looks meh, Batman's paint is literally chipping off in areas, Goliath is getting pretty faded in some parts, and the rest look great because they were just painted. The only outlier here is Superman but that was again a different paint formula as they sprayed it on and didn't roll it on. So it's not a matter of just painting the ride, it's painting it with the right paint that really counts. Hopefully Magic will take that to heart and whenever they do decide to paint the ride they will actually use higher quality paint so it doesn't look like a suckled Skittle as you would say.

Says right on the website: So no go for Potter during HHN. It looks like they are using the Potter incentive to sell the day/night combo though. It's kind of unfortunate that they are limiting the Day/Night to a 2PM arrival as you only get 4 hours in the park before they kick you out to set up for HHN and then you have to reenter at 7... Oh well, maybe I'll do the Day/Night combo anyway since I want to see Potter, they have sucked me in.

Tatsu looks terrible for sure, but if they didn't paint it when they opened TNR (which it should have been since Tatsu is insanely visible from just about any angle above that ride) I have some well founded doubt that they will paint it anytime soon. If anything the park might pull an Xcelerator and just let it fade to a uniform color... (Hopefully not) At least the park has a real excuse as to why they aren't clamoring to repaint Tatsu; it will be very expensive considering its location.

Still rumored, just not announced. The trains are equipped to go backwards and the VR can easily change to fit the season, but alas maybe they decided to focus their attention on other things... Kind of a shame too because it is fun backwards.

While attendance is down, it's not by much. They just aren't hitting the lofty projections that they had based on last year. Last year was the first year in a while that the park actually crossed 3 million visitors and they are down from that number so far. However, day to day it really only translates to a few hundred or a thousand less visitors per day which isn't significant enough to really notice. Anyhow... ...The fire, while yes it started off the 14 right on the edge of Santa Clarita, I don't think has had much of an effect on attendance. For the most part, besides one day when the 14 closed, there have been no major road closures that would effect the park. Beyond that, the wind has been pretty consistently blowing south and east meaning Santa Clarita (especially on the other side of the valley where Magic Mountain is located) has been spared the majority of the smoke and ash. Granted, that isn't to say that the air quality is great because its super hazy and smoke doesn't have to be distinctly visible for it to be an issue. TL;DR, you're going on a Saturday so it will be the highest attended day of the week no matter and it will be busy. If you are particularly sensitive to bad air quality than take the necessary precautions.

The fire is on the other side of the valley. You can see the smoke, but with the way the winds have been, the park has not been under a blanket of smoke at all. Yesterday it rained ash for the second half of the day (no smoke though), but today was fine all around.

There is nobody there on a weekday in August (especially late August when a lot of schools are back in). Fridays and Saturdays are always busy for Fright Fest.

That took quite a turn... Does the park actually invest in anything besides roller coasters though? The different entertainment options interspersed throughout the year are an entirely separate budget and have no effect on corporate capital money. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last non-roller coaster capital investment was Lex Luthor and before that I can't even think of anything... I'm not sure where all of these JL definitely isn't happening rumors are coming from, I mean what's stopping the chain from deciding to plop down three JL rides? Granted, I'm kind of contradicting myself here based on my previous paragraph, however I genuinely do think that it would be a really really nice change from the typical roller coaster after roller coaster to see Justice League come to the park next season.

The VR was a home run from a marketing perspective. Six Flags was on national news and even other news outlets that wouldn't normally report on a theme park. It made headlines. Have those headlines turned into a substantial windfall for the company? That's to be determined. However it's worth noting that Magic Mountain has not been meeting attendance projections this summer. Is the VR poorly executed? Depending on who you ask, yes. Has the VR been a success? Depending on who you ask, yes. It all just depends on whose rose colored glasses you look through. Needless to say I think it's a safe bet that there will not be a repeat of 2016 and VR from here on out won't be viewed as such a novelty at the parks and they won't be able to generate the same amount of buzz around any ride that gets VR. As for 2017, we'll just have to wait and see.

There have definitely been a lot of conflicting reports (naturally) and the latest one I've heard is taking out the lake for Diagon Alley. I don't honestly believe that one as it's a bit too far, but who knows. If I were a betting man, I'd say goodbye to Take 5, Water World, and Shrek. It would be a really really tight fit, but anything is possible with enough money. Also, now that Secret Life of Pets is a hit, I wonder what Universal's timeline will be for the rumored ride and everything else around it. Like I said before, definitely an exciting time for Universal.

Random rain question: I can either go to Cedar Point tomorrow or Saturday however it looks like tomorrow might be worse on the rain front. Should I still just go tomorrow and risk the rain or go Saturday and fight a lot more crowds? I'm assuming that the typical CP overreaction to rain still applies and they are closing all of the big rides as soon as a drop of rain appears.

Park was very dead today, and not even that hot. Definitely a good day for those who went! The calm before the storm...

My understanding is that the soundstage next to Transformers where Secret Life Of Pets is rumored to be going has been built as essentially a black box so that if the movie does bomb they can quickly shoehorn in something else. It is definitely an exciting time for Universal.

I'm going to be that guy, but I need some advise from you CP regulars. I'm probably going on July 7th (a Thursday) and it's the first time I've been in 5 or so years. I'm assuming crowds will be moderate since it's not a weekend but I still want to get on everything. If I get Fast Lane + does that mean I can literally walk up, go on the ride, exit, and go again? I know it's just a wristband, but do they give you wait times to come back or could I marathon a ride if I wanted?

I only said it jokingly, Magic Mountain isn't getting a RMC T-Rex giga for 2017. It is 100% not happening I was just echoing all of our deepest, darkest, (wettest?) dreams. It's just not happening next year. Also, theatrical effects like the ones that Justice League uses don't fall under the maintenance umbrella, they fall to a different department that has a good team of people. Not saying maintenance doesn't have good team, but you know...

Deja Vu's pad isn't being used for a ride so don't get your hopes up. But yeah it's usually late August/early September when they make the chain wide announcements. Until then, I'll keep dreaming that we're getting a RMC T-Rex giga.

They also offer early entry to the park on Fridays if you own a Honda and can show them your Honda key. Usually one or two rides are open early on Fridays and it's sort of like ERT.

I went past today and I didn't see any train on the transfer so I'm assuming that it's finally back to two train ops. They just finished frankensteining two of the trains together and they finished fixing audio on both as well so I'm 99% sure it's two train ops now for the summer.