singemfrc

How far away are you flying? Usually there's flights until about 9 unless you're going far away. If the last BUR flight is before 6 that's pretty brutal, cause youd probably want to leave the park by at least 4 to be safe, that cuts out a lot of the day. If there's an LAX flight that's later than 9 then youre right, take LAX, cause with that much difference itd still be worth it even with traffic. Perhaps try a one-way car rental and fly in through BUR and out through LAX maybe.

Flying to Burbank is usually about the same price as LAX assuming equal availability, he was worried about the flight times not matching up with when he wanted to get there and leave. SNA (John Wayne, Santa Ana) is the airport that historically has had higher prices due to airport taxes there, though on my last few trips it's not been as bad. I still don't like the location of that airport though...its kind of a pain to get in and out of with rental cars. Burbank is in my opinion by far the easiest airport to deal with in all regards - security, traffic, parking, rental car pickup and return, and ease of travel within the airport are all better. You'll spend far less time at the airport between rental car pickup/dropoff, security, and going to gate. Everything is very close together at BUR since it's small. Only problem with BUR is it feels like its about 25 years behind the times. Very few outlets, no charging stations, they don't even have jetways, you still board and deplane via stairs outside on the tarmac. My point though was even if there's a Burbank flight thats 30 or 45 minutes later in the morning or too early in the evening, youll still save time using Burbank instead of LAX. Los Angeles weekday traffic is a nightmare the likes of which you do not want to become familiar. You could probably get to SFMM from Bakersfield faster than from LAX. The route between BUR and SFMM avoids most of that traffic since BUR is almost at the northernmost point of LA and SFMM is north of that.

You might want to look at Burbank again. Fighting rush hour traffic on the 405 from LAX to SFMM and back is going to eat up half of your day. 30-45 minute drive between BUR and SFMM is at least 2 hours between LAX and SFMM in the morning if you're lucky, and probably longer in the evening.

Wow no kidding. It seemed like such a Japanese concept to me I assumed it was a unique place. I'd like it if they were in the US, but I doubt they would do well here.

That's so amazing. It's kind of "why Japan is better than us" in a nutshell. An amusement park that actually makes the citizens of their country better people.

I'm still excited to ride Twisted Colossus this summer and attend my first WCB. Ways to go before I start caring about 2016.

Yeah its just a bit rough. It's nowhere near as bad as Revolution, but redesigned trains and/or even just some new more comfortable restraints would make a huge difference. I'm not kidding anyone though, I don't expect any of that..if they can't do it for Revolution they aren't going to do it for Viper. I agree that Viper is still a great coaster though. Yes it's rough, but if you're just considering elements and intensity, in my book it still stands up to any looping coaster today. The theming is great, it's probably the best, maybe behind only Goliath.

Ive never experienced or seen in person a simultaneous drop, but I've had a superman car fly up the track when my DoD gondola was like 60% up and the whole thing started swaying as we were still climbing..very cool and my friends were absolutely freaking out. It doesn't happen very often anymore, I'm not sure if they're intentionally avoiding it or whether its just a coincidence. Superman tends to be one of the slowest dispatches in the park and I've had instances when Superman was actively operating where I boarded a DoD gondola, climbed, dropped, and exited the DoD station without a Superman train being dispatched.

This isnt anything unusual. All new rides break down frequently, and the more complicated they are, the more issues they can potentially have. This ride has two variable speed lifts so Im really surprised its doing as well as it is.

Plus, riding Drop of Doom has the same effect as visiting the observation tower. Not hardly.

No kidding, I wonder what went wrong with that..I'm surprised even by SFMM standards that it's taken this long to get that back open.

Well there was a time sensitive reason for painting Scream - media exposure from TC and Screampunk's opening. I'm sure it will take some similar motivation before they open their pocketbooks to paint Tatsu.

That likely means a busy year for IOE, good to hear.

Flash Pass is almost never needed here. This is my home park, I've been there dozens of times, and never once even thought about buying one. Primarily because there's so few total coasters that even on busy days you can still ride them all. Also Superman is not included, for capacity reasons it's an upcharge. Unless it's Key Club Day (it isnt tomorrow) or you want to ride everything 10 times, you wont need Flash Passes. Traffic Sunday mornings has always been a breeze for me, best day of the week to go. Superman is best to do first if you're there at rope drop cause you can usually get 2-4 consecutive rides with almost no wait. Superman is a gem but not really hidden, though row 6 is a bit of a hidden gem. Roar, surprisingly, is really the hidden gem of the park now. Ever since the aforementioned retracking it runs great and has some surprising little pops of airtime. Most people hate Kong, I'm one of the few that love it. Crappy train design, but a fun layout. If you turn your head towards the direction of each turn you wont get the head banging that makes it painful. If you should choose to ride, that will help. Boomerang is just like every other Boomerang, and Medusa is just like Scream!. Theyre not great, theyre not the worst.

^ I agree, I liked Batman better grey too, though I think the current Blue still fits it well. The Red on Flight Deck just doesn't fit with it's theme, and its tacky to know they did it just because the 49ers are next door.

Theyve been using those on TC off and on thus far, but generally they only do it in extraordinary circumstances. The bottom line is that (except for openings of major rides like TC) the park just doesn't care about line jumpers, if they did they'd do something about it.

If Disney were in charge of the Revolution coaster, the white paint would look glossy and brand new. But I kinda like that it looks worn out.... like a Star Wars X-wing fighter. I agree. I actually like Revolution the way it is. Some coasters look good with old paint. I loved Flight Deck's old faded black paint job (up north), I thought it fit the whole 80s fighter jet motif and it was pretty bad ass. I was disappointed when they painted it red to match the 49ers, but I seem to be in the minority there. Tatsu needs a paint job bad..its even more obvious now that they finally painted Scream. I hope thats some high quality paint on Scream too, cause those colors will look terrible if they fade to the point it was at before this paint job.

It might also have something to do with their operating costs being significantly higher. That said though, I bet they have a significantly higher profit margin, I just don't think it's coming from admission.

I saw this at California's Great America in the Vortex queue, it still doesnt stop anyone and staff still does nothing about line jumpers. Its the same everywhere. I think SFMM just feels worse because theres more entitled teens at that park than most. Ironically Vortex is where I see the most line jumpers at that park. Last time I was there I had a dozen kids walking past me up the staircase to the station. I finally moved so that I was standing in the middle with my hands on each rail so they couldnt get by and they had the nerve to come up to me and tap me on the shoulder and ask me to move. No shame anymore, this generation.

Usually the latter, and not just at MM. Most parks don't do anything unless it's egregious.

When did they start targeting families, when have they ever? MM targets young people who go to the park with other young people friends. With KBF, DLR, and USH already competing for the Southern California family amusement park dollar, I actually think it's smart of them.I don't think the Six Flags Flash Pass is a crappy product, either. I've used it on just about every visit to SFMM and I've been happy with it all but once. The only time I was disappointed was when I finally decided to visit during Fright Fest and found that the FF mazes were loaded onto the Flash Pass. That was unfortunate because it can apparently only hold so many attractions (or MM will only allow so many I don't know which) so there were several coasters normally on the Flash Pass that werent on it that day due to making room for the mazes. That was a few years ago though and that doesn't happen anymore because they now have a separate system for FF mazes.

What you say about the wait times on the Gold FP leads me to believe that you've never actually used it. What sixflags.com says about the wait times and what wait times you encounter in reality are two very different things. The website says 50% of the standby wait time, but in my experience its nowhere near that. On days where every line was 1-2 hours my wait times with a gold pass were no more than 10-15 minutes for the "big" rides and 5 minutes or less or instantaneous for the less popular ones. The Platinum pass is expensive, there's no getting around that fact. In the past I've completely dismissed it as a waste of money and always gone with the gold. Before YOLO was built, the only advantages were X2 reservations and double rides. If you didnt care about double rides and knew when the X2 line was shorter, you didnt need to pay for it. In the last few years, though, it's had more things added to it with YOLO and now Twisted Colossus being added, and Im not surprised Superman was tacked on too cause Flash pass with SEFK was often a bit of a cluster..the Flash Pass users were really messing up the standby queue on that ride. In the future I expect YOLO to eventually be dropped from the exclusives and probably TC in a couple years too depending on new additions. X2 will probably always be an upcharge. I don't see it as Six Flags "only giving you some rides" for the regular flash pass. In general, the rides that are platinum only are rides that wouldnt otherwise be on the flash pass at all because they cant handle the extra volume for various reasons. At Six Flags they make it platinum only and/or platinum with reservation which greatly limits how many people use it. At Disney they just plain limit how many Fast Passes are available, and for something really popular like Radiator Springs Racers, all the Fast Passes can be gone right when the park opens. To say there are no restrictions or extra fees for specific rides at Cedar Fair is factually incorrect. That's what Fast Lane Plus is, an extra fee for specific rides, just like Six Flags' Flash Pass Platinum. You cant skip the line on GateKeeper or Maverick or Top Thrill Dragster (The most popular coasters at Cedar Fair) unless you buy the Plus pass for more money. CF's price is definitely better for these passes overall, certainly, yet I love the Q-Bot device that Six Flags uses, not having to physically wait in a line is a huge plus for me. At Cedar Point even the Fast Lane queues can be over an hour. So both are great for their own reasons. To say that Disney gives you anything for free is naive. They may not charge you individually for the specific use of the Fast Pass, but look at the price of admission and everything else..you're paying for it, you just don't realize it. At Six Flags you pay $60 for a gold flash pass, but you only pay $40 or on some days $20 or $0 to get in. At DLR you dont pay for Fast Pass, but you pay $100 to get in the door. Personally Id prefer it if Disney charged less for admission and charged extra for Fast Lane, but I doubt theyre going to ever do that. Conversely if Six Flags announced Admission was going up to $100 but regular Flash Pass would now be free, how many people would prefer that? Probably not the people who had no intention of buying a Flash Pass. Six Flags, Cedar Fair, and Disney all have their pros and cons as do their virtual queuing systems. I enjoy all of them for different reasons.

If it's a Saturday holiday weekend, a big event day such as Key Club Day, or something really crazy, or if you're Dan Bilzerian, then buy it ahead of time. In all other cases, wait till you get to the park to see if it's busy.

Forecast shows wind averaging about 10mph, so it's possible it might be closed. According to the forecast the wind isnt supposed to pick up until about noon, so it might just open in the morning, but I wouldnt be surprised if they just elected to not open it. X2 unfortunately will close in what seems like just the slightest breeze. If you're going today and want to ride it, I'd get there early and go straight for it.

How does any of this make sense to you? I've purchased Gold and Platinum level FastPass and it has significantly reduced my wait time. SIGNIFICANTLY. Was it worth the money? You bet. My time waiting, baking in the sun is totally worth it. Hell, Disneyland Fastpass allows you to be virtually queued for said ride while you occupy yourself with other things to do, including waiting for another ride (same as SF). It just saved you waiting 70+ minutes for Space Mtn while you waited 40min for Thunder Mtn. By the time you're off Thunder, youre ready to BYPASS a majority of the Space Mtn line. How does that NOT save you time? Without it, you would be waiting that 70+ min after you get off Thunder Mtn. How is that not valued.... No this guy probably has never used a Six Flags Flash Pass and misunderstood. The "one time only" thing is specifically for Twisted Colossus, X2, and YOLOCoaster. Because of their high demand and/or low capacity, the park doesn't want them on the full Flash Pass, so they are set up on a reservation system. Once you buy your Platinum Flash pass, you have the ability to purchase individual single ride reservations for those attractions. This allows people to still skip the line while not overly slowing down the standby queue. For every other ride in the park, you can use the Flash Pass as much as you want. The only limitation is that you can only reserve one ride at a time, so you just reserve your next ride each time you check in. I think it's actually a little better than Fast Pass/Flash Pass is that the Six Flags version in that it is remote, so you don't have to be physically at the next ride to check in for it. There are definitely days where a Flash Pass isn't worth it, and I'd wager there are more of those than days than ones where it's necessary. But there are a lot of days, especially in the summer, where it's a great advantage. The busiest day I ever visited the park on was on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, and I sure didn't feel like it was a ripoff then, more like a life saver.