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singemfrc

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Everything posted by singemfrc

  1. Fixed. And why doesn't SFMM go over to Stockholm and check out how they run INSANE at Grona Lund? Huh? Its not that they dont know, its like a ostrich with its head in the sand thing. And Insane did come before GL, but isn't technically Kirnu the original?
  2. Two things - the center of gravity is very different in the cars, and the way Magic Mountain stops them from spinning results in some very awkward intense forces. There's a similar coaster at Grona Lund called Insane that is a lot better.
  3. Yeah I mean it wasnt the first time I rode Tatsu either, and nothing has ever come out of my photos before. This time it just turned me upside down and shook me. Still, lesson learned.
  4. Late in posting, but I went down to the park last weekend, and it's been a long time since I've posted a photo TR. I was driving down from NorCal to LA for a concert Saturday night and figured as long as I'm driving by it, I might as well stop at MM. Originally was just going to go on Sunday because as a rule I don't like going to parks on Saturdays, but then decided I might as well stop in and see what's what, since it's a February. I was pleasantly surprised..even on Saturday the crowds were minimal. Only a few rides had longish waits, but no biggie since I could hit those on Sunday. Got in at about noon and unfortunately Orient Express was still down, so that meant no help getting up the hill, but I could use the exercise anyway. I headed up first to check out Tatsu, but it looked like about a 45 min wait and I was being picky so I figured I'd come back to it tomorrow. Backtracked a bit to my first ride of the morning, Ninja, which after about a 10 min wait for the front row, decided to shut down ride when I stepped into the car. 20 mins or so later after a restart and a couple of test cycles, I was able to whizz through the places where trees used to be. Still love that ride though..its not tall or crazy but it's just fun. Walked over to see what the wait was like for Superman and the line was out of the cave, so that was longer than I felt like waiting so I moved on and took a quick spin on Gold Rusher which was, as usual, a walk-on. From there walked over to DC and took my first spin on Justice League. It had a 2 hr wait last time I was there in the summer, so I skipped it, but today the wait was minimal. On my first of many rides, I spaced and totally forgot the glasses. It was actually kind of interesting without them. Then went over to the rest of DC, walked by Green Lantern which was of course still closed, and went up the exit to the SRL on Riddler. Riddler had probably a 30 minute wait or so, but as usual the SRL got me directly onto the first train in the station. Batman was a priority on this trip since I had skipped it on the last 2 or 3 trips to the Mountain, so I made my way there next. Ended up riding in the middle of a group of 3 other strangers since they were double-riding due to no one in queue in the station. From there I went down to TC & Scream, TC's line was right at the entrance so I decided to try my luck later..I'd ridden it to death my last couple visits anyway. Surprisingly Scream had an even longer line, it was posted 1 hr, but I think realistically 30-45 mins..either way longer than I wanted to wait for Scream, so I headed back to the front of the park. YOLO had only about a 5 minute wait, so I obliged. Always a fun ride especially for such a short layout. We laugh at it alot because of the marketing, but it really was a great design for what they had to work with. Back at the front of the park I circled back over to Revolution which had 0 wait, so I walked on and had a nice VR-less ride. I wasn't about to consider riding Viper, so I ended my day with a sunset ride on X2 which was only about a 5 minute wait for the front row. I came back Sunday morning with the intention of hitting all the stuff I missed on Saturday, but things did not go according to plan to say the least! Upon entering the park at 1030 I went straight to Tatsu figuring that would probably be the most consistent line of the day. As I walked up I noticed the train was stuck on the lift. I was the only person who wanted to wait for it to reopen, which I never understood. People will wait in lines for 2 hrs +, but wont wait for a ride to reopen for even 15 minutes. Sure enough it was back open in about 20 minutes or so, and I walked right up and onto the front row...but this is where my day got turned upside down. I'm always really aware of what's in my front pockets and make sure that nothing is in danger of coming out during a ride, but I failed this day. That first ride on Tatsu just absolutely emptied my pockets. Fortunately I had tied my car keys to my pants and was physically holding my phone into my pocket, or I would have lost them. When I got off, my keys were hanging from their tether. Something about the forces on this ride were different than usual, I'd never experienced that on Tatsu before. Unfortunately when I walked out of the exit I realized that my wallet had come out of my back pocket during the ride, and was now lost somewhere in the brown jungle beneath the pretzel loop. I always focus on what's in my front pockets, but didn't think about my back pocket since for literally every ride other than Tatsu, I'm sitting on it. Won't make that mistake again in the future. Needless to say I didn't really feel like riding any more coasters for the rest of the day, so for the most part I just wandered around the park, but I did play Justice League a half dozen or so more times since there was no line, just to see how high of a score I could get. Unfortunately this meant I wouldn't be able to leave early for the 7 hour drive home, I would have to wait until after the park closes to see if they found it on the after close track walk. More unfortunately for me, they didn't find it. I wasn't really surprised though, its a small black leather wallet in the brush in the dark, that would be extremely difficult to find. At least there was no cash in it, just credit cards and ID, and its easy to replace credit cards. DMV is a little bit more of a hassle to deal with, but not the end of the world. I'm just lucky my car keys and/or my phone didnt get lose too or it would have been a lot worse. Fortunate that my bank has cardless ATM, so I could use my phone to get cash to buy gas to drive home! As I write this I've already got my credit cards replaced, my work ID badge replaced, and new drivers license should arrive within a week or so. I think in the future I may just leave my wallet in the car, I don't usually really need it in the park anyway. Also will probably fork over the $ for the lackers at Tatsu from now on too. Worrying about things in my pockets is no fun. Obligatory TC photography from the parking lot. Obligatory TC photography from the parking lot. New signage. Leg day. One Loop Wonder Ninja threw a tantrum. Development in the hills. Not very helpful. More obligatory everyone-has-done-this-shot photos. I like this one with the sun flare and the train through the trees. Yolo! Gold Rusher is always photogenic if nothing else. Nice sunny day for a ride on GR. I agree with others in that the paint job on Riddlers is really growing on me. Justice League has a WHAT?? Cant believe I didnt hear about this before! Saved so much time in the single rider line! I know MM may be just lazy enough to put up a random sign, but I think they could have just as easily not put a sign up at all, so perhaps it will actually reopen at some point, for the 3 of us that care. Some Batman photography, since I'm here. Amazing how well it's held up over the years. Pretty good shot for just a cell phone. Scream looked nice, but I wasn't going to stand in that line for it. Nope. That's much more like it. So much fun. Best part of the ride? The right way. Somewhat surprised they actually put a "Classic" sign on the wall, maybe this will be long term. Sunset ride on X2. Sunset ride on X2. Viper is look but don't touch for me from now on. Still makes for great photos though. Gotta love X2 at sunset. End of day 1... Glad I found one of these near my airbnb in studio city, I love this place! Stuck on the lift. No one else willing to wait. Still not helpful. Somewhere down there is my wallet... Sucked on skittle in action. Best score I could manage on JL. Not bad for first time. Spent a few bucks on gas on this trip.
  5. Partially, the outside is usually rougher than the inside, and the bigger you are, the more that's amplified. It will beat you up just about anywhere though. IMO it's still worth it for that first drop Ill be there for an hour or two tomorrow and then for most of the day Sunday, so we'll see how a February weekend looks.
  6. I'm still trying to comprehend how they were even able to put VR on that ride. The season they did it was the year I didn't get a pass so I never figured out, although I don't think I would ever try VR on that ride. I have earrings now too & flashback to the day when my father got stabbed by his earrings coming off that painful ride. Oh man it was just as horrible as I expected it to be. The only way Kong is bearable for me now is because I can see the track ahead and turn my head accordingly to avoid head banging, but being effectively blindfolded I was just tossed around like a rag doll. It sucked. First time was the last time with that VR.
  7. Love watching the train climb from the station! Taken from Eagle's Flight, this is from when Levi's Stadium was still under construction. Taken from Eagle's Flight, this is from when Levi's Stadium was still under construction.
  8. You could do X2, Superman, or Tatsu first to get one of those out of the way if you want. X2 is usually busy right at the start but gets shorter later in the day. Has a tendency to not open with the park, and will close in a breeze or a slight drizzle, but otherwise usually ok. Tatsu doesn't go crazy at the beginning, but probably has the most consistent line. It doesn't get crazy but it never gets to a walk-on either. If you want to ride it multiple times, maybe start there. Superman doesn't get a crazy long line usually, but it can be very slow moving line, especially with only one side operating, and its a ghost town in the morning. If you start here, you can probably ride it a half dozen times without getting up. Also note that one of the lines when you get close goes to the front row that only loads 2 people per row instead of 4. Obviously, the line for this row moves twice as slowly, so pick another row and you'll get there faster. Superman also will close at the absolute first sight of the possibility of a rain drop. If there's a possibility of rain that day and you want to ride it, ride it early. If you have early entry, "Not-Empty" Throttle is a good place to get the early ride in as the line can be a bit much sometimes, and its close enough that you can usually snag an early ride and still get to something else before the park opens. I should mention Twisted Colossus, if you haven't been to MM you might think of starting there, but even if the line may appear long at first, it (almost always) runs three trains and the line moves pretty fast. On all but the busiest days and/or unless you want multiple rides theres no need to prioritize it. Unless its way out of the station, its not really that long.
  9. They didn't say "Here it is, its complicated, thats how it goes. Tough." they're saying "We're working on a more efficient way to do this later (Probably March 1st), but if you don't want to wait that long, here is a way you can get it done right now."
  10. Yeah, I don't think that's terrible at all, I think that was actually unusually considerate of them to do that. You can still upgrade now if you want, but don't complain if it's cheaper to do so on March 1st and you're no longer eligible for the cheaper price.What we'd probably expect from MM would be to not say anything at all, then have a bunch of people find that page and pay to upgrade, and then those people would all be pissed off come March 1st when a deal was announced and they'd all be shouting about how terrible MM is for not telling them about the deal before they went and upgraded. I do think it's kind of bs that they will allow you to upgrade but not downgrade, that's a pretty JV move. They're hoping that cancelling and restarting will just be too inconvenient so you'll continue to pay the higher price.
  11. When I was doing the survey and they were considering these tiers, it wasnt a huge amount per mont. Like Gold Plus was 7.89 per month, Platinum was 8.99, Diamond was 11.99, and Diamond Elite was I think like 19.99, that one was a substantial difference I remember. Also while these extra upper tier discounts are obviously only for MM, I imagine anything Gold or above would still function as a Gold Pass at other parks. Come to think of it I'll want to confirm that, because I was thinking about one of these, but not if it wouldn't also get me into SFDK.
  12. come now during the week, or come for west coast bash. West Coast Bash is another great suggestion...I've been to several and they are the best way to experience Magic Mountain and meet other TPR members! Typically we get morning and/or evening ERT on a varying number of coasters, breakfast and lunch, and sometimes we may get Q&A with park representatives or backstage tours (but not every year). The other half of West Coast Bash is Knott's Berry Farm, and you get most of the same activities, but KBF is much better about doing the Q&A and Backstage stuff whenever it's possible for them. I really loved the tour we got of Sierra Sidewinder's mech shop since that is such a unique ride with it's vertical elevator transfer. Usually it is a Sat/Sun in October. We didn't have one in '17 because Robb was out of the country at the time, but I hear they are planning on doing one this year if possible. Do a search for west coast bash or wcb on the forums and look at others' trip reports.
  13. You might be the first person to ride Kong and decided that something else was more painful. Superman can get a little painful though on your legs depending on how the restraints fit you. For future reference, row 6 is the best on Superman, you get a really nice pop of air when the train whips you over the hill.
  14. I would avoid summer weekends because it is both busy and hot. With all the blacktop and the lack of shade, it often feels even hotter at the park than the weather says it is. I can be brutally hot. In terms of crowds, right now is the best time. The busiest periods are the same as most parks - summers, weekends, holidays, and any combination thereof. Above all avoid November 11th, that is Key Club Day, one of the busiest days of the year. I've stayed at most of the hotels around the park, since I live far enough away that I need a hotel but close enough that I visit frequently. The Hilton Garden Inn was my top choice when I was doing hotels. It's easily the most conveniently located, and it's nice enough. In the last couple years they have jacked up the price though. There is also a Holiday Inn Express and a Best Western across the street and a Courtyard and an Embassy Suites pretty close too. Personally though lately I go with airbnb, more often than not I can get a nicer place than a hotel room for a lot less money. The main advantage to that Hilton Garden Inn though is that it's close enough that it's really convenient to leave the park in the middle of the day if it's hot and you can easily shower, change, and nap for an hour or two and then head back to the park recharged.
  15. Well its still early though, people who've gone on off-days seem to be really happy with it, and as word of mouth sets in maybe more people will take advantage and make it more profitable.
  16. That should be a pretty dead day, lines should be minimal around the park. You should be able to easily ride everything you want. The "One time only" means only one flash pass reservation is allowed per day on those rides. Those one-time-only rides also do not allow the platinum pass double-rides, only a handful do. Gold pass entry is advertised at 15 minutes I believe, but sometimes its only 5 or 10, and no guarantee anything will be open before the park. Flash pass building opens at 1030 with the park. X2 is still the most popular coaster for everyone to run to in the morning, but you shouldnt have to worry about it on a wednesday, and if you did, you could just ride it later in the day when the line dies down (since everyone rides it in the morning).
  17. I dont think the gold pass line is that big of a deal anyway at least for me, most of the time I end up getting in like like 5-7 minutes early, only to find that nothing has finished test cycles anyway, so I just stand in line at the front for 10 minutes, and by the time theyre loading the first train, the GP is in line behind me, so all you really get is 1 ride.
  18. Somehow I'm still not convinced, I'm not entirely certain they consider the early entry line one of the included benefits. I'll find out for sure when I'm there in a couple weeks. I'm actually considering upgrading to that Gold Plus anyway, still seems a good deal for the price.
  19. So the park went and pulled the trigger on adding another tier to membership. At least for now, they only added the Gold Plus, none of the other higher ones they were thinking about. Key benefits in my opinion: New Gold Plus Only lane at the entrance, which will be effective for the first 4 hours of each day. 20% off almost all merch all the time 25% off season drink bottles Always at least 20% off single tickets for friends, with temporary bigger discounts offered periodically Gold Plus members will get to ride CraZanity and subsequent new rides before Gold Pass holders and other SP/Members Discount on dolphin experience at SFDK in Northern Callifornia $7.85/mo, for at least the first year. Early entry not listed for Gold Pass anymore, but I havent been to the park lately to see if it's really gone. Will be there on 2/3 so I'll see. https://www.sixflags.com/magicmountain/store/membership
  20. For someone who's running in to be efficient, hit all the major coasters, and take off, I agree. I don't think I'd ever personally need a second day. But this is someone who's never been to MM before and might not be back for years, so I just think they might want to do more and take their time. The second day allows you to relax, even if it's only a half day, maybe even leave the park for lunch in the middle of the day to take a break or something. Plus, as thrillseeker4552 mentioned, if something you wanted to ride is down one day, there's a greater chance you can get it in the second day (Or if that something is TC or X2, you can get your second FP ride in the next day)
  21. I guess it would be *doable* but if this is your first time visiting the park, I would highly recommend two days, or at least 1.5 days. It’s a huge park with a ton of coasters, and with long lines and SFMM’s highly unpredictable ride closures / operations, I would really suggest at least a day, even if you have Flash Pass. You could do it if you got there right at opening and stayed until closing, but your visit will be so much less stressful if you go for at least 1.5 days. Yeah I second this. With a platinum flash pass, I'm sure you could rush through and get everything done (assuming everything is open), but it will be much less enjoyable. Nothing usually is scheduled to be down for maintenance at that time of year, but there could always be unplanned mx events. I would highly recommend doing a second day, even if its just a half day with a regular or gold flash pass to get the stuff that you missed the first day (or do the other way around - go half a day Friday, then Saturday make sure to use the platinum pass to get the ones that werent doable on Friday) This is all also assuming that you're doing coasters only. If you want to also do flat rides and upcharge attractions, and if you don't plan on coming back any time in the near future, then definitely do two full days.
  22. Yeah I mean I get Goliath is down uplanned mx, and Green Lantern is down long term, so those don't really count, but especially considering no staffing is needed for those rides, at least Tatsu and X2 should be running if possible.
  23. I wonder if that just means free, or if not then what "All-In" means. Interesting contest though. Someone who lives nearby with a gold pass could probably accomplish that pretty easily.
  24. According to the survey, there would be no changes to season passes. So I wouldn’t be able to get a Diamond Elite season pass? You would have to convert to a Diamond Elite Membership. The pay-in-full season passes aren't going to be tiered.
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