NYTrojan

is isitpacked fairly accurate for Magic Mountain? I've found it wildly inaccurate for Universal and Disneyland

Question: We are considering a trip over winter break, maybe Wednesday the 28th. Just how bad a crowd can we expect?

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Interesting. Ha, I knew someone would mention this. If you look at the thread I was responding to he clearly didn't consider Green Lantern as a "new" ride. There are arguments as to whether it is more of a glorified flat ride than a roller coaster, but the spirit of the conversation was about the addition of full featured 'best in class style' rollercoasters. Like Tatsu. Honestly I think it's a bit unfair given how new TC really is, and full throttle, but I was trying to address the conversation on his terms.

Perhaps, but I'd argue that this is something they HAD to do. They don't have infinite money, so the choices were "build something new or renovate an area and a ride because, well, we need to have SOMETHING new to sell this summer" So instead of a new ride we got Twisted Colossus (pretty much a new ride), a repainted Scream, and a re-themed colossus county fair area. A few years ago instead of a new ride we got Green lantern, a repainted Batman, and a rethemed DC Land. Now instead of a new ride we're getting a reworked Revolution and a rethemed baja ridge. Yes it's been ages since we've seen a Tatsu, and yes that's tough for those of us who went through the coaster explosion in the late 90s, but given the choice between the two, I'd rather they take a few years off to fix the park and then start adding again. Especially if something like Twisted Colossus is what 'taking a year off' looks like.

Visited Magic Mountain for the first time in years last weekend. It was a lot of fun. Some random thoughts: Rode Twisted Colossus twice. The first time through it seemed obvious to me that this thing will NEVER duel. All it takes is one lap bar check... one idiot who thinks she can bring her purse on the ride, one kid who needs to be height checked and it's all over. The second time through I struck gold: The lady who was running the ride was ON HER GAME. Now, she can't help stupid guests, but she can mitigate the problem a bit by keeping the other ride ops moving. Always mentioning when the previous train drops, etc. Even then, while I got lucky and my cars dueled, in the 10 or so I saw go before me, it only dueled twice. I really think some rider instruction would go a long way. A video that plays in the line that talks about the nature of the ride and how if you don't get seated quickly you'll have a lesser experience. That you can help everybody have a more fun ride by being ready and knowing that you can't bring your stuff with you. I don't know, maybe put a little pressure on the riders to be responsible for the fun they have. Just a thought. Anyway, the ride is fun with lots of good ejector hills when solo, but it is really something special when it duels. What a great concept that ride is. Other thoughts: I love how the park is investing in its old coaster inventory. Batman looks fantastic, the whole DC area actually. It's much more fun and bright now that it's going "Big Splashy Comic Book" instead of "Tim Burton's Batman movies" grimdark. Twisted Colossus is great, Revolution is beautiful again, even Scream looks nice... I like that they're acknowledging that 'yes, we let maintenance get away from us, but we're fixing it... bit by bit." Also, with the sad exception of the bathrooms, and that poor pillar on X2 that every idiot wants to throw gum at (yes I've heard the folks at SFMM lament at how often they powerwash the thing) the park was clean! Swept walkways, no piles of garbage or leaves. It was really nice. As someone who went there a lot during the Xtreme Park days it was really nice to see so many families there. Bugs Bunny world looks better than it has in ages. But Apocalypse! What happened to my Apocalypse? I LOVED this ride. My favorite wooden coaster in the west. When it was new it was almost smooth. This ride has REALLY suffered in the desert sun. It's bleached white and really rough. Also I wish they'd just give up on the ride video... It was a neat concept and I give them full marks for trying (and then trying again when they lost the terminator license), but it just doesn't work. The thing cycled 5 times while we waited in the "red room" and all I got out of it is some people are fighting "For the settlement". It just seems a shame to me that what I considered one of the best coasters in the park has taken such a beating in so short a period of time. Also, what's the deal with running X2 with one train? If there's EVER a ride that shouldn't ever run with one train it's X2. We bought flash passes so it wasn't a big deal to me, but what was a pretty darn short line (only 2 or 3 switchbacks after the long walk to the ramps) was 2 hours long! Is something going on? It was a busy enough day in the park to merit full operation. But, on the positive side, they were running both sides of Superman. I don't remember the last time I saw that! Overall, a net positive for the park, and I like the trajectory it's on. I just wish Apocalypse wasn't crumbling like it is.

Hi all, I haven't been to SFMM in ages, but I'm headed up tomorrow. Which ride should I head to first, Twisted Colossus or Full Throttle? I haven't been on either yet so I don't know which one will wind up with the longer lines later in the day. Thanks!

You know what, I think this is an EXCELLENT compromise. If they can work the timing out so that you either race on your first pass through or your second that's perfect by me. That keeps the 90 second window alive.

That is certainly possible, but when the time you're making up isn't 5 or 10 seconds, but likely 25-30 it gets pretty darn cumbersome. Do you really want to spend 90 seconds on a lift? Does SFMM really want to take the reduced riders per hour numbers that will create? Are you willing to wait in a line that is 25% longer?

At first when I heard 30 seconds, I didn't believe it. how could SFMM get stuck in a corner like that? They'd have to know 30 secnods isn't long enough. Looking at this video: it looks to me like this is the timeline: Time in seconds Dispatch: T=0 Reaches Blue Lift: T=30 Reaches Green Lift: T=120 Returns to station: T=240 This gives you 90 seconds between dispatches for the first few trains, but once you reach steady state you're in trouble. Under an ideal situation with 3 train operation: T=0: Train 1 dispatches T=30: Train 1 reaches blue lift T=90: Train 2 dispatches. T=120: Train 1 reaches green lift, Train 2 reaches blue lift. T=180: Train 3 dispatches T=210: Train 2 reaches green lift, Train 3 reaches blue lift And now we get into the spot where we're in trouble. Only 30 seconds turn around for Train 1 T=240: Train 1 returns T=270: train 1 dispatches T=300: Train 3 reaches green lift, Train 1 reaches blue lift. T=330: Train 2 returns T=360: Train 2 dispatches T=390: Train 1 reaches green lift, Train 2 reaches blue lift T=420: Train 3 returns So yes you folks are right. 30second dispatches with 3 trains. I just don't see that happening. Even if you tease the lift hill speeds a bit you're only going to squeeze another 5-10 seconds out of that. This ride doesn't duel without 4 trains. That's what it takes to maintain the 90 second dispatch times.

Oh yes, one more thing... boy has the sun done a number on Apocalypse! At first, from a distance, I thought they had painted the ride white in part of the transition away from Terminator. Is that color change really just from getting sun bleached? I don't recall that happening to Psyclone.

Yeah! I haven't been scared like that in a long long time. I really don't understand why people don't like it to be honest. I spent the whole time laughing my head off.

Thought I'd give a mini trip report and thank the folks who gave me advice for how to attack the park now. My buddies and I had a great time. Followed your advice and hit full throttle first. Fun little ride. Love the way they hang you on the loop. I feel like the ride needs at least one more element though. It falls more into the Superman / Top Thrill Dragster kind of ride in that it has one thing it throws at you for about 20 seconds. Still a fun time. From there we got our flash pass, set it for tatsu and ran on X2. About a 40 minute line at 11 in the morning. Went up around the back to find Apocalypse closed, but rode Riddler, Green Lantern (REALLY enjoyed this one. Didn't expect to but it was pretty darn solid), Batman, Goliath, heard apocalypse was open so we went back that way to give it a shot, and from there just bummed around the park hitting whatever we could while the rain fell. Sadly we didn't get a chance to ride Superman. Once the rain became fairly steady they shut it down for the day. Positive impressions: The park was MUCH cleaner than I was expecting. Hats off to them. I've heard some horror stories about the last few years but if yesterday was indicative of their normal operation then all I can say is anybody complaining about how the park looks must be expecting Disney which isn't really fair. I was pleasantly surprised by how often we were forced to use the... paid storage units (seriously TPR, automatically replacing my words with things like YOLO and fluffy bunnies is a bit immature don't you think?). We chose to use them on X2.... everywhere else (full throttle, green lantern, etc) bins were provided. It was really nice to see the park care about keeping things off the ride but not feel like we were being nickle and dimed away. I was also pretty happy that the park opened Apocalypse a little later in the day. The six flags of the mid 2000s would have quit on a ride that didn't open by noon. But the best, the very best, was that there were FAMILIES there. Almost none of the thug element I had started to just take for granted as part of your SFMM experience was gone. The blatant line cutting was almost non existent. I don't know if it was because of February or what but it was really really cool to see SFMM nice, clean, friendly, and family oriented. Great job guys! The only downside to yesterday was just how many rides were operating with just a single train. Apocalypse (though I can forgive that one since it only opened later in the day), Gold Rusher, Batman, Ninja, Viper... all running one train. The worst offender however, was when we rode Viper in the late afternoon we saw the X line was really short. Just the straight away from where they split your group up. We decided to give it another run. Turns out X2 was running single train in the afternoon. That minuscule line took an hour to get through. I can forgive most of those rides on the list... many of them are very very short or poorly attended... but X2 should never run single train. You really should have 2 or just close the darn thing. Any trip report wouldn't be complete without me calling out poor rider behavior, however. The things people will do never cease to amaze me. On Full Throttle a little girl was a solid 4 inches too short to ride. What does mom do? Point her daughter, who is doing her best but not QUITE succeeding to keep the tears at bay "Wait over there" alone while she rides by herself. There was no other family with them. Grr for parenting fail. Also when X was running single train, my friends and I split ourselves into two rows at the station (there were 4 of us). We found two rows that also only had 2 people so we figured we could ride together o n the 2nd train. The two guys in front of me rode one rider at a time, leaving a seat empty, so the other guy could hold their stuff. How selfish can you be? It's a dollar. You're wasting everybody's time behind you over a dollar. Grr for considerate ride optimization fail. All in all I had a great day and was really very impressed with SFMM and how they're currently running the park. It was clear that, for the most part, they were giving a darn about whether we were having fun and you know what? We absolutely did.

Thanks everybody. I appreciate all the info. It's also good to know that I shouldn't rely on February to protect me from the lines as much as it used to. Think I'll head to Throttle for starters and see how it goes. Question re Flash Pass: Do I have to get gold? I can get the plain old regular one and ride rides while it pseudo-waits in line for me yes?

Thanks again, exactly what I was hoping to learn. Anybody been in the last weekend or two? Has the park been busy?