SoCalDude

Hey Robb - I am a long time reader despite the post count. Anyway - looking at new4.htm I LOVE the idea of the update, but I think it is a tad too "texty" Maybe if you put some spacing in the tables to separate the text from one update to the next. There is great spacing between the right and left columns, but not he updates in their respective columns IMHO. Also I would not say make the thumbs bigger - but make them taller. This would give you more room for text and spacing, but it would require a bit more work making a thumb that size. And ya, it is hard to tell what the newest update is - maybe you could put the newest 1 or 2 update(s) at the very top of the page under the announcements section and name it 'Most Recent Updates' or something along that line.

The video shows Tigger locking up the kids arm then taking a swing at the kid slapping him in the face..... granted it was not a full on slap but Tigger meant to hit the kid.

ya ya ya ya....... I miss the Peoplemover very much so!

Those were some crazy coasters!! My wife really wants to go to this park - not for the rides but for the product lol.

I like how they have the Chinese Acrobats performing shows three times daily... I mean when I think of the "wild west" I think of Chinese Acrobats and nothing else. And this and maybe a Legoland in a few years? Kansas rocks!!!!!!11!!1!

I think hitting up X first thing was the best move we made. There is no way I would wait in a line as long as X got later on in the day.

LOL great photos and captions! Looks like a load of fun

I am just gonna pull random quotes and reply to them lol -- "Knott's Berry Farm - Best Fried Chicken" YES!! And it is a long-standing tradition also - LOTS of history. Very good stuff. "My favorite "theme park restaurant" is Rainforest Cafe." I do not count this as a theme park food place, I see people on many boards acting like it is because many of them are in the same area. Ok, my votes in addition to Fired chicken at KBF mentioned above. If you go to ____________ park, you HAVE to try their ______________ Going to stay with Disneyland on this one.... it is a HARD call between the Turkey Legs and the Dole Whips.... do I have to pick one of them? My favorite "theme park restaurant" is ________________ Easy - the Blue Bayou at Disneyland! It is better since they re-opened and sitting there with the boats going by is amazing. When you combine those two it is one of the best I have been to easy.

Three is the one you are looking for and the one at Legoland - where is the other one? I would love to see pics from the other two also - to see how the LLCA one holds up. There are some pics I took of the LLCA one here

The Gold Rusher loves me! .

THE CHICKEN SUCKS!!! haha - just messing with ya But each park has its 'haters', it just goes with the territory. Myself - I disagree with your list

Great TR! Glad to see you had fun, I was just there a few days ago and had a blast also. It is also good to see some of the rides that were closed on my visit open on yours.

Not positive about the discount because I do not have a pass. I think it was a great deal for us. We wanted to get on as many rides as possible and we think this made it possible. The lines for some rides may have been short, but the line with the VIP Thrill pass was nonexistent. So even if the regular line for a ride was 20 minutes we would get straight on – and a saving of 20 minutes is a saving of 20 minutes – and think about that for *each* ride you go on. Also add in the free meal and drink and the 25% discount on merchandise plus the other few perks you get. See picture below – the text is a screenshot from the SFMM site. My wife and I already decided we will get it again on our next trip. VIP Thrill pass info

Time for a long winded and long overdue review. If you do not like to read and just want to look at pics go here: http://www.maj.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=119418 There is TWO pages of pictures there – click the ‘NEXT’ on the lower right part of the page to see the second page. Ok, so this was my first visit to Six Flags Magic Mountain since 1993 so I was not sure what to expect from the park. I had heard all the horror stories about the park being overrun by gang members and the extreme disarray the park had fallen into over the years. Despite all these tales I was really looking forward to having lots of fun at SFMM! The visit started out great even before we started on our quest – I was lucky enough to win two adult passes on ebay for $21, so that saved us a good amount of cash even with the BOGO Coke deal that I was planning on using. We left my Mother’s house in Culver City a bit after 8am and got to the parking lot gates a few minutes before they opened them at 9am. This gave me a good chance to get my first peek at X and a few of the other rides – the butterflies in my stomach were jumping! According to the news the temperature got up to 109 degrees the day we were there and it felt like it was well over 120! We spent over $30 on water and made good use of the water rides during the day. IT WAS HOT!! We decided to get the VIP Thrill Pass (all day Flash Pass) since we saved so much money on the tickets and we wanted to ride as many rides as possible. This turned out to be a GREAT buy. Now I take it they do not sell many of these things since the guy at the ticket booth had NO idea how to ring it up and had to get help from a co-worker and each time we purchased some merchandise (a total of 4 different times) each cashier had to ask how to apply our 25% discount. We did not see any other of these passes all day and some of the ride operators had to read the passes to figure out what they were. We went on every ride that offered the flash pass option with the exception of Roaring Rapids, and the ONLY ride that had people using the Flash Pass that we saw was Tatsu! We felt kinda silly using the pass on some rides like Psyclone – since there was no wait for that ride and the ride operator seemed shocked somebody actually used a pass on this ride. Over the course of the day the VIP pass worked out great, I would not hesitate to get it again and would recommend it to anybody that does not visit the park often. I think the best part of the VIP pass was the free meal at the Mooseburger Lounge! I say this not because of the food (I would rate it a 4/10 on the food quality) but because sitting down and being able to take our time in an air-conditioned restaurant with refillable drinks was perfect. It was 109 when we visited the park and the Mooseburger was just what we needed. Had it not been for our free meal there we would have got some even-more-crappy meal at one of the random hole in the wall food stands and eaten outside in the HOT and sticky shade (and would have gotten NO free refills on the drinks!). Even if you do not get the VIP pass I would recommend eating at the Mooseburger for the benefits I mentioned. Ok, so the rides – we went on a total of 19 *different* rides. A very full day! I am not going to alk about each one of the 19 different rides we went on because this is long enough already lol. What I will do is give highlights…. Goliath was down all day we were there, or at least each time we checked. We also missed out on Superman, but we did go on all the other “big” rides. We skipped all the carnival type rides and kiddie rides. The first thing we did after sitting thru one of the worst pre-park-opening celebrations I have ever seen was go to ride X. It was kinda tricky to find it since the signs were not the best and we had no idea where we were going other than “over there”. The wait for X was only a few minutes – we walked up directly to the loading area. I have to say X was the BEST ride we went on all day! I had no idea where my body was going or what it was doing! But it really did knock me around and I really felt it for awhile after the ride. From X we walked over to Tatsu riding Viper and Revolution (thanks to the VIP Thrill pass) on the way over. Tatsu was a great ride! The first time it freaked me out since I have never ridden a ride in the doggie style position! And looking down that HUGE drop going up the ramp was a feeling that I can not quite describe. Thanks to the VIP Pass we rode Tatsu 3 times in less than 30 minutes. We came back to Tatsu later on in the day and rode it 3 more times but the wait was a bit longer thanks to the late-comers holding Flash Passes. But riding Tatsu 6 times in one day was a blast and I wish I had ridden it more! Later on in the day we went on Ninja we actually got stuck on the ride! When the train started to go up the ramp at the end it just stopped and we were stuck there for about 20 minutes. We were NEVER given a time frame of how long we were going to be stuck and we were not evacuated from the ride (we were stuck next to the stairs). A ride operator did stand on the stairs to watch over us while we were stuck. When they did get the ride un-stuck they never said anything like “we are sorry” or anything like that, the ride operators just talked amongst themselves as we exited the area. After getting stuck on Ninja we decided to go ride Superman and began to walk over towards it. On the way to the ride we noticed we did not hear it running, something we could hear when we were much further away from it… yes Superman broke down! When we started to walk away from Superman I noticed what I think was some sort of Supervisor, she was wearing a light blue button down shirt and I recognized her from when we exited Ninja. I approached her and said Hello and explained to her that we were on Ninja when it broke down and how we wanted to go on Superman but it was broke. I asked her if there was some sort of front of the line pass we could have since Superman did not offer the Flash Pass option. She was happy to give me 2 passes and told me that I was welcome to use them on “any ride that I can’t use my VIP pass on” later on in the day. She was very nice and I thanked her as she went off in the direction of the broken Superman ride (That AFIK never re-opened that day). One of the rides I really loved to go on again was the Gold Rusher. When I was a kid I LOVED this ride! It was my first ‘coaster’ when I was a kid and it just has great memories for me. I remember the long lines that this ride had and was wondering how long I would have to wait to go on it this day….. the answer was 5 minutes! I was a happy man It was great to take a ride on the Gold Rusher and take a trip down memory lane. On the way out we still had those front of the line passes and decided to try to get a free ride on X. We know that X is one of the rides the FOTL passes are not accepted on – but we figured it was worth a shot if we were nice about it. It felt kinda weird walking up the exit and having everybody stare at you giving you the ‘WTF do you think you are doing’ look. As we got up to the exit the ride op looked at out VIP passes and the FOTL passes and called somebody down from the top of the stairs. Being very polite we explained how we got stuck on a ride and were planning on using the passes on Superman but the ride never re-opened. She paused for a second and then said that they do not usually accept the FOTL passes on X but since I was a VIP she would go ahead and let us use them this one time. Score! We did have to go around to the other side and we boarded the ride on the part where they have people get off. So we went on X as the first and last ride of the day – and waited less than 15 minutes total for both rides – not bad bookends for the day if you ask me. Since we had the 25% off with the VIP Thrill pass we made good use of it! I was very happy to see what was very low prices for the merchandise compared to what I am used to (DL, Sea World and Legoland). I was expecting to pay like $20-$25 for a shirt, but the ones I saw were less than $15. We spent a good amount of money despite the cheap prices and 25% off. One thing I was surprised at was the lack of selection of branded shirts. I was also very surprised to see all the non-Six Flags shops – especially Disney items in the park! That really threw me for a loop when I saw that. We really had a blast! When we left the park just before 9pm and were exhausted! The park was just as great as I recall. We are already planning a return visit… in the winter time! I am posting some pics below, but as I said at the start of this post (that you probably forgot by now) I have lots of pics here: http://www.maj.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=119418 There is TWO pages of pictures there – click the ‘NEXT’ on the lower right part of the page to see the second page. Insert random Log Jammer joke here. They sooooo need to bring this thing back! Why walk up a hill when you can take a ride up a hill?? When we were stuck on Ninja! I think this ride op thought he was an Asian tourist or something... FREE refills in the Mooseburger! niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice! Just what I needed!! My wife said taking a shower in the men's shower felt GOOD! Should I be worried?? I love the Gold Rusher and it loves me! My wife and doggie style action in the same picture! YES!! They better let this muscle woman in quick! YES! $7.50! w00t! My first real life view of X! I was very impressed.

Go to Disneyland / California ADV if you want theming and a classic park with great all-around general rides. Use the Fast Pass for Space, Spash and Indy in DL and for Soaring and Screaming in DCA. But you can skip DCA and not miss much. Go to SFMM if you want the 'OMG' types of rides. It is not NEARLY as bad as people make it out to be. You do not go to SFMM for a pretty theme - you go to go on a ride and think you are going to die. Get there when the park opens - get to X as fast as you can and ride that when the line is short. Also use Flash Pass for Tatsu - and spend the rest of the day going on rides and not waiting int he two longest lines in the park. Go to USH if you want to say 'Oh, thats cool' often at all the Hollywood stuff and do not care about going on rides. take the Studio Tour - its kinda the point of the park Skip Knotts.

Very true indeed.

They have programs that read and input that text with no problem. If somebody is going to spam they are going to do it despite what protection you put up.

Great TR - had a good snort at the comments! Ya, that would be great -- (couchclickherecoughclickherecoughclickherecough* Gotta give the n00b some credit

Ya, it really did pop up out of the ground in what seems like overnight. I know I was not the only one that was scratching our head looking at the site and the date a few weeks ago.

Ok, so this is my first TR here, so if there is some sort of hazing ritual for me - bring it on! Ok, so Legoland CA (and YES that counts as a theme park thank you very much!) opened up its newest area this week and I must say I am impressed with it. They call it “Pirate Shores” and if you even walk into the area there is a very good chance you will get wet! This is the first addition to a LL park with the new ownership, so seeing how it was done was an eagerly awaited test of what may be to come from the Merlin ownership in the future. The area consists of a few different areas, starting with the two water play areas – one for little kids and one for bigger kids. Both are very well laid out and just flat out fun. The little kid area consists of little foot pools where the kids can get their feet wet, bounce type of swings and Duplo themed elements that shoot out heated water. The bigger kid play area is fashioned after a pirate ship with two play levels. It is impossible to go near this thing without getting wet, and the water is not heated. There is two water slides for the kids, one smaller red one that was popular with the younger kids and one slightly larger tubular blue one that was more popular with the bigger kids. There is countless ways to get wet in this area, water shooting out of the floor, squirted out of hoses, coming out of tubes, etc. But the two major sources of water was two LARGE buckets of water that dump a very large amount of water every so often. The bucket in the back is a tad smaller than the one in the front, but both drop so much water with so much force it really does give you a good heavy soaking (trust me!). LLCA also has two rides in the area. One of them, Treasure Falls, is not open yet. It looks like a VERY cheapo carnival ride and nothing more. There is NO themeing to the ride –in any way-! It is a simple metal ride that takes you up, drops you down and gets you wet. I was told it was not open yet (and I quote) “because they put it together wrong and it did not pass the safety inspection”… umm ya I have confidence! They had to special order a replacement part that got there the day I visited (or so I was told). So lets hope they break out the instruction book for the out-of-the-box ride THIS time! The other ride that is up and running is called Splash Battle and is a very cool little ride! The line was LONG and as with all LLCA rides, it is a slooow moving line! If you are in the SoCal area you may have seen the ads for it on TV, well the ride looks nothing like what you see in the ad. The boat is the same as it is in the ad, but really that is it. There are 4 water cannons on the boat, two in the front and two in the back and you shoot the water by spinning the thing on the sides. Up to three people can fit on each side as long as at least one of them is a kid on the small side. As you go along on your path you get close to other boats and you can shoot them with your water cannons. You can also shoot people that are not on the ride at certain spots – so watch out if you are just looking at the ride! The fact the boats can shoot outside of the ride must not have been known, as parents parked their strollers in an area that DID get wet (sorry little babies! Your stroller is all wet thanks to Mommy!!). They also have a good number of water cannons that non-riders can shoot you with as you go by (and as far as I could tell you could also shoot them in return). The themeing of this ride is great! I do wish the giant skull and shark were made from Lego elements, but I will let that slide. One of the things I found funny was a VERY blatant rip-off of a very popular icon of Disneyland (see pictures below!). One of the things I really liked about this ride was the ride elements that were shooting water that you expect to turn off as you go by never go off! That took me by surprise and was a nice change. My kids and I had a GREAT time in Pirate Shores! It is a great addition to the park and will be a popular hang out in the hot summer sun! If you are going to the park take a change of clothes and a TOWEL! We forgot our towel and were forced to buy a $15 dollar "towel" that is about as thick as a paper towel! Overall I would give this area a 7/10 with the only real downside being the cheap looking carnival looking flume ride. If they do theme the area and at least cover the cheap looking metal I would bump this score up to 9/10. Sorry for being long-winded, if you actually read it all – thanks! My two young ones at the end of a fun day with the newly acquired $15 paper thin Legoland Pirate Shores towel. DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS!! Ok, seeing the pirate in jail holding a bone trying to get a dog’s attention that just happened to be holding a set of keys in its mouth meaks me want to sing “Yo ho, yo ho a Disney rip-off for me!!” The backside of water!! I thought of that all on my own! YES! WHY did this picture have to come out blurry!!! Ahhh but its still a great shot of Lego dude taking a major leak! Is he (she? he-she?) looking for Tums?? I think so! Look at the gas bubbles it has! Nice cheap, non-themed metal! Great work guys! The closed ride thanks to the top notch LLCA staff putting the ride together WRONG! More wetness – the kid n the yellow hoodie made me laugh. I hope that thing kept him dry! This is the area the other bucket soaks when it takes its dump. SPLASH! When it takes a dump, it takes a serious dump! Notice how all those walkways are getting a good dose of water! The bigger kid water play area. Looks nice and calm- but whats up with that large bucket up there?? A view of the ride in action. And yes, I did get wet standing in this spot. The entrance and long line for the Splash Battle. People GO HOME! But I do love that sign! These guys are there to meet you as you enter the area. They do not move and are they really begging for money with that empty treasure chest?? This is the boat you ride on for the Splash Battle ride, also the one you see in the TV ads where the ride looks 100% different!

Ya it is a nice ride to go on. We do not go out of our way to ride it, but if we are in the area then we get a few rides in.

I thought I would jump in this thread to ask my own questions. I have not been to the SFMM since 1993(ish) (when a riot broke out after a TLC concert) so I want to get the most bang for my buck on my visit. We (my wife and I) plan on going on either a Fri, Sat or Sun in the middle of July, so we expect it to be VERY busy. I want to take advantage of the "Flash Pass" - I know there is two options $15 or $20 (weekend price) for 4 tickets. OR the VIP Thrill Pass for $79. With the free food (a $20 value correct?) it seems like a good deal.... 80-20=60, for $60 I could get 12 flash pass tickets and no free food. So it seems like a good deal. BUT I understand only about 10 rides offer the Flash Pass option? What rides are they? I really want to go on the new stuff (lol, new as in new since 1993). And we plan on being there for the bulk of the day. Is $80 per person a good value? Do you really need this? I recall the lines being like 2 or 3 hours long per ride when I was a kid..... Also FTF - for jumping in on your topic I will tell you that Coke is having a promotion with them. Any can of Coke (drink the coke first lol) will get you a free admission when you buy one admission. That I think is the best deal out there. I know there are special cans with the promtion on it, but the ad I hear on the radio says "any can of Coke".

Getting into LAX then going down to SD the very next morning then back up for shopping is not the best idea. LA -> SD is at least a 3 hour trip, and that is with little traffic. If you are driving in or around LA add an hour to what you think it should be.... traffic really sucks there! Plus the way you have it you will be drivng back and forth and back and forth many times. Start north and work your way south - or the other way around. Maybe the operating days for Six Flags and Legoland may mess you up a bit - so keep an eye on that. Here is a list of the order of the places you are going starting from the north: Six Flags (closed weekdays in Oct.) Universal Studios Knotts Disneyland Queen Mary Legoland (closed Tues and Wed in Oct) Sea World I know Legoland is about 35 miles north of Sea World - and Disneyland is about 70 miles north of Legoland. Dunno about the rest.

Dude - Legoland 8) the roboarm coaster they put in is kinda cool if you do level 5 - whips you around pretty good. Plus it leaves marks on my shoulders for a few days lol.