SpectralN

Aplengeist: I would think that would be a great idea for CF, I wish all this news would have came out before the Paramount aquisition. MM as a Cedar Fair property just seems to make the most sense to me. Although with all the money CF has put into Knotts would they be willing to let it go now? Would they (CF) have the money after the Paramount aquisition to purchase MM, probably not considering MM will cost some serious $$$$$$ in land value alone.

Tiburon: Great post, lots of substantial information regarding the possible Snyder business model being used in his playbook. I agree with your analysis. Thanks for that post! For those who have not read the entire post check page 17.

Well I finally had a chance to ride Tatsu about 12 times over the past 3 days. Based on my 12 rides many in the front and back positions I have to say it is now my favorite coaster at Magic Mountain and possibly favorite coaster at any park. Now granted I have nowhere near the total coaster count as some of you coaster experts although I would have to say that it is just a great ride! The fact that Tatsu utilized the terrain of Magic Mountain so well just adds that much more to the ride. Tatsu is the closest I imagine one can feel as if they were a bird flying! First off I have to say that the lift hill is probably the scariest part of the ride, going up 150+feet on a hill and looking down face first is FReAkY! I know the harness is probably very secure although not having the little backup seat belt buckle (ala DejaVu or X) made me almost lose it, traversing the hill staring down at the minature people waiting in the que, hoping and praying that the harness stays locked! The main feature of the ride doing the dive forward flip deal is just awesome and very intense! Overall a great ride, I highly recommend a night ride in the front row or any row for that matter. Night time really adds to the overall thrill level! A+ One thing I do wish they would add is a single rider line, I hate seeing so many empty seats on each train when there is a 3 hour line! Especially empty front row and back row seats! When there are parties of 2 followed by parties of 3 waiting in the loading station you see very often trains going with only 2 seats per row filled! Crazy! Hopefully there is a way they can deal with the grouping a bit better and utilitze all available seats, that way the line will move MUCH quicker! Considering the slow load times on this ride (not as bad as X but still not great! Hopefully the bugs will be worked out. None the less, it is a great addition to the park and a wonderfull ride that is now my favorite coaster, at least until the summer when I get to cedar Point for my first ride on the Force!

Cedar Point has removed there Intamin FreeFall ride, then Geauga Lake. Can we expect a SFMM removal of Freefall next? I sure hope not, it is a fun attraction. I sure hope Magic mountain keeps it!

Well it is winter vacation for most California schools so it should be pretty busy, although I did go last week which was vacation days for school and it was pretty empty, very low wait times for all attractions. So it is hard to say. I would check the weather forecast, if it is a real nice sunny day expect it to be busier than if it is overcast.

It is quite spooky how Main Street in DLHK and Main Street in the original Disneyland look exactly the same! If you drank one too many beers and fell asleep on a bench and woke up in a altered state it could really confuse someone trying to figure out where they really are California or Hong Kong Would you say the castle height in DLHK is the same height as DL California?(with the mountains just ruining the forced perspective vibe causing the castle to look smaller than it really is?)

Shock wave was one of the worlds first stand up coasters, the commercials on TV for SFMM featured the riders on Shock wave all wearing black sunglasses. The ride made an amazing sound for those waiting in line and watching from the distance. It was very fun and I was very very sad when it was taken out. Although I would have to say that Riddlers Revenge at SFMM (the worlds biggest stand up) smashes shockwave to pieces! Although for nostalgic reasons shockwave will forever hold a special place in my heart! Does anyone know where the ride is going to next?

Hi, Does anyone have any information about the status of FreeFall at SFMM, I am sure they are busy with Tatsu now (a very good thing) but before Snyder cuts (or increases ) funding to parks I hope FreeFall gets back up and running. It is a fun ride and probably one of the only rides that still gives me that "drop in the stomach" feeling that I wish I still got on other rides! Any information would be greatly appreciated!

Being a taller than average person at 6'3 I find that the OTSR's on Revolution give me bad head and ear aches due to my head/ears banging back and forth between the restraints, this seems to be especially bad on Revolution. Although I am happy to say that I have had many many rides pre OTSR days (back when there was wood railing in the ques) it was an amazing ride. The lines for rev are much shorter now though

Fine. I respect that. I still cannot believe you managed to ride every coaster at MM that day you took that insane picture of the crowds. I just do not understand how you could have done that! Either way, keep on coasting! Spectral, I have my opinion and you have yours

Questioning a parks business practice (In this case $49 year round admission) is not "Bashing the park" This is a forum reviewing Theme parks. In this post I bring up a review of the practice of practially giving away a years admission for such a undermarked and undervalued price. Over the past few days this post has been here I have heard many peoples thoughts on the matter. For those of us who have not had the opportunity to travel to every theme park on the planet we learned that this is apparantly a pretty common practice at many parks, (although judging from the public financial information regarding most of the parks who subscribe to this practice it does not seem to work all that well since most parks mentioned practically giving away the door are or have been in poor financial situations, is that a coincidence or not? I am not the expert that is why I bring this up as a valid discussion point) I do not see anything wrong with having a open minded discussion regarding the implications of giving away your door and how that can affect customer satisfaction in the future. P.S that saturday shot of all the people waitining in line to get into the main gate is a case in point, not one of those people looks even remotely happy, they have not even go into the main gate yet. Just wait until they see a line for any of the attractions. Do you think someone going through that experience will have good things to say about Magic Mountain to there freinds, family and out of town relatives? Again, I am not "bashing" the park, I am trying to initiate a discussion about this apparent park-wide nation wide trend of substationally reducing your prices to get the masses through your gates only to be stuck in a 4 hour cue. And the other downside of having your park used a cheap weekend year round teenage sitter service. Many of you say this is not the case, I think otherwise but that is ok, we do not have to agree on some or any of the issues and it is still ok, we can still be freinds and still love coasters Spectral

Robb, I respect your opinions as I know you respect mine even though we may disagree about this or that. Perhaps I was being to harsh on the $49 play pass holders and should be dishing out equal text regarding the $22 dollar general admission coupon or cola can holders I just think if you as a company or buisiness see youself as worth so little the customer will see you as worthless as well. Sorta like if someone with zero self confidence is trying the dating scene out, they are not likely to attract a positive mate with the projection of zero confidence. I think MM needs to get there act together and say, we are the Shi* our park is awesome and its worth $49 for a day entry and $100 dollars for a restricted season pass. I think if they really worked on getting there act together and paying there employees better and having a better overall vibe buisness wise and customer service wise it will help the Park and the company in many ways! Which for us meens more money for capital invesments and park improvements ( like perhaps getting a new tram with some shocks or something!)

Joe, I guess your right. To the publics eye the park is not worth over $49 for a whole years admission. Sad but true I guess. Perhaps if things turn around the company will believe they are worth more than a $15 dollar entry with a coke can or a $49 all year entry pass to every single Six Flag theme park! Just seems like if you are a company you do not want to admit that you are worth so little.

Perhaps I come of too strong via the text world trying to convey my thoughts to others. I love Magic Mountain, I am not trying to "bash the park" I support the park with thousands of my dollars each year. As a park supporter who is concerned with the financial well being of the park and employees, it does not make too much sense to undervaluate your offerings and at the same time alienate the casual full paying guest who is only going to leave with a bad taste in there mouth if they have a less than satisfactory experience at the park (and lets be frank and honest it happens quite often on many levels at MM) Get people to come back to the park by making it fun and keeping them excited, not by practically giving away admission. But I guess as far as I can remember they have done this with the $10 coke can admissions, but never at this level of the all year passes. It is an amusement park buisness not a FastFood stand, (running a fast food stand would be much cheaper and easier) P.S. Robb: your little post critiques are great I feel like I am being graded on each post, which frankely I am failing at apparantly

Robb, Thanks for the reply. You forget about the buy once 8 dollar sovenier mug that you can bring back all year for over 40oz for a 99 cent refill. Ok so lets review, $49 all year entry $8 souvenier mug =$57 one time fee per person per year. Day use (drop off carpool lane = No $10 parking fee) 99 Cents for 40oz of coke. Ok so Magic mountain will make about lets just say 5 dollars per season pass holder per use minumum. (many guests both season pass and general public catch a ride out, walk out or bus out, to In-Out or Mcdonalds to eat rather then spend lots of money for crappier than even mcdonalds food) So what are the downsides for the company- More buy one day enter all year users filling up cues causing the big buck spenders to be stuck for longer in cues which are already too long which equals no big spenders at the concessions stands while they are stuck on DejaVu's 2 hour cue or X's 4 hour cue or Riddlers 3 hour cue or Goliaths 2 hour cue. Magic mountain is not a movie theatre, I hear your point But the movie theatres don't offer a season pass just to get people through the gates and to the concession stands because there are lots of other costs. For Magic mountain the overhead is so huge for Maintenance, Employee wages, POWER and Utilities!, INSURANCE (Insurance alone must be in the tens of millions a year) I just do not see MM's logic, they would have to sell a ton of churos and colas to compensate all this and how can you sell when people are stuck in lines that do not move? It would seem to me that you would want more paying customers paying full price, spending lots of money and enjoying themselves and coming back again because they had such a great time and the lines actually moved then having , day care users, riff raff, gangsters, ruining the vibes and clogging up the cues for everyone else. Causing the day users to vow never to come back again and spread the negative word. As much as I love the attractions at magic mountain, at this point I would NOT bring my family there, it does not have a safe family feeling, with the gangsters and lots of fights breaking out, the cursing the lack of respect for anyone else around. Its so bad they have to have airport metal detectors at the gate! I just do not see how $49 dollar all year passes can help this company in anyway. No matter how many sodas they sell. It cannot cover the losses the company sustains on a number of levels.

Before the obvious negative posts regarding SixFlags and Magic Mountain begin please hear me out. Magic mountain has one of the largest selections of coasters in the world. There are a number of record breaking and unique coasters at the park. Many of the rides are kick butt! Now why on earth would magic mountain sell a season pass with coupons and no blockout dates for $49 DOLLARS?! Reasons why this doesn't make sense to me: Reason 1: you are undervaluing your offerings, (basically saying the park is worth only $49 for a whole year of use) Reason 2: You are becoming an even cheaper daycare center than disneyland upsetting the paying customers. Reason 3: the day care users are not even paying the $10 to park because they are taking the bus in or being dropped off by the carpool! Reason 4: If you dont make any money from the thousands of elementary school and high school kids who live in Valencia with nothing else to do but go to magic mountain and hang out, you are A: not going to have any more money to pay decent wages, B: have money to upgrade the facilities and upkeep the painting etc. C: you are just going to alienate the general paying public more than you already have! Reason 5: OK lets see thousands of people spending just $49 a year once and frequenting the park at least every saturday makes ZERO cents from any angle! What the is SixFlags thinking? It is one thing to charge a premium rate for a season pass which makes sense and keeps people from just plopping down a one days admission for all years day care maddness. Why would Magic Mountain do this? Perhaps they just figure that most the general public will pay $49 dollars to get the season pass and be so pissed off by the end of the day they will never come back again (but what does that accomplish by just now alienating a customer and we all know in the buisness world that one bad customer will spread the word to over 10 people further hurting your buisness) this is just exactly what magic mountain DOES NOT NEED. Please someone chime in on this and try and help me see the logic in this! ADMIN EDIT: While you make really good points, there isn't any need to blatantly bash the park to make them.

Great pics and report! Did S&S make any mention about the next 4th dimension coaster project apparantly happening and FujiQ in Japan? Interesting that they were displaying the X pictures, but since S&S did purchase Arrow they do now own all the designs so it does make sense to offer those attractions to the coaster market. Find out any info about this new 4d coaster if you could! Thanks!

It's back up now (Friday afternoon) we will see if it stays that way for the rest of the weekend.

If anyone has any knowledge of the operational status of X please post here. Per guest relations X was up this morning (friday 10-28) but is now down (this is after 1 month of down time) does anyone know what the ETA for repairing this coaster are? -thanks very much.

I respect your opinon Robb but I would have to say for someone who has visited almost every park in the world and has a coaster count of over 800, you are as close to a Coaster Guru as anyone could ever be (in my book at least!) Thanks for the clarification!

Oh that RCDB photo is an oldie! It shows the ride pre double restraints. There used to only be a lap bar, Now after lawyers came in and sued for something its now a Lap bar and OTS Restraint! The ride is horrible now. The worst probably at magic mountain, along with psyclone, only causes pain, 0 fun. How can you have fun while your ears are bashing into the Over the shoulder restraints for a ride that goes maybe 40 miles an hour with one invert? I just dont get it! It is a shame because revolution is a historic coaster, the worlds first true invert and built by a roller coaster designer legend. So sad they would ruin such a classic.

Oh ok, I see now. Just a quick question: Does CAscreaming really get a 1 while Mforce gets a 2? I am a little sad that you rate X a 5 oh well, you are the coaster guru so I cannot get too mad

I just opened up that file but I have no idea how I am supposed to read the chart, there does not seem to be any instructions on how to decode the results.

Thanks Robb! Wow 800 coasters? INSANE!

Wondering what the major differences between a vekoma Flying Dutchman coaster and a B&M flyer are? Vekoma- "Stealth" - "Borg assimilator" B&M- "Superman Ultimate Flight" - "Air" etc.