disturboed

Oooooo, nine month refurb for GR?? that doesn't sound good for my visit in March '16! Here's hoping for a really early soft opening!! I really want to ride this again now, hopefully not have to wait another 1-2 years to do it!

so what do people reckon my chances are of riding this during my next visit in March next year? Last rode in March 2014, was pretty darn bone rattling then!

Hi folks, (sorry in advance for re-post) Just after an idea here. Does anyone know based off past experience what the week before Easter is like crowd wise? Also, is the park likely to return to full 7 day a week operations in that week next year? Easter is early in 2016 (end of march), and the two times I have visited previously have been in roughly the third week of March and the last week of weekend only operation (meaning they returned to full time operation the following weekend). But in both those years (2012 & 2014 Easter a few weeks away). Returning again in 2016, but want to start getting an idea of schedule as we are only overseas in the US for about 10 nights, and 4 of those we are in Vegas. Cheers!!

Hi folks, Just after an idea here. Does anyone know based off past experience what the week before Easter is like crowd wise? Also, is the park likely to return to full 7 day a week operations in that week next year? Easter is early in 2016 (end of march), and the two times I have visited previously have been in roughly the third week of March and the last week of weekend only operation (meaning they returned to full time operation the following weekend). But in both those years (2012 & 2014 Easter a few weeks away). Returning again in 2016, but want to start getting an idea of schedule as we are only overseas in the US for about 10 nights, and 4 of those we are in Vegas.

Just trying to do some pre-trip planning here, and am after some info. Our 2016 trip schedule will bring us to SoCal in the week before Easter. We are likely to be arriving Tues March 22 and departing Sat Mar 26 (late night). Nothing set in stone yet though. Going by this years calendar, weekday operations started the week before easter. Given Easter is "early" this year, do you think this will be the same? Also, what are pre-Easter crowds usually like?

I'm having to agree here. I've only ridden X2 twice, my second ride was so much worse than the first. Before going to MM I had read all the tips on here about what row/seat etc etc to get a good ride, but I muffed it up and we got on the last row, not the first (I'm pretty sure most people would do that on their first time). The ride was bearable, but the bouncy legs issue was there. Second time around two years later, I made sure to get inside FIRST row. I was at the park by myself so I can't remember if anyone took the seat next to me. But holy moly, the ride beat the crap out of me. I tried leaving me legs loose, tried pressing them into the seat, but they still got flung around the place, my calves were aching by the time I got off. And my head, oh my poor head. The last little bit (whatever it is, i have no idea, it's all turned too mush) absolutely killed me. I was dead. I got off, walked down the exit, across the bridge and just had to sit down. I was sitting down for like 15 minutes trying to rearrange my brain and internal organs back to their right spot. I'm going again next year, and will very much be questioning whether i give it another go.

As a fellow Australian, i can vouch for Tokyo, just loved it over there. We only had a short stay (4 days) but 2 of those were spent at Disneyland and Disneysea. Seriously, all the photos you will find here on TPR do NOT do these parks justice. They are absolutely jaw-droppingly amazing, especially Disneysea. You will have NO problems with language. Most cast members have some english speaking skills, and it's very easy to purchase things such as food etc. Just learn your basic politeness words (hello, thankyou, yes etc) in japanese and you will get on fine. I have also been to Disneyland, CA twice before, it has it's own quirky things, and to be honest is not that much more expensive getting there, than going to Tokyo. So don't count that one out completely. I would like to take the kids on a full WDW resort trip on the East Coast, but I might need to take out a second and third mortgage for that.

To me it looks like the aspect ration is a bit off. It looks a bit squished up to me, which would make the hill steeper and shorter than it really is. look at the cars parked below. bit narrow

Sea World in Australia is owned by Village Roadshow who also own WB Movie World, and Wet n Wild (both Gold Coast and Sydney).

They found a home for Flashback!

PREFACE: First up, let me apologise for the length of this report. I do tend to describe things in a lot of detail and waffle on, so I won't feel offended if you just scroll through for the pretty pictures! Also you will notice a degradation in the quality of the pictures, as I left it too late and started to lose daylight. TRIP REPORT Sunday 16 March 2014 This was my second visit to Magic Mountain, the first being 2 years ago almost to the date (the last open only weekend before full time operation). I had my 2 sons with me in 2012, this time though, I was travelling solo. It was a pretty quiet day back in 2012, lots of walk-ons and minimal waits for those that weren't. I was hoping for much of the same this time around and had mapped out a strategy and a challenge to ride everything at least twice, as well as getting some pictures of the entire park. But things didn't go quite to plan. Here we go! Let's go ride some stuff! I had arrived at about 9.45am, well before the posted opening of 10.30am and the first sign I had that this day was going to be a little different to the last time I visited was the carpark entrance line. Most of the booths were open and the lines were about 30 cars deep each booth. Hmmmm, I thought, there could be a few extra people here today. Anyhoo, parked up and walked up to the entrance. Straight through security check no problems, and then through the front gates into the park! WTF, I was expecting to wait outside till 10.30am like last time. Cool! Not too many people yet, but this would change. They had blockades in place just past the carousel going to X2/Viper and at YOLOPlaza. This gave me some time to get an all-day locker for my camera gear, then I headed back down to YOLOPlaza for the inevitable rush to Full Throttle. By the time I got back there I only had to wait about 10 minutes before they opened the gates and let us all through. I sort of ran/jogged/sprinted towards YOLO and got in line at roughly the bottom of the ramp leading up to the station. Water Fountain. It sure ain't the Bellagio! 2 train operation today. I got seated in the 2nd row of the middle car of Train 1. The launch is a lot less brutal than I was expecting, although it is very smooth. A lot different to the snap-your-neck type acceleration of Xcellerator, And then you hit the loop. OMG It is SO big you have plenty of time to think about what's happening and you WILL convince yourself that there is NO way you're going to make it through and are going to roll-back. Of course it gets through and the hang time in the loop is just fantastic. Hands up if you YOLO! Twisty over Superman plaza and dive into the tunnel. All the lights and things were on, blast out backwards, bit of hang time in the middle and blast out forwards towards the top hat. Hang time! I got airtime cresting the tophat and again diving down the other side into the brakes. A short ride, yes, but it is a lot of fun. Still got your hands up? Later on in the day I saw YOLO roll back from the loop. A train had started to round the curve into the station, but it halted, the rollback train crept backwards into the station, so they emptied it and re-launched. All good, so the "evacuated" passengers got put on the second train and sent off. Upside down! Cresting. Only slightly artsy. The loop is MASSIVE. You just don't get it until you actually see it in person. I mean, it's bigger than Justin Bieber's sense of self worth! Soo close. Through the supports Still in pretty good nick, wheels haven't worn through paint yet. Here we come! Unfortunately, no wardrobe malfunctions happened here. It does look pretty cool at night! Next up, I decided to head up over the back of the park before it got too populated. Jumped on the Orient Express to the top, and while walking past Ninja noticed barely anyone in the station, so headed inside. Pretty much walked straight on the ride, jumped in the last car and away we go! It's a fun ride, although the first half seems a little lame and uneventful, but the second half picks it up, gets a bit more twisty and a bit more swingy! Hey-ya! Hey-ya! Hey-ya! Hehe, corny. Secret Ninja driveway. Not many spots to spot those pesky Ninjas! Aha! Ninja! After Ninja it was going to be Superman, but it had JUST went down! Typical! Yea, ummm, that's not real ice people, it won't cool you down. So I set off down the hill to Apocalypse, which was the ONLY coaster I ended up riding twice (so much for my grand plan). Funnily enough, it was the same in 2012, the only coaster we rode more than once was Apocalypse! 2 train ops again here. First ride, it was a 2 train wait and I jumped in the back of train 1. I was a bit wary of other peoples comments that it had become rough, but the ride wasn't too bad. Some nice (but short) pops of airtime, and the speed it barrels through the course is just great!! Fire was on, and you can feel the heat! What's better? The ride, or afro-man in the orange shirt? Second time around it was in the front of train 2 after a 15 minute wait being held at the last set of switchbacks. It's definitely not a smooth ride, but it's not terrible. Sensation of speed is awesome. Thats a lot of Toothpicks. Another not so photogenic coaster. I bought a Jeep. You bought a Jeep? Yes Michael, I bought a Jeep! (The Aussies will get the reference) Next on the list was Riddler, which was one we missed out on last time. It was a 2 minute wait with 2 train ops and this was my first stand up coaster. All through the loading process I was trying to remember the tips people had posted before about the best way to ride the silly thing, should I stand up as tall as I could, or bend the knees a little? just before they locked us in, I made the decision to bend the knees a little, so I could actually "stand" up properly and not have the family jewels crushed by the saddle. In terms of the ride, I was back in the last car and it was ok, although a bit of headbanging was going on. A different experience for sure being in the standing position, but not way out totally different to a sit down coaster. The decision to bend the knees I felt was the right one, as my jatz crackers were untouched after the ride. Now we're getting fancy Having fun Wheeeee! Following the natural progression, Goldrusher was next and although this is just a mild thrill ride with not much to offer, it is still a bit of fun, and I like the terrain aspect of it. It offers something a little different that your normal stuck way up in the air type of coaster. Some of the corners are a bit brutal and when sitting by yourself, you can get thrown around quite a bit! Good stuff. Gotta give Goldrusher some love! By this time it had already reached about 1.30pm (park open till 8pm) and it was definately getting busier by the minute. I went by Namtab knowing it was a passholder preview only, tried a bit of my Australian charm on the attendant at the entrance ("C'mon, I flew 8,000 miles to try this ride like this") only to fail miserably. So I slunk on over to Green Lantern. I don't know what the story with it was, but it seriously looked like only ONE train was in use. There was only ever one on track, it would disappear into the station and then it took a few minutes before it (or maybe a second) re-emerged! So weird. I was going to ride it, I planned to ride it, but I didn't. I can't even explain why. The posted wait was like 25 minutes, but I had access to the single rider line. I just wimped out on it. I didn't even take a photo of it! Weird. I think it was giving off some bad muju that day. So anyways, I decided to head on back the way I came and grab some lunch. You know, I felt really sorry for these guys on the BBQ. It was a pretty hot day (32 degrees......... Celsius!) and with very little cloud, the California sun was blazing! And here they are manning a massive hot plate with no shade cover or anything! Kudos to you guys, kudos. I grabbed myself a bloody huge turkey leg (a first for me) and chips and took a spell. By the time I got around to photographing, it was clean up time. Lunch done, I headed back up the hill and checked out Tatsu on the way. The line was stretching past the (closed) Roaring Rapids entrance, so I kept going up. It was time to take on Superman, and now they had both sides operating. You never know if you selected the correct way and got the side with the shortest line. I took the right side and lined up in the last row, errr, row. Would have been maybe a 2 cycle wait, but I got in earlier as a single rider, albeit in Row 2. Now, I have ridden Tower of Terror at Dreamworld (both forwards and backwards) so was a little bit familiar with the concept. The launch was GREAT, it just kept going and going, and then the ascent up the tower. The thing just kept going up and up and up!! Then the fantastic free fall which is seriously about 3 times longer than TOT which doesn't climb anywhere near as high as Superman EFK. Superman was running both sides today. See? As a point of interest, I noticed on the way through that Ninja had sprouted a line all the way up to the top switchbacks. I headed back down the hill to the rear of the park to continue my journey, and on my way I decided that for the first time ever in my life, I would pay the extra for an upcharge, and had a whirl on the go-karts. The upcharges were getting some love Heading out on track with a fairly big group, my kart felt like it had a right rear flat tyre and every time I turned right it wanted to spin out! I put it down to it being one wheel drive only. In my group, there was 2 Asian guys in a kart together who for some reason made it their main mission to hunt me down and try and make me crash. They had a faster kart so caught me on the back straight, but I had them in the corners as he couldn't drive to save his life. When he was in front of me, the driver would basically drive while turning back and looking to see where I was going. He would try to block me, or brake test me or generally be an ass. I worked out his little ploy so I would stick to the outside edge of the track and make it look like I was going to pass around the outside of him in a corner, and he would promptly move across to cut me off, but because he wasn't looking where he was going, he would THWACK! the guardrails quite hard! It was pretty funny, and it culminated in him trying it one last time at the first bend (if you know the course, it's the first right hairpin as you come out of the pits). I stuck right to the outside of the track and again he was trying to cut me off, except this time he went into the outside barrier at about a 60 degree angle which made me stop to avoid ramming him, but it also made his expensive looking sunnies come off his head and land on the track directly in front of my kart! He had no choice but to keep moving forward, all the while he was looking directly at me to see what I was going to do. After he rounded the next bend and couldn't see his glasses on the track, he stopped. I moved forward and pretended to run over his glasses like I had nowhere to go (in reality, i easily missed them), and he was not a happy chappy! He got them back next time around though, and funnily enough left me alone for the last few laps! By this time of the day it was getting quite hot, so I stopped off by Tidal Wave to check it out, and the queue was almost full. With the absolutely atrocious dispatch times and what seemed to be 1 boat operations, I gave it a miss, opting instead to get a few exit bridge splashes to cool down. On that note, I must say how great it was to have those misting signs through the park, GREAT idea. Here's a few random photos to break it up: Kicking back in the YOLOSwitchbacks, watching some YOLOtv. Eh, make up your own caption here. Random light pole. The light is on 'cos it's starting to get dark! Looking across YOLOConcretePlaza. Candy canes!! Food? Err no, let's just keep going. Flying through the air Who says Magic Mountain isn't themed? HELLO! I mean look, there is even a helicopter for gawd's sake! A helicopter with...... TASSELS???? Sign! Midway a bit empty now. Still had a few rides in the back half of the park to knock off so headed off to Scream plaza to ride this flawless floorless. Cough. Sorry, had to clear my throat. 1 train, but it was a walk-on. Got back row (can you tell I like to go in the back?.........WAIT! Not like that!). It was definately rougher than I remember, bit of head banging here and there, all up it was one of those rides you're happy to see the final brake run. Definately nothing to write home about. The wonderful Scream Plaza. They're screaming so loud it's blurring the picture! Yea, low light giving shutter speed of 1/10 doesn't do good for coaster photos I was hoping beyond all hope at least Colossus might be open before switching to backwards running the next week, but no luck. Shame. No soup for you! Next on the hit list was Goliath. Look at all these tired people. Get up! There were 2 trains running, but it still turned out to be a 30 minute+ wait. Longest wait time for me of the day. Finally made it to the station and jumped in, yes, you guessed it, the back row. I had an empty seat next to me so one of the ride ops who was 10 minutes into his 15 minute break decided to jump in with me (I had already seen him ride at least once already). Now whilst waiting at the top of the station (right near the flash pass entry to station), they were training a new ride op, telling him the signals, checking restraints and the button to press etc. So we get despatched, and I catch the trainee takes his first push of "the button". I had already heard the experienced guy say to him previously, "you have to keep it pressed until the entire train leaves the station". Anyway, two-thirds of the train has made it out, and down that little dip and SKRRRREECH! We come to a stop. The op sitting next to me says, uh-oh, they let go of the button! 15 seconds later, we get released, but we are going very slowly. We crawl around the corner and the op says "I don't think we are going to make it to the lift hill". It comes into sight and lo and behold, the lift motor has not engaged! The chain is not moving. The first two cars make it to the hill, but we then roll back to the level track. So I guess that was my first roll-back of sorts! So, now this op guy is freaking out a little bit as he only had 3 minutes of his break left and god knows how long we were going to be stuck here! LOL So we and the 2 swedish guys in front of us chat for a bit before the technician arrives to reset the lift. After about 10-15 minutes we finally get going again. The tech told us that when the whole train gets on the lift, it will stop, then restart shortly after, just so we knew what was going on. Cool. Anyway, the train kept going up and up and up to about halfway THEN stopped! It was funny hearing everyone who could see the lift from the queue go "OOHHHHHH!". Lift hill all lit up That slowing down of the lift as you crest intensifies your anticipation! Finally we got going and got to ride the silly thing! The drop and positive G's at the bottom are gut wrenching for sure! Small pop of airtime in the back, then the almost dead-stop MCBR and when you hit that helix, that's pretty intense! I don't mind Goliath at all, pretty cool for me. Zooooooooooommmmmmmmmmm! So now we were down to only a few coasters left to ride, X2, Viper, Revolution and Tatsu. Well Revolution was out as it was closed for whatever reason, now it was getting late in the afternoon, so I decided to see if X2 had died down enough. On the way past YOLO checked out the wait time which was around 30 minutes. I said to myself I'm coming back to have another go, after I have done everything else. Through the trees at Revolution's loop. Would have looked so much cooler with a train wooshing through it smashing everyone's ears to pieces. X2 was posted as 15 minutes, which was fine by me, walked through the maze of queue line and stopped just before where you get split either side. Got sent up the left side (from the queue) and was eventually sent off to row 3. Sat on the inside seat as I'd heard that was better and nobody sat next to me. Now, I remembered from my previous ride 2 years ago about the bouncy-bouncy-hurt-your-calfy nature of the ride so as we got despatched I was trying to decide on a plan to minimise the pain. Let legs hang loose, lift legs up so ankles against the restraint, pull legs as hard as possible against restraint were all options. X2=Pain This way! I've never really told anyone this before, but when I rode this coaster for the first time back in 2012, it was the first time I ever second-guessed myself on a ride when going up the lift hill - you know - thinking to yourself "oh crap! What am I doing on this?". Well, that feeling came rushing back heading up the hill "oh no I'm doing this again??!". We crested that hill and there was that slight moment of slow movement and then all hell broke loose!! Oh my GOD! That drop is insane, heading face first for the ground! Absolutely brilliant!! And then there was the rest. It was, I'm sorry to say, unbelievably bad. I got beat. Beat till I was a pulp. Nothing I did would fix it. Legs, feet, head, arms. Everything. I couldn't feel what sort of element we were going through due to the bloody jumpy movement of the cars. It was shocking. And then, and THEN! The very last little bit before the brake run, god only knows what sort of element it is, but it almost knocked me out cold. It hurt me inside. I got off the ride and slowly made my way down the exit. I seriously had to go sit down for 15 minutes to regain my composure and realign all my internal organs. I'm going to have to say, but that ride right there, just turned me off doing X2 again, ever. Oh you poor brave suckers........ bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy bouncy Are these people going to meet their doom? Lots of framework in the way! It's a hard one to photograph! Next on my list was going to be Viper, but after that ride I just had, I didn't think another rough ride would go down well, so I pushed it back a bit and thought I can do it later. It was late afternoon by this stage, and I still hadn't taken any photos, so I thought I'd better get cracking on that before i started losing the light. I almost made it right around the park before darkness set in! I did at least get some photos of Viper during the day. Inviting. There is just something about that triple loop that looks cool. #Loop-de-loop! I think of Arrows as roller coaster contortionists. Screw that cork! I checked the time and holy crap it was just after 7pm!! Bugger! Less than an hour to go and I still hadn't done Tatsu or Viper. I went straight to Tatsu and the line was about 2 switchback rows full. The shortest Tatsu has been all day!! Only one station side was in use (had been all day), but 2 trains running. I enjoyed my last ride on this, but this time, I was doing it in the dark! What an extra element that added, seeing all the lights below you, and then have them spin around etc! I enjoyed this ride quite a bit, especially that Pretzel loop, getting your back pushed into the restraint, quite intense but I liked it! By the time I had completed the ride and exited, they had shut the queue off, so no last minute re-ride. It turned out all the queues were being shut off, I didn't even get to go on Viper! Up up and away! Look maw! I'm flying! Hey you in the 4th row! You've got gum on your shoe! They were on just a little more than finger tight. I checked. You can thank me later. So with that I accepted my day was now over and headed for the exit. I had a fun day, nearly getting everything in, but I was surprised with the crowd numbers, given how empty it was last time we visited. I suspect the great weather had something to do with it. My only regret was not biting the bullet on YOLOcoaster's line at 30 minutes to get a re-ride (it probably would have been less). Coke-nose wolf says GOODNIGHT! Thanks Magic Mountain, see you whenever! TL:DR version: Went to Magic Mountain, rode some coasters. The end.

Just doing one up now for the previous weekend (Sunday March 16), should be up shortly.

I'll be there on the 16th March. Anyone know if the passholder preview applies to Australians? Also is Colossus down until it opens for backwardness?

SFMM should really control the weather better.

My little contribution: I have no idea where they are/are going, but in the airplane boarding picture, Elissa looks to be holding her passport with boarding pass, so it definately has to be outside of the US.

^ essentially that. It was bought by some Malaysian investment conglomerate or something and eventually they realised that they could make more money developing the land as an industrial estate rather than as a theme park. I had to laugh at that article when it said that the developer was looking at land around Eastern Creek. HELLO!!! That's where it was in the first place and is partially why it was never very successful! Too far out from Sydney and no infrastructure for public transport. Do miss the old wonderland though. We went on one of the very last days of operation and rode everything as many times as we could!

^ some pretty nice looking YOLOmanboobs if it is.......

Loved the YOLOCopter footage in the POV video. Good stuff.

Not true. I only just bought some Cars merchandise from Tokyo Disneyland on Wednesday 29 May. It was a Mater toy done up in flying garb (with wings and a cap etc - I assume from Cars 2 - i dunno i havent seen it). So they DO have Cars merchandise there, not a great deal of it, but it is there. It is true though that there is no mention of it in either parade.

^ Not too mention the hot meat dinner restaurant "Roast Rider"

I'm sure this would have been posted already but what the heck. YOLOcoaster has a theme song!

^ I thought Green Lantern was actually a larger version of the El Loco to accommodate the 8 person cars. Space is probably the answer there.

A short verse. "A Coaster Pee Oh Vee, is not a Coaster Pee Oh Vee, without a Weee from Robb Alvey."

So.... National Lampoon's family vacation was on telly last night, and I watched the end of it as I heard somewhere that Wallys World was SFMM. Colosuss and Revolution feature as we all know, the funny thing was the Revolution (with lap bars) POV with NO TREES! Quite a strange sight. And can anyone enlighten me, when the Griswalds are in the carpark and looking towards the park, is that a fake skyline, or is that how MM actually looked? Cos if it was real, there was some funky looking coasters there, what were they (if they in fact existed)? Oh, and another thing...... when they all get in the coasters, WHO DISPATCHES THE TRAIN??? Spooky.

Only one word is needed. Noice.