crazydude

It's definitely really cute.

From my experience, the dining pass hours are enforced. However most employees are unaware of the restrictions, so if you try to buy dinner past 7 30, they will try to ring it through, and the system will deny the card. This will probably just result in comfusion and you can probably convince them to give you your dinner. They may give you a warning about when dinner ends, or they may refuse you right away if they've increased awareness of the specifics of the program to their employees. I generally just abide by the times when possible. As for the post above me, they will probably scan your fingerprint next time you go. Every once in a while they let people in the main gate without finger scans to alleviate massive lines, I assume you attended while this was the case.

No offense, but I feel like you are ignoring the fact that very sophisticated programming exists in the control systems of the thrill rides of today. Writing a program for two lift hills to automatically sync trains is something the amusement industry is readily capable of.

Right outside the main gift shop. There will be a long line for people buying wristbands, and a very short one next to it for people exchanging the bought online printout for wristbands. Hope you guys have fun Jeremy, I'm here right now to see how the first night is going.

Just FYI, the train that was pictured in the maintenance yard is the third Psyclone train that has not been used for Colossus backwards over the past couple years. The two Psyclone trains that were sitting on the Colossus transfer track have disappeared along with the Colossus trains. I can attest that that third train has been sitting exposed in that maintenance yard for a while, as I was one of the 6 who made it through the whole 36 hour marathon, and it certainly hasn't moved since then. - Spike (Nick Inglis)

Aw man, that really sucks. I love Ninja so much, I really don't want the park to have any reason to want it removed...

I'm not sure why people keep repeating the sentiment about the park maps, I feel like at this point it's pretty obvious the new maps won't debut earlier than March 22 with namtab and (allegedly) the new kids coaster. I'm pretty sure magic mountain considers this the 2013 operating season still. I personally don't care. I've been to the park plenty of times in 2014 and have yet to be inconvenienced by any pieces of paper with last years date on them.

X2 has been closed since September or August, can't remember exactly. Jeromy, if you've yet to actually purchase the flash pass, I would actually save your money for the summer. I was at the mountain this past Sunday and it was super dead. Perhaps if they actually get the word out about X2 reopening they may get a decent crowd, but we are basically in the offseason now. I just don't want you to regret spending money that doesn't actually save you much time. Happy to hear that both you and coaster guy will be there on Sunday. I'll try to make it out to maybe meet up? If you're reading this Ed, this is the guy you rolled back on Superman with over this past summer.

Corndogs Dole Whip Float Monte Cristo All you can eat BBQ Disneyland does food pretty good Jeromy, you just have to find where they excel.

Spending Christmas Eve in a park with at least 15 coasters operating could be worse.

At SFMM, if you ride green lantern first, Batman will seem pretty forceless. And the GP will wait hours for that green mess.

As far as I can tell, one of the two trains on Apocalypse runs much smoother than the other. This might be why it seems so inconsistent.

Really? Family (6) Lucy Tugboat, Sierra Sidewinder, Pony Express, Wipeout, Gr8 Sk8, Woodstock Airmail Thrill (9) Screaming Swings, Silver Bullet, Revolution, Riptide, Supreme Scream, Xcellerator, Perilous, Vertigo, Windseeker Seems like they went back and fourth to me. Sierra Sidewinder and Pony Express don't count as family rides, since their height requirement is 48" (well, 42" for Sidewinder with an adult). They might be tame, but the height requirements deter families from being able to ride together. I think Knott's have done a great job of adding a good mix of both beginner and intermediate rides to complete the influx of thrill rides installed from the mid 90s through 2004. I think the park is due for a real thrill ride, but that may still be a few years off. In the meantime they're doing a good job on focusing on detail and appealing to all ages, which is important. The theme park ecosystem in LA has a pretty specific balance, and all the parks operate knowing their individual place in it. Disneyland appeals to younger children and families, with a few thrill rides for the older kids and adults, Universal caters to families seeking intellectual property rides, but mostly skews to teenagers, and Magic Mountain focuses on coasters. Knotts gets everyone else, as well as a lot of Disney guests seeking an extra park experience. Magic Mountain know they can get away with slacking on park upkeep because the GP will always come ride the coasters. Likewise Knott's know that they exist to cater to people looking for a well rounded old fashioned theme park, so they focus on offering a large variety of rides and keeping the park look nice.

Yesterday at the park I overheard a good quote from a random six flags employee about the YOLO closure. "People in Germany are working on fixing it." On a much more somber note, RIP to Paul Walker of the Fast and Furious franchise, who passed away in a car crash about a half mile from Magic Mountain this afternoon.

X2 is apparently waiting for a new lift chain. The park has confirmed that it won't be fixed in time for fright fest. It's been claimed that it may not open until December. They were working on it a couple weeks ago with a crane, but I imagine they were just removing the broken chain.

Sadly, I can't see them actually running both sides on Colossus until it's closed for the rebuild. I've been riding Col all summer trying to get in as many rides as possible in case it did close before the end of the year, and the right side has simply not been touched since they switched operations over to the left side sometime around 6 to 8 years ago. The maintenance required to get the other side running (probably replacing all the rusted out steel across most the track length) would be completely out of SFMM's range. Personally, if I had to guess, they will probably run Colossus backwards during FF and then go back to the Morgan trains a few days into November. They'll bust the B&M's back out in Spring when they debut the backwards chassis on BTR, and spread some fanfare. Around then they'll probably just scrap the Morgan trains, and keep the B&M running backward through till the end of either June or July, when they'll close the coaster down, and we'll all get to wait until August 29, 2014 to get the official announcement of Iron Colossus (or will it be Colossus Steel Coaster?). Batman backwards will definitely not be permanent as the special chassis they've built for the backwards operations is meant to travel throughout the major Six Flags parks over the next handful of seasons. The new kids coaster certainly came out of nowhere, but I can't be too surprised by SFMM spending a relatively small sum to achieve a technical 19 coaster count. I would strongly hesitate to get your hopes up on anything too all-family oriented or actually interesting, as they clearly haven't figured out what they're actually installing yet. I do find it a little funny to see them add another coaster to Bug's world, as I've noticed that Magic Flyer seems to have very little ridership these days. Not little as in little kids, but little as in no kids interested in riding it. I always see a super bored ride op just standing in the station, waiting for someone small enough to want to ride it, but probably just turning away TPR members. As for Hurricane Harbor, I'm not a water park fan, so I could sort of care less, but I have noticed that Venom Drop seems to be very scarcely attempted these days.

They put the B&M trains on the transfer track like three weeks ago, so we are guaranteed our backwards rides in October.

I was at the park the last three days. YOLO was only running one train on Tuesday. Back to normal operation on Wednesday.