CoastersOnly

Bring a friend days are always busy especially the ones on weekends. Again, just not true either given our past experiences or even this May when we brought friends and waited no more than ten minutes for Medusa (and basically walked on the other two times).

Maybe we just got too damn lucky because in 2013 and 2014 we had nothing but awesome times whenever we went. Not a single crowded offseason Sunday at Discovery Kingdom at any point in the year (always avoided Spring Break/Summer, naturally) and we most often went in September and October both years, usually twice each month. Seriously was dead every single time with the worst wait occasionally being Kong at a little over 20 minutes since there's usually one car. To put it in perspective, Superman barely ever got down the little stairs outside of where you board the car. Yes, barely past the stairs. The line never even snaked around in both years we went. Ever!

A few personal things that I don't really get: 1) There is no way that Tatsu isn't deserving of being a top 50 coaster. It's the best of its breed, thrilling and exceedingly creative with a good environment as well since there's a lot of trees around and the like. I personally think Magic Mountain just gets dissed a lot in the community and it basically causes their coasters to all be sorely underrated. Probably doesn't help parks in Californial, either, that 2/3 of the country is closer to the non-western states and thus probably don't get out here as often. X2, for example, is one of the most thrilling coasters on the planet and the only one of its type in North America. Probably should regularly be near the Top Ten. On the other hand, it's been a pleasant surprise to see Twisted Colossus move up the ranks real quickly. It really is a wonderful experience that only gets better with each ride and its one flaw is that the boarding can often be woeful (they miss the mark often) and thus eliminates the dueling aspect entirely. Had one afternoon where we rode it three times in a row and only on the very last hill climb (the sixth) were we finally able to face off with another car. Riddler's Revenge is the best of its kind. If you don't like stand-up coasters, that's fine, but I don't get why a well designed ride like that gets so criminally ignored and it probably doesn't help that people see it as like the eighth best ride in a park that's absolutely crowded with coasters. And then there's Apocalypse which is, without a doubt, the most underrated wooden coaster in the entire world. It's all killer, no filler and never ceases to be a fun attraction. It not making the Top 50 is the biggest omission by far on this year's ranking. 2) Tower of Terror is the best dark ride? WTF? It's honestly an awesome experience and through mere coincidence I actually ended up working in that damn park years back (and yes, it's still their best ride). But it's not as good as, say, Spider-Man over at Universal which routinely won this category years back. Like why would some old attraction like Tower of Terror suddenly jolt up the list against improved competition? 3) The Water ride listing always makes my mouth salivate a bit thinking about Islands of Adventure. You can hop on Dudley Do Right, Popeye and Jurassic Park all in a row and it's sheer enjoyment overload for anyone into those sort of rides.

This one grows on you, I think. The more I've ridden it the more I become convinced that it's one of the best coasters out there. Period. I also think you can really only get a fair opinion of a ride if you don't have to actually wait for it (and we go to Magic Mountain when the park is dead). Any time you have to wait more than half an hour to get on a coaster, you're going to want a truly killer experience to make up for all that boredom and discomfort you just went through.

Went on Sunday, brought in two friends for free, and it was basically disastrous. First time I've ever gone on an offseason Sunday with no special event and have had it be extremely crowded. Took an eternity just getting into the park. We then went towards V2 and were surprised there was an actual line (hell, there wasn't even a line last year on that awful cheerleader Sunday!). We waited a little over ten minutes, maybe 15, and got on so it wasn't the worst thing. Then came The Joker which I've never ridden since it didn't even open until Memorial Day (and we got burned trying to go the Tuesday after Memorial Day which turned out to be a high school grad day that led to us leaving as soon as we parked). We waited 45 minutes for it (which honestly looks like it may have been a shorter line than Superman or Medusa which seemed about an hour apiece) and I've got to say that I'm pretty damn impressed. It's no Twisted Colossus as it's a lot shorter and the most clever aspects of that one (dueling trains, steampunk theme) aren't on this one while the ride is about half as long. Everybody was hungry (my girlfriend and I have never actually bought food in the park since a one-off visit back in like 2011), so we headed to the back of the park since there's more options and we would figure the lines would be shorter, but to no avail. Literally would have been about an hour to grab anything so we decided to go to the Medusa area and maybe pick up food on the way. Got in line for the food near SkyScreamer and the line didn't even move for five minutes. I suggested that we just leave the park and go to a restaurant, followed by either try a late excursion to Waterworld (where we could get them in free and have a couple hours if the place wasn't packed) or some mini golf. We went with the latter. All in all, a total waste. The amount of time just spent getting into and out of the park (waiting in traffic, walking over, waiting in security and entrance lines, taking the bus back) along with the half hour it took just going around in a circle through crowds aimlessly looking for food was probably the biggest nightmare of all. We're considering not going back for the rest of the year. We got these passes last fall at the cheapest possible price ($60 - although I think they even had $50 if you buy four or more back on Labor Day 2015) and had a two day coaster marathon at an empty Magic Mountain, so we certainly got our monies worth, but it's not even worth taking the 20+ minute ride over to Vallejo to just get burned once again like we have three out of the last four times. Too many people have caught on to the year-round schedule and having a new, heavily advertised coaster isn't helping matters. It's just not worth rolling the dice and running into this same problem again, especially when the only major things for us are to get some rides on The Joker and VR Kong since we've done everything else to death.

They're only open until 6 today, so I imagine the students mostly stayed there until closing. Otherwise, there's likely a lot of kids that didn't even get into the park by noon and it would be ridiculous for their school to have everybody meet back at the bus at four or whatever. Those teens would literally get on The Joker and that's about it. Today's attendance actually might have been alright compared to how it generally is even on those offseason Sundays, but the problem lies with the demographics. When my girlfriend and I go on offseason, the parking lot can be pretty damn full but it's almost entirely families with younger kids, leaving the thrill rides to have nobody on them. These were all teenagers today and a thousand teenagers alone means two hour waits for Joker and Medusa right off the bat. They aren't going to all wander over to the dolphin show.

The park was only open until 6 today despite the crowds. We usually go on off-season Sundays. And aside from one instance involving cheerleaders last fall, we have gone at least a dozen times to the Vallejo park with basically walk-ons for Superman and the like...with Kong being the only occasional line at 20-30 minutes if there's only one train running. The park is literally a dead zone in the fall, winter and spring on Sundays that aren't on Holiday or Spring Break weekends. We don't even show up at opening ever. For Magic Mountain, we've gone mid-week in May. Nobody there. Even if we had beat the schools today (which was impossible because I was getting off work this morning), it would have meant a whopping single ride on Joker and then the park would have been immediately filled to the brim. I can just wait until the Fall when nobody is there and ride it to my heart's content.

Instead of going super early on Friday, my girlfriend and I had decided to go on Tuesday given that she was going to take the day off anyway. Seeing that the hours were limited and that it was right after the holiday weekend demand, it surely was the sensible idea. We got there this morning and the general parking lot was emptier than I've ever seen it before! The fact that anybody would actually try and go on a Tuesday after a holiday weekend must have been lost on DK and we were in for a great score. But... The. School. Buses. Immediately upon arrival, we noticed hundreds upon hundreds of teenagers walking the path to the park. By the time we got down to the tram area, hoping a miracle tram arrival would get us past a lot of them and quickly into a Gold Pass line (if there is one) before opening, we realized that each bus was basically packing three teens to a seat, meaning there were literally going to be thousands of people in this park and all of them the sort that would immediately be running for the brand new Joker. Seriously, I could just count the numbers that I had seen and realize that freakin' ride was going to have three hour wait times today, and who knows how many unseen were already in the gates before we got there a little after ten to find parking. I told my girlfriend that we had two options. We could either brave it, get in and enjoy the water rides since the teens would all go to the coasters first which is kind of a plus since they are usually closed offseason when we actually go. Or we could just cut our losses and go. We did just that, heading back to our car and finding an alternate day plan involving a hike nearby. Meanwhile, the parking lot line turned into a standstill as bus after bus of school kids kept coming in. Sorry, but waiting out there in 90-plus degree heat with screaming teenagers and their sweaty bodies inches from you for hours for a single ride that potentially could break down due to being new is the very definition of hell. I'm not sure what fun these kids could have really had spending half a day waiting for one ride as the park is only open until 6 or whatever today. It's clear that Six Flags saw an opportunity to sell a bunch of cheap tickets to high school students and pack the place and when you take into account family members that drove up separately in their own cars, we may have been part of a mere handful that were not tied to a high school. In the end, I'll ride the Joker, but it will be in October at the earliest since September is basically the only chance to use our Waterworld passes for the last time when the crowds aren't insane. It's a shame to have to wait so long, but we're now in the summer and it's going to be chaos.

Someone on the Instagram post a page back where DK revealed The Penguin mentioned turning V2 into Batman. All that would require is a paint-job. Personally, I think the answer is actually pretty obvious. The Flash. The color scheme already is similar and the ride is all about that very fast start. They should make it Flash themed and that would be incredibly easy to accomplish.

Friday should be the day as the park will be way less crowded compared to the rest of the weekend. Even if the passholders only being able to ride The Joker on Saturday makes the lines somewhat bearable, the rest of the park will be a nightmare given that it's memorial day weekend. I'm actually wanting to get some other rides in...got our passes last fall on the one off-season Sunday that was ever crowded for us (cheerleader day) so that was a nightmare where we got on all of two rides. Then took some friends for free a few months back but Superman and NotACoaster were both shut down. Bummer. Hoping to finally ride Superman for the first time in nearly two years and get in a rapids ride or two since that's always closed off-season. God, and a few pages back I saw someone asking which of the two parks they should go to on a specific day (GA or DK) on July 4th weekend in order to avoid crowds. Um, buddy, I hate to break it to you...

Quick question. I heard that they don't allow the VR goggles on the front of Revolution, probably because this policy allows the people not riding with VR to experience the front seat view...is it possible that sitting up front for that ride can actually lower the wait time since most people want to ride with the goggles? I mean, simple math, if there's a smaller percentage of groups of two that BOTH want to ride without VR than their are two-seat groups per train, it would then contend that you can get on the ride faster without the goggles (and the front seat to boot). Not to mention the rare occasions where multiple groups of two want to ride without VR which wouldn't slow down the non-VR line at all.

For the record, X2 is still their most popular coaster and could even out-draw Full Throttle most of the time when that one was new (although X2 was also not even running when Full Throttle first showed up)...I'm sure the situation was the same with Twisted Colossus. X2 is their most thrilling attraction and it's also the coaster there that ranks highest in the nerdy annual roller coaster surveys (with Tatsu and Goliath being the other steel ones that hover in the Top 50). It's no surprise to me that they can still charge extra for it. It does look like in the near term, especially with the park being dead, that Revolution of all things will be the one getting the most attention due to the VR gimmick. You wonder if without it if anybody really would have had much interest in the refurbishments. I'm actually glad because I've been dying to give this a try and I'd rather knock out at least one ride of Revolution when the park opens than be one of the few people in line for it and then have to waste a small chunk of time behind the early morning "crowds" at X2 and Tatsu. Looks like everybody will be just headed for the Revolution instead.

It's definitely the best time of year to go to the park. We only go to Magic Mountain once whenever we have the season passes (we live in Norhtern California) and we make a two day trip out of it in the first week in May on weekdays. That time period smushed between Spring Break and Summer is an absolute dead zone. When we went two years ago, our second day (a Thursday) there was an interview given to us about whether we planned on riding Gold Rusher and Ninja (we had ridden every coaster the previous day with the exception of Revolution which was down and the two kiddie ones where you need a child to ride - Canyon Blaster and Magic Flyer). Anyway, the woman giving the survey noted that there were only 1500 people in the park the previous day. And guess what? Thursday was even more dead for us. How dead? Goliath was running only one train and there were so few people that they were letting anyone stay in their seats and ride it for as long as they wanted. We rode it three times towards the back. I blacked out a little you-know-where near the end of the ride on the second trip and then quite a bit on the third. Definitely had to sit down for like ten minutes after just to rest, but it was fun. Anyway, Speedy Gonzalez coaster was being built last time and now there's Twisted Colossus and regular Batman instead of backwards versions of both (Batman backwards was terrible, Colossus backwards was ridiculously fun). My dream is to be able to go on one of these dead days and ride every coaster in a park where the total continues to inch higher about every couple of years. But I've never been successful since they usually shut a ride down for maintenance during that off-peak period or something goes haywire. So, has anybody managed to get on all 18 of this checklist in one day before? It wouldn't shock me if nobody has done it now that the new version of the Revolution has only just opened up and during peak time to boot (Spring Break). It really takes a miracle day for there to be no crowds and every coaster running. Every Coaster In One Day (18 Total Experiences): The New Revolution (VR) - 2016, 1976 The New Revolution - 2016, 1976 Twisted Colossus - 2015 Speedy Gonzales Hot Rod Racers - 2014 Full Throttle - 2013 Green Lantern: First Flight - 2011 Road Runner Express - 2011 Apocalypse: The Ride - 2009 Tatsu - 2006 Scream! - 2003 X2 - 2002 Goliath - 2000 Riddler's Revenge - 1998 Superman: Escape from Krypton - 1997 Batman: The Ride - 1994 Viper - 1990 Ninja - 1998 Gold Rusher - 1971 Would like to know if there have been any ways you can ride either Canyon Blaster or Magic Flyer without kids. If I remember correctly, one is kids only and one only allows parents riding with children. To me, I'd love to chuck in the drop ride (which always is part of the attempt) and the three water rides to be complete (just because they're more fun than most flats). My girlfriend will never ride Drop of Doom and she hates Riddler's Revenge saying it hurt her legs the last time she rode it, so I guess I might be embarking on this quest alone...of course, the mission is usually an automatic fail when you walk in the gate and see a sign stating that something is closed already.

It's a sequence from the Pacific Rim movie and the seats shake and water is sprayed at you a few times. And that's after you watch a pre-show that's an over-extended trailer for the same movie. I am honestly dumbfounded after riding this thing. Simulators are meant to actually simulate things, not just shake around while you watch a movie. The two old dinosaur programs they had before this were absolutely fine and so have been the ones that Great America have used over the years...they aren't always great, but they're a decent way to beat the heat and have a unique ride experience. For my money, the Days of Thunder one was the best ever in Northern California...real simple concept and perfect execution...really, they could have simulated ANYTHING and it would have been a lot more fun than whatever the hell this was... Honestly, I can't count how many of these attractions I have been on over the years...this is the worst of them all. Other than that, Sunday was super quiet with no lines. Just a shame that so many rides aren't running at the moment (although the shows all surprisingly had at least a single run yesterday). Friends we took for free/discounted ticket were kind of disappointed that Superman and Chaos Coaster were both closed.

Not only did they not inform people of the changed date (to the best of my knowledge), but they were telling people that they could get a special pass and come back before December after people had reached the middle of the line. Right, so I just spent 20-30 minutes in line to get my pass processed and I'm just going to leave this line and force myself to have to come back before another deadline and then have to sit through some sort of line again to finally get it processed? Um, no thanks, the twenty minutes remaining from that point to the processing area will do just fine. Honestly, you can't make this stuff up.

Heck, we've hit up spring Sundays that weren't near spring break and even Sundays in late August and it was basically quiet. People who don't go to theme parks often look at us weird when we say there's absolutely no lines there and that they should come with us some time for free ("surrrrrrrrrre there aren't any lines..."), but really there are absolutely no freakin' lines at DK on Sundays outside of the peak season. Kong with its single car with two seats per row is the worst of the coasters in terms of lines, usually, and rarely is it any worse than ten minutes. Medusa is usually a few cars wait, same for Superman. V2 is a walk-on, Roar is often a few cars wait at most. Boomerang is a walk on (yeah, as if that's worth bragging about). As for Roar being closed, it hardly leads to a big increase in lines on off days. Not everyone that would be in line for it is necessarily going to be in line for a coaster at that same moment, and even if they were, it would add a couple trains wait or two to the more popular coasters. Yes, Joker arriving will lessen the other lines a bit, but it's also going to bring a ton of people into the park as this will be their new flagship ride. But, I mean, if it does lead to Sunday's being way more populated and 20 minute waits for a lot of these coasters, that's still a livable experience. This past Sunday was a friggin' nightmare.

Went today (Sunday) in order to ensure that we could process our season passes and end up with gold ones & parking before the November 1st deadline as our schedules weren't going to allow us to go any time in the near future. It was hell on earth. Between the cheerleading competition, plenty of families wanting to process their passes before said deadline and folks arriving for the late night haunts of Fright Fest, the place was PACKED. Parking lot was quickly nearing capacity when we arrived before the noon opening and the endless stream of cheerleaders heading towards Superman around noon was very disconcerting. We've gone to this park nearly a dozen times the previous two years and never had to wait more than twenty minutes for a coaster with the exception of one or two rides on Kong. In short, it's usually dead on Sunday. And I mean, dead. We also had attended during the cheerleading competition day a year or two ago and despite the large crowds over at the lake front pavilion, very few from that event actually seemed to want to check out the rides, making Roar that day's lengthiest line at a mere fifteen minutes. Today, it seemed everybody involved with this event wanted to get in ride time making this probably the busiest non-summer Sunday of the year. We got in and decided to check out the Dare Devil Chaos Coaster for the first time. Wait time was about twenty minutes. The ride? Nothing more than a torturous carnival experience and certainly NotACoaster. Between the train disappointingly being moved around the loop by a conveyor belt, the stomach churning g-forces near the bottom of the loop and the blazingly hot sun (the weather report totally blew it), this was one attraction and afternoon that made sure I'll never even remotely consider riding it again. Heck, even the ride's operator called Hammerhead this ride's predecessor which once again proves that it's NotACoaster. Medusa was at least an hour long line and was in the process of having just broken down when we walked over to it. The crowd sizes made Kong and the swing ride out of the question as well. Keep in mind that we're used to barely waiting at all for these attractions and have ridden them an endless amount of times over the past two years, so almost nothing was going to get us to wait more than twenty minutes for 'em. We got to the other side of the park and noticed the soul crushingly long line for Season Pass processing near the front, but at least V2 was a walk-on and as fun a ride as ever. Superman looked doable when I had taken a peek at the line (just one lane coming out of the door), but in actuality, there were four lanes wrapping around from the ride's front, making it about a forty minute wait time at least. Ugh. We got all the way there and then fled. We then sat in processing for about forty minutes in the hot sun and went home. A total waste of time and I can't help but imagine that a lot of families are going to end up using their passes far less frequently simply because they had a rough day today when in actuality you can attend the park almost any Sunday outside of the summer (and maybe spring break) without any real crowds. I mean, it's gotta be a little disheartening to try and get the whole family there at opening and there's already a massively long line for Medusa as six hundred cheerleaders have flooded the ride before noon. Luckily, we've done it all enough and live a mere half hour away that it wasn't the worst experience of my life (or even at this park given a nightmare day of crowds many, many years ago), but it was just another bad feather in the cap of what had been a horrible morning and afternoon. My only hope is that the great value of the Six Flags Season Pass hasn't become less of a secret because neither of us want to bring friends on what were previously dead days and have to wait in line an hour for Medusa or have the park just be a massively populated area no matter what once The Joker arrives. At the very least, we'll get some good Magic Mountain action mid-week in May when it's totally dead down South, but I can't help but be a bit disappointed with today's godawful crowds, once again proving that no theme park is worth it when crowded.

I still love the insanity that this park's B-list coasters get ignored so much when they'd be top-tier coasters at almost any other theme park. Viper, Apocalypse, Riddler, hell, even Scream would be top ticket attractions almost anywhere else. Just curious, is Twisted Colossus in the top tier in terms of line length? We know it's clearly X2, followed by Tatsu, followed by Goliath in popularity and I'm sure Full Throttle can't be much further down than #4 at this point...would be interesting to see if what was their least popular coaster recently (or maybe Scream, to be honest) has suddenly become one that everybody has on their hit list. Oh, and Superman's either right ahead of or behind Full Throttle. Always a ton of people still wanting to ride that bad boy after all these years. Backwards change really helped. Personally, I think Apocalypse is far and away the most under-appreciated ride there and maybe the most under-appreciated wooden coaster on the planet. It's seriously that good. Doesn't surprise me at all that enthusiasts have kept in on this list: Coaster Buzz - Top 100

They tend to close White Water Safari during the non-summer months...like, as far as I know, my gf and I went only one time when we knew it would be open (a mid-August Sunday that surprisingly wasn't crowded) and had the chance to ride it (and of course, it happened to be a chilly day). All of our other visits specifically had us avoiding the summer, and thus, the ride wasn't open. It's just not nearly hot enough in Vallejo in the off-summer months to run it although it's kind of ridiculous that they tend to turn it off in September in order to set up Halloween stuff...perhaps the muted crowds by that point mean they don't care to have it on and spend all that money running it, but it's usually more than warm enough in that month. The key entrance reason for the finger-stuff has finally been revealed due to their new policies. Basically, they no longer need people's photos on the season passes because they can just use their fingerprint. I think it's partly a security measure to crack down on low lifes from potentially trying to use the same passes (like letting your similar looking brother use it one day because they'll never tell with the grainy photo). For those that actually use lockers or take their passes back to the cars at lunch time (or for whatever reason) it allows you to get season pass perks without having to carry the cards around...so there's that too.

Decent flying coaster at California's Great America getting replaced by a little waterpark...kind of says it all about which audience they felt like courting. Revolution at SFMM adding breaks and horrifically painful over-the-head restraints when this used to be a smooth ride that let you shift around from side to side like an old woodie. Viper at SFMM adding a ton of breaks because the g-forces were too intense. The ride is now a lot of stop-and-start and super slow at points...this was once the mac daddy of all coasters in the park prior to X-2 and Tatsu coming along and was an absolute blast from beginning-to-end...yeah, there was an insane health risk given the speed of the ride and those crazy pretzels and other crap in it, but it sure was fun. Now, it's just something you ride and are happy about because there's never a line.

The Joker should lift you up backwards (and by that, I mean a towering mechanical joker lifting up the train with a hand) and then spins the train around so you're facing forwards and then The Joker shoots flame out of its big mechanical flame-shooting mouth and that pushes the train down the hill and then there's now a loop in the middle of the ride that's way, way bigger than the one on Full Throttle and the ride doesn't end but you do it three more times in succession and then at the end you get a free picture of you and your friends on the ride because they're being nice and then if you don't come out smiling there will be a worker in the park that will ask Why So Serious? and then you'll smile and you can go look at an elephant later. Otherwise, I will be disappointed and will be spending all of my time on Boomerang.

Yep, it's going to be a smoother and less painful ride with a few neat new touches. I'm a little worried about Gold Rusher and Ninja because the last time my girlfriend and I went (mid-week in May 2014), they actually had people giving oral questionaires to visitors waiting in line and they asked specifically about only those two coasters (after a few general questions) and whether or not we'd be riding them. We told the woman that we'd been there yesterday and rode every single coaster (except for Revolution which was down for annual maintenance) and she was then able to finish the survey right there. Clearly, they're looking at those two coasters as well for future upgrades and/or removal. I really hope they don't lose either as they're fun rides and both are unique compared to the rest of the park's offerings...MM has a world-class array of coasters that all offer a different experience with the only real overlap being between Revolution and Full Throttle (to some extent...type of cars, track color, focus on the loop, location, etc.). Ninja in particular is a lot more fun than people give it credit for and a very unique kind of ride that you don't see in most places, even if I'm sure a lot of its appeal has winnowed thanks to the removal of the trees (boo!).

As far as cleanliness is concerned, who really cares...I mean, your ticket prices are going to be higher if they spend more on that stuff...I think most people would rather have some overflowing trash cans or stuff like that then to pay even more for a season pass or whatever. We're all in it just for the coasters. I remember working at Disney World and some older woman there saying she'd never been to Universal Studios because she heard it was dirty. I pretty much laughed my head off about that afterwards. Sure, miss out on two parks that have far more top-tier attractions than all of DW put together if you're above the age of 11 because of some silly nonsense someone said about the park being dirty. And hell, they did implement extra work for custodians and others during the time while not hiring many new workers when I visited Universal Orlando some six years ago and it turned out to be a fantastic cost saving device that contributed to the park posting record profits in spite of muted attendance growth (Potter was being built) and lower merchandise sales because of the economy. I mean, if you want a park that's going to be super focused on atmosphere, cleanliness and hospitality, then by all means go somewhere like Disneyland and enjoy paying $110 to get in...I think the rest of us that just want to ride some sweet coasters don't mind Six Flags cutting back on costs and making it come out to like $5-10 a visit for my girlfriend and I with the season pass.

Well, that solves that riddle. No big loss as I mentioned that we had no intention in the past of ever really making a day out of Discovery Kingdom with friends. I mean, in general, I don't see why they'd care...they're trying to make a bunch of money on overpriced food and merch as that's where all the amusement parks really bring home the change. I was pretty astonished to learn while working at Disney that the average visitor spends like $200 on that stuff...my family would just go home with a couple of cheap souvenirs. As far as Six Flags is concerned, I wonder if they'd even make a buck off of us if we went as often with this half priced pass as we did in the past. $61 to go to Magic Mountain/DK (and park) on 12 different visits. Last time we had a pass, my girlfriend bought two or three vending machine drinks, so we gave them an extra $12 or so in addition to the couple hundred we spent on passes. Not sure how on earth they'd make money off people like us paying as low as $51 (which was the cheapest option in this flash deal yesterday).

1. they did for me last year. I brought my friend in september in 2014 on my 2015 gold pass. It was insanely packed, the worst i'ver ever seen it. worse then my last visit even. Would not recommend doing this month's bring a friend unless you really want to. 2. I never tried using it at six flags magic mountain, but they after dffrent bring a friend days then SF:DK so my guess is no. 1) Yeah, it makes sense that the next year's passes would work for all the Bring-A-Friend perks...the e-mails never have specified only one year's pass working for that. They just say if you have the pass (or Gold Pass) that you can bring in friends on those days. So, they should work. I'm surprised you had such a poor experience. My girlfriend and I live in the area and with our 2014 passes, we went to the park eight or nine times during 2013/2014 and not one time was it a busy day (we went on offseason days all around the year. All but one were Sundays (one was the day before Thanksgiving) and one Sunday was actually in mid-August. A half hour wait for Kong is the worst we ever had...Superman: First Flight was almost always five minutes max...Roar's peak was like twenty minutes one day...V2 was always a walk-on...Medusa never really exceeded ten minutes wait, etc. I recommend taking out Kong as soon as possible on your days there until the Joker comes along as it always has the longest wait. They are usually just running one train and its a two-seater, so you do the math....I mean, it's still kind of strange that it fills up like crazy since hardly anybody is ever on Superman... Did you go on a Saturday? Because in my experience, it can make ALL the difference. We went to Six Flags Magic Mountain on four days over the life of the pass. The first weekend we went was at the end of September and having been used to Disney World being in an absolute ghost town even on Saturdays during that month, I figured nobody would be there. Instead, there were hour waits for basically every ride on the Saturday (Full Throttle, Batman, Goliath, etc.) which while much better than peak summer season was still absolutely horrible. The very next day, Sunday, the peak times were a half hour for Full Throttle and twenty minutes for Tatsu (X2 was closed due to the lift chain). Moral of the story? Never go on Saturdays. We also went mid-week in May to MM, by the way. Absolutely nobody is there. X2 was a freakin' walk-on in the middle of the day and we rode it back-to-back times at the end of our second day there. You can go to MM without the crowds if you plan accordingly. Also, it should be noted that DK draws more of a "family" audience in general due to a great flat selection and the animal attractions...on plenty of Sundays, the parking lot would actually be filled up pretty nicely, but then everybody walking to the park or riding the tram were pushing strollers or walking with small children, hence why the coasters have like no wait times. For the record, that cheerleader thing that everyone tries to avoid wasn't bad at all (especially on the Sunday we went). I mean, the walkway was LOADED with people and the grandstand area near the lake was completely filled, but basically none of those people actually went on the rides. A few of those cheer girls were in line for Roar and that was about it...again, DK just attracts a weird crowd that isn't really there as much for the coasters as you would expect. 2) Yeah, with some parks relatively close to one another for a lot of people (or even the same amount of driving), you figure they would tell you if your Bring-A-Friend perks actually worked at the other park so you could plan accordingly. We're actually much happier to have DK since we have plenty of friends where we actually live that can go with no problem rather than trying to convince them to do a ten hour round-trip drive to MM. We're definitely not going to go to DK as much with the new passes (or MM more than two visits), but we only paid half price and DK will be a different experience if we mostly just take other people this time...we really couldn't be bothered to spend a full day with friends at DK in the past when the two of us would often just visit for about 90 minutes at a time in the past, riding the coasters and going home. It's a fun spur-of-the-moment activity when you live nearby and can always take advantage of the fact that there's like no lines on Sundays outside of the summer months.