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The Six Flags Magic Mountain (SFMM) Discussion Thread


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Since Fright Fest is currently the subject, I might as well put this out. I'm planning to go to SFMM on the first weekend of Fright Fest (Oct. 5/6) to ride Colossus backwards and I'm wondering how busy it will be. SFMM is my home park, so I'm not going to do a credit run, I just never have been to SFMM during Fright Fest.

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One thing I would recommend doing at Fright Fest is the dinner that is offered. Similar to Knott's pre-scare, the food is okay, and you get special attention from the actors. Our group also enjoyed the musical numbers they put on. It was a highlight of our Fest experience.

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Fright Fest has been better the past few years. some really great new mazes last year with Blackout being the standout (IMO). I think it's odd we haven't heard any announcements regarding FF yet.

 

As far as the "Annual Maintenance" sign in front of Full Throttle, that was just the sign they already had made up for when a ride is down to 1 train due to maintenance. It's not "technically" Annual Maintenance, but it's funny nonetheless.

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I do have a feeling Iron Colossus is coming in the near future, but I doubt it will be announced with this year's announcements. Unless the transformation is supposed to be done for 2014 (which is possible but unlikely), it would probably be too early to announce it. I think we're more likely to see hints of Iron Colossus appear on the park's Fright Fest website when that goes live. If a message appears anywhere promoting this as the "last time ever to ride Colossus Backwards", it's a pretty good indicator something will be happening. While the ride could close after Fright Fest, I wouldn't be surprised if SFMM waited until after winter break to close it as they could use the extra capacity during the holiday period and they'd still have 18 months to transform the ride and have it ready for summer 2015.

 

How is Fright Fest at SFMM? I never hear a lot about it.

 

It's okay, but if you can only visit one of Southern California's halloween attractions it is the one to skip. I often go because, unlike Knott's, I can get in with a season pass and the park often adds special features to some of the rides, but the event really is the weakest in the area (in my experience).

When it comes to the Halloween events I prefer US: Hollywood hands down. Purchase the pass to cut in line. It's worth every penny. You can ride a majority of the rides and all the haunted houses quickly instead of waiting an 1 1/2 hours per haunted house.

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Awesome! I'm glad to see Yolo is back to two trains.

Every time I view this thread I start to choke up...

All I want in life is to go back to the West Coast!

All of you west-coasters don't know how good you have it! So beautiful.

Maybe I'll plan a trip when MM opens their next large coaster...

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So I was at the park all day Saturday & started by following the plan crazydude sent me in a PM. Here's how it went:

 

I got there pretty early, and I was one of the first 5 people through the Gold Season Pass gate (no issues with my pass not being from SFMM directly). I went directly to Full Throttle and was on the first train out in the back row. I had done the front on Friday night and wanted to compare the experiences. I think the back has better forces when you go through the reverse launch & backwards up out of the tunnel, but certain anatomical regions did not enjoy how they hit the restraints coming over the top hat at the end. I much preferred the ending in the front for that reason, but up front doesn't have quite the same force going backwards up out of the tunnel. I didn't notice a significant difference in first chunk of the ride, including the loop itself. Overall, I think the front is preferable just because it's more comfortable at the end. It's a pretty good ride, but I don't think it's something I would really want to wait more than 30min to ride. It's not a mind-blowing ride, though I do think it is fairly re-rideable. I absolutely love the hangtime in that loop.

 

I then hi-tailed it over to X2. They wouldn't let me ride in the front, but I was able to get in the 2nd row so it wasn't too rough. I was on the 2nd train out. I still think this ride is one of the cooler ride experiences out there, but I would hate to wait an hour or more for it and get stuck in the back--it just bounces way too much. I can't wait till B&M get around to making a 4D coaster--theirs might actually be pleasant in more than just the front. I don't know how really re-rideable this coaster is as I've only been able to ride it three times ever. (I was a bit bummed that it went down in the early afternoon & stayed down the rest of the day, so I wasn't able to re-ride.) By the time I got off, the main gates had opened and the queue was already beginning to stack up in a major way.

 

I quickly headed over to Tatsu and was able to get on nearly immediately in the 2nd row. I'm a fan of Superman: Ultimate Flight at my home park (SFoG), and my favorite part is the pretzel loop & the way it goes from positive to negative G's. Tatsu really didn't do that for me. It just seemed like it was a bunch of inline twists & a forceless pretzel loop. I know a lot of people love it, but I think I prefer SFoG's S:UF.

 

After Tatsu, I headed up the stairs to Ninja. It was a walk-on. I don't like much that Arrow has made, but I've always been a big fan of the Arrow suspended coasters. Ninja and Vortex at Canada's Wonderland are both in contention for my favorite suspended coaster. I think they're great rides, and quite re-rideable.

 

Next was Superman: Escape From Krypton. Growing up, I remember seeing a bunch of things on TV that featured this ride (back before they flipped it backwards, of course), and I always really wanted to ride it. When I was at SFMM last year, it was closed because they were putting LL:DoD up, but Saturday I was finally able to ride it for the first time. I walked into the line and was going to be on the very next train out, but that side went down, so they walked us around to the other one & put us on that one. Having been on Top Thrill Dragster & Kingda Ka, I've experienced a more forceful launch, but Superman was just a super enjoyable ride. I really loved the hangtime.

 

After Superman, I headed back towards Apocalypse. It had been closed Friday night & I had heard rumors that it had been down before then, but I thought I'd check anyways. Sure enough, it was still down. The most plausible answer I heard from anyone was that something happened to part of the track & they were having to re-track a section, but I have no idea if that's accurate or not.

 

Since that was a no-go, I hit Goldrusher, which was a walk-on. I don't know that I can think of another old Arrow "mine train"-type coaster that has an all steel support structure.

 

I then hit Riddler's revenge twice using the single-rider line, which basically let me walk straight on. The standby line was only 1-2 trains. I rode it once towards the front & once near the back. I think this may be one of my favorite stand-up coasters. I really enjoyed it.

 

Next was Batman. If you've ridden one, you've basically ridden them all. It was still super fun & intense, though. I maybe waited one train.

 

After that was Green Lantern. I did the single-rider line, and it took a few minutes for a group of 3 to come through. This is a ride that you ride once. It's just too insane for a re-ride IMHO.

 

I headed out of the DC Universe and went for Scream!, which was only running 1 train. It had a posted wait time of 30min, but I was able to get on in ~15. In my opinion, this coaster was a waste of money & parking lot space. It did absolutely nothing for me. It was like SFMM just decided they needed their coaster count to be one higher, so they plunked this thing on top of their parking lot & called it a day. It was also rougher than I was expecting. Strangely enough, I really enjoyed Bizarro at SFGAdv...go figure.

 

Colossus was next. I thought it was a nice old woodie. I didn't notice anything awful about it that would dictate the need for the rumored Iron Colossus treatment. It was a walk-on.

 

Then I headed for Lex Luthor: Drop of Doom. The single-rider line let me get on in very short order. I really really enjoyed it. This is easily my favorite drop ride.

 

Goliath was the first ride that I actually encountered a line for (it was about 1:30 or so). The posted wait was 2hrs, but the line didn't look that long. I decided to grab a bite for lunch and eat while waiting to pass the time. I think I ended up waiting a little over an hour. Afterwards, the line looked to be about 15min shorter, so I decided to go for a re-ride. Goliath is a good ride. It's different in that it's more about speed and turns and positive G's than bunny hills and floater air like most other hypercoasters.

 

At this point, my plan was to head over to X2, wait however long (60-90min?) for it, then do the same for FT and Superman, with Viper & Revolution in there somewhere. After that, who knows? Maybe more Ninja or Riddler's or Batman or whatever. I didn't really have a plan. I decided to swing by the Flash Pass office to see how long the wait for X2 was, and they told me it was down, which was most unfortunate. I had originally planned on getting a Flash Pass, but decided against it when crazydude sent me the plan I used and had resigned myself to just having to wait for rides for the rest of the day. But I ended up getting a gold FP ($10 off w/ a season pass, plus 5% off w/ Discover). The FP supervisor hooked me up by letting me do FT without having to go platinum since X2 was down, and she also went ahead and gave me an instantly available reservation for Superman.

 

So I ended up taking the Orient Express up to Superman, riding it (on the other side this time), and then reserving it agin. Since I had ~25min to kill, I took OE back down & rode Revolution 2x via the single-rider line. I didn't have any issues the first time, but on the 2nd ride I had a ton of headbanging. Revolution may be the first Schwarzkopf coaster I haven't really liked.

 

I took the OE back up to Superman, rode it, and then reserved Tatsu. While waiting for my time to come for Tatsu, I headed down and (against my better judgement), rode Viper. It sucked about as bad as I thought it would. I really don't like most of these old Arrow loopers. I got in line for Tatsu & it went down for some unexplained reason. They were running both stations (but with only 2 trains) and made everyone get off both trains. Meanwhile, one of the ride ops donned an orange vest & went running down into the restricted area beneath the ride. She headed over towards Orient Express & looked like she was talking to someone there & then ran down the hill. No idea what happened there, but I waited for a few minutes and gave up when it was time for my next Superman reservation. When I was almost at Superman, I heard a loud cheer, so I think it came back up then, but I would have still had another 10-15min of waiting ahead of me, so I wasn't too broken up about it.

 

Superman was again awesome. After that I hit Ninja and then took OE down to use my pass for Full Throttle. Then it was time to ride Goliath, so I did that. By the time I got off Goliath, it was after 8. I hit Drop of Doom twice back-to-back via the single-rider line (and would have continued if 7 people hadn't all come up to the SR line). I then hustled my way over to Batman & hit that before coming back and hitting Drop of Doom one last time with my FP (SR line had closed). [shout-out to the TPR-member ride op I met at DoD] After that final ride on DoD, I headed back over for one last go on FT before the park closed.

 

In total, I was able to get 24 coaster rides in, plus 4 rides on Drop of Doom, all on a Saturday in August, and without getting a gold flash pass until something like 4:30. All told, it was a pretty fun day, and while SFMM has a long ways to go to get to the level that some other parks operate at, it wasn't disappointing like my visit last year was.

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Great TR.

 

I agree with the above, I'm not a huge fan of Tatsu, but the pretzel loop being forceless? I've never experienced this. In fact I'd probably like Tatsu a little better if there was a little less force in that element.

 

As for the rest of your day, glad you had a decent experience. As for Revolution, it's a shell of it's former greatness and it's sad that people who didn't ride it before 1993 don't know what an absolutely amazing ride it was. It would probably still be my favorite coaster in the park if it wasn't so bad now. At this point I don't think I've ridden it in 2 years. I may have ridden it for it's 35th bday last year.

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I understand why a lot of people don't like Tatsu, but I've never heard people say the pretzel loop is forceless. Maybe you needed to ride near the back, half the time it's TOO forceful for me back there (and I've ridden 2 S:UFs).

 

It wasn't that it was forceless. It was that I didn't get the same sort of pop from the positive G's to negative G's coming out of the pretzel loop that I was expecting. Maybe it's just because I was up near the front. I was planning on riding in the back later in the day when it went down & I had to bail. The other thing is that I wasn't the hugest fan of the layout compared to the S:UF we have at SFoG. The way that one interacts with the terrain just makes for a better ride experience, IMHO. Tatsu felt like a bunch of inline twisting way high up just for the sake of inline twisting & being high (I know they're not all inline twists, but they didn't feel like other distinct elements when riding).

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I've always thought the S:UF's were pretty dull, and nowhere near as forceful as Tatsu, but that's just my opinion.

 

Have you ridden the one at SFOG? The ones at SFGAm & SFGAdv have no real interaction with the terrain, but SFOG's does and is the better for it IMHO. Look up a POV of it on youtube. I'd post one, but it appears TPR doesn't have one & I don't feel right posting somebody else's POV on here.

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I've never been on the other B&M flyers, just Tatsu. Tatsu has its graceful moments and with its views it offers, I actually like the gracefulness it offers...for me, it gives me a chance to appreciate the views while 'soaring through the air.' When the dive loop comes up (only rode it n the last row on both times I rode it), I found it to actually be pretty intense! Pretty much on par with old school B&M intensity. My lips were being stretched and had I rode this on an empty stomach, I probably would have started greying out much like I do on CGA's Flight Deck.

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I've always thought the S:UF's were pretty dull, and nowhere near as forceful as Tatsu, but that's just my opinion.

 

Have you ridden the one at SFOG? The ones at SFGAm & SFGAdv have no real interaction with the terrain, but SFOG's does and is the better for it IMHO. Look up a POV of it on youtube. I'd post one, but it appears TPR doesn't have one & I don't feel right posting somebody else's POV on here.

I see it's definitely closer to the ground, but Tatsu really just gives me that sensation of flying, since it's on a mountain and it has a few swooping drops that I like especially. But the SFOG S:UF does look better than the others I've been on.

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I've always thought the S:UF's were pretty dull, and nowhere near as forceful as Tatsu, but that's just my opinion.

 

Have you ridden the one at SFOG? The ones at SFGAm & SFGAdv have no real interaction with the terrain, but SFOG's does and is the better for it IMHO. Look up a POV of it on youtube. I'd post one, but it appears TPR doesn't have one & I don't feel right posting somebody else's POV on here.

I see it's definitely closer to the ground, but Tatsu really just gives me that sensation of flying, since it's on a mountain and it has a few swooping drops that I like especially. But the SFOG S:UF does look better than the others I've been on.

 

I guess it's just different strokes for different folks.

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With the Flash Pass are there any rides where they have to ride a ride at a certain time. I ask (oddly?) cause at SFOT, You had to list what time you were going to ride New Texas Giant and I was wondering if the same was true for SFMM?

 

 

Also is there a good food place near SFMM (Don't Mention In N' Out please)

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With the Flash Pass are there any rides where they have to ride a ride at a certain time. I ask (oddly?) cause at SFOT, You had to list what time you were going to ride New Texas Giant and I was wondering if the same was true for SFMM?

 

 

Also is there a good food place near SFMM (Don't Mention In N' Out please)

These are some good questions. Real Quick though I recommend getting the platinum flash pass with x2 and full throttle add on. You do not have to put what time you want to rude. I did all the rides yesterday twice (covered under flashpass) twice yesterday is a span from 11:00 to 6:00

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Hi everyone!!

 

I will be coming to the USA (from Australia) from last weekend of september till the 17th October. I will be in LA for 2 days and I am wanting to spend a day at SFMM on the saturday 28th. (open 1030-1800) I will be at the park the whole time and I will probably get flash pass (gold or Platinum, not sure). Would it be worth getting it before I arrive (no risk of them having ran out)? or will it be OK to wait to get it when I arrive to suss out crowds, weather, ride closures and so on?

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With the Flash Pass are there any rides where they have to ride a ride at a certain time. I ask (oddly?) cause at SFOT, You had to list what time you were going to ride New Texas Giant and I was wondering if the same was true for SFMM?

 

 

Also is there a good food place near SFMM (Don't Mention In N' Out please)

These are some good questions. Real Quick though I recommend getting the platinum flash pass with x2 and YOLOcoaster add on. You do not have to put what time you want to rude. I did all the rides yesterday twice (covered under flashpass) twice yesterday is a span from 11:00 to 6:00

 

 

How else am I gonna get all coasters in 1 Day?

 

Plus Revolution, Viper, Riddler, Green Lantern, and Lex Luther all have single rider lines.

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^Personally, I'd stick with the Gold Flash Pass and just ride Full Throttle first thing in the morning. Everything else is available with a Gold Flash Pass and the price difference is fairly significant.

 

Hi everyone!!

 

I will be coming to the USA (from Australia) from last weekend of september till the 17th October. I will be in LA for 2 days and I am wanting to spend a day at SFMM on the saturday 28th. (open 1030-1800) I will be at the park the whole time and I will probably get flash pass (gold or Platinum, not sure). Would it be worth getting it before I arrive (no risk of them having ran out)? or will it be OK to wait to get it when I arrive to suss out crowds, weather, ride closures and so on?

 

Definitely wait until you arrive. The park is not likely to sell out of Flash Passes, especially in the off-season. Besides, you might not even need one. I've visited on off-season Saturdays and gotten on every coaster without a problem (though re-rides were limited, but that could be because I left the park and had lunch at a sit-down restaurant). If you do get one, I'd recommend sticking with Gold unless you plan to use the Full Throttle upcharge as Platinum is very expensive for what it offers.

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