The Six Flags Magic Mountain (SFMM) Discussion Thread

[Superbatboy]

Advertised

 

Reality

[JonnyRCT3]

Is this supposed to distract people from Disney's version? Keep dreaming Six Flags...

 

If the real thing even looks 1/3 as good as it does in the rendering, I'll be impressed. The question is: how many seasons will this actually look decent?

[CPSFMMCW]

well, whether its lame or not, its about time that this park does something christmas related! its open all year, so it makes sense! now all we need is more parks to do it on the east coast...

[XYZ]

X2 and Green Lantern the worst rides?? Dramatic much? Just admit you're weak and sensitive to a little pain and extreme g forces

 

Well, I don't have a head made of steel, so Green Lantern is painful.

[Jew]

No mention of any rides to be open durring the event.

 

I would imagine that this is just an addition to their existing winter holiday season.

[disney4me2001]

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!

 

So does anyone know if it's a new park policy to close the lines before the park actually closes? Reason why I ask is because I had a similar experience on my last visit (Sunday 3/16). My dad and I were heading over to Goliath to get in line before the park closed, only to find an employee out front blocking the entrance, saying that her supervisor told her to close the line. And the park was definitely still open- the official closing announcement didn't play until 60-90 seconds after we were told that the ride was closed.

 

I understand that ride availability can change at anytime for any reason (especially since I work in Attractions at Disney), but it seemed odd to me that a supervisor would have made the decision to close a line before the rest of the park if there was nothing "wrong" with the ride. And as far as I could tell, there was no problem- they were still cycling full trains with guests on them as I got back to the parking lot!

 

EDIT: On a sidenote, this was very frustrating after having been at USH the day before, where the rides stayed open for an additional 30 minutes after park closing due to technical difficulties experienced earlier in the day on Transformers. Initially the Studio Directory boards showed that Transformers would remain open until 7:30 (the park closed at 7PM), and was later changed to all rides remaining open until 7:30 (meaning Jurassic Park, Mummy, and Simpsons in addition to Transformers). Just goes to show how different the two parks can be! Hope SFMM can take a page out of USH's book...but I doubt they will.

[RCF]

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!

 

So does anyone know if it's a new park policy to close the lines before the park actually closes? Reason why I ask is because I had a similar experience on my last visit (Sunday 3/16). My dad and I were heading over to Goliath to get in line before the park closed, only to find an employee out front blocking the entrance, saying that her supervisor told her to close the line. And the park was definitely still open- the official closing announcement didn't play until 60-90 seconds after we were told that the ride was closed.

 

I understand that ride availability can change at anytime for any reason (especially since I work in Attractions at Disney), but it seemed odd to me that a supervisor would have made the decision to close a line before the rest of the park if there was nothing "wrong" with the ride. And as far as I could tell, there was no problem- they were still cycling full trains with guests on them as I got back to the parking lot!

 

EDIT: On a sidenote, this was very frustrating after having been at USH the day before, where the rides stayed open for an additional 30 minutes after park closing due to technical difficulties experienced earlier in the day on Transformers. Initially the Studio Directory boards showed that Transformers would remain open until 7:30 (the park closed at 7PM), and was later changed to all rides remaining open until 7:30 (meaning Jurassic Park, Mummy, and Simpsons in addition to Transformers). Just goes to show how different the two parks can be! Hope SFMM can take a page out of USH's book...but I doubt they will.

This is how it is at my home park, Lagoon. I always take it as they close the lines early to get people out of the park at the time the park closes. Why keep rides running when the rest of the place is closed?

[disney4me2001]

This is how it is at my home park, Lagoon. I always take it as they close the lines early to get people out of the park at the time the park closes. Why keep rides running when the rest of the place is closed?

 

While that makes sense, in my experience with SFMM (I've had a season pass since 2010 and visit several times a year), they typically have kept the lines open until park closing, just like the other SoCal parks. The only time I can think of offhand where this hasn't been the case was with the original version of X, where they did close the line early, but they had plenty of signage out to warn guests about it (this was around 2004/2005), and the rest of the rides kept their lines open until closing. Just seems odd to me that they'd suddenly change this, especially since they stand to possibly p*ss off a bunch of people (locals and tourists alike) who are used to the policy of being able to get in line up until the minute the park officially closes at other parks like USH or DLR. Not trying to say that closing the lines early isn't practical, but it's unusual compared to my previous experiences.

[JeromyL]

I was there this past Saturday. And had no problem getting into a line at closing time

[CoastersOnly]

Smart move is to enter the lines about ten minutes before closing, then there's next to no chance they'll be able to stop you from getting in line. Most people tend to hit a longer lined attraction at the end of the day since it doesn't really take away from your in-park time (if you get in line before 6 PM closing for a two hour wait, you'll just be spending two hours in the park that you otherwise wouldn't have). Goliath is one of the most popular rides in the park (if not THE most popular given the percentage of park goers that ride it), so it doesn't shock me that they would want to prevent a last minute surge of like one hundred people getting into line.

 

I'm an annual pass holder and grabbed a 2014 pass with my girlfriend last fall. We went to Magic Mountain on the final weekend that Hurricane Harbor was open (end of September). On that Saturday, we took forever getting breakfast and entered the park just as they were letting people in and I then wasted two minutes trying to go the wrong way to Full Throttle since X2 was closed (I assumed Full Throttle was near the back since it replaced Deja Vu). That's a pretty big mistake in the morning since it can add up to potentially an extra 10 minutes wait. We ended up spending about 40 for Full Throttle...rest of the day was surprisingly crowded for that point in the season, but no extreme waits. However, I wanted to whine about two things...

 

1) Tatsu broke down and pretty much ruined the end of our day. It broke down while we entered the presumably 60 minute line for about 15 minutes and then for about another 40 right before we got on (a girl was trapped in her seat after a ride and they had to take off all the restraints manually). We ended up spending two hours waiting for the ride, but it's the best in the park, so I didn't mind. Unfortunately, it was towards the end of the evening since we worked counter-clockwise. No Ninja (a hilarious proposition anyway given that the line was seriously about 40 minutes from the looks of that day...no thanks), No Viper, No Revolution, No Apocalypse (which we were going to backtrack to right after Tatsu). We then had to go get our season passes printed out since we had used the temporary cards...that leads me to...

 

2) The annoyance of the ticket takers not letting you back into the park. After we got our new passes, they wouldn't let us back in ten minutes before closing as the park was going to be open for another three hours for a special event. This meant no Green Lantern since we were saving that as are last ride of the evening since it had a pretty long wait time. What should have been a relatively chill day with a runthrough of all the coasters + Lex Luthor (hilariously a walk-on) turned into us getting on like half of them and running into a lot of surprising hour long wait times for rides like Riddler and Batman.

 

The next day, we went to Hurricane Harbor which was pretty packed compared to the crowds I saw there the day before while on some of the rides...obviously, it was the last day the water park was open, so that's something to take into account. We arrived at HH not long after opening (about ten minutes) and ran into no real lines, but once you're there about 90 minutes, it becomes unbearable as you start hitting 20-30 minute waits for a lot of the slides. That park is just not built for capacity and neither are most water parks. Anything more than a 10-15 minute wait for a slide is an absolute joke. Hard to tell if there's any off-days where Hurricane Harbor isn't crowded as it's mostly open in the summer, but it seemed pretty chill the day prior. I really think there were a lot of families trying to get in one last burst before it closed for the season.

 

It should be noted that the Six Flags website or whatever says you can't re-enter the park with your pass on the same day (hence the hand stamp). I guess the new thumb print system can eliminate the need for hand stamping, but they should specify that you can enter ANOTHER park as well on the same day provided your pass covers it. After we bailed on Hurricane Harbor mostly satisfied (could've used about another hour of slides with short lines that morning), we entered Magic Mountain (and thankfully had enough clothing on to do so) and found that Sunday had next to no wait times for anything. Full Throttle was about thirty minutes and Tatsu twenty. Everything else was a walk-on. This was the same day after we waited an hour for freakin' Batman. Unfortunately, I had to get us back to go to work that night so we didn't want to spend twenty minutes waiting for Green Lantern (next biggest wait time in the park), but I did manage to take her on her first rides of Viper, Revolution and Apocalypse in a half hour. Had they made it more clear, we would have always planned to be there for opening that Sunday at MM and then bumped over to Hurricane Harbor after a few roller coasters.

 

What I learned...

 

1) Even if you arrive at opening, you'll want to try to get there earlier and be the first person in the gate. That would have meant getting in an out of Full Throttle a half hour sooner and then beating the hour-long crowds for Batman, Riddler, Goliath and perhaps Superman (all the less popular coasters were still walk-ons that day, and oddly, so was Drop of Doom). Thinking about that now, it could have been the difference between running into that twice broken-down Tatsu and also being able to ride everything but Green Lantern before 4 PM.

 

I'm starting to come around to the counter-clockwise strategy. Full Throttle's limited capacity helps the argument and there's certainly more super popular rides on that side of the park. However, if you were to get to the park on a light day or an extreme day, I still feel that knocking out X2 and Tatsu in the morning right away makes the most sense. Those two and Full Throttle are the ones that can tend to get the extreme wait times while the rest rarely will top out past 90 minutes on the worst of days...I also don't think Full Throttle is as popular as either Tatsu or X2, and when it's operating more than one car, it's wait time is clearly not as long. Hell, this was last September and Full Throttle's wait throughout the day barely eclipsed much past an hour (again, freakin' odd given that rides like Riddler had about the same). Once the newness/gimmick dies down, Full Throttle will probably have a hard time consistently staying among the most popular attractions, thus making X2/Tatsu the better opening choices.

 

On a light day, the X2/Tatsu beginning makes total sense. I went with my father there in May during the week a few years back. We hit X2, then Viper (so he could get his bearings before Tatsu), followed by Tatsu and about a twenty-five minute wait. X2 hit two hours later in the day and Tatsu wasn't far behind. Literally every other single coaster in the park was a walk-on except Superman (about an hour, both trains running) and Goliath (forty minutes, only one train running...). That goes to show just how much of the target audience at the park goes for merely the extreme thrills, as that group alone for those two coasters probably topped the rest in popularity for that day.

 

 

2) Sundays can see a decrease in attendance by half compared to the previous Saturday. Literally. I've heard of this happening to places such as Disneyland, but I guess it can work for Magic Mountain in a lot of non-holiday/summer weekends as well. Had we switched days, we would've hit Hurricane Harbor with a park half as crowded as the next day and then MM with a park half as crowded as the day before. In the case of Magic Mountain, it would've been possible to hit all 14 open full-sized coasters (X2 was infamously closed, of course) in just a few hours if we arrived at opening whereas it was a LONG all-day experience the previous day and we missed that goal considerably. So, go on Sundays and never Saturdays. Some families have to attend church and some like to rest on Sunday rather than take their kids hours away to roller coasters and then have to work the next day.

 

3) Always bail on a coaster that breaks down while you're in-line if you aren't anywhere close to getting on. We should've just taken the ten to fifteen minutes we wasted at the start of the Tatsu line the first time it broke down and did something else. It would have allowed us to go hit up a bunch of other coasters instead. From most of my experience with these sort of rides breaking down, even if it happens to be for a short period of time, the likelihood of it breaking down again in the near future is relatively high. So, if you're in line for X2 for twenty minutes of a foreseen two-hour wait and it breaks down once, it could lead to it turning into a four hour ordeal or even closing for the day. Unless you really have nothing better to do, cut & run is the correct strategy. Tatsu might be great, but I'd rather ride some other stuff than end up waiting two hours for it. Hell, I randomly had to work at Disney World (bad economy + location when I moved to Orlando with a soon-to-be ex years ago) and I wouldn't even wait twenty minutes for Test Track so you can get how impatient I am (I worked there a few months, off-season in the fall). Running into lines like that last fall was a nightmare even though they weren't even close to horrendous by Magic Mountain standards...but it just reaches a point where it absolutely becomes not worth it.

 

On a side note, Magic Mountain has to be one of the most unique parks in the world because of the spreads in its wait-times. You can go there when the park is empty and Viper/Revolution/Apocalypse/Colossus, etc. will all be walk-ons or you can go when its relatively crowded and they'll STILL be walk-ons. This makes no logical sense, but attendees at MM really aren't that logical. In other words, the park caters so intently to the 14 year old boys that don't mind waiting three hours for X2 that the rest of the rides never really fluctuate in popularity. Whereas if you go to literally any other amusement park, you'll see all the lines lengthen on busier days. Unless you're in the most hellish day imaginable with insane crowds and a four hour wait time for X2, the popularity of most of the other rides barely moves. I guess that's a good thing for the people who want to actually have a fun day as you really can get in a lot of top-tier, world class rollercoasters and simply avoid a few of the more popular ones. Something like Viper or Apocalypse could draw massive crowds at most other amusement parks, but in the minds of the teenagers that go to MM, they're after thoughts.

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, we're going back in early May during the week and the pass itself has been a great value (we're twenty minutes from Discovery Kingdom and have been there four times...all days with no crowds!). Just wondering if people think the counter-clockwise strategy is the smarter one nowadays. I mean, if you worked it like a boss, you really could grab a ride on Full Throttle as one of the first riders of the day and then sneak onto Goliath, Superman, Lex Luthor and Green Lantern...that would knock out five of them pretty quickly whereas going clock-wise means hitting things like Viper, Apocalypse, Gold Rusher and Riddler along the way - rides that usually don't have much foot traffic. But like I said, X2/Tatsu are literally so popular that on certain days (such as during the week in May when it's not super crowded) can absolutely dwarf the lines of everything else...

 

Another thing to keep in mind is that my dad and his wife are planning on going and they'll be our Take-A-Friend free entries. His wife loves all sorts of coasters (including X2/Tatsu), but I'm wondering how she'll feel after a full day of riding 15 of them (she went with her daughter during the summer a few years back and while they hit X2/Tatsu early to avoid crowds, her daughter's friend got sick and the lines also were through the roof before long - leaving them to leave relatively early). I obviously don't want to do the park backwards and then have her be tired out and not want to do those. On the other hand, X2/Tatsu are the two most extreme coasters in the park for my money and can disorient someone (i.e. my father) for the rest of the day. Keep in mind that they're both past 50 (about 35 years older than the park's target audience) and my dad has motion sickness issues (he took a pill before a recent birthday trip to Great America with his wife and rode everything fine, however). When we went a few years back, he never recovered after X2 and literally threw up after Tatsu, thus leading to a day where he was mostly feeling nauseous and avoiding rides like Riddler that seemed too extreme for how he was feeling...any thoughts on this would be helpful and it would probably lead us more to make a certain decision. I'd rather they go the more comfortable route because riding 15 coasters and the world's tallest drop ride in the same day is hardly easy on most people, especially when there can be long lines and an unforgiving sun. Rest assured, my father will not be entering the queue for either X2 or Tatsu and will need to use his discretion for the other ones.

 

Still tempted to hit up X2/Tatsu first given what I've seen...that other half of the park can really be dead compared to those two coasters on certain days. It'd be a nightmare to waltz through everything and then run into un-godly wait times in the late afternoon for those two.

[JeromyL]

^^^was that special event WEST COAST BASH??

[gerstlaueringvar]

X2 is okay, I absolutely love Green Lantern. Never have a ride as intense as it before and I had no problem with the restraints at all. Then again, I suffer from the vest harnesses of B&M wing coasters while a lot of people had no issue with them at all.

[CoastersOnly]

No, it was some corporate-paid for event (at least that's what they told us). It was the last weekend in September. I imagine those sort of events can only have so many people, so it must have been a dream for the lucky visitors as wait times were probably nothing over the course of those few hours...I remember working a night at Disney Hollywood Studios for a fun-run event and all of the rides were walk-ons for those people (and the charge for the run was considerably less than the normal ticket price). Of course, not all of the shows were open, but if you were like me and my family growing up, we only went on the rides anyway...

 

X2 is a little overrated. It's a very unique coaster and one of the best thrills you can possibly have, but it's harmed a bit by the constant flipping. You spend so much of the ride wondering just what the hell is going on that I'd give it about an 8. Of course, I've only been on it once at park opening years back and there was no music on my ride (probably a malfunction). Hearing that it's smoother now and knowing that there's supposed to be stuff playing while you're on it makes me think my experience will be much better the next time I'm lucky enough to ride it.

 

Green Lantern looks awesome. Irks me that I still haven't had the opportunity to ride it. Luckily, we're planning for 1 1/2 days at MM because the water park isn't open, I'm assuming. Drive up real early in the morning and go to the park with my dad and his wife (kind of a special thing because they're back in the States for a month), then check into the hotel after and end up at opening the next day as well. Between actually getting there on time and being the first in the gate and attending the park on two week days after the spring break/before the summer rush, there should be plenty of time to get our fill. Second day would be shorter as we would just skip the stuff we don't feel the need of riding on consecutive days (Lex Luthor - since my GF won't ride it anyway, Colossus, Ninja, Gold Rusher, Revolution & Scream).

 

Possible we go back down in the fall as well, but I won't be that annoyed if we don't. If I were to schedule another trip there, it would probably be earlier in September as the amusement parks (particularly Disney) always drop off immediately once the kids start going to back to school at the end of August. Hurricane Harbor likely wouldn't be as crowded as it was for its final weekend, either. But hell, if we simply switched the order on the same weekend as last year we could do pretty well for ourselves (MM on Sunday, HH on final Saturday).

[XYZ]

Just to warn you, Green Lantern typically likes to beat the livings out of you.

 

Also, X2 typically has a shorter line at around 3pm, so I would recommend running to Tatsu first.

[CoastersOnly]

Well, I've certainly heard great things about X2's loading lately and how the line seems faster. Any ride you go on in the morning has no actual line as long as the ride is working, so I'd rather just get X2 out of the way...I don't mind waiting a bit for Tatsu later. I'm probably going to tempted to start with Full Throttle though and work our way back as that can knock out Goliath and Green Lantern relatively early - three of the worst offenders in terms of line.

 

Thanks for the heads up on Green Lantern. My dad would have likely avoided that thing regardless since it flips so much. I'll have to mentally prepare myself for the

[JeromyL]

Well, I've certainly heard great things about X2's loading lately and how the line seems faster. Any ride you go on in the morning has no actual line as long as the ride is working, so I'd rather just get X2 out of the way...I don't mind waiting a bit for Tatsu later. I'm probably going to tempted to start with YOLOcoaster though and work our way back as that can knock out Goliath and Green Lantern relatively early - three of the worst offenders in terms of line.

 

Thanks for the heads up on Green Lantern. My dad would have likely avoided that thing regardless since it flips so much. I'll have to mentally prepare myself for the

 

I think the fact it doesn't flip like it should. Adds to the ejector pain you get

[WFChris]

I think X2 and Green Lantern are both really good. So, there's my vote for that.

 

Holiday in the Park has been running at Six Flags Mexico for quite a while, and I hear they do a very good job with it. Of course, SFM is far better looking and operated than SFMM, so we'll have to see what they pull off up at the mountain.

[XYZ]

Well, I've certainly heard great things about X2's loading lately and how the line seems faster. Any ride you go on in the morning has no actual line as long as the ride is working, so I'd rather just get X2 out of the way...I don't mind waiting a bit for Tatsu later. I'm probably going to tempted to start with YOLOcoaster though and work our way back as that can knock out Goliath and Green Lantern relatively early - three of the worst offenders in terms of line.

 

Thanks for the heads up on Green Lantern. My dad would have likely avoided that thing regardless since it flips so much. I'll have to mentally prepare myself for the

 

Well, by the time you walk off X2, Tatsu's line will likely be hours.

[KBrylczyk]

Holiday in the Park has been running at Six Flags Mexico for quite a while, and I hear they do a very good job with it. Of course, SFM is far better looking and operated than SFMM, so we'll have to see what they pull off up at the mountain.

 

That says worlds about Magic Mountain. A Six Flags park in the middle of a drug infested and cartel-run country is MILES better.

 

* Yes, I'm fully aware that there are places in Mexico that are nice. I've spent a great deal of time in the country while I worked on cruise ships and I can name numerous things I love about it. But the reality is that once you're out of the tourist areas you're looking at drugs and crime out the wazoo.

[singemfrc]

Just to warn you, Green Lantern typically likes to beat the livings out of you.

 

Also, X2 typically has a shorter line at around 3pm, so I would recommend running to Tatsu first.

Green Lantern doesn't typically do anything, it's a crap shoot depending on the weight distribution of the car. If it's well balanced, you get a smooth ride with no flips. If you get two fat guys on one side and one skinny guy and an empty seat on the other side, it's gonna rip your face off and flip you all the way down (my favorite).

 

If you're going soon, hit YOLOCoaster first because it's only running 1 car which means no flash pass (theyre not even selling reservations to platinum pass holders) and the wait is 60+ mins all day. Hit that first and then come back to X2 around 4-5pm when the line will inevitably be down to 15 mins or less. X2's line always fades at the end of the day because so many people do it first and because MM usually has some of their most efficient ride ops running it. I've never personally witnessed bad ops on X2, I can't say that for any other ride at the park.

[XYZ]

If you're going soon, hit YOLOCoaster first because it's only running 1 car which means no flash pass (theyre not even selling reservations to platinum pass holders) and the wait is 60+ mins all day. Hit that first and then come back to X2 around 4-5pm when the line will inevitably be down to 15 mins or less. X2's line always fades at the end of the day because so many people do it first and because MM usually has some of their most efficient ride ops running it. I've never personally witnessed bad ops on X2, I can't say that for any other ride at the park.

 

I do agree to go on Full Throttle first if it has one train operation now. Though, if it has two train operation, I've seen the line being much shorter than Tatsu's line.

[hydra]

I cant undertsnad the X2 hate. I rode last August (my first time) and was completly blown away by it. We rode front row right. It was the most out of control and unexpected roller coaster I have eer been on. Loved it. May not crack my top 10, but for sure in my top 20.

[Superbatboy]

I cant undertsnad the X2 hate. I rode last August (my first time) and was completly blown away by it. We rode front row right. It was the most out of control and unexpected roller coaster I have eer been on. Loved it. May not crack my top 10, but for sure in my top 20.

I think it's because it's at MM, people find any little thing to rag on about the park. I bet if the same exact ride was at CP it'd be top 5 on Mitch's, Golden Ticket, and NAPHA

[Diamondbacker27]

Yes, if you want quality coasters good for thrills go to Cedar Point. If you want a trashy park with mild thrill roller coasters go to Six Flags Magic Mountain.

I honestly think they are all about records...

[Manic Monte]

Yeah sorry, I love Cedar Point, but if it's quality coasters I'm looking for, it's about 10th on my list.