The Six Flags Magic Mountain (SFMM) Discussion Thread

[VTown661]

Does anyone know how are the crowds for fright fest? I'm going for the first time to the park this saturday (22nd) and sunday (23rd) and I wanna know if I should purchase The Flash pass, thank you!

 

As Scottiemon said Saturday will be suicide and Sunday will be better. Friday you should put as a option at least for Freight Fest as its really low attendance on Fridays. Handicap parking on Saturdays fill's by 1pm and then your best bet is drop of guests at main gate and circle back to find a parking spot. The Sheriffs have a sub-station on site and the past few weeks they have been writing up tons of illegal handicap placards or out of date ones. The tickets are hefty so dont be that guy using grandpas expired tag as you will get hit with massive ticket.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Friday you should put as a option at least for Freight Fest as its really low attendance on Fridays.

I totally agree. Freight Fest is a must for any transpacific shipping enthusiast.

 

[Nrthwnd]

^

 

Fun catch.

[tanthonyam]

Has anyone been in the past during Thanksgiving break week? I plan on going on NOV 21. (Monday) Hopefully it wont be too bad?

[coasternut]

Has anyone been in the past during Thanksgiving break week? I plan on going on NOV 21. (Monday) Hopefully it wont be too bad?

 

I've been there the past 2 years. Last year was good. The year before was awful... No telling what it's going to be like this year. I'll be there no matter what...

[IdahoKat]

Last Friday - very quiet day.

Saturday - I was very glad I bought a flash pass & maze express pass!

 

Here's the vid I made of my Fright Fest experience (Lot of fun!)

[youtu_be]

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[DoubleDown]

My wife and I tried to go by the park Saturday night only to find the parking had not only filled the regular lot but also the whole gravel lot and was going into the backside of Feedmill in a lot I didn't even think the park owned...It's bad enough that the buses don't even go to the gravel lot but to make people park even farther than that is crazy. That is probably over a mile walk to the front gate.

 

Oh man the revenue this park must make from $20 parking on nights like this. BTW, don't you know from reading this thread? Magic Mountain is not concerned with the guest experience! By the way it is atrocious that the buses don't go that far. Why make available parking if you're not going to provide a way to transport guests from said lot? I wonder if handicap parking is even available when these types of crowds start showing up. You leaving was probably the best thing to do, I hope you got a refund from the parking booth.

 

Does anyone know how are the crowds for fright fest? I'm going for the first time to the park this saturday (22nd) and sunday (23rd) and I wanna know if I should purchase The Flash pass, thank you!

 

As mentioned time and time again, your best bet is to go to the park, gauge the lines for the first hour, and decide if a Flash Pass is necessary for what you want to do. I wouldn't "automatically" buy them without seeing how the crowds are. Although if you read the post from the quote I responded to above yours, it sounds like it will be neccesary. If you're there for 2 days and show up when the park opens just to get on rides, I would not say it's necessary, but Saturday will probably be packed. I suggest doing a lap around the park to get on what is a short wait for the first hour or 2, then decide from that point if it would be worth it for you to get the Flash Pass.

 

GO CUBBIES!!!!

[Jew]

Considering how cheap gold passes are, I'm guessing their parking revenue isn't as high as you would imagine.

[IdahoKat]

There are expected disappointments such as crowds and ridiculous food prices, etc., but I love theme parks, so know what I'm getting into in that respect.

 

What I found unacceptable was the deplorable condition of the restrooms (the women's rooms anyways). Everything from a pile of toilet paper and tissues, literally at least a foot high in some stalls, women's "sanitary items" etc., all out in view. I'd hate to have my niece with me, see something like that, and start asking questions. The restrooms are just oh yuck! The only reason I didn't have to use it often is because I'm not one to pay $4 or whatever it is for bottled water, and the drinking fountains taste like you're drinking out of a swimming pool - the chlorine in the water has a nasty taste.

 

The rides of course are my main draw to SFMM. Tatsu is my third favorite ride ever (Millennium Force & Maverick at CP being my #1 & #2). X2 & Full Throttle are my #4 tie for favorite rides.

[Furyous]

Kinda funny how people refer to F*ll Thr*ttle as YOLOCoaster

[JGuy]

Kinda funny how people refer to F*ll Thr*ttle as YOLOCoaster

 

Blame Magic Mountain's/Six Flags' marketing team.

[IdahoKat]

I never referred to FT as yolocoaster. Crazy forum word replacement

[singemfrc]

Kinda funny how people refer to F*ll Thr*ttle as YOLOCoaster

Well, if you think its odd that people refer to it as YOLOCoaster, you obviously don't frequent this thread much. It usually takes me a second before I realize what someone is talking about when they call it by its real name.

 

Can someone tell me how much the park is crowded in August (likely in the middle of the month)?

It will be my first visit, and I will travel from Italy. I need to get as many ride as possible on x2, and hopefully riding all the rides several times in two days Maybe the flash pass will be the smartest choice?

Like someone just said earlier the best thing to do is budget the money for a flash pass, but don't prepay. Get there and see how busy it is and then buy one if the lines are longer than you like.

I have a feeling that after your first ride on X2 you won't be so enthusiastic about repeat rides (It's a lot of fun, but can be very painful on the legs) - but if you want to ride it alot, hit it right when the park opens and then come back in the evening when the crowd usually dies down. Be aware that to use flash pass on it you must pay $10 per reservation (ordered at the FP office). I think they used to limit it to one per day, not sure if they still do.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Kinda funny how people refer to F*ll Thr*ttle as YOLOCoaster

Well, if you think its odd that people refer to it as YOLOCoaster, you obviously don't frequent this thread much. It usually takes me a second before I realize what someone is talking about when they call it by its real name.

Yeah, I've always called it YOLOcoaster, even when speaking, so it was honestly really weird to visit Magic Mountain and see it called by its real name.

[Cj1990]

Can someone help me make sure I'm understanding this correctly.

So at SFMM with Flash Pass.... if I were to buy the platinum and add X2, you can only reserve X2, Twisted Colossus, and full throttle one time the whole day after paying all that extra money? I would understand no derides, but I thought the benefit was to be able to ride everything as many times as you like with minimum wait.

I'm not sure flash pass is worth that much of an up charge if it doesn't work the same way for every ride. I mean, when we went to Six flags great adventure you could ride Joker and El Toro as much as you wanted. You could even re ride el toro.

Just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. Thanks

[singemfrc]

Can someone help me make sure I'm understanding this correctly.

So at SFMM with Flash Pass.... if I were to buy the platinum and add X2, you can only reserve X2, Twisted Colossus, and YOLOcoaster one time the whole day after paying all that extra money? I would understand no derides, but I thought the benefit was to be able to ride everything as many times as you like with minimum wait.

I'm not sure flash pass is worth that much of an up charge if it doesn't work the same way for every ride. I mean, when we went to Six flags great adventure you could ride Joker and El Toro as much as you wanted. You could even re ride el toro.

Just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly. Thanks

Yeah with most rides you can reserve as much as you want, but for a few rides you can only reserve once - X2, Superman, TC, YOLO, and Revolution. For Twisted Colossus and Revolution it's because of popularity; the newest ride or two are always limited. X2 and YOLO have always been limited because of station design and ride capacity. I doubt YOLO will ever change and I'm sure X2 never will since it's been that way since 2002. Superman used to be unlimited until about a year ago, they finally (correctly) realized that the Flash Pass setup was really throwing a wrench into the queue. I do agree with the single reservation limit but I dont think they should require platinum on that.

Revolution and Superman require platinum, but X2, YOLO, and TC only require gold. X2 is the only one that costs extra to reserve, $10.

 

Personally I recommend going with gold because in my experience the difference in wait time between gold and platinum ranges from negligible to nonexistent. You can start your day with Revolution (since that line builds up fast and never really dies) and then go to Superman after that and get both of those out of the way fast, and then flash pass around the rest of your day. It usually takes at least an hour for most people to find their way to Superman, so if you get there fast you can even get several walk-ons. Once it builds up a queue though it moves very slowly.

Bonus tip: if you aren't a VR fan, you can sometimes skip some or all of Revolution's line to ride without VR. Sometimes they run a "single rider line" which doesn't use VR (and mostly uses the front row when available since they cant use VR in the front row) and sometimes they just randomly pull out non-VR riders when you near the loading platform.

[Cj1990]

Awesome advice. Thank you so much. I've just never done FP at SFMM before. The single ride limit does sort of suck. But I'm sure we can make it work out really well.

[VegasBaby]

Personally I recommend going with gold because in my experience the difference in wait time between gold and platinum ranges from negligible to nonexistent. You can start your day with Revolution (since that line builds up fast and never really dies) and then go to Superman after that and get both of those out of the way fast, and then flash pass around the rest of your day. It usually takes at least an hour for most people to find their way to Superman, so if you get there fast you can even get several walk-ons. Once it builds up a queue though it moves very slowly.

Bonus tip: if you aren't a VR fan, you can sometimes skip some or all of Revolution's line to ride without VR. Sometimes they run a "single rider line" which doesn't use VR (and mostly uses the front row when available since they cant use VR in the front row) and sometimes they just randomly pull out non-VR riders when you near the loading platform.

 

I would endorse this strategy as well. Buy the Gold and spend the $10 for the X2 reservation if you want, then hit Revolution and Superman as soon as the park opens. The only major benefit to the Platinum pass is the ability to do re-rides without getting off. However, you can't do re-rides on X2, Revolution, Superman, TC, FT, etc. I have found that if I reserve the ride again as soon as they clear my Gold pass, that it's usually available to ride again by the time I'm done with the ride.

[Cj1990]

I just know that I'll want to do TC multiple times. I hate that they would limit it on rides like that. I just keep thinking back to being at six flags great adventure. El toro is their most popular coaster and when we were there we could book as much as we wanted and do re rides each time and they were only running one train. I wish they were just consistent with their parks.

I can understand superman if it really created a cluster f*** for the queue, but all the others? You pay so much more money that it almost feels like a rip off. Oh well. It is what it is. And you both had really really great recommendations. I will absolutely take your advice!

[SimiGeek]

I just know that I'll want to do TC multiple times. I hate that they would limit it on rides like that. I just keep thinking back to being at six flags great adventure. El toro is their most popular coaster and when we were there we could book as much as we wanted and do re rides each time and they were only running one train. I wish they were just consistent with their parks.

I can understand superman if it really created a cluster f*** for the queue, but all the others? You pay so much more money that it almost feels like a rip off. Oh well. It is what it is. And you both had really really great recommendations. I will absolutely take your advice!

Twisted Colossus is usually not more then a 40 min line on a non peak day. They really keep it moving. Reserve something else while you are "virtually in line" go to TC. I would go to superman first for the first 15 min of the park you can usually stay on if you run to it. Go to X2 at 2pm and its roughly a 1/2 hr line.

[IdahoKat]

On flash pass (on Oct 14th & 15th) - a one time ride on X2 was offered for $15 additional.

F*ll Thr*ttle "full throttle", Twisted Colossus, and Superman were all one time rides only on FP. I would have regretted NOT getting the FP on the Saturday

I wanted to go on Wed, Oct 12th, but the park was closed that day - I do try to avoid crowds and do mid week stuff, but it's the time off work and actually being happy at my job as the reasons I sometimes get no other choice but to play on a crowded day.

 

I can understand superman if it really created a cluster f*** for the queue, but all the others? You pay so much more money that it almost feels like a rip off. ..

On 10/15 it seemed that most of the rides had a 2-4 hour wait. Even Viper had a queue of 20-30 minutes. If I still lived in the So. Cal area, I'd likely not bother with the FP. Since I'm limited on how often I can visit, and a die hard coaster nut, I always want to get in as many rides as possible. Expensive as FP at any park is, I don't have family, kids, etc., which makes obtaining FP (at any park) a little more feasible.

[Cj1990]

Oh I absolutely agree! It's almost always worth the extra expense. I just truly think that for magic mountain, the price of the FP should allow for multiple reservations like the other parks in the SF chain allow for.

[grsupercity]

Oh I absolutely agree! It's almost always worth the extra expense. I just truly think that for magic mountain, the price of the FP should allow for multiple reservations like the other parks in the SF chain allow for.

 

When I was just at SFGAM I could only reserve Goliath one time

[storms555]

For the longest time i dreamed of going to 3 parks:Cedar Point,Great Adventure(mostly for KK and El Toro),and of course Magic Mountain. I finally when to Cedar Point for the first time this summer! Was a blast! I know Cedar Point is Cedar Fair's flag ship amusement park and MM is SF's flagship park and has tons of coasters. I guess you can say MM is the "Cedar Point" of Six Flags parks. But yea id like to go here one day. Both Cedar Fair and Six Flags chains are known to have the best coasters so it would be cool to be at two of the best thrill ride parks in the country maybe even world! That being said which of the two has the most "omg that was the best ride ever!!!" coasters of the two parks? like i said CP was a blast and MM looks like it would be a blast too! Its like my next "bucket list" park lol.

[coasterlvr]

For the longest time i dreamed of going to 3 parks:Cedar Point,Great Adventure(mostly for KK and El Toro),and of course Magic Mountain. I finally when to Cedar Point for the first time this summer! Was a blast! I know Cedar Point is Cedar Fair's flag ship amusement park and MM is SF's flagship park and has tons of coasters. I guess you can say MM is the "Cedar Point" of Six Flags parks. But yea id like to go here one day. Both Cedar Fair and Six Flags chains are known to have the best coasters so it would be cool to be at two of the best thrill ride parks in the country maybe even world! That being said which of the two has the most "omg that was the best ride ever!!!" coasters of the two parks? like i said CP was a blast and MM looks like it would be a blast too! Its like my next "bucket list" park lol.

 

 

between CP and SFMM? for me it's easily CP. the only ride i really, really like at SFMM is Twisted Colossus. X2 you definitely have to do at least once. you'll either love it, or hate it. Tatsu is also great and a must do. The only ride i'd be bummed about in a major way if they took out would be TC.