The Six Flags Magic Mountain (SFMM) Discussion Thread

[coasterbill]

Those pictures look great! Thanks for sharing.

 

Do they decorate the entire park or only certain sections? I tried to look for the map and guide but it's not available yet. I'm curious because every report seems to focus on the same few areas.

[Arthur_Seaton]

Those pictures look great! Thanks for sharing.

 

Do they decorate the entire park or only certain sections? I tried to look for the map and guide but it's not available yet. I'm curious because every report seems to focus on the same few areas.

It's just a few sections really, and that does feel a little disarming while there. Obviously the place is too big to deck out completely, but it's the area by Batman / Twisted Colossus, the entry plaza, and the area up by Tatsu that saw the most attention. There are bits and pieces scattered elsewhere (like in front of Revolution), but all the pictures you see are basically from those areas. It occurred to me that the pictures probably make it looks like the park went nuts with the lights, but that's not the case; there are entire sections of the park that have nothing at all, decoration-wise. In fact, when we were there last night, the regular lights up by Ninja / Superman had gone out entirely and people were using their cell phone flashes to keep from falling down the hill.

[SFMMGeek27]

I didn't think the park was that busy yesterday. The Goliath queue was only 35 min and it was back almost to the entrance with no switchbacks being used.

 

My main concern is it seemed like the park was trying to conserve energy anywhere they could that wasn't Christmas lights. Literally no lights were on on Samurai Summit, and it was impossible to see, let alone that things felt a bit creepy. It was also dark going down the hill toward Apocalypse and over by Jet Stream. I don't think creepy vibes are what they want for a Holiday event.

 

Also, they turned off the lights in many of the ride stations, such as at X2 and Apocalypse, Ninja, Jet Stream, and Gold Rusher. It was quite strange.

[Arthur_Seaton]

I didn't think the park was that busy yesterday. The Goliath queue was only 35 min and it was back almost to the entrance with no switchbacks being used.

 

Many of the queues seemed inconsistent overall, but the usual big-hitters were all pulling solid waits when we passed by. The park itself didn't feel overly busy, but the lines were pretty bad for much of the night, clearing out a little by 8pm-ish. Goliath can be deceptive, and going up the Lex Luthor tower, we saw that the station was somewhat empty so we hauled ass over there only to find that they now have a grouper who was intentionally keeping the line outside of the station. But when we passed it by earlier, the queue looked insane. Similarly, when we rode Apocalypse, we asked the employee at the entrance what the line was like and he told us it was between 45 mins and an hour, yet there was nobody in the station and the trains were running half-empty. Even Batman was listed as an hour, with the queue spilling out of the station building. The pattern these days, it seems, is that there is no pattern.

 

My main concern is it seemed like the park was trying to conserve energy anywhere they could that wasn't Christmas lights. Literally no lights were on on Samurai Summit, and it was impossible to see, let alone that things felt a bit creepy. It was also dark going down the hill toward Apocalypse and over by Jet Stream. I don't think creepy vibes are what they want for a Holiday event.

 

Also, they turned off the lights in many of the ride stations, such as at X2 and Apocalypse, Ninja, Jet Stream, and Gold Rusher. It was quite strange.

 

This was surprising and, frankly, quite dangerous. We thought it must have been a power outage as the Samurai Summit area was pitch black — like Halloween-style darkness. People were using their phones just to illuminate the path in front of them to keep from falling, and we were surprised the park didn't cordon that area off until the problem was fixed. If cutting those lights was intentional, the park is inviting trouble.

[singemfrc]

Revolution is dead to me until this hideous VR nonsense goes away for good.

You can ride it without VR, just ask. In fact often you can skip a good portion of the line by doing so. Since the refurb, I've only ridden without the VR, I can't stand it either.

[Arthur_Seaton]

Revolution is dead to me until this hideous VR nonsense goes away for good.

You can ride it without VR, just ask. In fact often you can skip a good portion of the line by doing so. Since the refurb, I've only ridden without the VR, I can't stand it either.

Really? That's how it was when they first opened it — you could opt out and ride in the front seat without having to wait two hours. However, they stopped offering that soon after, and now the front seat is usually left empty. The last few times I've been, I've asked and was denied (about a month ago), so maybe they've gone back to allowing non-VR riders to skip the line? I watched it cycle a few times last night and nobody was in the front seat at all for any of the trains (although they were only using 50% of the seats in general), so maybe it hasn't been announced formally?

[CedarFlags]

The app was as worthless as ever though, as a 70-min wait for riddler was actually a walk-on whereas Goliath’s 35-min wait was way, way out in the switchbacks. A number of the rides has incorrect times listed outside too, so perhaps queue estimates is something that SFMM just can't quite handle at this point.

 

Most wait time apps rely on ride ops and team leads calling in their estimates every 30-60 minutes. So, either the lines had changed in the time since the last call OR.... dirty secret... a lot of employees will make up their counts and wait times because they are either understaffed and too busy, or they just get lazy.

[coasternut]

I was at the park today, and the decorations were dramatically expanded. The greatest expansion was in the steampunk area. Also the area leading up to Rev was "well decked out." Not all the special effects were on / working tonight. The projection on the side of the gearworks theater was off and no snow turned on in the steampunk area too. Even the concert lights behind the stage by YOLO weren't all active. I just think the second stringers were working tonight.

 

I am a self professed MM fanboy, but as I've said before each year their Christmas display gets better and better. I even saw the show Querkmas and recommend it. If nothing else, it was good to get in out of the cold and wind. But seriously, a good show with lots of variety.

[Arthur_Seaton]

Not all the special effects were on / working tonight. The projection on the side of the gearworks theater was off and no snow turned on in the steampunk area too.

The projection was on when we were there — it's toy conveyer belt of some kind, but it's kind of dimly projected. The snow machines were on but they were jammed up, producing big globs of foam that slowly dripped from the trees. Overall though, they did a really nice job in the steampunk area.

[singemfrc]

Revolution is dead to me until this hideous VR nonsense goes away for good.

You can ride it without VR, just ask. In fact often you can skip a good portion of the line by doing so. Since the refurb, I've only ridden without the VR, I can't stand it either.

Really? That's how it was when they first opened it — you could opt out and ride in the front seat without having to wait two hours. However, they stopped offering that soon after, and now the front seat is usually left empty. The last few times I've been, I've asked and was denied (about a month ago), so maybe they've gone back to allowing non-VR riders to skip the line? I watched it cycle a few times last night and nobody was in the front seat at all for any of the trains (although they were only using 50% of the seats in general), so maybe it hasn't been announced formally?

I know they got less and less proactive about trying to pull non-VR riders, but I hadn't heard of them actually refusing it, that doesn't make sense. (Though it wouldn't be the first time MM ops did something that didn't make sense) I wonder if that's policy or just a lazy or misinformed rideop when you were there.

 

Last time I was there you couldn't skip the entire line, but once you approached the station you could detach and route to the front row, or if skipping the line doesnt matter and you just hate the VR, you can always just refuse the headset and sit in any row without one.

[edgeboy]

I really hope they take after others with the VR and just offer a non-VR line. They can pretty easily make the current Fast Lane line a non-VR line, and if needed, move the Fast Lane to the old Single Rider gate.

[MagicMountainMan]

The reason that The top of the hill was not lit the other night is because the park experienced a partial power outage. The whole park usually doesn't go down at once because it has so many different mains. Why security and safety still let people on the top of the hill when the power and lighting was out? Who knows... That's only a little bit dangerous....

 

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[Superbatboy]

The reason that The top of the hill was not lit the other night is because the park experienced a partial power outage. The whole park usually doesn't go down at once because it has so many different mains. Why security and safety still let people on the top of the hill when the power and lighting was out? Who knows... That's only a little bit dangerous....

 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

This makes a lot more sense than the park just being cheap

[joshfreund]

Went yesterday, kines were mostly short...walked on x2 at 4 o clock, must have caught it just opening or something...was not impressed with HITP

[JeromyL]

Went yesterday, kines were mostly short...walked on x2 at 4 o clock, must have caught it just opening or something...was not impressed with HITP

 

They have cows there???

 

 

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[JT325]

So... uh, when does everyone think Revolution will go back to non-VR operations? Next year hopefully? I think the VR is fun and all, but so many people just want to ride with out long line complications.

 

Perhaps we should start a petition.

Thread goes into another downhill spiral...

 

edit - (Sorry guys, thought I was in the SFMM thread).

Edited November 25, 2016 by JT325

[greatadventurefan]

So... uh, when does everyone think Revolution will go back to non-VR operations? Next year hopefully? I think the VR is fun and all, but so many people just want to ride with out long line complications.

 

Perhaps we should start a petition.

Thread goes into another downhill spiral...

whenever the contract ends with samsung

[Superbatboy]

Went yesterday, kines were mostly short...walked on x2 at 4 o clock, must have caught it just opening or something...was not impressed with HITP

 

They have cows there???

 

 

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[DoubleDown]

If they are literally denying people access to skip the line to go on the ride without the dumb VR, to sit in the front car or the back seats that are cycling empty anyway (which is the stupidest thing I've ever seen, a "new" ride that only seats 14 of the 20 available for capacity) then something needs to be done to complain. That is completely asinine. Not only is capacity KILLED with these dumb headsets, they're adding insult to injury by NOT seating rows 1,2 and 10! If people want to wait 1-2 hours for the VR, that's fine. But why should a person who doesn't want VR have to sit in a 1-2 hour line while the train is constantly cycling with those non-VR seats completely empty?

 

They have plenty of room for an alternate FlashPass/Non VR line with the original queue layout. Or they could use the alternate route that goes under the brake run, and under the lift, where they can just walk straight into the station. I'm going next week and I hope this isn't true. I don't care about the VR and I'm sick of not being able to ride Revolution because of it and it's ridiculous 1-2 hour line.

 

It takes no effort to allow non VR riders into the seats they are cycling empty. Get your head out of your ass SFMM!

[JT325]

^With some constructive and polite suggestions to a manager and/or guest relations, those empty seats could see some happy riders!

 

Look what years of asking when the shoulder bars were going to be taken off; everyone on every forum and industry folks at Six Flags said that would never EVER EVAR happen. But it did happen... we can suggest things to parks with out being nasty about it. There is a huge grey area between telling someone what to do and suggesting what we think might be cool.

 

I wish they would do something like Cedar Fair and (later) SFGreat America did with their VR rides; they took reservations for an after 6pm (or 5?) VR experience, but the ride was normal (non-VR) during the day. This seemed to work fairly well.

 

It feels like Revolution still has not had it's proper (and deserved) re-introduction due to the VR. Sure, the VR is fun, but they could really go far marketing the ride alone. They went the more YOLO route with the whole VR thing. They could also focus on Revolution for a while (I think it would be popular, if they did it right) and move VR over to Viper or Scream.

[Arthur_Seaton]

If they are literally denying people access to skip the line to go on the ride without the dumb VR, to sit in the front car or the back seats that are cycling empty anyway (which is the stupidest thing I've ever seen, a "new" ride that only seats 14 of the 20 available for capacity) then something needs to be done to complain.

When they first re-opened the ride, you had the option of skipping the VR and walking straight to the fast pass entrance. My guess is that because lines were starting to build in the fast pass lane, it reflected poorly on their brand-new, hi-tech experience in that people would rather opt out if given the choice — which, I assume, is why they killed the single rider / front row option completely. With that said, the GP eat up the VR stuff, so it's a lucrative investment overall. I've only ridden two VR rides (Shockwave and Revolution) and in both cases throughput was utterly decimated, largely due to tech failure. Anyhow, according to singemfrc, SFMM has reverted back to their original line-skip operation now, which is very good news (although news that I missed). They didn't have the signs up when I was there a few days ago, so perhaps they just haven't formally announced it? The last few times I've asked (about a month or so ago), I was told they stopped offering VR / line skip options, so it's good to hear they've returned to that. I'll be sure to head out for some dedicated Rev marathons over the next few days.

 

^With some constructive and polite suggestions to a manager and/or guest relations, those empty seats could see some happy riders!

Definitely agree that a polite request would be more effective than aggressive demands.

 

They could also focus on Revolution for a while (I think it would be popular, if they did it right) and move VR over to Viper or Scream.

Or move the VR experience to one of the smoking areas, the restrooms, or perhaps that bus thing that goes back and forth from the parking lot? Just get it off the rides please — especially the classic ones

[Magic Alumni]

We went Thursday and was told by an employee at the entrance to just walk up the fast lane entrance if we wanted to ride without the VR. We walked all the way up there only to be told by another employee that we had to wait in the 2 hour line regardless if we wanted VR or not. I told him it was insane since they kept sending each train out with the front row empty but he kept telling me that there are people in the regular line that also don't want to ride with the VR. It's not my fault that they're willing to wait 2 hours when they shouldn't have to. Needless to say, we had to walk back down.

 

On a side note, I understand why they have the VR. If they didn't, no one would be riding Rev and it would be walk on everday.

[JT325]

On a side note, I understand why they have the VR. If they didn't, no one would be riding Rev and it would be walk on everday.

 

You sure about that? Whizzer here at Great America has gotten much MUCH more popular over the last few years. People really appreciate a family coaster But then we probably have more families at Great America.

 

If they promoted it right, I think it would be a big hit.

[JGuy]

On a side note, I understand why they have the VR. If they didn't, no one would be riding Rev and it would be walk on everday.

 

You sure about that? Whizzer here at Great America has gotten much MUCH more popular over the last few years. People really appreciate a family coaster But then we probably have more families at Great America.

 

If they promoted it right, I think it would be a big hit.

 

Magic Mountain seems to get more thrill seekers than families. While I'm sure reverting to lap bars certainly helped Revolution's attendance, most visitors probably wouldn't care about it unless it does have a gimmick to keep it "unique".

[DoubleDown]

For the record I didn't mean to intend an "aggressive demand" in my post, I think that's just my frustration coming through as I've been a visitor to this park for over 2 decades and I constantly see the same dumb issues happen continually. It's like nobody who makes decisions at the park has ever visited a theme park on their own to prepare and provide such simple solutions to such illogical circumstances.

 

We went Thursday and was told by an employee at the entrance to just walk up the fast lane entrance if we wanted to ride without the VR. We walked all the way up there only to be told by another employee that we had to wait in the 2 hour line regardless if we wanted VR or not. I told him it was insane since they kept sending each train out with the front row empty but he kept telling me that there are people in the regular line that also don't want to ride with the VR. It's not my fault that they're willing to wait 2 hours when they shouldn't have to. Needless to say, we had to walk back down.

 

This is one of my main gripes about Magic Mountain. The employees have a tendency to not be on the same page as to what the rules are. One person tells you one thing, another person tells you another. From what it sounds like the person who told you that you had to wait in line was using their "authority" to tell you no. And that's stupid. They throw logical reasoning (the train is literally 30% empty for every cycle, fill up those seats with people who don't want VR) out the window to flex their power trip muscles. Absurd. I'm a paying customer, instead of getting off on telling me no, you should be willing to make my experience at the park as pleasant as possible. My getting on the ride without VR, filling up empty seats, is not hurting the people who wait in line for the VR at all! What detriment is it to them to allow people to get on quickly who don't want to ride the VR?

 

Which brings up another issue. If the park would simply create a VR line and a Non-VR line, which the queue at the ride is more than capable of doing, and make it explicitly clear to guests that they have both options, then this wouldn't be an issue at all.

 

So frustrating. I guess it sounds like the policy changes day to day, or from employee to employee. Par for the course, Magic Mountain, way to go.