The Six Flags Magic Mountain (SFMM) Discussion Thread

[coasterbill]

Six Flags is probably not going to enforce any COVID policies whatsoever including this one. They put markers on the ground, “Do the Six” signs all over the place and rules on the website to trick the state into thinking that they’ll care. They might sort-of care at first since they’ll be the only park open and the news will probably be foaming at the mouth looking for a viral photo of a crowd but once Disney opens and people stop paying attention to them it will be the Wild West, it may even happen sooner...

That said, please follow all state and local rules. 

[SoCalJasonland]

5 hours ago, thrillseeker4552 said:

I am curious to see how the "SoCal residents only" rule will be enforced. I am personally in a gray area for this, because the billing address for my pass is in CA, the IP address of purchasing the pass is CA, and my phone number is CA. But I am a college student in Utah who hasn't been living in CA for several months, so I am technically out-of-state? Kinda strange.

I really don't understand this rule anyway (I know it's California and not Six Flags). Anybody can come visit Knott's right now for the festival, but once the coasters open, only SoCal residents? I don't know. I'm just crossing my fingers that I can visit the parks when I come back home in May. Of course I will adhere to whatever rules they have in place. It would just be a bummer if they consider me out-of-state.

I don't see anything that states you have to be a full time California resident.  If you live at your parents house during part of the summer, you are a part time California resident at least when you are here.  I would make the reservation and see what the trip reports mention on what documents are needed at the park.  I am visiting on April 6th and will let you if someone doesn't get out sooner whether they are checking IDs or just passes and reservations.

[thrillseeker4552]

^I will be interested to hear back after your visit. It could be anything from an honor system (click this button if you are a resident) all the way to checking IDs at the gate and monitoring IP addresses from where the reservations were made. I am inclined to believe the former is more likely.

[californiarollercoasters]

I believe you have to have proof of CA residency to get in. Probably a California ID, but who knows if they'll be serious about it. 

[coastercoaster5]

Does anyone know how strict the park is going to be with the reservation system? I have a 1:45pm reservation but I should be arriving around 1 and wanted to get in if I could.

[tndank]

Not aware of any Six Flags parks actually adhearing to reservation times. But who knows. Tomorrow is their first day. 

[ryder]

I could imagine it being like the old Disney Fastpass rules... you can't go earlier than your time, but anytime later is fine. 

I'm not going until April 3... wanted to give them a couple days to work the kinks out

[coastercoaster5]

1 hour ago, ryder said:

I could imagine it being like the old Disney Fastpass rules... you can't go earlier than your time, but anytime later is fine. 

I'm not going until April 3... wanted to give them a couple days to work the kinks out

It's funny that's the reason I'm going the 1st. It will be very interesting to see how things go...I have pretty good hopes that things will run smoothly but I expect slow operations and some unexpected breakdowns. Tomorrow might be my best shot to get stuck on something lol. Got stuck on Lex Luthor last time I went four years ago and that pretty cool albeit a bit terrifying. 

[coasternut]

^ Looking for a full report on your visit ASAP. Good luck to you! I'm jealous of you going, but not that brave / patient...

[tndank]

I've seen reports that most everything is up and running on 2 train ops. Well done MM. 

[coasternut]

 

4 hours ago, tndank said:

I've seen reports that most everything is up and running on 2 train ops. Well done MM. 

Wow is all I can say if that's correct.

[coasterlvr]

9 minutes ago, coasternut said:

 

Wow is all I can say if that's correct.

not from all the posts and videos i've seen so far.  lol

[SoCalJasonland]

I wonder if this is correct for wait times as of 4 pm on opening Thursday?  At this point, I will ride anything next Tuesday when I go.  Even Scream multiple times if it has a short wait;

[SharkTums]

I know we have some friends out there today and this weekend, I look forward to hearing and seeing what they say!

[Jew]

1 hour ago, SoCalJasonland said:

I wonder if this is correct for wait times as of 4 pm on opening Thursday?  At this point, I will ride anything next Tuesday when I go.  Even Scream multiple times if it has a short wait;

I will have a full TR up tonight, but it is not correct. I’m in line for revolution right now! Dive devil was open as well.

[zoda]

I know they aren't checking state verification. But are they taking reservation times serious? 

I still can't tell if it was crowded enough or not to tell if a flashpass would be worth it. Too many mix comments, i see people saying wait time was an hour, to people saying lines were less than 20 minutes. 

[Jew]

Swung by the park for a few hours to see how things would be in the covid world, and I have to say that magic mountain did a pretty good job.

For those wondering, it appears the only checks for residency occur during the online reservation process. At the turnstile I was only asked to show my reservation (note on that: I wish they would update their system on the backend to tie the reservation to your pass so you didn’t have to show the reservation and then take out your pass for scanning). The parking attendant asked me for my reservation time (which was 3pm and I arrived at 4), so it appears they are allowing arrivals after your slated time.

Since I didnt arrive until 4, so I wasn’t going to chance a long wait for any of the headliner coasters taking all my time to do a lap, but I was able to get on justice league and revolution with about 10-15 min waits at each.

mask enforcement was great, hand sanitizer was readily available, signage was everywhere, more security has been added, and they were following all the LA county guidelines down to even having the ride ops checking lapbars wear masks and googles for extra protection from being in close  contact with guests.

They are running multiple trains on the coasters, but only loading every other row. So yes, I would recommend flash pass as the only way to ensure you can hit every ride.

Now onto the photos to tell the story...

 

With the vaccine site remaining open, you will probably be parked in the overflow lot. But good for six flags for working with the county to keep the vaccine site open!

There is no shortage of signage with all the safety rules starting from the walk to the park (shuttle is closed). Also of note, since it usually drives me crazy: all the trash cans on the walk in were clean in empty.  Always hate seeing those gross, since it’s such a bad first impression.

 

 

like all other SF parks, to enter you first go through the thermal camera screening and then the touchless security check. These should make the typically horrible entry lines go away for good when things are back to normal. Love that six flags is leading the way for this much needed technology upgrade for the whole industry.

 

 

presumably with crowds limited both for park attendance and indoor dining in LA county, we won’t be seeing the sports bar opening any time soon.

 

 

However, most other dining locations did reopen with mobile ordering and designated outdoor dining areas. It didn’t appear Six Flags was ready for the high demand of the food (presumably since so many passholders have dining plans). Hope they will adjust now that they have some real world data.

Ride closures were better than I expected. Most flat rides were open, with crazanity being the notable one being closed (others were the bumper cars and the chair swings).  Both water rides were closed, as was ninja.  Hopefully with spring weather here, they can at least get jet stream back up since the boats will create natural social distancing and allow full capacity loading.

In order to open justice league, the preshow was disabled to move people directly into the loading room, where groups were socially distanced and loaded one per car. Great way to meet the LA county indoor ride time guideline of 15 min.

Some examples of how they are doing social distancing to get rides open.

 

nothing visible going on with the potential new coaster site yet.

 

 

Security with the bright yellow shirts were very visible in the park and doing a good job asking people to put their masks on.

[SharkTums]

I'm really impressed that they pulled it off!  Good for them!  It seems all of the Six Flags parks are doing great with ride operation and struggling a little bit with Food Service. We had good luck in Texas using the Mobile Ordering option.  I hope they can start opening more rows soon as we've seen at some other parks as that will help with capacity. 

[californiarollercoasters]

4 hours ago, Jew said:

Swung by the park for a few hours to see how things would be in the covid world, and I have to say that magic mountain did a pretty good job.

For those wondering, it appears the only checks for residency occur during the online reservation process. At the turnstile I was only asked to show my reservation (note on that: I wish they would update their system on the backend to tie the reservation to your pass so you didn’t have to show the reservation and then take out your pass for scanning). The parking attendant asked me for my reservation time (which was 3pm and I arrived at 4), so it appears they are allowing arrivals after your slated time.

Since I didnt arrive until 4, so I wasn’t going to chance a long wait for any of the headliner coasters taking all my time to do a lap, but I was able to get on justice league and revolution with about 10-15 min waits at each.

mask enforcement was great, hand sanitizer was readily available, signage was everywhere, more security has been added, and they were following all the LA county guidelines down to even having the ride ops checking lapbars wear masks and googles for extra protection from being in close  contact with guests.

They are running multiple trains on the coasters, but only loading every other row. So yes, I would recommend flash pass as the only way to ensure you can hit every ride.

Now onto the photos to tell the story...

 

With the vaccine site remaining open, you will probably be parked in the overflow lot. But good for six flags for working with the county to keep the vaccine site open!

There is no shortage of signage with all the safety rules starting from the walk to the park (shuttle is closed). Also of note, since it usually drives me crazy: all the trash cans on the walk in were clean in empty.  Always hate seeing those gross, since it’s such a bad first impression.

 

 

like all other SF parks, to enter you first go through the thermal camera screening and then the touchless security check. These should make the typically horrible entry lines go away for good when things are back to normal. Love that six flags is leading the way for this much needed technology upgrade for the whole industry.

 

 

presumably with crowds limited both for park attendance and indoor dining in LA county, we won’t be seeing the sports bar opening any time soon.

 

 

However, most other dining locations did reopen with mobile ordering and designated outdoor dining areas. It didn’t appear Six Flags was ready for the high demand of the food (presumably since so many passholders have dining plans). Hope they will adjust now that they have some real world data.

Ride closures were better than I expected. Most flat rides were open, with crazanity being the notable one being closed (others were the bumper cars and the chair swings).  Both water rides were closed, as was ninja.  Hopefully with spring weather here, they can at least get jet stream back up since the boats will create natural social distancing and allow full capacity loading.

In order to open justice league, the preshow was disabled to move people directly into the loading room, where groups were socially distanced and loaded one per car. Great way to meet the LA county indoor ride time guideline of 15 min.

Some examples of how they are doing social distancing to get rides open.

 

nothing visible going on with the potential new coaster site yet.

 

 

Security with the bright yellow shirts were very visible in the park and doing a good job asking people to put their masks on.

Awesome! I can't wait to go next weekend. Random question--did they scan your reservation barcode at the parking lot or entrance?

[Jew]

4 hours ago, SharkTums said:

I'm really impressed that they pulled it off!  Good for them!  It seems all of the Six Flags parks are doing great with ride operation and struggling a little bit with Food Service. We had good luck in Texas using the Mobile Ordering option.  I hope they can start opening more rows soon as we've seen at some other parks as that will help with capacity. 

Yeah, the food service thing will be interesting. Theme park kitchens are designed for higher volumes to begin with, but they aren’t designed for a high volume of walk up AND mobile orders coming in at the same time. Six Flags (and cedar fair for that matter) will likely keep struggling since the meal plans make it so many more people who normally wouldn’t pay $15 for a burger are ordering food now.   

In the case of SFMM, the majority of their food venues were built in the 70s and 80s to begin with, so their kitchens probably don’t have much room for upgrades/changes.  It will be very interesting to see how they balance things going forward, but I hope they can!

 

1 hour ago, californiarollercoasters said:

Awesome! I can't wait to go next weekend. Random question--did they scan your reservation barcode at the parking lot or entrance?

Parking only asked me what time and the turnstile just looked at the email. No scans.

[pianojohn]

7 hours ago, Jew said:

I wish they would update their system on the backend to tie the reservation to your pass so you didn’t have to show the reservation and then take out your pass for scanning

 

 

 

 

 

Well, it has been this way at Sea World Orlando since they opened. You have to show the reservation and then get out your pass or ticket. I know the Disney one is tied to your ticket. Not sure if Sea World and Six Flags are willing to invest in the extra steps to make this easier.

[cfc]

1 hour ago, pianojohn said:

Well, it has been this way at Sea World Orlando since they opened. You have to show the reservation and then get out your pass or ticket. I know the Disney one is tied to your ticket. Not sure if Sea World and Six Flags are willing to invest in the extra steps to make this easier.

Yep--it's the same at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, but the walk-through temperature check and the entrance lines move quickly.  Looks like Magic Mountain is off to a good start.

[coasternut]

7 hours ago, Jew said:

Yeah, the food service thing will be interesting. Theme park kitchens are designed for higher volumes to begin with, but they aren’t designed for a high volume of walk up AND mobile orders coming in at the same time. Six Flags (and cedar fair for that matter) will likely keep struggling since the meal plans make it so many more people who normally wouldn’t pay $15 for a burger are ordering food now.   

In the case of SFMM, the majority of their food venues were built in the 70s and 80s to begin with, so their kitchens probably don’t have much room for upgrades/changes.  It will be very interesting to see how they balance things going forward, but I hope they can!

Thanks for your great report. I'm so happy and very excited!!   Just one food question. Did they remove the "lunch and dinner times" for the season dining? In Texas they said 90 minutes between meals.

[EpicCoaster]

Looks like they've done a really great job! Back when I worked for a park during the pandemic, enforcing the restrictions was a real challenge with a number of people among the public refusing to adhere to the restrictions, so its great to see that Magic Mountain has been handling it so smoothly.

[tndank]

48 minutes ago, coasternut said:

Thanks for your great report. I'm so happy and very excited!!   Just one food question. Did they remove the "lunch and dinner times" for the season dining? In Texas they said 90 minutes between meals.

Have they fixed mobile ordering? On there you could order them anytime you want.