TR: Six Flags Magic Mountain 1-18-09

[rcdude]

On Sunday, January 18th, I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain to celebrate my 18th birthday. Since it was for my birthday, I invited four of my friends along. Two of them had never been to the park before, one of them hadn't been in about five years and one hadn't been since X became X2 so there were new experiences for all of them. In addition, my uncle who came with us hadn't visited the park since the 1970's so he didn't quite know what to expect.

 

I had told my friends to be at my house by 8 A.M. so we could get to the park by opening (it is an hour and forty five minutes from my house). Naturally, a couple of them were late so we ended up leaving at 8:30 and getting to the park at 10:15. It ended up not opening until 10:30, so by the time we parked and walked to the entrance they were just opening the gates. As soon as we got inside we went directly to Tatsu then circled the park twice from that point. The rides will be reviewed in the order we rode them.

 

Tatsu-This is the best ride at the park, at least in my opinion. It is also my second favorite roller coaster, period. The ride is probably the best B&M coaster out there, or at least the best flying coaster. Although the ride isn't insanely intense for most of it, the pretzel loop pulls a massive amount of g's. One of my friends said they felt the beginning of a blackout from the g-force. Everyone agreed that Tatsu was the best ride in the park so we rode it twice. Unlike our first ride, which was a three train wait, we had to wait about a half hour the second time we rode, which was the longest line of the day.

Ninja-This is the better of the two suspended swinging coasters I have been on, although it is the shorter one. They were only running one train, which we just missed when getting on. My friends all liked it, although they said it isn't worth more than a ten to fifteen minute wait. I ususally don't even bother with it unless I can get on within a few trains because there are better rides in the park. If the ride was a little smoother I would probably ride it more often.

Superman The Escape-When we got to this ride a group who had entered the building a few seconds ahead of us came out and told us it was closed. We decided to go inside anyway and found out we were the first riders of the day and had the car to ourselves. After we got off the ride, we told the group to just go in and keep walking until they reached the doors. All of my friends liked this ride, although none of them said it would be worth the 2+ hour waits it used to have. I rarely will ride if it has more than a ten minute wait, but that is just because the ride is not as good as it looks like it would be.

Colossus-Six Flags Magic Mountain's classic wooden coaster. Everyone in our group thought this was a good ride. One even preferred it to Ghostrider. I personally think that Colossus is a good out and back wooden coaster, but isn't one of the park's top rides. Ghostrider is my favorite wooden coaster, but Colossus is in the top five. It is, however, something I recommend riding if the line isn't too bad and you have time. We did it twice because of only a three train wait.

Scream-This ride had the widest range of reactions from my group. I think it is the second best ride at Magic Mountain, and two of my friends thought so as well. My brother prefers Medusa at Discovery Kingdom to this ride. One of my friends and my uncle said this ride just made them sick. My other friend said that it was good, but not a must ride. Either way, everyone liked it enough that we rode twice, especially with only a three train wait.

Goliath-This is the most forceful ride I have ever been on. In the spiral towards the end of the ride, I have felt the beginning of a blackout occasionally. When I told my friends about the ride, one of them decided not to ride because of both the intense spiral and the height (He doesn't like tall (200+ ft.) coasters). However, my friends who rode it all liked it and wanted to do it a second time, especially with only a three train wait (rare for Goliath). My uncle just got sick from it and had to take a break for the next hour before he felt like riding anything. I think Goliath is a must ride attraction for anyone looking for an intense experience, although it isn't one of the world's best coasters or anything like that.

Yosemite Sam Sierra Falls-This is a water slide in Bugs Bunny World. Two of my friends didn't want to ride because they didn't want to get wet. Of the two that rode, one said it was interesting and the other said it was boring. I personally think this is one of the best water rides at Magic Mountain because it is unique. However, I almost got stuck midway down because I was trying to make the raft go faster by leaning back slightly, which caused a slow and slightly boring ride.

Canyon Blaster-Two of my friends didn't want to ride this because it was a kiddie coaster. The two that rode both said it was boring. I will usually go on this if and only if there is no wait and I've been on everything else major already. It isn't the best kiddie coaster in the world, but is definitely on the better side (at least for what I've seen).

Log Jammer-This is the best water ride at Magic Mountain. It is at least five minutes long not including the time spent on the lift hills and has two large drops which I've heard are over a hundred feet combined. There is also a smaller drop in the ride though it doesn't create a splash. The drops at the end do, and this ride gets you wetter than any other log flume I have been on. Despite the weather being in the 70's, the line was only ten minutes. One of my friends who didn't want to get wet stayed off. The other three all rode and complained about how wet they got.

Viper-I believe this is Arrow's best Custom Looping Coaster. However, it is a bit rough and three of my four friends didn't want to ride it when I told them. The one who did said it was too rough. Maybe it is just my height, but the roughness doesn't bother me. Either way, there are better rides and this one isn't worth more than a ten minute wait.

Revolution-I convinced all of my friends to ride this since it is a historic coaster, even though it is the roughest coaster at the park, at least in my opinion. Two of them complained about the roughness. The third said it was actually a decent ride. The fourth said that it was worse than Viper. I think Revolution is only worth about a ten minute wait. When we rode, the gates were just opening as we walked up so there was no wait at all.

Orient Express-This is the best way to get up the hill. However, it is a little slow and can take five minutes before they are ready to dispatch it on slow days. Since it isn't much of a ride, I didn't ask everyone how they liked it.

Jetstream-This is the park's other log flume. It isn't nearly as good as the Log Jammer, although I do like the drop better. Unfortunately, the ride takes approximately two minutes to get from the top of the lift to the bottom of the drop. Once there, you don't even get very wet. I do not believe this ride to be worth more than a ten minute wait, but apparently my friends who rode it disagreed, as they all liked it better than the Log Jammer. As with the other water rides, one of them didn't want to ride.

Gold Rusher-Since we just missed the one train running when we rode this, we had to wait a little bit. All my friends still liked the ride, but they all said Jaguar at Knott's is better and smoother. I still think Gold Rusher is worth a ten minute or so wait, but not much more. It is easily the better of the two Arrow Mine Trains I have been on, as I could barely fit into the other one and it was a disappointing ride anyway.

Riddler's Revenge-This was my uncle's second favorite ride in the park, mostly because it didn't make him sick. Unfortunately, it makes some people sick and most of my friends had to stand in a row someone had thrown up in. Despite this, all of my friends liked the ride, although none of them wanted a second ride. I think Riddler's Revenge is a must ride just because of its standing, not because it is one of the best coasters out there. It also has some really cool station music that is perfect when there is a three train wait, but gets annoying after ten minutes or so because it just loops.

Batman The Ride-By the time we got to this ride, a couple of my friends were done for the day. The ones that did ride it said it was too dizzying and didn't want to ride a second time. I went twice, however, and found that the middle of the train is much less dizzying than the back. This isn't one of the must rides, but is a pretty good ride anyway and should be experienced if the line isn't bad.

 

We stayed until about 6 and then left because everyone was pretty much done by that point. All my friends said that it was great. They all wanted to go back once Terminator Salvation: The Coaster opens. Maybe I'll have to get a trip together with them this summer.

 

As usual, not everything is perfect at Magic Mountain. A few slightly irritating things that I noticed were:

 

-Even though they had two trains on the track for Riddler's Revenge, they were only loading one of the trains. I don't think it takes more ride staff members to load two trains, so I don't know why they weren't doing it. (at least it was only a three train wait)

-Batman the ride had what looked like a twenty minute wait for the front row at one point, but the other rows were virtually empty. This caused the line to back up into the tunnel. I don't know why Magic Mountain doesn't tell people the front is full and they need to pick another row like other parks do. It seems like it would help improve capacity.

-Gold Rusher and Ninja were only running one train, although the rides are two to three minutes long. Even though there was no line, it can be a little annoying if you just miss the train like I did both times.

-It may be because of the lack of crowds, but the locker policy was not being enforced. This didn't bother me much, but it did seem kind of strange that the guy hired to make sure people use the lockers let people with backpacks proceed to the station.

 

Even though nothing above is really that major, one thing that really annoyed me was. When we went to go on X2, we found out it was closed. They said the wind was making it too dangerous to run with the fire. When I asked if they could just turn off the fire, they said that they couldn't. I may be wrong, but I thought the ride would automatically shut off the fire if it was windy. That means they were probably just being lazy and not running it because there weren't many people at the park. I would much rather ride X2 without the fire than not be able to ride it at all. If they can't turn off the fire, it was a really bad decision to add it to a ride in a park that usually has some kind of wind. Oh well, at least everything else was pretty good.

 

After counting up the number of rides I got on during the day, I got a grand total of 21.5 (the half was suggested by my uncle since Orient Express isn't much of a ride). Considering we probably spent at least a half hour for lunch and another hour resting throughout the day, that number isn't bad at all. I must have done nearly 4 rides an hour to get that total.

 

Overall, Magic Mountain is a park every coaster enthusiast needs to visit, even though they only have a few world class coasters (Tatsu, X2, and possibly Goliath or Riddler's). I think Magic Mountain is the best amusement park in California, and will hopefully improve with their new additions for this year and next year.

[ebl]

Sounds like you had some good fun at SFMM. I thought of going this weekend, but it's supposed to rain, so I may just go to the Convention Center for the Go Green Expo...that sounds interesting.

 

Some comments about a few things from your TR...

 

"If the ride was a little smoother I would probably ride it more often." (about Ninja)

 

I'm not sure how Ninja could be smoother---to me, it's one of the smoothest in the park. There are some strange noises as well as an odd push-pull effect at some points on the ride, but I think that's just the nature of the suspended design.

 

"It may be because of the lack of crowds, but the locker policy was not being enforced. This didn't bother me much, but it did seem kind of strange that the guy hired to make sure people use the lockers let people with backpacks proceed to the station."

 

I find this annoying to be honest. The park put in lockers and claims that all loose articles need to be stored in lockers or left with non-riding friends, but some ride stations still have the storage cubbies on the side or allow guests to put their stuff aside and then run back to get in the train. That really slows operations and reduces capacity. If SFMM is going to have the lockers, then they need to enforce the policy.

 

"When we went to go on X2, we found out it was closed. They said the wind was making it too dangerous to run with the fire. When I asked if they could just turn off the fire, they said that they couldn't."

 

They do only turn on the fire when wind/weather conditions permit, but I've ridden X2 without its fire turned on. I don't see how they couldn't just turn off the fire and still operate the ride. Someone who works there could answer that one a lot better.

 

"I don't know why Magic Mountain doesn't tell people the front is full and they need to pick another row like other parks do. It seems like it would help improve capacity." (about Batman The Ride)

 

When Batman first opened, they had groupers in order to evenly disperse the crowd into the various rows. I think one good way to increase capacity is to use a single rider line. That way, any empty seats are filled by people who usually don't care where they sit. Oftentimes, I go up the exit ramp at Goliath, Riddler, and Batman and tell the attendant that I'm a single rider and will sit in any empty seat. To date, no one has ever told me that I couldn't do that. They always let me in when, say, only one person sits in a particular row on Goliath.

 

Eric

[Top Thrill Dragster]

"When we went to go on X2, we found out it was closed. They said the wind was making it too dangerous to run with the fire. When I asked if they could just turn off the fire, they said that they couldn't."

 

Complete BS!

 

They most certainly can and have turned off the fire in high wind conditions.

This is just poor Six Flags operations.

[Guest]

Or it was just closed for wind in general and had nothing to do with fire, and the operator was either new and confused or just trying to tell you something that seems to make sense.

[rcdude]

The people standing outside X2 said specifically that it was too dangerous to operate the ride with the fire and that they couldn't just turn the fire off. I thought it sounded like a lame story to cover up that they didn't want to open it with probably only about three thousand people in the park.

 

As far as roughness on Ninja, maybe it was just from me not being prepared for a couple of the quick swings in the ride. It wasn't roughness like hitting your head on the restraint, but more of a vibration/quick motion of the car.

 

I agree that single rider lines would help with some of the rides, but at the moment only Deja Vu uses one. I think most of the major coasters could use one because they get long waits during peak season. Since I usually go before Easter or after Halloween, it is very rare I'm there on a crowded day but when I went in May last year all four must rides (Tatsu, X2, Goliath, and Riddler's Revenge) were in excess of an hour wait all day.

[ebl]

^ Actually, Deja Vu is the only ride at SFMM with a dedicated single rider line. But you can go up the FlashPass entrance on Riddler and tell the attendant that you're a single rider, and they'll put you on a train when there's an empty seat. The thing is, you can't choose which seat. If you use FlashPass, they'll send you down to where the regular line splits into the eight rows and you can choose which row.

 

At Goliath, it works as I described above. Same with Batman. I haven't tried anything like that at Tatsu or any other coasters.

 

Eric

[Bolliger&Mabillard]

The cutoff wind speed for X is 35mph at upper lift. If Tatsu (40 mph cutoff) opened, X should have,too.