USA 12/18 – Six Flags Magic Mountain

Hmm.

This weather doesn’t look good for rides, I sense spite incoming.

Nah, should be fine. What goes up must come down.

Deckchairs out lads, here’s the spot.

Day 5 – Six Flags Magic Mountain

Apologies in advance for lack of pictures. I could stitch something together from another day, but I like the chronology (spot the 1 cheat picture). I’ll focus more on the rides this time and should have some more thorough visuals later on in the report.

I’ve (surprisingly) never tackled one of these monster parks before and wasn’t sure how full cred mode was going to pan out. I knew I was coming back here for at least one more day on the trip so wasn’t massively anxious, but there’s always that voice in the back of your mind… what if I don’t get it today and it’s not running next time?

Yet another case of poor crowd prediction. Arrival at the car park showed they had decided to extend opening by 2 hours.
Highlight: more time.
Lowlight: more queues.

Decided while waiting for the gates to open to opt for the clockwise approach to the park, though worryingly X2 wasn’t showing any signs of life (is everybody in?)

It was broke, so “Tatsuuuuuuuuuuuw”

Loved the setting of this the most. Being so damn high up on top of the mountain with those views of the park and the disorientating changes of direction is rather special, along with how the pretzel loop comes so unnaturally late in the layout and is so far below the rest of the track.
It’s very good, but the similarity in the other inversions didn’t do a lot for me – RCDB is very generous in calling them different names. It didn’t get stupidly intense at any point which is a shame, as that’s the main appeal of these rides for me. Might just be the sheer size of it.


Thanks for riding, make sure to check out……….. #2 Ninja.
These Arrow Suspended coasters are hard to come by now. It’s another ride aided by setting. I liked the odd unnatural swinging moment the train has, the repeatedly intense helices down by the water and the fact the lift hill comes at the end. Classic.

Superman eh? It’s not just Dreamworld then. Intamin have got a knack for making 100Mph and 300ft seem really uneventful on these freefall coasters.


The Arrow mine train #4 Gold Rusher was a laugh. Another short and pointless first section like on the previous day, followed by a bit of a kick through the woods.

Apocalypse (GCI) was spiting because they’re building West Coast Racers out that way and the whole area was closed off. Shame, I wanted to assess the mixed reviews for myself. I’m also still holding out for that next ‘Great’ coaster international.

The lone dark ride while we’re here then, Justice League. Ugh, the preshows go on so long and are rather obnoxious with the Joker waffling on. Even Lex gives a few fourth wall glances to the camera as if to say ‘I wish he’d shut up too’, so I admire that attention to detail.

Had low expections and was reasonably impressed on the whole. There’s a lot of legit stuff going on in here – fire and smoke, decent physical sets.
The shooting is too much of a distraction early on, then it goes stupidly blurry when you start flying underground with trains and I couldn’t really tell what went on after that.

Now things get ugly. Riddler’s Revenge was closed, just sending empty trains all morning.

Green Lantern was also spiting. Well if there’s one ride I’m happy to miss, it would be that.

The B&M Invert was on 1 train. First big queue of the day then. 90 minutes gets thrown around a lot these last few days, so lets go with that. At least I liked the Six Flags trivia on the queueline TVs, sprinkled with a few Looney Tunes cartoons.
It’s yet another Batman clone. On a scale of La Fuga to Diavlo, it placed squarely in the middle – not ‘ripping my feet off and screaming’ intense, not run twice a day with 4 people on it.

Scream! was spiting just because.

Twisted Colossus was claiming 3 hours for it’s queue. Whaaaa? Where did all these people come from. I’ll have to settle in for that later. Let’s scout.

Drop tower 1 hour. Skip.

Goliath 2 hours. Skip.

Kiddie creds. Took a fair amount of self-control to keep on walking.

Full Throttle 90 minutes. Maybe.

New Revolution 2 hours. Skip.

X2 still broke. Spite.

#6 Viper has single rider. Boom.
They don’t know how to run it. You end up on the stairs alongside Flash Pass guests who get all confused and are waiting for their slot as you slither past them.
Nod at the staff and say single rider. Staff nod back, open the gate immediately and let me into the station to roam free, regardless of the available space.

All sorts of chaos was going on, some rows packed, some rows empty, people kicking off about being their row being spited 4 times consecutively by people with exit passes. Staff shrugging and saying “that’s the assigned row, whatcha gonna do?” I was tempted to say “move to one of these empty rows”, but I let humanity do its thing. Batched myself into an empty row instead and had an empty seat next to me. The single rider system works.

I know this ride was significant at some point, but it’s just another rough and ready Arrow looper now. It crawls over the top of the lift and stops dead on the MCBR, I assume that’s mercy.
The huge entry to the ugly-looking high-up first loop is so weird that I liked it and the little drop around the station at the end is kinda fun. It’s fine.


Well I’m gonna have to suck up some big queues for the more important stuff now then. Like Full Throttle.

This sums up how I was by the end of leaving the first portion of queue in front of a big screen that was going on about YOLO stuff while we stood still for a few hours.

It didn’t help that the ride broke down at some point and they never announced this or gave guidance. I’ve got that Fuji-Q feeling again. So many big names, so little time, what should I do?
I stuck it out. Just keep watching the screen. Needs more footage.

It was a pleasant surprise though. That pause in the loop is pretty glorious, seemed to think it felt more significant than even one like Flash due to the shorter train.
I’m still good at not giving myself spoilers too much for new rides so didn’t know know what happens in the tunnel. It’s fun and adds a bit of ride length to an otherwise short track layout. Back seat is good here for one of those reverse spike type sensations and I’m a sucker for any rolling launch.
That air time over the loop is pretty glorious-nnnnnnnnnnnnnn-brakes. Solid.


Well it’s dark now. Settled in for a #8 Goliath wait. Pretty excruciating, endlessly looking up at a train on the brake run and observing the poor throughput as the other train doesn’t dispatch promptly. It’s a very long ride cycle, but it still takes them longer to load it every time.

Expected nothing from this. Giovanola-who? Ride without prejudice.
It has 2 good moments. Whatever they’ve done with that first drop gives a nice extra long sensation (in the back) that I always expect and rarely seem to get from huge rides and then the speed hill after the first turnaround was really good. I’ll say something triggering here like better than Shambhala.
The rest of the layout just consists of corners really with not much going on. Good little sit down. S’alright.


Too much standing still meant I had energy to burn, and it was getting cold up on this mountain, so I started running around like a madman. I think Riddler’s Revenge is actually open now. Where’s that single rider queue?

Straight on the ride past a massive queue, batched properly, now we’re cooking.

I had been saying for a while that I need to ride one of these B&M Stand-ups. A dying breed and one of the few coaster types I’ve not experienced.
Eww.

It’s more like perch than stand from where I’m sitting. Doesn’t give you that real ‘what the hell is this thing?’ feeling from Railbla-I mean Togo Stand-ups.

Then it gave my ears a bit of an unavoidable knobbling due to awkward restraint placement. Like one of those SLCs where they’ve padded it so densely it permanently touches your ears, just with better tracking.


Never mind. Joy awaits. I wasn’t sure how, but the RMC was now down to claiming only an hour. Soon learnt how in that it’s the only ride in the park they run with any sort of hustle. They’ve got the alien concept of 3 active trains to handle, as standard, to make the ride run as it should. They’ve got the operator constantly mithering the attendants with restraint check figures and how much they have to get their arse in gear to “race the blue (or orange((or purple))) train.” They’ve got little pouchies built into the ride to reduce phone key wallet faff.

I thought I had found love with Railblazer, but this ride took it to the next level. Again, I’m a no spoiler man, all I know is 2 lifts and a Dauling Dragon element.
So at night, duelling/racing(?), not knowing what’s coming, the intensity and hilarity of that layout, is well up there with one of my best rides ever.
Standing air time in the big drops and so much contrast from positives to negatives it almost hurt my neck.
A wildly out of control sequence after the high five and I didn’t think it could get weirder than Wildfire’s stall, but there’s another train of people waving and getting their legs crushed directly below you on this version.
Hobby defining stuff.


Noticed #11 Scream! had finally decided to show its face. It was a walk on because it turns out they don’t bother to run it for 90% of most days and hope no one notices.

I like the way the cobra roll is framed from the station and you can watch the other train take it while waiting for dispatch.
I don’t like the way they’ve gone and obscured that view with an ugly shoehorned steampunk banner.
It certainly did more to me than Medusa. They can battle it out for number of car park spaces, but there was more snap and general interest to it.


Back to a speed of 3cph (Wallace: that’s creds per hour), things were starting to pick up again after that dry patch.
Never mind that though, there’s 30 minutes left in the day. Another TC please.

10 minutes left. You know what? I’m gonna put the run back into cred run for the final time in 2018.

Well that hurt. A fresh reminder of how unfit I am. The ride was quite cool at night. A discount Lisebergbanan is probably the nicest way to put it.
Glad they sorted the trains out. Someone asked me what they had done to the Virtual Reality, seeming disappointed that it had gone. “I’m not the man to ask, but I can assure you that’s a good thing.”

Well even with that final burst, the park with the most rollercoasters in the world didn’t manage to beat a day in France for my most creds acquired (13). I’m still very mixed feelings about the place. So much limited availability and generally poor operations gave the day quite a rollercoaster of emotions.
I got on everything that was physically available to me (bar the kiddie creds), so it felt like I had played my part properly at least.

I’ll be back.

Day 6