Saudi Arabia 01/26 – Six Flags Qiddiya City
Ended up on what turned out to be the party bus back to the car park after our final ride. Driver was playing DJ and every local was singing their heart out to some S-pop, which was a great way to close the day.
Roads were surprisingly busy even though we didn’t reach the hotel again until about 3am, just in time for UK new year.
Day 3 – Fun Oasis
As such the next morning began nearer the afternoon, in the same mall again just to be sure.
The maintenance sign was no more, and they were much more lenient in pricing than the other brands in negotiating a topup card, after we made it clear we were only there for the coaster.
#1 Animal Coaster was ranked pretty high up the list for intrigue, an old custom SBF with a train of spinning cars that look more Maurer than the design we know today.
It doesn’t actually spin, but interacted with rockwork and the rest of the park rather nicely.
Sparky’s Al Nakheel Mall
From there we went to the nearest Sparky’s to get more value out of their card. This #2 Spinning Coaster is exactly the SBF design we know today.
Magic Planet
From there we went to Magic Planet, who wanted £30 for their wacky worm, so we left.
Driving in Saudi is a bit hairy. A man decided to crash into us on the way back to Six Flags, after being 3 lanes away from his intended exit and rationally resolving that the only way to take it safely was by brute force. Nothing major, couple of small scratches and bounced off the wing mirror, but given the car hire stories again, the incident was enough to put the fear in us for being ripped off over the remaining 48 hours.
It’s definitely still hugely convenient to get around by car, but not for the faint of heart if you aren’t experienced or get nervous about that sort of thing.
Six Flags Qiddiya City
Arrival was much like it had been the previous day, minus the road block and security escort.
Initial plan was to get at least another ‘day’ and night ride on Falcons again, aside from bouncing around the other highlights as usual.
It wasn’t available first thing however, nor was the supposed record breaking S&S tower that I never managed to see operate. Poor S&S, not having the best time of late.
Next best thing to do while the sun was still up was jump on the observation Pagode, Skywatch.
Went back to Falcons Flight again and hung around for it to reopen, correctly assuming it would only get worse again throughout the day. Staff were fairly responsive about it as a queue formed, warning that it could be a long wait, but then also giving a 2 minute warning that it was ready so that everyone could locker up externally if need be.
Once inside it turned into another fairly miserable ordeal of barely moving for constant fastrack and by the time we got where we needed to be it was pretty much dark again. Landed in the front of the back car on this occasion, which mainly sought to confirm that this position enhances the very first drop, isn’t as good over the 500ft hill and most importantly that going back to the protection of the windscreen felt like a significant downgrade.
Nothing much else to report on the rest of the park, every other ride was still pretty much walk on so we had multiple goes of the good stuff. I wonder if this trend will remain long term. Had some surprisingly expensive rice and noodles, should have had the pizza again.
Here’s a POV of the dark ride:
Very nearly called it early after that, having bought some merch and watched a few 3 minute dispatches on a 2 train op of Falcons, with a grossly underestimated 115 min wait. Turns out that on top of the overselling of fastrack, many guests had been complaining about wait times throughout the day and the only solution guests services had been able to present was a free single fastrack. As both versions are unrestricted on ride selection and literally useless anywhere else in the park, this only compounded the problem. The obvious solution moving forward is to limit daily sales and/or make the inclusion of Falcons a one time use only thing, lest they become like Cedar Point, scourge of the earth.
The call began to eat away at me though, in the dying hours of operation. Last chance saloon, but with a risk of further disappointment. We’ve come this far, and I’m still not sure.
Sucked it up, while fully prepared to put in a row request at the station, but lucked out on the very back row, once again at some ungodly hour.
The experience was mind- and face-numbingly glorious, and saved the reputation of Falcons Flight. It was inevitably the only fitting ending to our time at the park.
It did the thing to me in the last part. Writing about my feelings for the ride gives me goosebumps, gets my heart going. I have to stand up and pace around between sentences, not knowing if I’m able convey my thought process in the right way. There is no logic for a coaster ranking like that, only how it makes you feel. And I feel broken. Again.
Took me several days of shower thoughts to come to some form of breakthrough. I realised that I had been looking at the coaster in the wrong way. There was seemingly no way to compare a 3-minute long, ridiculous record breaker to, say, 30 seconds of relentless ejector on an RMC. But that was my problem. I had gone into this whole trip thinking ‘silly record breaking ride, probably won’t be my thing, just need the cred’, when I should have been thinking god damn massive Intamin multi-launch, as I usually would.
I love me a good multi-launch, they’ve dominated my top coasters in various forms for pretty much forever at this point. On a stupidly basal level, an element that says to me ‘yes, there’s more rollercoaster to come’, with a flourish, brings an immense amount of satisfaction.
Falcon’s Flight does that, twice.
Back in the Taron days, though I never particularly fell for the rest of the layout, hitting that trench launch and feeling the LSM surge to your very core was one of the greatest moments on any coaster for me, and enough to make it, at the time, a top 3 ride.
Falcons Flight does that, twice as fast.
I’m fairly confident in saying that final launch alone is my new all-time favourite coaster moment and then near terrified to say that it may never be touched again in a lifetime. From there, my best Intamin multi-launch as of right now is Toutatis, and based off of a reasonably recent experience, this hit me harder. So suddenly we’re in top ten territory by default, which scared me more.
Alright, enough stalling. Top 3.