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.
With Six Flags not opening until 4pm each day, there was some time to potter around Riyadh and grab a handful of the eye-watering 18 +1s throughout the city each lunchtime.
Many of them also share similar opening hours however, or some will say that they open earlier but then don’t get the rides running straight away, so it’s not ideal. There’s also varying extremities of expense involved so, for the sake of public service, I’ll give you the rundown as we go along.
Fun NOasis
Began here at one of the malls, which are predominantly where the coasters live. Once again arrived after some obvious coaster fans and left before another set, but the ride here had a sign up for maintenance.
Sparky’s, Panorama Mall
This is one of the three chains of FECs within the city that have multiple locations, and also one I was slightly familiar with from a visit in the UAE.
All of these chains use a top up card system, and one that can be shared amongst multiple users, but it generally comes at a high price. You might be able to negotiate a better deal if you’re less British, or particularly forceful about only ever wanting or paying for the coaster, but the staff typically claim you can only have one of the fixed price package deals which are on display on signs at the desk. So check those visually first and always opt for the lowest, as you may verbally be told the lowest is even higher.
For Sparky’s, it came out at ~£50, so if you’re going it solo this can be quite the ask. The card can be used across all 3 locations within Riyadh, making it a bit more digestable.
I’ll break the timeline and cover the other chains here.
Saffori Land also have 3 locations in Riyadh, can use the card across all 3 and their cheapest package was ~£40.
RM Roma Land also have 3 locations in Riyadh, you cannot use the card across all 3 and their cheapest package was ~£30.
It’s all a good test of your commitment to the cause.
Back to our Sparky’s anyway, we decided we would commit to all 3 locations during the trip and sucked up the cost here.
#1 Formula Fun is this big sprawling thing, mildly interesting at least. I had a ranking system for that too, with half of them just being SBF spinners. What’s the best kiddie cred of the kiddie creds? You’ll see.
Six Flags Qiddiya City
Headed out of the city in order to get to the park in a reasonably timely fashion. We had no idea what it was going to be like in terms of popularity and organisation, half expecting multiple hour queues to even get in the park if everyone had the same idea.
This all changed as we pulled off the main highway onto one of the slip roads towards the still under construction city of Qiddiya. There was some form of road block with Qiddiya security cars at the head. Traffic slowly stacked behind for a good while and then the queue was slowly escorted along the next roads towards the park. There are also parked police cars in the hard shoulder of this area, every few hundred metres, day and night, which led to some comedy during the batching process as the 1% of overly impatient drivers would go for immensely stupid undertakes along the hard shoulder, only to get blocked by said police.
Turns out a certain coaster ‘influencer’ and his convoy also tried to cut us up during this process, phone in hand while driving, but as we had no real idea at the time what was going on, this ended up being positive reassurance that we were on the right track both chronologically and geographically as we pulled up to a preliminary ticket check on the road.
From there we were directed into the nicer first bits of the car park, complete with sheltering over each space that will no doubt be an absolute lifesaver during the summer months. Applied copious amounts of sun cream for the remaining hour of sunlight, while watching with bemusement the number of other obviously British arrivals.
Swarms of shuttle buses are available here to take guests to the park entrance, which took about 10 minutes. Swarms of staff were also present during this process, to provide enthusiasm and welcome to the area.
Upon arrival however I was far more distracted by the track of Falcons Flight that passes both over and under the entrance plaza. Having spent the last month assuming I probably wouldn’t even be able to ride it, the sight of an occupied train blasting past was quite the welcome visual.
A quick security check happened and then we were amongst the crowd at the ticket barriers in the final few minutes before official opening. Cameras were rolling and a small ceremony welcomed in the opening hour, before a slow surge through the gates, mainly impeded by the usual digital ticket faff.
The main street up to the central tent was filled with a fleet of entertainers attempting to distract visitors from what lay ahead. Carefully evading these, we pressed on, took a right into the City of Thrills and spills and the arms of the Falcon.
With everyone doing the necessaries at this point, it was amazingly no much more than a station wait. It’s the only coaster on park with small item lockers within the queue itself, which are also the batch and merge point for fastrack. A station wait however, was a good 20 minutes or so, with several minutes a pop between dispatches. They were definitely easing it in.
We were still in shock though, having braced our asses for 6 hours of queues, a single lap at best and probably not finishing the park that day. It all worked out surprisingly well. Moreso when we happened to land our first attempt in the front seats, after performing a swap with a couple of nervous locals who were intimidated by the positioning. Can’t blame them, I was the most nervous I’ve been in a long time about what #2 Falcons Flight might do to me, which is always a welcome feeling if you can manage it.
Rolled out to a smattering of applause and took a right into the Maverick style first lift hill. Bit of a tap on the back of the head as it brings you up to a steady but urgent pace into the first drop. This section was a pleasant surprise, and rides like a half decent Intamin mega coaster, modern elements with the potency of something a bit more vintage. I was particularly pleased to see that they nailed the wave turn thing, even with such wide boy trains, with a solid outwards pop in the middle that doesn’t really land on the Toutatis or Kondaa equivalents. It took me several days to notice that this element is also directly under the main massive hill, which is insane.
The fever dream begins out of the block section and into the second launch. After a fairly standard coaster experience on surface level, the realisation hits of what this thing is truly about. The steady urgent pace is magnified tenfold and roars underneath you like old mate Taron. How the hell is this rollercoaster real, and why are we going up a cliff?
It ends with a floaty level out and then carries an impressive amount of momentum up what seems like another huge curved hill. All sense of speed and scale is lost at this point in time. The clifftop section begins with a wicked outwards flop over the edge, which is a real left seat winner and utterly terrifying to think about. It hairpins into a middling but amusing airtime hill, before hairpinning back and heading straight out towards the park. There’s a surprising chug of momentum on this flat bit before slamming the anchors on and entering what is essentially the holding-brake drop of a dive coaster.
I like a trim with positive impact on the experience and it does just that, giving you another how is this real? moment of suspense before the main event begins. A teasing vertical drop down into casual obscenity. Speed builds, a weird tunnel is traversed, then the launch hits. God damn, Falcons Flight. The roar is back, magnified tenfold again and you can do nothing but embrace the power and scream inaudibly as you hurtle faster and faster through the final I can’t believe this is a thing now moment.
Suddenly you’re up on the world’s biggest trim, being hurled forwards out of your seat in a Stealth’s brake run but insanely huge fashion, with the near infinite freedom of a world-class restraint. It’s a ridiculous moment of airtime and again the visuals are just incomprehensible, I was forever too caught up in the moment to really take a look around and appreciate being over 500ft in the air.
But you are, a 500ft drop follows into the speed demon finale. And I guess it’s time to talk about the trains. The seating feels slightly lower than usual, to the point that staff ask you to stick your legs out in front of you before applying the lap bar. The result of this is a very relaxed position, a bit like a B&M wing for world’s first, feet first. Front row was a great view, with the unspoken protection of the windscreen that exists at the beginning of every car. This safety feature takes the edge off of the fast section though and it is just, at heart, a few fast swooping corners and one quite fun speed hill.
However this is a creature with two personalities. The rear seats of each car are tiered outwards and do not receive the same level of shielding from the windscreen. I love either potential scenario here, that this was perfectly engineered to provide contrasting experiences, or that it wasn’t quite mathed out properly and went unnoticed until someone sat in it. The wind in face, high speed flesh ripple effect is real back here and oh so scarily satisfying.
But that’s a story for later. We ended our first lap with the amusing view of another of those police cars watching from a rooftop. The bird had been bested and I was extremely satisfied. That was a lot better than I had anticipated.
Six Flags have opened up an entire park here though, so let’s go see the rest of it.
Round the corner and looking silly, smaller than the pedestrian section of Falcons, is #3 Colossus, but not as we know it.
Free lockers are outside the ride here, as they are throughout the rest of the park, then a security scan takes you into the queue which, in only this case, had multiple staff just pointing you in the right direction, smiling and waving. It was a walk-on, and remained that way for the duration of our visit.
Which should be immediately capitalised on because god damn it’s good. GCI are back and I’m so happy for them. Did they leave? I don’t actually know, but it feels like they haven’t kicked my ass since 2017. The new trains aren’t the greatest, with shin bars that were less encroaching on me than an RMC, but also a lap bar that’s just a bit uncomfortable and prone to stapling.
This wasn’t quite enough to directly hamper the experience though, the thing absolutely hauls through the layout which plays on a wide range of their best beats, from many, many moments of strong ejector to wild and out of control transitions. The back row has, to memory, the hardest punch of any first drop on a GCI, but over time we grew to love the front more. It amplifies the majority of the strongest elements and as the night went on, you could hear the screams of the sidestops just like our golden memories of Mystic Timbers.
I’ve seen references to it being like an RMC, but if it wasn’t for the signature GCI bump in the middle of a corner transition on one of the turnarounds, I’d liken it more to one of my favourite Gravity Groups. A top 5 in it’s class for sure.
Next in rank order of appeal was the question of is this the wrong #4 Iron Rattler? Even without an Intamin in the background, the cliffs surrounding the park make it hard to figure out this is a 200ft tilt coaster. With one of the more themed indoor queues, Six Flags character Professor Screamore has moved out of his crumbling Maryland home and immeasurably upgraded his hardware. It’s a great looking ride and I love the ambition of the pipework alongside the drop, and the drill on the front of the train of course.
Never actually done a Vekoma tilt before, thanks Cedar Point, only Jinmas ofvarying vintage. So the signature sensation wasn’t that new to me and didn’t put the fear in me, though the vertical hang into the vests for several seconds is quite something.
It begins with some strong positives through a tunnel and up into a stall, which provides enough floatiness to fix your muggy head, a technique I found they perfected on Wrath of Zeus after Lech Coaster being a bit too far in the wrong direction.
The rest of the layout does it’s own thing though and is another Vekoma masterclass really. Inventive inversions interspersed with decent airtime. It’s so smooth and effortless in the way that it whips you around that it almost manages to not kick your ass, a danger with many of the earlier new designs. With B&M contributions getting more embarrassing by the year, it’s crazy to think that the builder of the Boomerang is now the best in the business for refinement. A top 5 in it’s class for sure.
Last of the big boys is #5 Spitfire, looking silly in the shadow of the Falcon. That’s only the world’s tallest inversion up there. But you won’t feel it.
Themed to old planes and stuff, the familiar Intamin rolling stock looks pretty welcoming here. You wiggle out onto the launch track and, unfailingly, the wrong announcement plays saying leave the train and take your bags. A pop on the back of the head and the now old news of triple launch with a hump in it sequence begins.
It’s good, the lurch over the hill on the backwards stint is impressive, as is the transition at the top of the vertical spike. The inversion itself is better than I had expected, there’s a definite pause for thought in it, which is testament to the control of the launch. It doesn’t just blast through and you’re done. Big drop back and half an airtime pop into the brakes, it ends like Red Force without the comedy.
And for me it’s better than all those up, down and done boys, Top Thrill notwithstanding, thanks Cedar Point. The superior restraints and triple launch shenanigans are enough to turn it from boring record breaker to respectable standalone coaster and it would smash a lot of headline attractions out there for it.
Can’t have a new park without a good cred run, it was time to mop up the rest.
#6 Twilight Express is a very cute Vekoma Junior with a cooked Ladybird motif several times over. I spent the whole time trying and failing to figure out which one it was a clone of. Notably the two train operation only gets you one lap however.
#7 Saw Mill Falls is an oddity, Mack’s contribution to this lineup being just another water coaster. No one was ever riding it of course, I guess it’ll do well in the times when it’s too hot, but not deathly so. Even new ones ride pretty poor because it’s a boat I guess, a one and done that thankfully wasn’t overly wet.
#8 Sea Stallion is an abomination, the only other queue on park because of course the capacity was abysmal. I wasn’t sure coming here whether it was a racing one with two sides or not, but alas, or maybe for the best, it isn’t.
Several issues. The throttle is uncomfortable to keep pinned due to the texture of the metal and the force with which it wants to spring back. Trying to up the capacity by having more cars on track leads to the throttle being largely pointless because you’re limited to the speed of the people in front, like a busy Bobkart. Being limited to the speed of the people in front means you spend half of the banked moments slowly falling out of your motorbike style seat, which is uncomfortable to begin with. Worst coaster in the country, even Sky Dragster is better. Looks ok.
Last up was #9 Adrena-line, which we had somehow managed to not lay eyes on all evening, even though it’s right next to Falcons Flight. It’s that same tunnel vision I had, why would I even care about a Vekoma SFC in the moment?
Two trains is a sight to behold on one of these, though it was also our first slightly sour experience with fastrack, as holders took an entire train in front of our eyes. There was however a supervisor on hand who spotted this and came to remind the batch guy to spread the load a bit better. I do fear for how long the sentiment will last, but that’s a story for later.
Theme here is interesting, though it’s probably the most bland and Six Flags queue on park. They’ve got a sexy robot lady talking about thrilling transport -lines, but she ain’t no Ride to Happiness.
I spent the whole time trying to figure out which one it was a clone of. Guess it’s not, starts the same as an Orkanen but does a tiny bit more perhaps. Feels the same.
Creds complete we had some surprisingly cheap and tasty pizza in the same area and then it was dark ride time of course.
Enchanted Greenhouse is a combined effort from the usual Beneluxian bunch of Joravision, ETF and Alterface. The queue is lovely, and you can feel the European vibe for sure, with a scent of Symbolica in the air.
There’s a couple of buttons to push along the way which sprays some cute creatures with a colourful mist and makes them go all warm and fuzzy. A clue for the theme of the ride.
Preshow has Farasha the fairy explain what’s going on, in an appreciated alternating dual language. Cute creatures. Colourful mist. I just love that it’s not a high-tech all-terrain vehicle and we’re not off to shoot some bad guys to save the world. Happy dark rides are right up my alley.
Ride itself is densely packed with detail, there’s some screen based spraying but plenty of physical creatures too that also register amongst the foliage. Other fun effects are at play too but my highlight is, as usual, the actual integration of trackless technology into the experience. One room has a giant bee on it’s own vehicle, chasing you around a pillar. And you can spray it too. Genius.
The other added bonus to the interactivity is that you don’t just score points, but attempt to collect all of the different types of creature in one sitting. The board shows you at the end, with silhouettes of the ones you missed. Loved it.
The other dark ride on park is Into the Deep, the advanced evolution of Triotech’s Hyper Ride system, which I was glad to have tried the prototype of, back in Canada earlier last year.
Again the theme was a pleasant surprise, I expected this one to be a bit darker, and it is visually, but essentially the same setup. The extremely atmospheric and boomy voice of the queueline explains that you aren’t shooting the sea creatures, you’re saving them. Strangely this felt to me most inspired by a very obscure Chinese dark ride that had me removing pollution from ocean dwellers with my gun.
You sit in your comfy gamer chair anyway and can be spun in any direction, tilted this way and that. Predominantly screen based but there’s a respectable amount going on in the other department including a frankly hilarious jump scare from a giant head.
Only issue we had was with some timing at the end, vehicles stacking led to a couple scenes either not going off for us, or going off when we weren’t looking. Fixable early teething problems for sure. Great ride otherwise.
Talking of timing issues, did Treasure Trail for a laugh as Six Flags call it another dark ride but it’s all outside. Feels like there’s a few bits missing here and there, and then the same stacking happened so the onboard audio didn’t tie up with what was going on, but it was an entertaining car ride nonetheless.
Think that’s about it for the park, spent some time bouncing between the big coasters before ending the night on the main event. Oh how we missed that afternoon queue, the wait for Falcons Flight got pretty miserable the second time around.
Several issues. Fastrack come thick and fast, without a supervisor to tell the batchers to simmer down this time. The ride system appeared to be limping along after it’s relative success first thing, with regular suspense of operation and a reduction in trains. Many foolish guests, including obvious goons, were abusing the free lockers within the queue by intentionally not returning their ticket to unlock them and instead going round for multiple laps over multiple hours. This eventually led to moments of no lockers being available, and tanking the subsequent throughput to the point that there weren’t enough guests getting to the station to fill the trains. Can’t predict public stupidity. A fireworks and drone show happened, which to be honest I had no idea was a thing, so Happy New Year for me was spent in a sweaty queue not moving for 40 minutes because the ride wasn’t operating during that.
Wouldn’t have had it any other way though, we got on the ride well after 1am after all was said and done, in the aforementioned tiered seats at the back of car 2. I can’t even attempt to describe the emotions of the situation, but I can talk about our old friend the sensation of speed.
I never got it before. There’s so many fans out there of your Millennium Forces, your Fury 325s, even Formula Rossa didn’t make much of a positive impact on me. Having parts of a ride that are just ‘going fast’ and nothing else has never been my thing. Hitting top speed with the Falcon is devastating however. The launch itself shatters the stone-faced mask of a man who spends many of the supposed highlight moments of his coaster career sunglasses on, not caring. From this point forward it took my breath away, literally, I couldn’t breathe for how thick and fast the wind, maybe sand, maybe miscellaneous was battering me for several extended periods of that final section. It’s assault, and pure joy. I’m scared I’ll only ride rollercoasters in reference to this experience in the future and they’ll feel even worse off for it.
Riding any coaster at that time of night, at that time of year even, is special, not least when it’s the most abominable piece of hardware ever conceived. Moments like this may never come to the hobby again, and that’s why I never stop to think about doing these stupid things.
