Cedar Point versus Magic Mountain coaster race debate over

^^^Aw man, the hills are the one thing I like about Magic Mountain. I guess they should have called it Magic Hill instead eh? ;) And speaking of eh, what's this about Canada's Wonderland? ;)

Yeah...nothing worse than having interesting terrain on which to build coasters. Flat land is much better...not!

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“Someday we will reclaim the title,” vowed Magic Mountain spokeswoman Sue Carpenter. “We’ll be back.”

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Isn't this how the company got run into the ground in the first place?

Here's a thought: just worry about making your own parks better, and not about what a park that is not even a competitor is doing.

She did not say tomorrow they will reclaim the title. She said someday, which could be pretty far away.

There aren't that many hills at Magic Mountain. It's just that one giant hill near Superman which is the pain in the behind to me.

Well, there used to be a funicular, cable car, sky ride, and monorail to help.

*** This post was edited by janfrederick 1/17/2008 2:44:32 PM ***

The "Magic Mountain has so many closed coasters at a given time each day" argument is really no longer valid. Those that have been to the park within the past two years will know this is true.

It is rare now that you'll go to the park and find any of the park's coasters closed without a very good reason (unlike in the past).

The park's biggest problem right now is outdated infrastructure, lousy guest services, and still shaky ride operations efficiency.

Went to SFMM last year for the first time and every coaster was running. Even got to ride Deja Vu and Superman. Now the park was slammed and it took a hour to get from the highway to the toll booth. Never even got close to riding X or Tatsu, because 3 hr wait time. CP seems to me that I got to ride all the coasters in a full day. NOw SFMM no chance. That's a big Plus when you are going 3000 miles to ride roller coasters.

Now Will SFMM now be on the block? It's worth more than any park they own and it's been talked about.

SFMM might be worth a lot, but its needs a lot of TLC.

Who would buy that?

Cedar Fair?

They just got burned with Paramount. I don't think they are in the market... but they would be able to do a killer job with SFMM.

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Spinout said

Superman is been giving them problems for awhile. It's just the technology. Mr. Freeze has had problems, Joker's Jinx probably has problems. I know V2 has had problems. Yes, they aren't all Intamin, but they are all of the new type of technology. Because of new technology, rides have problems.

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I think at this point to call any of those new rides "new technology" would be way off. Flight of Fear debuted in 1996. I'm sure that there was at least a two to three-year development period beforehand to get it ready for market. Superman the Escape debuted in 97', and Mr. Freeze in 98'.

You called out Joker's Jinx as a ride possibly having a lot of downtime. I would dispute that. While I wouldn't call it rock-solid, it's usually running with both trains, except for in year's past when they would have to shut it down in fall for the neighbors (does anyone know if they still do that? ).

Our Mr. Freeze (SFoT) runs like a champ. I've never seen it down except for the safety concern with other premier launchers (like when Chiller went insane).

As for "It is rare now that you'll go to the park and find any of the park's coasters closed without a very good reason (unlike in the past)" I honestly couldn't give a rat's butt about their reasons for closing things. Whether it's for maintanence, puke, weather, safety, laziness...if a ride is open I ride it and have a good time, if not, I don't and don't have a good time. I don't go to a park with a bunch of closed rides and say "Well, even though I flew 3000 miles out here to ride some stuff, I'm glad they're closed for preventative maintenance."

Whatever the reasons for closure, in my expereince (3 trips to CP, 4 to MM) CP consistantly has more rides open and I consistantly have a better time at that park.

I still don't get the whole "coaster capital of the world" concept... seems to be a kind of male macho/alpha animal/"there can only be one boss"/quasi-fascist spasmic brain paradigm... What's so hard about getting beyond the hierarchical perspective into a post-structuralist point of view:All coaster-parks are nodes in a network, they are all different in their interior- and microstructures as well as their tendencies.
The elements of our world aren't measured on a monodimensional scale, they actually form multidimensional networks of nodes, each with their own rules, hierarchies, and systems of meaning - connected and feeding of-of and into one another on every level.

:o)

...And MM is all the better since they stepped out of that inane coaster count race. That park is 100 percent on it's way back, as evident in my last visit.

Did you guys go to MM last season because I defiantly noticed improvements, everything was open the park was dead and the right side of the park is always dead empty and I think Tatsu is probably one of the best coasters of all time. The park still has work but you guys described the park prior to last season.

DO you think they're trying to counter the previous article with this one?