SFMM-a sloppy review

Ok-I have been following this park for years...watching all of the rides online-checking the construction of rides like X and Scream.....so to finally get to the park was quite an intense feeling. I had heard it all..everyone says how poorly the park is ran and not to get your hopes up..etc. etc. I went anyway, and this is how it went:

Driving up to the park the first thing you see is X. This ride looks so much more killer in person. Pictures just dont do it justice. Now-we get into the park, head straight to X to get a long line out of the way....while there I got some good snapshots of Viper while in line....speaking of lines-I rarely wait in them for too long. If I see one that looks to be over an hour-I skip the ride..but seeing as that I traveled halfway across the country to ride this thing, it was the exception. And some exception it was, because it was freaking 3 and half hours later that I finally got up to the thing. ...and then it broke down right before my turn came up. Talked about being pissed, I had kept calm the entire time and that really blew the fuse. They were only running one train as well...which is complete crap seeing as that its only the most popular freaking ride in the entire park....anyway...another 20 minutes later they had it fixed (totally about 3:50 wait time). It was kind of unsettling riding the ride just after they fixed it with no test run, but one can only assume that if they had 6 techs working on it...it should be good to go, right? ...umm, right...ok, so strap in, we're in the first car...hop out, start going up the hill...I actually feel a since of excitement since I had entered the park almost 4 hours before. We top the hill, do the spin before the first drop, BAM head bang....the first drop was amazing....there is nothing like falling 200+ feet straight down facing the ground. Amazing. then...the rest of the ride....absolute crap. Yeah ok, disorienting..awesome, whatever, I have no idea where I'm going the entire time, although I know the course like the back of my hand. My head has never been beaten so much in my entire life. Seriously. I might as well had just put myself in a dryer and had my girlfriend set it to "beat the living whatever out of him". So....yeah, great way to start my day in the park. (i have a new name for X....F-X) This totally dampered mine and my g/f's mood for the rest of the day....We had gotten advice to hit this one first...for the long wait...but that was the crappiest advice I'd ever heard.

Anyway-X looks good on paper, but will probably be ranked as one of the worst coasters I've ever ridden, as well as one of the most painful. (it even beats out poltergeist with the old trains)

Next up: GOLIATH. guess what? this ride ..(oh by the way, i'm loosing all proper punctuation from this point on, it just bothers me...i prefer a more Selby like approach to putting words down)..anyway...this ride broke down after 20 minutes in line, and was said to be closed for the rest of the day. this was particularly dissapointing seeing as that i had been watching it from the line of X for the last 3 hours and noticed that goliath had dispatched like, 5 trains to every 1 train X dispatched. Now had I not experienced TITAN, this would have had me ragin' cajun p.o'ed and I might have just left the park....but alas, I said F it and continued on to:

SCREAM! 20 minute wait for this bad boy of a ride...this brought it all together for me. Probably the first smile on my face since I'd been there. SMOOTH is the best way you can describe it, and flawless design....the themeing sucks-but every ride AT magic mountain has poor themeing so I didn't expect much in that department. This one here has become my favorite b&m (not that I've ridden tons of them....) We had a back ride, great ride...absolutely awesome.

then we hit COLOSSUS for a backwards ride...little wait time...kick ass ride. it did make me a bit sickly backwards, but the unexpected drops were rad. great classic woodie.

after that we headed over to RIDDLERS REVENGE. waited an hour for this one, got the first car...it was dark at this point..and this ride was freaking dope as well. SO SMOOTH. riding these two made me realize how rough S:KC at SFFT really is....these two go off flawlessly, and this stand up seat wasn't near as rough as batman is in houston...i actually didn't feel violated by their design. thank you B&M....thank you for that....

SUPERMAN had broken down earlier into the day....which blew, cause i really wanted to ride it, but we went up to ride NINJA anyway..which was......you guessed it: broken down...or closed due to FRIGHT FEST-which btw was really cool...they had it all up on a hill, and the smoke everywhere and the ghouls and the ghosts and all the WHOOHA that halloween has to offer. it was dope. it scared the mess out of my g/f which was also entertaining. i'm trying to snap photos of them and shes cursing me out pulling me to run faster...so ran we did...

straight down to viper. 30 minute wait on this one...i heard it was a head banger, and maybe i just got rocked too hard by X, but this ride was pretty smooth....we were like 3rd car back...this ride is scary in the "i dont feel safe on this ride" kinda way. it was rad though, the first loop is so high up, and riding it at night...whew. killer. i dug it...my first major looping coaster by arrow...i dont see why they get such bad press..i mean, yeah, they're no B&M, but its still a great coaster.

after leaving that area, we noticed superman was back up, so we managed two rides on this one before the park closed. lives up to the hype, great feeling of weightlessness, and i love how ride ops are all casual. i was mid-sentence on the first launch...i'm all: "man the themeing on the cue line here was actually pretty go..........." great ride.

so:

10 hours in the park (12-10)
only 6 coasters hit (total of seven rides)

my overall opinion of the park:

great rides, horrible park. dirty. themeing on rides suck. lack of freaking effiency (one train on fX...come on....) it was cool to say i have it under my belt, and i have a couple of new top 5's on my list now...but thats about all i got out of it.

ride ratings: (out of 10)

X: 3 (just for the first drop)
scream: 9 (smoothness is next to godliness...or something)
collossus: 7
riddlers revenge: 8 (p.s.-thank you for not making me a woman)
viper: 8 (cause i was scared)
superman: 8 (i mean eig...)

rides i didn't ride due to lack of time or broken down action:

a lot. you know them...you're a coaster enthusiast.

i'd much rather spend a day at SFOT anyday....

-the isaac

(if you made it this far, you're a trooper for dealing with my scatterbrained approach at writing)

Although it sounds like a tough time for you, hitting X first is really the only way to go. Get to the park early, like 9:15 or 9:30, run up to X. It won't ever open with the park because it is X and this is SFMM, but usually it will open pretty soon after. Doing that, you'll be on in 15 minutes. That is the only way I have ever been on X.

Scream felt smooth? I guess smooth is different for everyone, but I've always found it to have tons of vibration.

But anyway, sounds like "one of those days" at SFMM.... It can be decent, or it can be a nightmare. Seems like your day was more to the latter.
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Knotts Halloween Haunt- Everyone has to go sometime....

Finally someone with a similar report on SFMM in general as me! I was lucky enough to spend two days spread apart on my trip in the park, so I ended up hitting the entire park's worth of rides - to bad you missed Deja Vu, it really is something to behold! But, totally agreed on all rides, although I don't think that the pain on X takes away from it *that* much - I still had a blast on it, but I have a pretty high coaster pain tolerance. Refreshing to see I'm not completely alone in my review of the place! And your writing wasn't that bad - I was able to follow ;)

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Brett
Resident Launch Whore