Six Flags Magic Mountain 5-17-10

I managed to hit some LA traffic on the way to SFMM...but nothing that bad. I was kind of concerned with the weather cause it looked like rain for sure. Parked in row 1, took tram to front gate. TONS of seniors and tons of school buses made me dread the day but actually it wasnt bad at all. I got picked to do a customer poll and the guy doing it was talking about this one woman who has a huge X2 tattoo on her arm...I shut him up when I showed him my CP tattoo on my calf. He said "wow" so guess hes not so impressed by the lady with the X2 tatt anymore ;)
And I did have some kid ask if he could take a picture of my CP tatt. I do need to start charging for that! :)

Turns out the park was DEAD-every ride was almost a walk on it was the PERFECT Six Flags day! :)

X2-Was my 1st ride of the day. This ride is SO amazing. I ended up with 3 rides total, each ride better than the last AMAZING!!
Viper: I was rather impressed-it was pretty freaking smooth for an Arrow. Maybe it's because of Vortex but I did enjoy this ride. I rode it 2x total.
Goliath: Loved this in August, loved it again 3x. I grayed on the 1st thill on the 1st ride and the helix all 3 rides.
Superman-The Escape: Down in August so rode it finally. I guess after TTD it is hard to be impressed by any lauch, but I will have to say I liked the "rollback" better than TTDs ;) Only rode 1x
Batman The Ride: Loved this ride in August, loved it even more this trip. Its like Raptor but all the elements are close together. There was NO head banging (and I sat in row 8, then 6, then 3) on any of the rides and the helix is awesome. At the end of one of the rides I had to unlatch the seat belt for the riders next to me, yes, thats right I used some of my Raptor ride op skills ;)
Deja Vu: It was like Invertigo so it was Deja Vu for me...1 ride, plenty.
Tatsu: Leave it up to B&M to make a quality flyer. Loved this in August, loved it 2x yesterday
Riddlers Revenge: LOVE this stand up! I also really love how you are warned the seats are locking and thats it, the dorks who didnt stand up straight are SOL. What an intense, fun ride. NO head banging, no nadda just fun. RR rips off Mantis' head and spits it to the ground. 3 walk on rides for me.
Scream: Down in August. Totally reminded me of Dominator which made me kind of sad until I rode it. What an awesome ride! Great g's great everything, not as long as Dominator but I personally think better. Much better and smoother ride with just as intense elements. Rode 3x.
Terminator Salvation: LOVED in August, GAGA for it now! OMG this woodie is non stop intense fun! I managed 3 rides, including 1 reride. No audio on the actual ride but the queues were still fun. This is still my favorite woodie EVER :)
Colossus: I expected a bad ride, no clue why but I was sadly proved wrong. Pretty fun woodie, pretty painfree too. Rode 2x.
Gold Rusher: Rode in 1st car to avoid any unnecessary pain. It was actually alot of fun except when a log from Log Jammer went by on top of us and got us good with water. Only rode 1x..plenty.
Ninja: Could so do without the Karate Kid advertisment wrap on one whole train, yet a fun and long coaster. What everyone wishes TopFlightDeckGun was. Only rode 1x.
Revolution: Rode in August, liked it. Despite it's age it really is alot of fun. Hate the restraints. Rode 2x.

Lunch was Johnny Rockets which was a DIRE mistake. It was almost $20.00 for a double and small Coke (that was even with my Discover 5% discount) Holy crap I could have had an egg salad sandwich, a shake and got to watch dancing INSIDE at JR at CP for less than 20.00! I usually do not touch beef, so idk wth I was thinking getting this but my tummy was screaming at me the rest of the day. I dont mind paying alot for food if its good, this cheeseburger was nothing short of just ok. The good thing was I didnt want to eat the rest of the day (or night for that matter)

Rain started like at 5 (park closed at 6) but there were still a few rides running. The rain was more like an Ohio drizzle, nothing bad. I got a Goliath ride in the rain, awesome, and Tatsu too. I hit up the gift shop and got a Goliath, X2 and Terminator Salvation shirt, plus a couple of shirts for my hubby and kids. Dont ask how much all that was!

I have to say that this was one of the most enjoyable coaster trips I have taken in a LONG time! NO lines, lots of rides, lots or more rides and all the time in the world to do it all. The park was spotless, the employees were ALL smiles and all said hi or "have a six flags day" and most of them would high 5 you when you were leaving the ride. The one thing I noticed is there seems to be lack of an issue with smokers. I saw them in their designated areas but that was it.

With all the negative SF stuff Ive heard and read this is the 2nd time this park has totally impressed me and showed me a GREAT Six Flags day!! :)

Jo
Lifetime Raptor flights: 2175 :)

LuvRaptor said:
With all the negative SF stuff Ive heard and read this is the 2nd time this park has totally impressed me and showed me a GREAT Six Flags day!! :)

Seems like much of the negativity is residual stuff from people who haven't visited in a while.

I've had nothing but good SF experience for the past few years. Stark contrast to the suckfest that was SF in the first half of the decade. Still, shaking that reputation seems to be tough.

Thanks for the TR, sounds like a good day.

Glad you had a great visit. I was at the park yesterday too. I actually saw you a few times. We were in line for Viper and Riddler's Revenge at the same time and I saw you taking pictures of Superman while I walked up to ride it.

I give SFMM credit for keeping some of the rides open during the rain. Knott's probably would have closed almost everything at the first hint of a light drizzle. I rode Revolution twice and Tatsu four times while it was raining. It was the first time it has ever rained while I was there. I got on 33 total rides. I used my skip-the-line pass on X2 around 11am when it had a 90 min. wait and had 15 min. waits or less including many walk-ons on everything else and many times in which I was able to re-ride without exiting the train.

I had a very similar day to yours two weeks ago. Only mistake I made was buying a platinum flash pass, and then paying an extra $15 for a scheduled time to ride X2 eventhough there were only 6 people riding it at that time.

Was kind of nice waving my wristband to get the re-ride on the coasters, even though other people got re-rides without a wristband. Who cares - that wristband made me feel special!

I too was expecting the worst from the park but I had a really great day. Have to say the only hatred I have with the park is with Riddler's Revenge. I absolutely got abused by it. Not sure how you managed to enjoy it.

And I don't understand why people do not like flyers. The B&M's are awesome.

Six people in line for X2. You must have been there on a school day. That's what it was like when I was there on weekdays in March and April. Sorry you had so much trouble with Riddler's Revenge. I've always found it to be one of the smoothest coasters I've ever rode.

SFMMAddict said:
Glad you had a great visit. I was at the park yesterday too. I actually saw you a few times. We were in line for Viper and Riddler's Revenge at the same time and I saw you taking pictures of Superman while I walked up to ride it.

I totally saw you--you had on the black Tatsu shirt and a black jacket tied around your waist! Why didnt you say something?? Dont worry about me I totally love meeting people!!!

Yeah it was a totally awesome day for me, one of the best visits to a park Ive had in ages!!! :)

Jo
Lifetime Raptor flights: 2175 :)

Awesome. Yes that was me. I thought about saying something each time I saw you but I wasn't sure if I should just walk up and say "hi, I saw your picture on CoasterBuzz" or something like that. I wouldn't want to make anyone uncomfortable. Glad you're enjoying my favorite park so much.

SFMMAddict said:
Six people in line for X2. You must have been there on a school day. That's what it was like when I was there on weekdays in March and April. Sorry you had so much trouble with Riddler's Revenge. I've always found it to be one of the smoothest coasters I've ever rode.

Thursday, May 6. It was a very low crowd. Guess I will have to go back to try RR again. If I can only get work to fly me out there again.

Yes, that explains it. Crowds were similar to that when I was there on March 23 and April 16. Walk ons and/or stay ons on every coaster.

this one woman who has a huge X2 tattoo on her arm

That's Jodi Malone, a sweetheart from socal(even if she is X obsessed), and her whole forearm is the first drop on X. I actually had my first X ride with Jodi (I love that ride). I believe she used to be the SoCal ACE rep as well. Spent a day with her, Gator, and CoasterQueen at Disneyland (Well, parts of a day, LOL) in 2005.

Seems like much of the negativity is residual stuff from people who haven't visited in a while.

Yeah, in 2005 I hated my visit there. Lots of coasters and rides closed, 1 train on 1 side of Colossus running, and they filled half the train with FlashPass every time, making the line 2 hours, terrible food choices, and there was a lot of trash everywhere.

I really want to get back because I've heard that it's a much better place under the new(ish) GM. I think taking down Flashback and Psyclone, and adding some coasters and family stuff has helped, along with painting and reopening the Skytower. I'd just like to see the park get a dark ride and some thrill rides that weren't coasters, but I really want to get back to the park and give it a shot now that it's gotten better.

Sounded like a great trip :D It's funny listening to all these great experiences recently, for last time I went, the Thursday after Terminator opened, I wanted water from the dippin dots place next to Tatsu. There were two employees sitting there, one was on the counter, the other was mopping. They both just looked at me, and then went back to talking amongst themselves. Didn't even bother to ask if they could help me with anything :(

I miss having those kinds of days at parks! Back when we lived in Chicago we had season passes to SFGaM and Tuesdays were the golden day when no one was around. Combine it with a little rain, and it was pure magic. No wait times, and lovely ride times.

Glad you had a great day at the park! I'd love to mosey over to Cali for a few days.

Tekwardo said:

That's Jodi Malone, a sweetheart from socal(even if she is X obsessed), and her whole forearm is the first drop on X. I actually had my first X ride with Jodi (I love that ride). I believe she used to be the SoCal ACE rep as well. Spent a day with her, Gator, and CoasterQueen at Disneyland (Well, parts of a day, LOL) in 2005.

LOL Clint - got in about 10 laps or so with Jodi (in about 1-1/2 hours)on the Monday after SpringCon....park was deserted (pun fully intended). Jodi should hit the 1K mark sometime this season. Personally, those laps left my shoulders beaten and bruised - still hurt the following weekend when I got more of the same on Dale, er, Timmy.

Terminator: Salvation and Tatsu were both new-to-me at SFMM. Tatsu is the exact opposite of Manta - WAY high, and with the pretzel at the end....a very nice variation. Still think I prefer Manta just a bit. Terminator was a really solid GCII - but the pre-shows were a real buzzkill (weird you can have a buzzkill in advance of the ride, but by the time you reach the station, you just want out of the attraction. SFMM should really consider "fixing" that....all those employees in camo really eat up the staffing budget as well.

Skytower....amazing! Thanks Jay! :)

Tekwardo said:

this one woman who has a huge X2 tattoo on her arm

That's Jodi Malone, a sweetheart from socal(even if she is X obsessed), and her whole forearm is the first drop on X.

I didnt even bother showing that guy my Raptor tatt on my other calf, or my other CP tattoo, MF tattoo and other Raptor tatt on my shoulders ;)
I just had a huge tatt done on my right foot of my horses. I think Im pretty done with the CP/Raptor tatts.

Jo
Lifetime Raptor flights: 2175 :)