Whats going on at SFMM?!?

I wrote a long rant about SFMM and the state of the park during my visit during my trip here: http://rollercoaster.dreamhost.com/parks/archives/cat_magic_mountain.html . It's pretty long, hehe.

Despite all that, however, I'd rec you go to SFMM if you haven't been. This is because of X. I thought it was one of (if not THE) best steel coaster of the trip.

Having said I think you should go, if only just once, I'll also add that the park does seem to make it difficult for the average guest to have a good day there - you kind of have to work at it. Check boards like these before you go to make sure X is going to be open on the day of your visit. In general, they will occasionally have it closed though I haven't seen anything like that about it recently - but keep an eye on it. Without X, you probably don't need to go through the crap you'll put up with at the park.

Arrive at the park and run to X. I did this, a bit late at 10:15AM, and arrived at an X with a 1 hour wait, which I believe is relatively short. When I got off the ride at 11:15AM the line had at least tripled in size.

Well, I'll skip on more tips as you're main question is WHY the park is as miserable as it is, which I can't answer. It's certainly a shame as it could be one of the best parks in the country with the coaster lineup it has.

Just going to SFMM for X doesn't make a southern Cali trip a total waste. Disneyland/California Adventure was one of the best park experiences of my trip - it's totally worth a flight to do those 2 parks, and if you are lucky enough to get on X, that will make it worth it as well.

IMHO, :) *** Edited 9/10/2004 3:57:47 PM UTC by rdreaming***

I didn't care for X so for me, SFMM was nothing more than a place to score some coaster credits. The best rides in the park were the B&M rides and two of them I can ride right here in NJ (makes me wish that SFGAdv would get a B&M standup).

I started a trip report but never finished it... maybe when I have some free time during the off-season!

Ummm, SFMM's ex-sister park in Cleveland had huge attendance jumps when they added their first 4 coasters in 2000 and a fifth one in 2001, both increases in double-digit percentages. Now, they lost attendance *mainly* due to adding nothing major in 2002 and 2003, not getting enough money *in* compared to what they were putting *out* (since it was such a huge park with so many employees, animals, etc.)- they should have made the park two seperate gates- huge mistake on their part, and poor weather. Pretty much the same reason you'll see not-so-great attendance at Geauga Lake this year, but they don't have the burden of the animals and staffing most of that area. "Bad customer service/operations" didn't do anything to the park that hasn't been done for years at many of the other SF parks. They're much easier to *pay for* and *ride out* though with less competition and less money for SF to have to put into for the most part. That's the reason the experiment of SFWOA failed. If they didn't buy the SeaWorld part, I'm *fairly sure* we would still still SFO today in Aurora, Ohio.

Now, I would say SFMM sounds worse since I thought SFWOA had the best atmosphere in northern Ohio and of pretty much any park I've been to straight out to the east coast (minus Hershey, KW, and BGW- three of my favorite parks). And if they're talking about mainly one-train op at SFMM, SFWOA had two trains on Villain, Batman, Double Loop, and Serial Thriller every time I went, so that's 4/7 coasters than can run at least two trains and two of the other three *never* had a wait (Big Dipper and Raging Wolf Bobs) and Cedar Fair doesn't run any more trains than SF did then. Still one on X-Flight as well and a few of the rides at the park like Mr. Hyde's and the Pepsi Plunge still aren't operating. Now, maybe I have no idea how to visit a park, but I'd say SFWOA was one of the more enjoyable parks I had ever been to.

+Danny *** Edited 9/10/2004 6:08:20 PM UTC by +Danny***

I didn't have a problem with SFWoA in 2002. Aside from typically-crappy SF food, I found a park with a nice atmosphere and a great collection of coasters. I can't wait to see the park this October as well as in future years when I'm sure that some polish will be applied to the park and its operations.