I had thought that Six Flags America had lowered the bar for shittiest park in America so far that it could go no lower. Well, I was wrong. A day shy of our 2 month anniversay going to amusement parks day in and day out, Six Flags Magic Mountain has succeeded in lowering the bar even further for what constitutes a bad park.

For SFA, I decided to skip listing all the small gripes, bitches, money chiseling and general small problems that add up to feeling the park I'm visiting just has no respect or appreciation for the idea of making sure I, as an average park guest, have the best day possible. However, I'm annoyed enough by the past day and a half I've spent at Magic Mountain that I do, in fact, have the energy to list every petty gripe and grievance I've experienced in the past 32 hours. I'll organize it first by ride; then by general bitching. If you have a particularly hated attraction you'd like to bond with me over, I've taken the liberty of listing the attractions alphabetically below, so you can skip down to your favorite.

The list is from the list of rides I've been planning on riding that I create for each park, based on research on a roller coaster newsgroup.

Arrowhead Splashdown (Jet Stream)
Batman the Ride
Colossus
Deja Vu
Flashback
Gold Rusher
Goliath
Log Jammer
Monorail
Ninja
Psyclone
Revolution
Riddlers Revenge
Scream
Skytower
Superman the Escape
Swiss Twist (Bayern Curve)
Viper
X

Arrowhead Splashdown (Jet Stream)

Great. Yet another Six Flags water attraction that's operated for fuck knows how many years with a name everyone recognizes, now changed to some fucking regional water company name that gave them $40 to pay off some of their debt and a hand job to the CEO. And, just like every other Six Flags where I've seen this happen, the park hasn't even bothered to take the old name off all the shit around it.

Of course, my bitch with Jet Stream does not end with it's sloppy corporate renaming. So we wait on the 15 minute line and reach the circular, rotating platform that we all associate with log flumes. The nice ride op at the turnstile asks me how many people. Ok, this is normal. I answer 2. "Ok," she says, "number 28."

I look to the number 28 flume boat. The boats on this ride have 2 sections, a front and a back. Up to four people can fit in each boat, it would seem, 2 stradling each other in the front in very close quarters, and 2 in the back in with a bit more room. Boat #28 currently has a rather large middle aged man sitting in it, with his young son (around 8 or 9 years old) sitting in the front. I figure they must be leaving the ride. But I quickly realize they're not. If fact, I'd estimate that they are leaving to start the ride within the next 30 seconds.

"Number 28" she says impatiently.

"I said 2 people," I respond, confused.

"I know, get in #28" she says again, more emphatically.

"There's 2 people in that boat" I respond, more confused.

"I know, there's a minimum of 3 in the boat, please get on #28." she says again.

All right. From the first moment she said #28, there was no way I had time to get over there, say hi to my new friends, convince them to change their seats, have them change their seat to the back, and move in with my wife to the front. No way we had the time with where the boat was on the circle. So, with that option removed, this charming young lady was expecting me to spoon with a fat Mexican man, and for my wife to spoon with his son (ok, or the reverse; either way it's pretty socially discomfitting to meet new people this way). What the fuck?!

I simply don't move and stare at her.

"Fine!" she snaps, "number 17."

Number 17 is empty. Thank fuck. We take the back. She later breaks up a party, sending some poor girl away from her party to sit in the front of the boat with us.

I've already now written to much about this ride, after all I have another 17 attractions with gripes to go. I'll leave it to you, the reader, to determine how this situation could have happened differently if the park was not managed and operated by people with the planning, attention to detail, and communication skills of baboons.

Ok, 1 more thing. At the end of the ride you pass by a scenic island of garbage. I'm not kidding. It's a tiny little area of land inhabited that day by 2 geese, and about 50 or so coke bottles and cups along with some assorted other debris. Scenic flume, indeed.

Batman the Ride

This would have been the fifth Batman ride of our trip, our first four being at SF New Orleans, SF Over Texas, SF Over Georgia, and SF Great Adventure. But it wasn't to be. I love the Batman rides, LOVE THEM. I think they are some of the best coasters in America. Why in the world wouldn't I ride it?

Well, I can summerize why quickly. The ride had an over 1 hour 45 minute wait both days I was there. Some people were reporting it at times at a little over 2 hours. I know this, because I wandered by the ride on both days inquiring people at the exit as to how long they waited. On the second day, I got on the line regardless. OK, fine, I'll wait 2 hours for a fucking Batman, I thought. I'm a completist (kind of), I want to say I rode all the Batmans. That's what I said to myself. But then, the line didn't move. At all.

The line didn't move an inch. We stood out there, in the sun, no shade, and didn't move. 1 minute, 2 minute, 3 minute 4. And more, and more.

Now, I'm not an anal coaster freak that times dispatches. But now I start noticing that trains aren't buzzing by my head very often. I give up and leave the line.

Upon leaving the line, I ask my wife to meet me in a little bit. She goes to sit as I watch. The train enters the station. Then nothing. 30 seconds. 1 minute. A minute and a half. No train leaves.

So, I'm left with 2 options. Either Magic Mountain was running single train operation during the busiest time of year on their Batman ride, or the ride is operated by chimpanzees. I'll never know, and neither will you. But I do know Batman was fucked and I didn't ride it.

Colossus

Nothing particularly annoying happened during the course of my wait and exit of this ride. Well, unless you count the disgusting state of the 2 water fountains on the ride queue. Really, really disgusting. But ok, let's not count that and move on to the state of the coaster itself.

Colossus, like many wood coasters in the Six Flags chain, is a racing coaster where only one side runs. A racing coaster where one side runs is um... well... what's the right word? Suck ass. Two Paramount parks, Kings Dominion and Carowinds, have old racing coasters just like Six Flags has. Paramount to this day runs both sides, one forward and one backward. The rides had nearly full trains all day during my visits to those parks and people obviously loved them. Colossus, on the other hand, is a giant piece of shit noone particularly likes and Six Flags obviously doesn't bother with anymore.

And I'm not even mentioning the fact that some people say this coaster used to be good, until it was reprofiled and braked to be pure suck ass. Oh, did I say I wasn't going to mention that? Oopsie!

Deja Vu

The coaster known for problems gave us... no problems. It was a great coaster, we rode twice in the course of the two days, and had a great time both times. Ride ops had the "This is like working at McDonalds lack of enthusiasm" that I now associate with all Magic Mountain workers but were also efficient so no bitch there. The ride is a capacity nightmare but I mean, I can't really fault the park for that, it's low capacity by nature and design and that's cool.

Flashback

Closed both days. No signage explaining anything. At all. 2 employees wandering by filled us in that the ride has been closed for some time and won't be open this season. Hmmm... maybe they should take it off the map? Are they using it in their coaster count in their ads? I'm not local so I wouldn't know, but I sure wouldn't put it past them.

Gold Rusher

A pretty fucking good mine train. We had no problems. The ride itself looks pretty dilapadated, though, even for a really old mine train. Why must every older ride in this park feel like it's from my grandmother's time? I mean, isn't this one of the most popular amusement parks in America?

Goliath / Fastlane

I've been meaning to review one of the Six Flags, for profit, line cutting systems on the trip since we started. I decided that with Magic Mountain as mobbed as it was, this was a good one to try.

First, let me explain what this is. For some time now, the larger parks have begun to offer a line management method for some of their more popular attractions. The parks generally allow guests to reserve a spot on the line for a certain time, then allow the guests who reserve to "cut" into the line during that time period. The process is open to all guests on a first come first serve basis. Basically, it allows guests who want to plan their day to get on the major attractions without having to deal with the lines. Disneyland, Islands of Adventure, and Cedar Point are all parks that have this system in place.

So what has Magic Mountain done as a variation on this system? To guess, think: "What would someone do with this system if they were... Satan?" Because that's about what Magic Mountain did to the system. They made it evil.

Instead of reserving a time, at Magic Mountain, you simply pay them a sum of money on top of your admission fee, and you can cut the line. Pay them another $4, and you can cut the line again. Do it as many times as you want. $15 gets you 4 times you can cut the line. Like I said, it's as if Satan took the Disneyland/Cedar Point system and changed it to make it FUCKED.

As for the system itself, what a fucking ripoff. We started off with a miscommunication. The ad said "each strip works for 4 people." My wife took this to mean each ticket on the strip would admit up to four people. Of course, the truth is each ticket admits 1 person, and you get 4 tickets on the strip. Get it? The strip works for 4 people, of course, now you need another $15 for another strip.

In addition, the only ride that wasn't an under 15 minute wait that was on the system was Goliath. Riddlers Revenge, X and Deja Vu were not included. I'm not certain about Batman. Scream had about a 10 minute wait, and was included. Every other ride included was a near walk on for most of the day. Of course, the average person buying the Fastlane probably doesn't know that. I watched suckers using Fastlane on 3 train waits or less all day. The ride op on Viper, however, was nice and returned it to one sucker, I mean guest, who tried to give him a Fastpass ticket while the ride had walk on conditions.

So we use the Fastlane on Goliath, which has a 90 minute wait. The first time it works fine, get us in the station, and we ride the back. The second (and final) time we decide to wait for the front. After about 15 minutes, right before we are about to board, the ride breaks down. No estimation on when the ride will be back up. I now explain my situation to the ride op: that I used 2 Fastlane tickets worth $7.50 and that I'd either like the tickets back or a refund. I'm sure you're aware of the response. No refund, and we can't get our tickets back, even if the ride breaks down. We're free to keep our place and wait for the ride to open, but he can't estimate when that will be. We choose to wait and are lucky, we are only there for 15 minutes. I imagine it's difficult to have a system to deal with a situation like this, but the ride op recognized me. Just be aware this is a risk when using their already suckass, for profit, line cutting system.

Now, I'm a bit mixed up about this. On the one hand, I'm happy Magic Mountain is not allowing their line cutting system on attractions where it would be truly infuriating to witness, like on X or Deja Vu. On the other hand, this courtesy makes their line cutting system useless. Oh well, fucked if you do, fucked if you don't. Welcome to Magic Mountain.

Log Jammer

The park guide describes this attraction as "The wildest log ride in Southern California." I'm going to have to take their word on this one as the ride was closed both days. In fact, all signs pointed to the idea that the ride has been closed for some time. Maybe I should not have used the word signs, however, as there were none explaining why the attraction was shut down. Or employees anywhere near it to ask. So it just sits there, like many attractions in the park, collecting dust and closed while being advertised in this season's park guide and, I'm sure, in their press and ride counts as being an attraction available in the park.

Monorail

Monorail! Monorail! Monorail! And, like the fabled Monorail of the Simpsons, this monorail doesn't work. On the bright side, it's not in the park guide as an attraction. On the down side, it's sitting right throughout the center of the park like a giant pile of shit noone is bothering to clean up. The signs saying where it goes are amusing, as they haven't bothered to take those down, either, and I believe the most recent attraction on the sign was the Batman ride, built in 1994.

Ninja / Bag Policies

A very, very good suspended coaster. The only suspended I've been on that's better is Big Bad Wolf, and Big Bad Wolf, I think is only superior due to it's exquisite condition and themeing. I think Ninja might be a more enjoyable ride then Big Bad Wolf, but it's difficult to give it an edge given it's dillapadated condition and surroundings that you pass.

This was the beginning for us of rides where you had to take all your belongings on no matter what you were carrying. Magic Mountain has the most schizophrenic bag policies of any park I've seen, and it seems none of them are designed for the benefit of the guests. Here's the breakdown.

Coasters where you can leave loose items on the opposite platform (Good! Happy!):

Psyclone
Colossus
Gold Rusher
Goliath
Viper
Deja Vu

Coasters where you must check loose articles in a locker (Greedy! Assholes!)

X
Scream
Riddlers Revenge

Coasters where you must take loose articles with you on the ride (Crazy! Incoherent!)

Ninja
Revolution

The problem with the above 3 categories is that they completely contradict each other in terms of logic. If it's ok to leave a bag on a platform on one coaster, why is it then not ok on another? If it's ok to go on one coaster with a fanny pack, why is it not ok on another? It's the kind of shitty, insane logic you had to put up with when you were in grammar school. And like in grammar school, when you see a place giving you constant, contradictory rules that seem to have nothing to do with you, you start just disobeying all their rules, as the institution is not radiating confidence. I think the contradictory rules all over the park is part of the reason why the guests treat the park as a kind of constant anarchy, where they feel they don't have to follow ANY of the rules.

Psyclone

Nothing particularly nasty happened here, except that it's a coaster whose only similarity to the Coney Island Cyclone is emulating it's horrid looking condition and rickety feel, neither of which are necassarily good things to say about the Coney Cyclone. It's also impressive that the Psyclone looks as old as the Coney Cyclone, as it was built in 1991. Either it was designed to look and give rides like it was 80 years old, or it is poorly maintained, I'm going to guess the second choice. Unfortunately, unlike the actual Cyclone, this Psyclone is braked, rough with no reward, and boring. I'm happy B&M has subsequently stuck with steel coasters.

Revolution

This one burns me up. They fucking RUINED a Schwarzkopf designed coaster. Since May 24 when we started out, we've had the good fortune to ride a good many Schwarzkopf coasters. None of them have been ruined by a park's incompetence so much then the Revolution at Magic Mountain. Every time the coaster is about to get exciting, they brake it to a stop. And, of course, they added OTSRs which pretty much ruin the ride further, as if the braking hadn't ruined it enough. What should be a classic, American steel multi-looper is now a gigantic piece of shit. Argh, I wish I could find the people at the park who made these decisions so I could personally bitch slap them. What a horrible waste.

Incidentally, since they braked the coaster to complete shit, the loop now has barely any force to it, meaning that all loose objects will fly out of the coaster. However, this is one of the coasters where they force you to carry everything with you on the train. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

Riddlers Revenge

I'd have to say this was our worst experience of our day and a half. Riddlers Revenge was running single train operation, which gave it unbearable to stand on lines of between 90 and 180 minutes over the course of our time there. On day 2, we bit the bullet and got on the line at 11:30AM, which, due to it being earlier and being in the back of the park had a "short" line of 90 minutes.

During the course of our wait, signs and lockers arrive informing us we MUST place our loose objects in the 50 cent lockers. So we do. We are then in for an hour+ wait inside the station while witnessing very slow single train operation. Mind you, it's not the ride ops fault that the loading is so slow. It's a standup. As anyone whose ridden a standup knows, it's a huge pain in the ass to load guests on a standup, they don't know what the fuck they are doing when they get on the car and at least 3-4 people every time needs help with their restraints. 2 train operation solves this delay. But, of course, that would be too fucking easy and good for the guests at Magic Mountain. So we are forced to witness painfully slow single train operation for the hour or so we stand in the station.

Worse, inside the station the sound is broken. Let me explain what this means. In the station they have speakers everywhere. The speakers blast techno and the ride spiel. Except the speakers (or the player associated with them) don't work. So the sound stutters on and off. About 4 seconds on, 10 seconds off, 3 seconds on, 2 seconds off, 8 seconds on, 5 seconds off. Like that. Completely random patterns of the sound starting and stopping.

"BUM BUM BUM BUM (techno beat) Welcome to Riddlers Re -" (silence - 5 seconds) "BUM BUM BUM BUM (blasting techno returns) All loose articles must b-" (silence 12 seconds) "Revenge! BUM BUM BUM BUM" (more silence).

I hope I've given a good impression via text of how maddening this place was to stand in for over an hour. During the half hour waiting up the stairs there was nothing I could do about it at all. However, upon reaching the station I pushed ahead to ask the ride ops to please, for the sake of everyone, turn off the fucking music. His reply:

"Sir, I can't do that. That is considered park music. If we turn off park music our whole crew will be fired."

"But it doesn't work."

"I can't comment any further on this. If any of us turn the music off the whole crew will be fired. That's all I can say."

True to his word, that's all he said. I went back to the line and suffered through the maddening music. Oh, did I mention that people were allowed to put their loose articles on the other side of the station? So, all that stuff about lockers? Bullshit for suckers. Either the ride ops are refusing to confront people about loose articles, or the coaster is older, so management simply isn't being as strict about fucking people with lockers. Regarldess, I was a sucker and I was pissed off.

When I got off the ride (which incidentally was the best standup so far), I went to get my stuff. I owed the locker another dollar, because I had gone past the minimum time. So, the amount of time it takes to wait from the staircase to the ride is a longer amount of time then the minimum time given for the locker fee before you have to pay extra money. I had to put an extra dollar in to get my stuff out. I have three words for this: WHAT FUCKING ASSHOLES!

I would later go to guest services to complain about the music. Congratulations, Magic Mountain, you created conditions that for the first time this trip had me going to guest services to complain. They said they would fix it. No time estimation, just that they would fix it. I won't hold my breath.

Scream

Scream had a relatively short line despite being the newest ride in the park. I associate this with Scream being a working, reliable ride that ran efficient, multi-train operation. Sadly, this statement could not be said about any other major attraction at the park. It was amusing to see people waste their Fastlane tickets on this ride, as all it got them was cutting out about 5-10 minutes of waiting, hardly worth the $4.

Scream forces riders to put any "loose" articles (appartenly including my fanny pack, which I don't see as being "loose" but they do) in a locker. The fact that no other floorless or suspended has required fanny packs to be stored in a locker, including it's clone Medusa at Great Adventures, is I guess unknown to the people who create policy at Magic Mountain. Or, more likely, they are greedy fuckheads that want to chisel money out of as many guests as possible, and don't care that no other park does this for these types of rides (at least not for fanny packs).

Skytower

Like the Oil Derrick at SF Over Texas, or the Eiffel Tower at Kings Dominion, the Skytower is the landmark one sees when approaching the park. Maybe fittingly, this landmark was... you guessed it, closed both days we were at the park. Remember kids, this is mid-July. This is the busiest season of the year and all these attractions are closed, including the landmark of the park you see from miles away. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

Superman the Escape

I'm happy to report that the "Superman is closed due to weather" sign I had read about has been replaced. Apparently, they kept Superman closed for a long period of time, putting a sign in front saying it was closed due to "weather," then left that sign in front of the closed rides, including, of course, when it was a beautiful day with clear skies as far as the eye could see.

Now, the sign says "Superman is closed as we refurbish the park." Both signs are total lies, but at least this, the latest sign, implies that the ride will be closed for a long period of time, which is at least a little more accurate.

I should note here that this entire section of the park (Samurai Hill) is like a ghost town. Nearly everything in this area, the drink stands, the rotor, the Skytower, everything anywhere near this section with the exception of the Ninja is closed. It's strange to have the center of you park be a ghost town of closed attractions in the middle of the summer, but nothing can be considered too strange or fucked, apparently, at Magic Mountain.

Swiss Twist (Bayern Curve)

Nothing to report on here except a ridiculously short ride cycle. All the corporate parks seem to do this for their flats, but that doesn't make it any less crappy.

Viper

Here I saw something exceptional. A Six Flags employee do something cool - he refused to take a Fastlane ticket from some idiot while the ride was a walk on. I bet if his manager saw him he would have been fired.

X

Ah... finally, I've reached the last ride on the list, X.

X is a line cutters paradise. It seems they've designed the ride with line cutters in mind, to better service and support them.

The winding queue is never used and often in our 2 days there the line would stretch from the front of the line down the bridge. This makes it all the easier for line cutters to move in. From there, the cutters use the empty winding queues to move further up the path, until they finally reach the bridge that ramps up to X. At this point, the line cutters have been provided with an additonal queue, right next to the queue that the regular, waiting guests are using. This queue is empty. I have no idea what the official purpose for this is, I imagine it's so park employees may freely get to any point on the line. Well, that's not it's apparent use. It's apparent use is for line cutters to just walk right up the fucking ramp and into the X loading station.

"HEY! STOP CUTTING!" we'd shout. This would not really create a reaction outside of an occasional look back. Why should I have to deal with this anyway? I'm not a security guard! If I was at any other park, I'd consider finding a security guard and trying to get these people ejected. But here, I don't have any confidence that this would help anything other then to cause me some trouble.

And let's not forget the locker area of X, where one can easily integrate back into the loading area to get a second ride. I was lucky enough for different reasons to only wait an hour for my 2 rides on X. If I was one of the unlucky ones to have to wait 3-4 hours, I would have considered cutting at the locker spot for a reride myself simply to reward myself for the killer 3 hour wait.

Finally, on my first night ride on X, while waiting for the front seat, I watched 3 of 6 dispatches hijacked by "handicapped" people. The "handicapped" people where all in their late teens to early twenties, RAN to their seats, and seemed to be very friendly with the ride ops. If you missed it, let me tell you again. 3 out of 6, HALF the dispatches while I waited were hijacked by these people.

Incidentally, all this shit happens on the left side of the train. If you are waiting for X, take the turn to the right while in the queue line. It's shorter to the top, the line cutters can't access it as easily, and the "handicapped" don't appear to hijack this side. It was a much shorter wait the next day when I banked to the right.

Ok. I've written to much about this so I'm going to write positive shit about another park now. Or put up photos, or something that's not complaining. Believe it or not, I had even more complaints that were not ride specific. But enough negativity. Just know that Magic Mountain has it in for you. At least it did for me and my wife.

More later