Park Review
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Valencia, CA September 7, 2001 Hello everyone,
After taking a brief break (primarily to recover from the cold/cough I
caught while in Ohio two weeks ago), I finally made it back to my home
park, Six Flags Magic Mountain, today. What a visit it was, too! It was definitely the best visit I have ever
had to SFMM. I will get on to some of the ride details shortly but I
have to mention something else first. The customer service I received
at the park today was absolutely outstanding. Thank you Six Flags!!!
You (or at least some of your employees) have restored my hope in your
company. Here are some examples of the excellent customer service my
friend and I received today: In addition to the outstanding customer service, another likely reason why this was undoubtedly my best visit to SFMM was that it was the first time I visited the park on a weekday not during the summer or Fright Fest. The park was empty!!! We were able to get on all 12 of the "non-kiddie coasters" (in other words, we didn't ride Goliath Jr. or Canyon Blaster) at least once and four water rides during the 10 am-6 pm operating hours of the park. In addition, we got repeat rides on Revolution (my friend is a big fan of this ride) and my favorite, Goliath. Yes, that's right, even Flashback was open today despite the "small turnout". This was the first time that I ever was able to ride ever single "non-kiddie coaster" in the park in one day at least once. Outstanding! The maximum wait time we had for any ride was about 45 minutes (see below). We had MANY walk-on rides during the day including the usual suspects (Goldrusher, Flashback, Revolution and Colossus) as well as some nice surprises (Goliath - yes, that's right, Goliath was a walk-on towards the end of the day!!!), Log Jammer, Jet Stream, Roaring Rapids and Ninja). My primary purpose for visiting the park was to ride Deja Vu. I am going to give Deja Vu a formal review and just make brief comments upon some of the other coasters that we rode. Incidentally, X looks incredible as others have stated here previously. I can't wait to get on that thing!
Deja Vu (5/5) Funny story: As the train was rolling back into the station, I saw one of the ride ops smiling at me. I told him that Deja Vu was definitely better than Invertigo. He then gave me a dumbfounded look and asked me what is Invertigo. I explained to him what Invertigo was. He then explained to me that he (to paraphrase) isn't into coasters all that much. Oh well! I guess there is no "rule," understandably, in the SFMM hiring procedures that ride ops need to be coaster fanatics. Just imagine, though, if all ride ops were passionate ACErs like Brian at PKI (see my 8/25/01 TR for PKI). I do have two complaints about Deja Vu. First, the train design is just plain strange and, in my mind, should have been avoided. The first row is a standard two-seater like you would see on an Intamin V2 type ride. The next row is also two seats but the seats are SEPARATED by large metal poles. The rows then continue to alternate for the rest of the train with the "even numbered" rows having the passengers separated. This not only confuses passengers increasing loading times and thus hurting throughput (something we certainly don't need on an a shuttle coaster) but it also most likely will annoy some customers as they like to sit together whenever possible. Why in the world did Vekoma design the train this way?!?!?! My second complain is how Six Flags decided to do the queuing. This is no real extra queuing space for the front row. As a result, the people waiting for the front wind up blocking the entire line thus holding up the line. This then requires Six Flags to have an additional employee guiding the queue. (They should instead improve the queue and have this person help run the other Colossus track and race the darn coaster more often!) Again, for a shuttle coaster, "idiot proof" queuing is incredibly important for maximum throughput. Pathetic. Although not a complaint, I do want to comment regarding my surprise that there is no "ride photo" for this ride. I couldn't personally care less as I rarely, if ever, buy these photos. Still, I was surprised. Perhaps this is a sign of Six Flags stretching their "pocketbook" with all of these new rides (and thus saving money by not putting in a ride photo). Even this doesn't make sense as the ride photo system should pay for itself in a short amount of time, right? All in all, Deja Vu is a fun ride and a marked improvement over the Invertigo design. Still, I find the differences minor. Deja Vu is an "evolution" over Invertigo just as I consider "Millennium Force" (get well soon) an "evolution" over a ride like Goliath. (I know MF came first, I am just commenting on the overall "improvement" of one ride of a similar design to another). I have given Deja Vu a 5/5 and I will now relegate the Invertigo design to a 4.5. While Deja Vu may rate at a 5/5, Goliath is, by far, still my favorite coaster at SFMM. Will X change this? Only time will tell... A few more comments (as promised :o) ): While I was very happy with the customer service we received, I was not happy with the way some of the coasters are being maintained at SFMM. Most notably, I need to comment on Ninja and Flashback. For Pete�s sake, Six Flags, paint Ninja already!!! She's been needing a paint job since at least 1998 (when I first visited the park). Also, it's been years since I rode Big Bad Wolf (my favorite non-inverting suspended coaster) but I remember BBW being much smoother than Ninja is. Can't you do some work on her, Six Flags? Also, Flashback is running pathetically. Granted the ride has never been great but it definitely seems much rougher than before. The track needs a painting and some greasing! SF, don't keep Flashback in the park just to maintain the coaster record. Either fix her up or get rid of her! I was impressed with how Psyclone was running. She was definitely running smoother than she was earlier this year. Vertigo was running today but we didn't ride it. It does look awesome though. I definitely would like to in the future but today, at least, I didn't want to shell out the cash. I decided to do something a bit different when riding Goliath the second time today. I kept my eyes closed the entire time. Simply awesome! So smooth yet so intense! Thank you Six Flags for an excellent day and, again, helping to restore my faith in you. Magic Mountain clearly deserves its new name as the "Xtreme Park". Please open X soon! Andrew
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