 After a couple of weeks off for the holidays, we are back this week with another update from Six Flags Magic Mountain. Just because we took some time off doesn't mean the RMC crew did, as they've been hard at work not only adding track, but continuing to get more of the structure ready, which includes removing a lot of Colossus supports. 
It was a beautiful day at SFMM, lots of cool whispy clouds. 
Two drops, double the fun. 
They've started removing pieces from the last turnaround. They won't be putting track in this area for awhile but it's nice to see them getting ahead of the game. 
Looks like this side is ready for some track very soon. 
You can see where the green track has ended. The bottom of the first drop is pretty much the end of "phase 1". 
Can you say Airtime?!?! 
From what we understand, certain portions of the old track will be staying as support. Makes sense. 
Green and Blue track ... it's ready for you!! 
More Airtime!!! 
Moving inside the park, we won't be able to get too many more pictures from this angle since the area is going to be closing after January 4th. 
Nothing really new in the station 
I still say they could make an awesome Flat Ride here to really complete the area. 
They were busy removing pieces of Colossus. 
By the time we left about 30 minutes after this, they had already removed 2 additional pieces. 
We have video of them removing this piece of track on our Instagram page if you haven't seen it yet. Just a couple of random notes for the rest of the park. We hadn't been to the park for opening in a few months. We had to process our 2015 passes (nothing like waiting until the last minute) so made it a point to get there early. We were the first in line and we were in and out of pass processing due to a kick-ass employee. Don't worry, we let the park know who gets the praise. =) 
After seeing and hearing about some of the Gold Pass headaches over the past few weeks, we were kind of surprised when they started letting Gold Passholders in at about 10:10. They held us here until 10:20 and then we were free to go into the park. This works MUCH better vs just opening the gates at 10:20. 
Last but not least, this is the last week for Holiday in the Park, so if you haven't checked out the lights yet, you'd better do it before January 4th. Click to see our full Holiday In The Park coverage. 
Not sure if we'll be back at the park at all next week, but if we aren't we'll certainly be back the week after. Have a great New Years!!!
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 It's Wednesday, and that means another Twisted Colossus update. The first main drop (other than the pre lift insanity) has been finished on the Blue side as well as the airtime hill heading up to the first turn around. We just have a few pictures today but be sure to check out our Holiday In The Park update from yesterday. 
Nice looking drop with just a little bit of a twist, just like the original Colossus drop. 
AIRTIME!! 
They are quickly making their way over to the first turn around and high-five element. 
An overview of the rides progress, lots of coasters in this picture. 
That's about it for this update, we should have another update after the holidays.  When Six Flags Magic Mountain announced this year they were going to have their first "Holiday In The Park" event earlier this year, we have to admit that we were equal parts excited, optimistic but also a bit concerned. Not that the park doesn't know how to put on great events, they do, but previous holidays saw no decorations and even the park would admit that the first decade and a half of Fright Fest wasn't on par with other events in the market. We are happy to say that the "concerned" part quickly evaporated once we were able to immerse ourselves in everything "Holiday In The Park" and we were very pleasantly surprised. * All Pictures by Gregg Condon (Click on any pictures below to see a larger version) Before we look at the present (see what we did there), let's rewind to December past, and this was pretty much the extent of the Holiday decorations at Magic Mountain. The park wasn't even open past 5 or 6 last year to see anything at night.
Fast Forward to 2014 and you'll see a VERY different type of event, one that the park management and staff is very proud of (as they should be). For the most part, we're going to allow the pictures below to speak for themselves. We'll start at the front of the park and work our way back.    This was the best shot we got of the "Holiday Fountain", which is a great concept.  Full Throttle Christmas  They even updated some of the Full Throttle video. I would seriously love that persons job.  These trees are seriously cool   Ricky Rocks rockin' out on the Full Throttle stage ...   Even the Full Throttle Sports Bar got some nice lights  DC's "Rockin Universe" is probably the most popular area of Holiday In The Park, and for good reason.  A look at the "Tree of Heroes" which has some names of local heroes, very nice touch.   There are three different "Rockin' Universe" shows and they run every 15 minutes. They are all pretty great.  Video of one of the shows Between the shows a lot of great lights. Still haven't seen the Pegasus though, I think the park was messing with us. =)    Rapids Camp's "Winter Wonderland" is probably the most traditional of the area's.  Santa's got a tall guard   Holiday (Food) in the parkOne of the big things the park did this year for both Fright Fest, but more for Holiday In The Park was to introduce some great new food that is exclusive to the event. It's not any big secret that SFMM isn't really known for it's food, but with Full Throttle last year, the new Sports Bar this year and the great holiday food they've recently introduced we can definitely see an improvement in this area that we hope will continue. The park invited us up last Saturday to try some of the great Holiday In The Park food, and we have to admit that we were very impressed with all of it. Our first stop was to Katy's Kettle, which has a special menu just for the holidays. We were able to try most of what you see here.  Robert and Brandon who are the masterminds behind all of the Holiday Food. It was great talking with both of them throughout the evening and I really do think the future of food inside the park is in good hands. The team has been making small tweaks each week based on guest feedback, remember, this is all new to them. So if you do try stuff, be sure to head to Guest Relations and give some (constructive) feedback. They do look at it.  Refillable Hot Chocolate FTW!!!  Steak Sandwich. I'll be the first to admit I'm not a huge fan of peppers on sandwich's, but this one was so well prepared that it would have been weird to eat it without them.  If you didn't grow up or live in a Hispanic community (as I did) then you probably don't know the sacred place that Holiday Tamale's have in the hearts of so many people. So when I heard that SFMM was making Holiday Tamale's I was concerned, and in talking to Robert and Brandon, they were too. It's a BIG DEAL and it's something that if they didn't do right, they'd hear about it. I'm SO happy to say they did a bang up job on these Tamale's, so much so that I really wish they'd put these on the regular menu somewhere in the park. Maybe Baja Ridge or even Katy's Kettle.  We tried at least 15-20 different food items, and two of the three in this picture were great. Like, I want the recipe great. The ONLY miss of the entire night was probably the mashed potatoes. Admittedly, they were kind of cold by the time we got through everything else and dug in, but they seemed instant or frozen to me.  The Ham was also really great, but those mashed potatoes ...  Peppermint Bark and Candied Apples. There is a Peppermint and Gingerbread apple. I prefer the Gingerbread, my wife preferred the peppermint ... so everybody wins!!  After we left Katy's Kettle, we headed over to the patio behind the Cyber Cafe and tried all of the rest of the sweets like Funnel Cake, Ice Cream, Cheesecake, Rice Krispy Treats and Fried Oreo's. I even suggested to Robert that they use Holiday Oreo's and he loved the suggestion, so look for them on the menu this week and tell them Gregg from Park Journey sent you. It won't do you any good to name drop, but tell them anyway. =)
Everything on this table was absolutely delicious. Indulge and eat your way through the park. You won't be disappointed. 
Ok, story about the hot dog below. If you are a fan of the show Friends, remember the episode where Ross makes his ultimate Thanksgiving sandwich with the turkey and all the stuff on top of it? Well, this is pretty much the Hot Dog version of that. It's a Turkey Dog with Cranberry Sauce, Stuffing and Mayonnaise. Now before you think ewww, you've gotta try it. I don't think there was one person in the blogger group who didn't like this. It was REALLY great and you should definitely try it. This is available at Full Throttle Dogs.  Also near Full Throttle are these amazing Sweet Cranberry Wings. The sauce is just the right bit of sweet and spicy, and I could have eaten 20 of them.  Overall, Holiday In The Park is a great event that is good for all the senses, whether it's the lights, the food, the music, etc. Park reps have already told us on multiple occasions that the event can only get bigger in the years to come, but for a first year event we were totally blown away. So please, head up and support this event before it's done. The more support it gets the bigger and better it's going to get. Holiday In The Park runs through January 4, 2015. Santa will be around until December 24, he's kind of busy after that. =) We'll have another Twisted Colossus update for you tomorrow.  Back in August when Six Flags announced their new attractions for 2015, one of the great surprises was two new dark rides for Six Flags St Louis and Six Flags Over Texas, Battle for Metropolis. At the time, not much was known about these two new rides other than they were going to be built by Sally Corp and obviously would have some kind of DC Tie In. Fast forward a few months to IAAPA and we were finally able to see a few more details about the ride including the ride vehicles and the two AA's that will be featured in the ride. 
The original teaser from August courtesy of Sally Corp and Six Flags. A bit of the story of the ride is revealed here, so if you don't want any spoilers, don't click it. =) A look at a couple of the animatronics for the ride, video of them in action is below. 
The Joker, not voiced by Mark Hamill as originally thought, but by the amazing Troy Baker. 
Great video of the unveiling of the Animatronics and the ride vehicles. Oceaneering will be providing the ride vehicles for both attractions. 
At Six Flags St Louis the ride will be located directly across from Mr. Freeze where the Scooby Doo dark ride was. This area is already themed to the DC Universe and the new ride should only enhance the area and the theme. 
At Six Flags Over Texas, the ride is going in the Adventure Theater building (seen in the map below). Given it's location across from Aquaman it should fit thematically, but one can't help but wonder if name changes for both Pandemonium (5 in green) and Acme Rock-N-Rocket (3 in red) might help extend the DC Universe theme into the area. 
Other parks have changed names of flat rides to fit new themes (such as Flash and Wonder Woman at Magic Mountain) so it certainly wouldn't be unheard of. If you've seen the Joker theme "Pandemonium" received at Six Flags Mexico (click the link to see Cliff and Steve's report from earlier this year) then you should want to see that theme brought over to Texas.
So what do you think about Battle for Metropolis? Are you excited to see Six Flags stepping up their Dark Ride game? Would you like to see this ride rolled out at other parks in the years to come? We know of quite a few parks that could use a great dark ride.  Welcome to another Wednesday Twisted Colossus update. There's not a whole lot of change this week but fear not, they are indeed working hard and are still on schedule for the ride. We've also heard that the lift has now been topped off and they are likely working on the drop now. * All pictures by Gregg Condon 
The supports on the lift are complete and as of today the lift has been topped off. 
Lots of work being done in the lower portions of the ride. 
A couple of closer shots of all the supports that are on the lift and drop. 
More supports ready to go up on the structure. 
Expect this area to close after Holiday In The Park for it's transition into "Screampunk District". 
Say goodbye to the Lemonade stand. Not sure if this is going to be demo'd or moved. 
One thing is for sure, you can see the ride a lot better now. 
Nothing really new going on in the station 
Have to admit, one of the things I'm most looking forward to is Scream getting some love. These banners are long due to be replaced. 
And of course, a paint job. 
You can really see Goliath a lot more now. 
That's going to wrap it up for this update. We'll try and get up to the park for an update this week and some pictures of the topped off lift hill, but we'll have to see how the weekend goes. We'll also have a Holiday In The Park update for you later today. |
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