Yesterday I headed up to Six Flags Magic Mountain for their first day of daily operations in over a year. It was great to be back in the park, I saw some very encouraging things and overall had a really fun visit. 

In this update I'll share some of my thoughts on the park, covid protocols and what you can expect if you'll be visiting the park in the near future. 

I arrived about 10:10 for my 10:30 reservation. I wasn't hopeful when I saw this, but they opened parking about 10:15 and I was in the park by 10:30. 

I did a full walk around of the park and commentary on my day. Be sure to check it out on our YouTube channel. 

The queue for the temperature check and security. They ARE checking reservations. I saw somebody with a reservation for Sunday get turned away. So please, make sure you show up at your reserved time. 

Lots of signs around the park and even outside the park. I found the completely touch-less temperature check and security to be a breath of fresh air and I hope all of the parks go this route. Not only does it give people a great first impression, but it's so fast and easy. 

They currently have only 2 of the new security check devices, but you literally just walk through it. There was zero wait. 

We missed you too!! 

Lets head into the park

Absolutely zero wait at the gate. If you have a new pass they'll give you your pass card here. 

It felt great to walk through these gates. 

Lots of "rest" and food area's where you normally wouldn't see them. 

I headed for Revolution first, figured I needed to start on something "easy" after a year of no riding, plus I absolutely LOVE Revolution 

Social Distancing, cleaning and loading every-other row! 

About to ride my first coaster in over a year. Tell me you can't see a smile through a mask! 

It was a beautiful (and slightly warm) day

Heading over to Full Throttle. This was pretty much as empty as I saw the walkways all day. 

20 minutes after park opening, lots of cleaning already going on! 

A reminder, the stickers on the ground are there for a reason. Use them! 

Not even exaggerating, I must have seen 100 sanitizer bottles throughout the day. It's amazing to see. 

Social distancing FTW! 

After a nice back-seat ride on Full Throttle it was time to grab a bite to eat. 

I tried to do the mobile ordering at Wascals, but they were having some issues. No biggie, these are the kinds of things to expect after a year of the park not being open. 

I had to ride Road Runner Express because I was wearing a Vekoma hat. And it's the only Vekoma in the park. 

More seating locations where there aren't normally seating locations! 

DO THE SIX!! 

Batman was closed, it is apparently getting some new paint. 

All of the Green Lantern stuff is still here, will be shocked if the new coaster doesn't use this as the entry/station/queue. 

Don't see any panting yet 

Social distancing markers in the games area too! 

I know I sound like a broken record with all the dining area's, but seriously, it's impressive how prepared the park is. 

If rumors are true, Tidal Wave isn't going to be around much longer. 

I do think the park needs more than 2 water rides, so hopefully they'll get some kind of splash battle or something in the next couple of years. 

Some pics of Riddler's in action, because why not. Click to see larger views of each. 

Justice League was closed when I walked by, but apparently opened later in the day. 

More seating! 

Gold Rusher was also closed when I went by, but did open later. 

The Underground was definitely the most popular area when I was at the park. 

After a quick water/mask break I had to take a ride on West Coast Racers

From this angle I didn't think people were social distancing, but they actually were. So yay! 

The park has gone to 100% mobile/card payments, but you can actually convert cash to a card at kiosks around the park. Really great idea!! 

So overall I had a really great day at the park. There were some technical issues, but it's to be expected after the park has been closed over a year. I mean, you wouldn't try to start your car after a year and expect there to be no issues. Right? 

So just be prepared for ride down time and slower loading times due to cleaning and distancing. 

All that said, there are a few things I would like to see changed. Namely, more drink locations. Again, they are still re-staffing, but with the heat and masks it would have been nice to have more places to just get a drink vs having to wait in line. 

But that's small compared to all the good at the park. 

Kudos to Six Flags and the park staff for taking all the precautions they did. It's so great to have the park open and I can't wait to go back soon. 

Today we're back at Six Flags Magic Mountain for another look at Metropolis and Justice League Battle For Metropolis.

Also, Apocalypse finally reopened this weekend after a lengthy refubishment and re-tracking. Did it help? Read on below. 

Here we are back in Metropolis, home of Tidal Wave? 

Work has begun on Ace O' Clubs 

Guessing we'll start seeing more visible work going on outside 

Can't wait to see this done, guessing lots of great stuff is going on inside 

Mmm Beer 

It's going to look so great when it's all done

Repainting of Riddlers has begun 

Old and new ... wish it was sunnier so you could see the difference better. I do like the green, haven't seen any of the new support color yet. 

As we were walking by they were opening Apocalypse. You can see them removing the sign here. 

It's great to see this ride back in action

So did the re-tracking help? Yes and no. 

The parts that were re-tracked are great. Smooth and fun. They did re-track the worst parts of the ride so that's awesome. Still there are a few parts that didn't get re-tracked and it would have been nice to see the entire ride get a re-track. We're hoping this is a multi-year process and the ride will come back down next offseason for more work to bring it back to where it was on opening day. 

​We can definitely see the reason why the park wants to get the ride open for the busy Summer season. 

The park is advertising a couple of movies, one of them would make an AMAZING Fright Fest maze. We'll let you guess which one. 

They are also preparing for their Grad Nite festivities. 

Swashbuckler is also closed for a refurbishment. Don't think there's any other ride at this park that get's as much refurbishment as Swashbuckler. 

Drop of Doom was closed due to high winds and sadly not to move the VR off of Revolution and onto the drop ride like some other Six Flags parks. 

And lastly, we'll leave you with some Twisted Colossus pictures, because why not. 

Over the weekend we got to check out the first night of the amazing Holiday In The Park at Six Flags Magic Mountain. 
In just it's third year this event has easily turned into one of our favorite events of the year. Even if you don't care for the rides at Magic Mountain, experiencing the Holiday atmosphere in the park is worth the price of admission alone. 

Let's start off with a few daytime pictures because the park looks incredibly festive by day and night. 

On The New Revolution for the Holiday Season is "Santa's Wild Sleigh Ride". We got a chance to experience the ride and we all really did enjoy it. 

I hadn't personally ridden the VR Version of Revolution since Media Day earlier this year and while I'm still not a fan of VR on coasters and it's impact to capacity I have to say I did enjoy this more than the regular Revolution VR. And that pretty much was the consensus among everybody I talked to. So be sure you check it out. 

Also new this year is a new show in the Gearworks Theatre - Kwerkmas. 

It's a fun cirque type show with great acrobatics, dancers and a magician. We've put together a slideshow below to give you an idea of what the show is like. 

So one of the things that really put Holiday In The Park on the Map when it started two years ago was the food. This was definitely a departure from the normal "Burger and Fries" that Magic Mountain had been known for. 

The first year they started kind of traditional, with a ham feast, tamales and other traditional type holiday foods. Which was awesome. And yes, for those of us who live in Southern California, tamales are most definitely traditional holiday food. 

But last year they started "experimenting" with a few different things. Some things were removed and in it's place came the Holiday Turkey Dog (Turkey dog with stuffing, cranberry sauce, mayo) which from it's description you wouldn't think would work. But it DOES. 

Other favorites from last year included the Mac n Cheese Burger, Chocolate Covered Caramel Pretzel, Funnel Cakes and more. And all of your favorites are back with a few new treats to enjoy. 

And as we did last year, we'll be sharing our top 5 lists so you can be sure to know what to try when you visit. 

Aftermath of our first food stop of the night. Sorry, we ate too fast to get pictures. Plus we were having such a good time just enjoying the company. 

Towards the end of the night they had a nice reception set up for us near Katie's Kettle. SFMM sure does spoil us. 

Lots of amazing treats. 

We actually remembered to get a before pic ... kind of. ;) 

Top 5 food picks 

We had such an amazing time at Holiday In The Park. It truly is one of our favorite events each and every year, not just holiday events, but in general. The lights are fantastic, the atmosphere is phenomenal, everybody is just out to have a great time, it's stress free, no drama. Oh, and the food is amazing. 

Thanks again to Magic Mountain for the amazing night, we can't wait to get back and experience more of Holiday In The Park. And we WILL be back. 

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Below is our collection of Mountain Madness 2.0 pictures. We apologize in advance for the delay in these, so we hope you enjoy them. 

Before we get to the pictures we want to send a huge heartfelt thank you to everybody who attended. The day started out kind of rough (more on that below) but I think by the end of the day everybody had an amazing time and for that we are thankful. 

So quick story about the morning. We had set up reverse POV's on Revolution which actually turned out AWESOME (you can look at an example of that here) and then were starting our morning ERT. 

Everybody had the option of using the VR or going without it. Those of us on the first train went out and had an amazing ride. Once the 2nd train left we pulled into the station and promptly got stopped half way through the station. And anybody who knows Revolution knows what that means. 

Safe to say we weren't very happy as we pride ourselves on giving an amazing event and we were a bit disappointed that the ride went down. Luckily everybody in attendance took it in stride and ended up having a great time. Hopefully we were able to hide our disappoint. 

The park did great and offered us all one front of the line pass for The New Revolution and one other front of the line pass for any other ride in the park. Luckily it wasn't a very busy day so we're pretty sure everybody got to ride everything they wanted. 

Thanks again to everybody who showed up. ​

Below we're just going to share some pictures from the day, click on any of the pictures to see a larger version.  

First set is from "The Coaster Whisperer 

The rest are of course from our own awesome CoasterMatt 

Thanks again to all who attended. We've already been asked about future events and right now we don't have anything in the works, that could change but there likely won't be anything for the remainder of 2016. 

Next week we'll have an all new feature video "Coaster Reviews with Gregg" where we'll be talking about Twisted Colossus at Magic Mountain and The Joker at Discovery Kingdom and why it's not so easy to compare them. Stay tuned for that. =) 

Happy Monday and welcome to our first Six Flags Magic Mountain update of 2016. 
​
We headed up to the park this past Saturday to get our first rides of 2016 in and of course to bring you the latest on The New Revolution. It was a very light day in the park as you'll see below. 

Also, don't forget our second event at Six Flags Magic Mountain "Mountain Madness 2.0 - Revolution's Revenge" will be held on Sunday June 5 with ERT on The New Revolution and much more. We got our pricing last week and we are VERY happy with what we've got for you all for such a low price. Look for tickets to be on sale within the next week or so. We'll of course let you all know when. In the meantime, be sure to click our event info in the link and RSVP. It's going to be an amazing day.

One of the main reasons we headed up to the park was to process our 2016 Season Passes. This is the kind of line you want to see!! 

Because the park has been open daily (other than 2 days for rain) there is still a lot of Holiday In The Park stuff up. This will probably be gone by next week. 

The photo op is still looking great

The loop ... hopefully they'll trim down these trees so we can get a clear view of the loop when the leaves come back in the spring. Yes, leaves fall off trees in California for the winter. ;) 

It's going to be so awesome to take these turns with no pain again. 

The walls at the entry have been decorated. 48 million rides, wow, that's awesome. 

​RD only has about a million of those. =) 

Even though it was kind of chilly (in the 50's, so we won't say cold in respect to the rest of you who live in REALLY cold weather) they were working on Saturday. 

Pardon the zoom, only had the iPhone last week. 

If you eat at the park the Season Pass Gold Dining Pass is a really good deal. Us, we just got our sports bottle. 

A better angle, lots of wood replacement going on. It's nice to see them keeping the ride as close to original as possible. 

Moving around to the other side, lots of stuff has been torn out. 

Now that the trees are thinning out a bit we can start to see more of the work they are doing. Most of the old exit path that leads back towards the front of the park is gone. 

A wider shot ... 

And then lastly, from the Tatsu exit, you can see a lot of the layout. No paint yet and it's really not the best weather to be painting right now anyway. 

Moving on past Revolution towards Apocalypse. Took our first rides since Fright Fest and you can definitely tell they are working on the ride. 

While it's not quite where the ride was when it opened it's definitely rideable. 

You can see just how much wood is being replaced. There are also 2 trains on the ride, or there was last weekend. 

The old Dolphin/Action/Aftermath area is being removed for ??? 

A couple of random park notes, there is a new grill outside of the Waterfront area. It's a REALLY nice set-up. Need to have them come out and do this at our house. =) 

A new queue has been set up at Johnny Rockets which will hopefully help some of the traffic issues with people standing in the middle of the walkway. Hopefully these are coming to all eateries. 

Looks like a new sign for Panda Express is coming? 

Gearworks Theater is now promoting Season Passes. 

In honor of the upcoming Legacy of Arrow Documentary we made Viper our first coaster of 2016. Actually had a pretty decent ride on it. 

Be sure to check out the info for their world premiere on January 23. 

The park was so dead even Tatsu was a walk-on. 

Apparently I made some people shake their heads when I indicated on Instagram that I'm not really a fan of Tatsu. It's not just one thing, I just don't care for it. But I ride everything at least once a year, so that was my ride for the year. =) 

Best ride EVER!! 

Even though the park was pretty empty I expected there to be a line for Twisted Colossus. 

The Zeppelin has been replaced, which is great that they are maintaining the ride queue. 

And this was the line. The only time I'd seen a shorter line was during ERT of the first Mountain Madness back in October. 

Hopefully it will be slow next weekend too as we have JoAnna coming out from IL to ride Twisted Colossus for the first time. 

Alright, that's going to wrap it up for this update, we'll likely have another SFMM update next week as well as Knott's and maybe even Disneyland as apparently they are planning something big over there. =) 

​Thanks again for all of the amazing support. We haven't thanked you all enough.