January 6, 2013 - A season of refurbishments at Six Flags Magic Mountain

Welcome back to work everybody. We trust you all had a fantastic holiday season. Most theme parks that were open for the holidays experienced epic crowds and Magic Mountain was no different.

It's been awhile since our last update so this update will seem like we are playing catch-up a bit.

Bugs Bunny World enhancements and 2014 Coaster

The park has been hard at work preparing for the 2014 Bugs Bunny World coaster and area enhancements. The General Sam tree that we reported on in our last update has been completely removed.

There are also rumors that the shops near the entrance to Bugs Bunny World may also be on the way out. But we've seen no movement on any removal procedures taking place.

Foghorn leghorn's Barnyard Railway is being removed to make room for the new coaster however. This is just a simple kiddie train so it's really not a huge loss. Let's just hope that the park keeps some of the trees and greenery in the area and not just remove everything and put concrete everywhere.

Tweety's Escape (which is a fun little ride) is being moved near Road Runner Express.

Preparations are already underway and it looks like the ride structure itself could be moved any time. They will of course still have to build the queue, ride controls and hopefully bring over the themeing.

Sky Tower

We are hearing a few different rumors regarding the Sky Tower from the tower never reopening for public use, to the Sky Tower Museum coming back. Let's hope it's the latter. The Sky Tower not only provides a great view of the park and surrounding area but it's one of the few places to enjoy some air conditioning during the blazing hot Valencia summers.

Refurbishments

Despite "winter" temperatures in Southern California in the 70's (and sometimes 80's) all of the parks water rides are closed for off-season refurbishments. No visual work can be seen on Tidal Wave or Jet Stream (which needs the most help this off-season).

X2 is still closed for a lift-hill chain replacement that began in late September/early October. We are hearing that the coaster may not reopen until at least March now. Hopefully they are taking this time to give the ride (and ride vehicles) a thorough rehab.

There are signs in a few places in the park entry area but that doesn't stop people from getting to the rides entrance and being disappointed.

Hurricane Harbor additions

No visible work can be seen on the towers for the new slides opening in the spring but I did hear some work being done as I walked by. Hopefully we'll get to see some movement going on with the new slides soon.

Around the Park

Elsewhere in the park, the planter in front of DC Universe has had some nice new vegetation planted.

The All You Can Eat plan is back. $99.99 for a whole year of eating at the park.

Full Throttle got a new roof for the station. While I don't think it looks as bad as some, it serves no functional purpose. It's not going to shade anybody from the sun (and blistering heat) and it wouldn't protect the ride from rain. Not sure what the point of it is.

Full Throttle and Goliath also had seat belts installed over the last month. I don't have pictures since I didn't ride either of those coasters but this is obviously a reaction to the New Texas Giant incident. While I don't blame Six Flags for doing this in the face of public scrutiny, Goliath has operated for 14 years and has had no issues whatsoever.

The game in front of the old Log Jammer queue is now gone. There really is nothing left of High Sierra Territory.

Yesterday (Sunday January 5) was the last day to get the free upgrade to the Gold Pass so the Season Pass line was understandably long all weekend. While the employees inside the processing center were very fast once we got in, the line control outside was chaos. There were no employees directing people into the queue and we experienced 4 employees standing around near the exit of the processing center for at least 30 minutes while guests tried to figure out which direction to go in the line.

Magic Mountain has been doing Season Passes for a LONG time (I've personally had mine for almost 30 years with only a break in 2006 and 2007). You'd think by now they'd come up with a more efficient way of processing passes. There is another processing center inside the park they could have also been using to help with the line.

Some holiday decorations are still up (I'd assume they'll be removed this week). I really wish the park would do more "Holiday in the Park" decorations like the other parks do.

The Full Throttle Stage has been removed. Hopefully this will come back next summer as it really did add a lot of energy to the area.

That's going to wrap it up for this update. I'm not anticipating much going on at the park over the next month or so but if we hear of any movement on the new coaster we will certainly head to the park and get pictures.

We will have a Universal Hollywood update sometime in the next 2 weeks once we get up there to process our passes. Later this week we'll have some news from Sea World San Diego.

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