John
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance
Magic Mountain is a park that comes in for a lot of criticism, much of it justified. Despite all the flaws though, the ride line up is undoubtedly one of the best anywhere in the world and on an early spring day when it's warm rather than unbearably hot and the lack of crowds masks some of the operational issues, the park can still offer a great day out.
Once again work had sent me on a far-flung site visit and once again there's no way I'm not taking that opportunity to get on some coasters. SFMM is a park I've visited a few times over the years as it's the one I get the most out of as a solo visitor - I'm not going to go to Disneyland and do the likes of Small World on my own! I'd been tracking queue times in advance so I knew the water rides were still closed for "winter" and that, of the coasters, neither Superman (no big loss) or X2 (a considerably bigger loss) would be open. It turned out that Crazanity (Zamperla Giant Discovery) and Lex Luthor (enormous Intamin drop ride) were also closed. Had I gone in with zero knowledge of the closures I probably would not have been too happy with the situation, but I'd gone in with only moderate expectations so wasn't too put out.
After a long drive up from near Legoland California, I arrived just in time for opening with a clear plan in mind - get on some of the rides with the worst reported queues before they got too busy. Unsurprisingly, the reason for these queues is 1 train operation: Wonder Woman, Tatsu, Batman, Scream, Riddler, Apocalypse, Viper, Ninja, Revolution and Gold Rusher were all on 1 train. In many cases, there was either no second train visible or a partially-assembled second train. Of the main rides, only Twisted Colossus, West Coast Racers, Full Throttle and Goliath ran more than 1 train, fortunately crowd levels were so low that most rides never got a wait of more than a couple of trains. There was one notable exception, which I'll come back to.
I managed to beat the crowds to Revolution and Tatsu and avoid the long queues both had later on due. I'm a fan of both, Rev has a classic charm and rides really well for its age. The long, straight ramp leading up to the loop clearly reflects how much of a big deal the signature inversion was when it opened and they obviously wanted to maximise the build up to it by putting it late in the layout and it absolutely works. Tatsu pulls off a similar trick with the pretzel loop, kept back later in the layout than on most other flyers for maximum impact. The Superman flyers have their stand-out element right at the start then nothing of note after, Tatsu has a decent layout anyway then unleashes the killer blow towards the end. The enormous lift is properly unnerving too.
I'm also fond of the 3 (open) Arrows. Ninja is far more exciting ride than Vampire or Iron Dragon can ever hope to be, whilst managing a longer ride duration than Bat. Gold Rusher is a delightfully old-school mine train, which packs a surprising punch (especially if you believe the park's own categorisation of it as a kiddy ride). Viper is also a product of its time but arguably the best multi-looper in the park. The tiny loops stuck way up in the air may look silly but the dynamics of going from a basic ramp to a tight loop is much more dramatic than a massive B&M loop with perfectly engineered forces. There's also seemingly no clearance between the entry and exit track on the loops making it look like you could lose your arm if you stick it out too far. OK the second half of the ride isn't great, but the opening is top-tier.
Apocalypse needs some love from the maintenance team. The ride has a pronounced rattle throughout that just dominates everything. TBH I couldn't really remember much of the layout as I spent the entire time trying to keep the lap bar from locking another notch as it would have been too painful if it did. Not great, really.
The park's trio of B&Ms towards the back are a mixed bag. Scream is such a lazy effort its almost comical, plonked down on a car park with the lines still visible 20 years on. Riddler is decent for a stand up and not too uncomfortable but a bit of an endurance test. Batman is of course excellent, though since my last visit they've butchered the entrance to make space for Wonder Woman so now you enter past the old ORP kiosk and the exit has to awkwardly fold back on itself. In fact the entire park is filled with the bones of old/abandoned rides - Ninja's station was clearly repurposed from something else (possibly a transport ride?) and is so small the train has to park on a curve to fit inside the building. There's a seemingly matching ride station at the bottom of the hill, abandoned for years. There are parts of a long-closed monorail underneath the Superman pull up and of course the iconic observation tower, looming over the park but seemingly closed for good.
Back to the rides, self-dueling coasters are extremely rare but SFMM has 2. Twisted Colossus is almost great but is hampered by the excessively slow lift hill in the middle. This was on 2 trains so could only ever duel on one half of the layout. To their credit the staff were consistently loading quickly so it almost always duelled (they took their time for the other train when there was no need to rush as dueling wasn't possible anyway). West Coast Racers tried to eliminate the boring wait mid-ride with a show scene. It doesn't work, plus the ride isn't all that great anyway. "Comfort collars" really don't help the experience either (and slow the loading). Full Throttle is a much better example of the Premier ride system, though even here the ride is somewhat let down by the mediocre train design. I find the braking off the hill over the loop to be a bit too harsh but everything up to that point is excellent.
Goliath is a very unusual hyper coaster in that it has hardly any hills, instead the focus is primarily on the extreme positive Gs of the mammoth helix after the MCBR. The ride comes to a near total stop on the midcourse, apparently to reduce the forces on the helix to a tolerable level but even they they only just keep things in check. In summer it could well be too much, even on a relatively cool spring day it's in greyout territory for me.
Wonder Woman is the only new coaster since my last visit back in 2020. Much like my Parque Warner trip the week before, it spent much of the day closed with only sporadic testing, to the point I was starting to think I'd miss out. After riding virtually every other major coaster in the park I spotted that it seemed to have finally opened, so hurried over to try to beat the crowds. I was not successful - on joining the queue it quickly became apparent it was not running many of its 4 trains. In fact it was running just 1, with a seat out of use reducing the capacity to 11. What I'd initially guessed might be a 30 min queue turned out to be more like 70, with the length at least double that by the time I finally got to ride. I've done the RMC single rail at California's Great America so had an idea of what to expect & Wonder Woman was fairly similar if anything a little less extreme. It's still an excellent ride and the train design allows it to be very nimble and dynamic but TBH my view of the ride was probably tainted a little by the extremely tedious queue.
After Wonder Woman I still had a little time for rerides on a couple of coasters before I had to finally admit defeat and leave the park in time for my hire car return, which I'd foolishly set a couple of hours earlier than I really should have. Then it was just the small matter of spending an entire day travlling home...
Ride count:
Revolution
Tatsu
Apocalypse
West Coast Racers
Riddler's Revenge
Scream
Goliath (x2)
Twisted Colossus (x2)
Batman (x2)
Gold Rusher
Ninja (x2)
Viper
Full Throttle
Wonder Woman
Some photos from the day:
Non-action shot, waiting for a train to go round would have been too tedious
Some work was being carried out on the X2 lift, turns out it finally reopened 2 days after I visited...
The timing was a little off to get both trains in shot except on the lifts, which still felt like an achievement given the slow operations. The Riddler train IS there - just!
Slightly arty shot on the rush back to the car to drive back to the airport
Once again work had sent me on a far-flung site visit and once again there's no way I'm not taking that opportunity to get on some coasters. SFMM is a park I've visited a few times over the years as it's the one I get the most out of as a solo visitor - I'm not going to go to Disneyland and do the likes of Small World on my own! I'd been tracking queue times in advance so I knew the water rides were still closed for "winter" and that, of the coasters, neither Superman (no big loss) or X2 (a considerably bigger loss) would be open. It turned out that Crazanity (Zamperla Giant Discovery) and Lex Luthor (enormous Intamin drop ride) were also closed. Had I gone in with zero knowledge of the closures I probably would not have been too happy with the situation, but I'd gone in with only moderate expectations so wasn't too put out.
After a long drive up from near Legoland California, I arrived just in time for opening with a clear plan in mind - get on some of the rides with the worst reported queues before they got too busy. Unsurprisingly, the reason for these queues is 1 train operation: Wonder Woman, Tatsu, Batman, Scream, Riddler, Apocalypse, Viper, Ninja, Revolution and Gold Rusher were all on 1 train. In many cases, there was either no second train visible or a partially-assembled second train. Of the main rides, only Twisted Colossus, West Coast Racers, Full Throttle and Goliath ran more than 1 train, fortunately crowd levels were so low that most rides never got a wait of more than a couple of trains. There was one notable exception, which I'll come back to.
I managed to beat the crowds to Revolution and Tatsu and avoid the long queues both had later on due. I'm a fan of both, Rev has a classic charm and rides really well for its age. The long, straight ramp leading up to the loop clearly reflects how much of a big deal the signature inversion was when it opened and they obviously wanted to maximise the build up to it by putting it late in the layout and it absolutely works. Tatsu pulls off a similar trick with the pretzel loop, kept back later in the layout than on most other flyers for maximum impact. The Superman flyers have their stand-out element right at the start then nothing of note after, Tatsu has a decent layout anyway then unleashes the killer blow towards the end. The enormous lift is properly unnerving too.
I'm also fond of the 3 (open) Arrows. Ninja is far more exciting ride than Vampire or Iron Dragon can ever hope to be, whilst managing a longer ride duration than Bat. Gold Rusher is a delightfully old-school mine train, which packs a surprising punch (especially if you believe the park's own categorisation of it as a kiddy ride). Viper is also a product of its time but arguably the best multi-looper in the park. The tiny loops stuck way up in the air may look silly but the dynamics of going from a basic ramp to a tight loop is much more dramatic than a massive B&M loop with perfectly engineered forces. There's also seemingly no clearance between the entry and exit track on the loops making it look like you could lose your arm if you stick it out too far. OK the second half of the ride isn't great, but the opening is top-tier.
Apocalypse needs some love from the maintenance team. The ride has a pronounced rattle throughout that just dominates everything. TBH I couldn't really remember much of the layout as I spent the entire time trying to keep the lap bar from locking another notch as it would have been too painful if it did. Not great, really.
The park's trio of B&Ms towards the back are a mixed bag. Scream is such a lazy effort its almost comical, plonked down on a car park with the lines still visible 20 years on. Riddler is decent for a stand up and not too uncomfortable but a bit of an endurance test. Batman is of course excellent, though since my last visit they've butchered the entrance to make space for Wonder Woman so now you enter past the old ORP kiosk and the exit has to awkwardly fold back on itself. In fact the entire park is filled with the bones of old/abandoned rides - Ninja's station was clearly repurposed from something else (possibly a transport ride?) and is so small the train has to park on a curve to fit inside the building. There's a seemingly matching ride station at the bottom of the hill, abandoned for years. There are parts of a long-closed monorail underneath the Superman pull up and of course the iconic observation tower, looming over the park but seemingly closed for good.
Back to the rides, self-dueling coasters are extremely rare but SFMM has 2. Twisted Colossus is almost great but is hampered by the excessively slow lift hill in the middle. This was on 2 trains so could only ever duel on one half of the layout. To their credit the staff were consistently loading quickly so it almost always duelled (they took their time for the other train when there was no need to rush as dueling wasn't possible anyway). West Coast Racers tried to eliminate the boring wait mid-ride with a show scene. It doesn't work, plus the ride isn't all that great anyway. "Comfort collars" really don't help the experience either (and slow the loading). Full Throttle is a much better example of the Premier ride system, though even here the ride is somewhat let down by the mediocre train design. I find the braking off the hill over the loop to be a bit too harsh but everything up to that point is excellent.
Goliath is a very unusual hyper coaster in that it has hardly any hills, instead the focus is primarily on the extreme positive Gs of the mammoth helix after the MCBR. The ride comes to a near total stop on the midcourse, apparently to reduce the forces on the helix to a tolerable level but even they they only just keep things in check. In summer it could well be too much, even on a relatively cool spring day it's in greyout territory for me.
Wonder Woman is the only new coaster since my last visit back in 2020. Much like my Parque Warner trip the week before, it spent much of the day closed with only sporadic testing, to the point I was starting to think I'd miss out. After riding virtually every other major coaster in the park I spotted that it seemed to have finally opened, so hurried over to try to beat the crowds. I was not successful - on joining the queue it quickly became apparent it was not running many of its 4 trains. In fact it was running just 1, with a seat out of use reducing the capacity to 11. What I'd initially guessed might be a 30 min queue turned out to be more like 70, with the length at least double that by the time I finally got to ride. I've done the RMC single rail at California's Great America so had an idea of what to expect & Wonder Woman was fairly similar if anything a little less extreme. It's still an excellent ride and the train design allows it to be very nimble and dynamic but TBH my view of the ride was probably tainted a little by the extremely tedious queue.
After Wonder Woman I still had a little time for rerides on a couple of coasters before I had to finally admit defeat and leave the park in time for my hire car return, which I'd foolishly set a couple of hours earlier than I really should have. Then it was just the small matter of spending an entire day travlling home...
Ride count:
Revolution
Tatsu
Apocalypse
West Coast Racers
Riddler's Revenge
Scream
Goliath (x2)
Twisted Colossus (x2)
Batman (x2)
Gold Rusher
Ninja (x2)
Viper
Full Throttle
Wonder Woman
Some photos from the day:
Non-action shot, waiting for a train to go round would have been too tedious
Some work was being carried out on the X2 lift, turns out it finally reopened 2 days after I visited...
The timing was a little off to get both trains in shot except on the lifts, which still felt like an achievement given the slow operations. The Riddler train IS there - just!
Slightly arty shot on the rush back to the car to drive back to the airport
