| Product: |
Six Flags Magic Mountain |
| Date: |
03/05/01 (3116 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Loads of ‘xtreme’ roller coasters for your buck, plenty for all the family to do
Disadvantages: Hilly and quite spread out – may be too much for little legs, queues for monster ‘coasters
If I asked the question – name me a theme park in California, chances are that the responses would include Disneyland (there are now 2), Universal Studios or Knottsberry farm. It’s unlikely to be the Six Flags Magic Mountain Theme Park – no one to date has requested it as a Dooyoo item. Does this say something?
This is a shame – because folks – we are talking serious roller coasters of all shapes and sizes in the same park. Believe me – if you are in LA, and want to indulge a passion for looping the loop, pulling G’s and generally scaring yourself silly – this is the place for you.
But as we will see – 6Flags (as I will now call it) caters for everyone’s taste – both young and old, sensible and lunatics amongst you.
So, please pull the bar towards you, keep your arms and legs in the car and settle back for the 6flags experience.
Location
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6Flags can be found on the I-5 Freeway north of Los Angeles on the way to Sacramento. If travelling from central LA or Anaheim where most theme parks are based, you keep heading north, up the hills, past the entrance to Universal Studios. Keep an eye out on the left hand side for the 6 flags sign (a clump of red) flags and take the next exit.
Upon getting to the bottom of the exit road, take a left and keep going straight on up a smallish hill. The 6Flags theme park is on the right.
When I say there is 1 park, I am not being really honest. There are 2 – the other one being called 6 Flags Hurricane Harbour. This is a Water park, which wasn’t open until Mid May. I won’t refer to it again other than to say it’s the same cost to go in either park i.e. if you do 2 it will cost you twice as much as just one.
In terms of travelling time, it depends on where you are travelling from and the time of day. If coming from north LA, it will take between 30 and 45 minutes to ge
t there. If you travel from central LA, make it at least 90 minutes. The traffic in rush hour on the I-5 makes the M25 look like a ‘walk in the park’.
Charges and opening hours
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The costs start here. Unless you are being dropped off, it will cost you $7 to park your car. The car park is huge. Remember that you may be able to remember where your car was when you left it – but by 7pm, it will be much busier. We lost our car and wandered up and down to find it.
Normal admission is $43 per adult and $21.50 for children (or technically those under 48 inches). Under 2’s are free. However, try and find money off vouchers to reduce the cost. Someone in the queue gave us some VIP vouchers, which reduced the cost per adult to $25. One voucher – saving of $36 or about £25. Makes you think eh?
When we were there in April it was open from 10 am through to 10pm. I would recommend you get there early. It was busy by 9.30am with crowds forming at the entrance to the park.
One final tip, if going out of season. Take a coat or a jumper/sweatshirt. After about 6pm, it can get a bit nippy. You are up in the mountains after all.
Restrictions
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Like most theme parks, there are restrictions on some of the bigger rides. The free map of the park points out restrictions. As a rule you must be 48” or taller to ride the big stuff. However there are lots of rides for sub-48” people. The only down side to this is the need to share your ‘weeny’ offspring e.g. Dad goes on coaster, Mum goes on kids ride.
Things to see/ride on/do
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I was doing alright until here. This is the tricky part & I am starting to panic. 6Flags has so much stuff that I would be here until Christmas describing it all in detail. So I am going to talk about the bits that appealed to us.
Yes I went on a few coasters – but I
didn’t do the big ones (don’t like heights). The best thing to do is to have a ‘butchers’ at the web site for specifications, speeds, g-forces and the like. The address is at the end of this opinion.
So what did grab my attention?
The theme park is divided into zones based in part on film or adventure themes. There is ‘The Movie District’, ‘Cyclone Bay’, ‘Samurai Summit’ and ‘6 Flags Plaza’.
Superman the escape – a ride where you are fired along in what appears to be a rocket powered car and suddenly it rises vertically for about 100 feet…..and stops before dropping like a stone. Every time I went near the ride, it sounded like a jet was strafing you.
Grinder Gearworks – On this ride you are spun around and the cage you are in is tilted to a 45-degree angle – sticking you to the side. My son loved this – though my breakfast didn’t!
Flashback – the world’s only hairpin drop roller coaster. Did this – got the t-shirt though apart from looping the loop – I was chucked about so much that I felt a little bruised at the end. Recommended!
Gold Rusher – the park’s first roller coast. Like riding on the runaway train ride at Disney. Looks tame – but quite a bit of fun.
Circus Wheel – one of those rides where the vehicle twists around and you are flung to the far corners of the ride. It’s alright initially, but I felt decidedly ill after 30 secs and was flung from one side of the car to the other. Not pleasant.
Bugs Bunny World – just for the kids. This is where my son spent most of his time. There was a Looney Tunes play area where you could fire foam balls at each other using air-pressure powered guns. It brings out the worst in both adults and kids alike. There was a Bugs Bunny show plus another one about teaching animals special tri
cks. Even the kids get mini-roller coasters where they can practice sticking their arms up in the air and shrieking. We went on an innocent looking ride called Canyon Blaster – it was fast, tight and cramped. I couldn’t wait to get off! In all there are 16 rides of all types from the little bland train going around a track to the more serious roller coasters. Perfect for all.
I’ve got to finish by mentioning a few more coasters……
Psyclone – A huge wooden white replica of a roller coaster. It’s the first thing you see from the car park.
Déjà vu – The blurb calls it a ‘next generation super boomerang roller coaster with brand new twist – riders fly forward and backward over twisting looping inverted steel track’ Watch that lunch!
Finally…….
X – the world’s 4th dimensional thrill. On this ride you will ‘fly, flip, spin and rotate 360 degrees’ all over the shop. It’s meant to be a bit like flying. I will believe them – there is no way I am going on that!
In all, there are 18 roller coasters and thrill rides. Plus unusually for a theme park – no simulators, 3D shows and the like.
Other facilities
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As you would expect, there are a whole range of eating places, gift shops and the like. If you want to come back the next day, you can pay a nominal fee on your first day of visit.
Conclusion
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6Flags in my humble opinion is one of the best Theme Parks about for roller coasters. It has a whole range of activities from those are very adventurous to those who just want to take it easy and enjoy the day with their kids.
The park is quite big and is quite hilly in parts. To get around it all requires a lot of walking – so bear this in mind when taking children. It might be easier to use the Bugs Bunny area as a base and to keep childre
n there.
Don’t underestimate the weather. We visited 6Flags in April and it was warmish then. Slap the suntan lotion on in the car park and keep out of the sun. I’ve been told that in the summer, visitors in queues are sprayed with cold water!
Queues. Some of the rides are very popular. By about 4pm, the queue for Goliath (85mph super coaster) was 90 minutes. Get there early or be prepared to stay there late to get on the rides of your choice.
If you want to visit their web site, it can be found at www.sixflags.com. They own a number of parks in the US and you need to choice the LA park. Once there, you can view an animated film of their 2 newest rides – dejavu and X. It’s quite amusing – though you need a fastish modem stop the pictures from being blurred.
It may not be the number 1 theme park in terms of choice, but it has loads to do and if you can get a good deal on admission price – go for it.
PS Sorry about the title of this op – I just couldn’t better the working title!
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