Ever since I arrived in California 42 days ago, there is this one place I always see whenever we drive down south taking I-5 to get to places I haven't been to. But I've already seen these far-flung places of Los Angeles from Santa Monica Pier to Hollywood to Beverly Hills to Griffith Park but I still haven't had the chance to see this tourist spot which is just a 10-minute drive from home (or a 7-mile walk, if you please), Going to Disneyland in Anaheim is not in my bucket list for this trip because I think I would enjoy it more if I am with my kids so I opted to get into a theme park that is more focused on crazy, adult thrill-rides and only Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park fits this hankering.
Six Flags Magic Mountain is one of the 15 amusement parks (update: as of May 22, 2018, it now has 21) of Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, the world's largest amusement park company with 13 of them in the US, and the 2 others are in Canada and Mexico. There are 2 Six Flags in California but the one near us is at Valencia in Sta. Clarita, which is 7 miles away from home. It's an extensive theme park almost the size of Tokyo Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland combined. Being one of the flagship parks in the Six Flags chain, it boasts the world's largest collection of 19 roller coasters holding the record of the world's most roller coasters in an amusement park.
Got ourselves a Single-Day Pass for $59.99 which was purchased online, much cheaper than buying it onsite. We left home at 9am, along with my niece's best friend, and waited for the park's opening at 10:30am among the benches fronting the ticket booths. The waiting area is a very conducive place for chitter-chatter under the shady trees licking hand-scooped ice cream which can be bought nearby. We have to kill 2 more hours so we talked about almost anything under the sun. I'm not sure if it's the best time to talk about the incidents that had happened in the theme park but we kind of gossip about what had just happened 17 days ago in one of Six Flag Magic Mountain's rides Ninja, where 22 people got stranded hanging for 2 hours waiting for the tree branch that fell on the coaster tracks to be cleared. Oh wait, they said that only four of them got injured anyway. That... sounds very comforting. According to a study, there is only 1 in 17 million chances of being injured on a fixed-site ride anyway, so I hope today is not, by chance, out of the ordinary.
It's 99°F and it's scorching hot in the open field, with no wind and 17% humidity. I wonder if I can survive being fried under the sun with this extreme heat but my adrenaline kept me pumped up to get going. When the gates opened, we headed straight to the nearest ride with the shortest line. I learned that the rides are categorized according to thrill level - Thrill Seekers in Training can be recommended for the whole family; there's Moderate Thrills for starters and probably for those who aren't insane but just want the thrill of it; but what we all wanted are the crazy, wild and heart-stopping rides which are categorized as Maximum Thrills. We wanted to start with X2 but the queue is already long within just a few minutes so we lined up in Revolution instead, one of the most popular rides known to be North America’s first looping coaster.
Without taking a rest, we lined up to Tatsu, our next ride, just beside Revolution's exit. It's a face-down ride (my first-time to experience such), which makes you feel like flying like a superhero. It's known to be the world’s tallest, fastest, and longest flying coaster. It's such a mind-bending rush and G-force to the max and it became my instant favorite. For me, it's one of the smoothest, most gigantic, and panoramic rides I have ever experienced and I wanted to line-up again. But the queue is too long that it takes you more than 15 minutes to wait for just a 2-minute ride. So we moved to the next one.
Just right next to Tatsu is Roaring Rapids, a white-water adventure, one of the family-friendly attractions of Six Flags Magic Mountain. Considered to belong to the Moderate Thrill category, it's a river-rafting ride to man-made rapids which you are guaranteed to be completely drenched if you are unlucky, as the round river raft where you are strapped into, along with 11 other riders, will be swirling into whirlpools in all directions through the unpredictable current of the rapids. It is recommended, just like what we did, to deposit your stuff in a locker before its entrance with just a low fee. I just kept my iPhone4 in my denim's pocket though, hoping it will not get wet, but I was wrong. So wrong! Half of my body got splashed on when the raft plummeted to a raging downstream flow.
We went back to the locker to get all our stuff back while we instinctively shake off water from our hair like dogs briskly shaking off after a bath. The splashing part is actually a relief, not a discomfort, cooling us from the rising temperature which is now at 101°F. Although there are Cool Zones all around the theme park that sprays out mist while major coasters and rides also have misters in the queue lines to help keep everyone cool, but there's nothing more refreshing than getting drenched from an extremely fun ride.
From Roaring Rapids' exit gate is the southwest edge with all other Moderate Thrill rides in line which they call the Kids' Section of the theme park. Among them are Apocalypse, Dive Devil, Sling Shot, and Justice League Battle for Metropolis, until we came to a ride called Gold Rusher, where there's no one lining up but just a bunch of kids. We lined up, too, not because we want a kids' ride but we just want to be dried up.
Having seen no restraint system like a lap bar or some variation of an over-the-shoulder harness among the coaster cars, you'll know right away that this is one-hell-of-a-boring-ride. Although it still goes up at 70 feet in the air and dives down into series of slopes and snaking turns, it's still an enjoyable ride anyway, mostly... for kids. And best of all, inertia still keeps our butts stuck in the seats even without restraints.
Walking a few steps further, we realized it's almost 1PM and we are already starving. There are a lot of restaurants around like Ace O' Clubs, High Octane Wings, Big Belly Burger, Katy’s Kettle, Carlini's Pizzeria, Teen Titans Tower Pizza, Chop Six, Twisted 'Wiches, Food Etc., Full Throttle Sports Bar, Wascal’s and Funnel Cake Factory but since we are already at the Boardwalk area, the nearest fast food that we can see that has hamburgers, shakes, chicken strips, fries and onion rings that we all wanted is Johnny Rockets. Lining up to buy food is almost the same as the queues in rides. You waste 15 minutes in line for something to eat in just 5. We grabbed a quick bite and rested for a few minutes.
We didn't want to waste our precious time since all three of us got more excited that we are now at the DC Superheroes section. We are surrounded by DC rides like Superman: Escape from Krypton, Lex Luthor: Drop of Doom, Wonder Woman: Lasso of Truth, The Riddler's Revenge, and The Flash: Speed Force, but what we are more excited about is another Maximum Thrill level ride for insane riders called Green Lantern: First Flight. The line is quite long, and very torturous because the queue spirals to the sidewalls of the signage outside the shady area to the open field. The rays of the sun are directly burning our skin and dehydrating us at a rate of knots. But we love enduring the agony of it because we know that in the end, we'll whoop it up with extreme fun.
Looking at the ride from afar, it looks really insane! It's the first spinning coaster I've seen in my life as it is being shot vertically upward to 100-feet zigzagging tracks. Unlike the traditional roller coasters, you already have anticipations on the movement patterns of the coaster car in the tracks. You'll know that after the initial drop, it is immediately followed by a corkscrew either to the left or the right and takes a loop with a rolling twist then takes another corkscrew to either direction and you're done. Some rides just innovate to make them a little different from one another but they all move practically the same!
Green Lantern: First Flight is totally different because the coaster is suspended from either side of the twisted vertical steel tracks while the coaster you are on is spinning head over heels in a full rotation. And there's nothing to anticipate because you can't see where the coaster is going, and at some point, you don't know where you are at, and it's hard to guess if you're going down, up, or sideways even. And the repeat riders always tell us --- none of your rides will feel the same, you will always get different spins in each ride. Now, I don't wonder why this has the longest line and has the most repeat riders I've seen in the park. It quickly toppled over Tatsu in my most favorite ride of all!
Batman: The Ride is just right next to Green Lantern: First Flight's exit gate so there is no excuse for missing it. While we're still gasping for breath and the temperature's now at 102°F, we immediately lined up for the ride to Gotham. The line is moving quickly unlike in Green Lantern: First Flight but what I find faulty in the design is the suffocating Batcave where there is no wind coming in trapping the searing hot air inside making it difficult to breathe. I struggled for air and I felt dizzy like I'm close to fainting but when the line moved again, we are already next.
The ride is somewhat the same as Tatsu but the difference is that your feet are dangling free in the air. There's nothing more extraordinary aside from what it boasts to have 4-G force almost maxing out the bearable G-force our body can tolerate to avoid passing out. I almost did but not because of my body's disorientation from the sudden acceleration and deceleration but because of the extreme temperature worsened by the Batcave design for this ride.
At 3:59pm, we walked towards the north end of the park and saw announcements that one of their oldest and tallest wooden roller coasters, the 36-year-old Colossus is scheduled to be closed permanently on August 16, 2014. With 31 days more to go, it will serve its last few days for all its patrons until management takes it down. It has one of the longest lines in the park where everyone wants to be part of Colossus' history before they either renovate it to become a new one or it disappears forever.
The ride doesn't seem to be remarkable at first aside from the wood's rattling and creaking sounds until it comes to its first drop from 115 feet, almost a vertical one which I hated in a roller coaster ride. It climbed up to another 105 feet and dropped again. I got a little scared not because of the near-vertical drops but because I wasn't feeling comfortable and secured that the wooden tracks can still last for another 31 days. I feel like the entire Colossus will collapse at any moment. But after the 3-minute ride, I was able to breathe again. We were able to survive it and I'm now part of its history.
(Update: as of May 23, 2015, Colossus reemerged with its tracks redesigned using steel and is now called Twisted Colossus).
It sounds a little crazy that we were able to ride only 7 out of their 34 rides. What's killing the time (and the excitement, too) is the long line on each ride. Lining up takes almost half an hour for a 2-minute ride and a few more minutes being wasted walking to the next ride. An additional complication is the energy-draining summer heat making you feel sluggish slowing you down to get to the next stop. The Flash Pass might help solve this problem so I'm recommending it to those who will visit Six Flags more frequently in the future.
And I will surely come back. I'll make sure I'll be able to get into more than 7 rides next time!