TR: Pacific Duality Pt. 3: Disneyland/Six Flags Magic Mountain (8/28/11)

No morning had ever come with as much fear for me on a trip. Not since being an adolescent and having crazy blow ups with my dad or something on some of our illfated journeys had I ever gotten up in the morning and been so quick to think about things that weren’t fun. There were plenty of stressors already in my life: I had a cat in vet boarding due to some sort of unexplained illness at home, work is generally pretty crazy due to fluctuations in staffing, etc. etc. other white people problems, as Louis CK would say. Meredith though was glad to inform me that she didn’t have any back pain or stomach issues and the nausea was gone. Phew. I was always going to be worried that she was understating it, but she was gonna get tested pretty hard with the plan we had in motion.

The first part of that plan was to go use the third day of our Disney tickets for early entry at Disneyland. Early entry is 7AM. Now, not everything is open at 7AM, but enough things that we had skipped were open that we were able to clean up most of the things left as mandatory stops on Meredith’s docket and mine quickly and easily. Small World, Mr. Toad, Pinocchio, Alice In Wonderland (which I missed in 2009 due to rehab), Mansion, and Peter Pan fell in about 90 minutes, as did a couple of muffins at the bakery on Main Street USA. We were out the door and back to the hotel for checkout before 9AM, and on the road within minutes of that headed to Valencia. We looked to be arriving just before opening at Six Flags until an overturned vehicle on I-5 caused a bunch of backup and forced our arrival time back to just shortly after opening.

TR: Six Flags Magic Mountain/Legoland (2/10/2008)

Just before getting to the TR, the dude who got us some help at Universal was Matt Nelson. Big ups to him. Say hi at the ticket booth there if you’re ever passing through.

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A good night’s sleep is important before trekking to two parks in a single day, and this was no different. Hotel breakfast at the Country Inn and Suites was pretty tasty and we were on our way. The first stop was going to hopefully be brief: I was betting on 1 hour at most. Legoland was merely 20 minutes away, and after $10 for parking, we were at the gates 30 minutes early. Only issue is the cost. At $59, a one day pass at Legoland is tantamount to rape. We felt burned even before walking in, knowing that even if we rode everything we could, we’d be done in 3 hours. Its not a good feeling to see that kind of coin disappear for a shitty credit stop, and I won’t go back unless I can manage free tickets or if they build something massive.

TR: Six Flags Magic Mountain (7/25/2000)

After the godliness of Ghostrider, it was time to bask in the lukewarm glow of mediocrity. Where better to do that than SFMM?

-Park itself-

Hey, I didn’t pay to get in. Where the hell’s the shade? WTF is up with all the trims?

Coasters-

Flashback- It wasn’t running. Good.

Revolution- Should rock. Doesn’t. Why are there lapbars AND OTSRS?

Psyclone- Took the front seat. Not as rough or as painful as I was led to believe. Just damn boring. Dragged ass everywhere. It seemed like a miracle that it made it the whole way around.

Colossus- Just taer the whole thing down. They’ve done so much to it, why bother trying to fix it?

Viper- Smoother, faster, more enjoyable than SFGAdv.’s GASM, the only other Arrow 7-inversion I’ve been on. But its still a cookie cutter Arrow.

Canyon Blaster- The F’n kiddie coaster outperfoms 85% of the rides here. THE KIDDIE COASTER.

Ninja- Hoorah. Only one trim.

Superman- Really damn tall. Really damn loud. So not a coaster. Zero-G? Where?

Batman- Umm, its Batman.

Riddler’s Revenge- I heard the back would have airtime. Maybe it would, if they wouldn’t slow the coaster to a 5-10 mile an hour crawl. Bah!

Gold Rusher- Oldest in the park, far superior to most SFMM coasters. Still a mine train, and still an Arrow.

And, finally-

Goliath- Obviously, the best the park has to offer. In the lower half of my top 10, it’s short, violent, and makes you see stars (just like a Motorhead song).

Smooth too. Just needs about 2000 more feet of track.

-other notes-

I think I got an aneurysm from Goliath. I blacked out 3 times on it, that’s for sure.