Six Flags Magic Mountain has officially re-opened after a full year closed. Since this was the first major California theme park to open, we were there to check it out for you. (LEGOLAND California also began previews yesterday, but only a small portion of the park was open, their full opening doesn’t happen until April 15th).
On paper Magic Mountain is sort of a perfect case for the state theme park guidelines since nearly all attractions and queues are outdoors. Nevertheless, there were some open day jitters. So does this re-relaunch soar like Tatsu? Let’s have a look at the highs and lows…
Six Flags Magic Mountain Reopened
As a refresher, to be able to open, Six Flags has to create new procedures that follow the strict rules set in place by the state of California.
General Safety Guidelines:
- Physical distancing to the maximum extent possible
- Use of face coverings by workers and customers
- For indoor spaces, ensuring adequate ventilation in all spaces
- Frequent handwashing and regular cleaning and disinfection
- Training workers on these and other elements of the COVID-19 prevention program.
Theme Park-Specific Guidelines:
- In-state visitors only
- Indoor rides must be limited to no more than 15 minutes.
- All queuing must be performed in outdoor settings only and guests from different
households must be at least six feet apart during queuing. - Passengers from different households must be at least six feet apart in ride vehicles
- Park visitors are permitted to eat and drink only in designated dining areas.
Concession stands must be accompanied by additional designated and shaded
eating areas. Food and/or drink consumption is NOT permitted while queuing or
using rides and attractions, including cinematic attractions.
Six Flags has put forth a good faith effort to encourage both guests and employees to follow the state’s rules. But getting guests to follow them at all times isn’t easy.
California recommends that parking is configured to allow for physical distancing. Concurrently, nearly one-half of the lot is being used as a vaccination center. When I pulled into the parking lot there was a sign that said
Magic Mountain to the left, vaccination to the right”.
And so I was parked in an odd spot next to X2. They are trying to keep folks as close to the front gates as they can since parking lot shuttles are not running.
Six Flags Entrance Procedures
If you’ve visited Knott’s or Downtown Disney recently, you probably know the drill by now. Line up, six feet apart, get your temperature checked, and go through the metal detector. Things do get clogged a little at the beginning as you do need to show your reservation.
Some guests struggled with that, so there are growing pains.
Pro Tip: Make sure to have your reservation handy to speed up your entry process.
Six Flags has installed some new safety gear to help speed up the entrance process. There’s a small corridor with an infrared camera to take your temperature. No need to stop.
Next, a new machine instead of the traditional metal detector. When I wasn’t carrying my big camera, I didn’t have to stop or even take my keys out of my pocket. It felt very efficient compared to how other parks operate.
While it was 90° (welcome to California), Hurricane Harbor water park remains closed.
I have a season pass “membership” as Six Flags likes to call it (and April 1-2 are season passholder previews), so going through the turnstiles was a breeze. The biometric scanners are covered up, and instead, the employee scans your ticket and takes your photo through a piece of plexiglass.
It did feel a little odd that for my photo, the employee asked for me to pull down my mask. I get that there’s plexiglass between us, but at that point, I had seen a dozen signs telling me to wear my mask.
These kinds of signs are everywhere.
Magic Mountain is currently only accepting non-cash payments. So bring a credit or debit card. If necessary, you can convert cash to a card at kiosks located in the park.
Masks and Social Distance
Wearing a mask and staying 6ft apart are the tried and true policies at this point. Everyone who’s been out in public knows the procedure. I was surprised to see great mask compliance among guests and staff alike for the entire day.
Unfortunately, social distancing was the big problem of the day. I’ll start with the worst offender, my final ride of the day on Twisted Colossus.
Guests plainly were not following the markers. The guy in the green shirt below and everyone behind him was not supposed to be standing there, that’s supposed to be a 6ft buffer. Guests aren’t used to that, though, so it’s confusing and honestly difficult to keep track of, especially with few staff to help remind guests of queuing rules.
California recommends installing Plexiglass dividers on any switchback lines or to close sections of switchback lines/queues to ensure sufficient physical distance. Six Flags is doing the latter, but obviously, guests are confused.
At some attractions, further into the queue, an employee will help police that buffer, but without instruction earlier in the queue, guests completely miss it. With how tight many of the queues are (remember, Colossus was built in 1978), Six Flags should really consider just installing the plexiglass dividers, they’re simpler and would allow rides to reclaim some of their queue space.
Unfortunately, the Twisted Colossus experience got worse after that. The loading area is pretty small, and they were stacking guests up to ride. I was most definitely not 6ft away from the party in front of me (although I tried), nor were the other people still waiting in line behind me able to keep their distance. It felt uncomfortable.
State guidelines only permit parties traveling together to sit together on attractions. Since I was traveling alone, I should not have been grouped with anyone else for safety. However, the employee grouping people into rows sent a stranger to sit next to me. This shouldn’t happen. And by the end of a full day of operation, the employee should have known better.
I’ve worked for two different theme parks, so I understand new policies take time. I hate being the whiny guest, but safety issues are very important right now. I don’t want to see the park get shut down again because they aren’t following important rules. But I do have faith that Six Flags can fix these sorts of problems quickly. And I’ll absolutely come back to see how things are going in a few more weeks.
I didn’t ride too much (there’s nowhere to put a camera bag and you can’t take it with you on most rides), but other attractions were operating a little more effectively. All attractions have closed rows/seats to promote social distancing. So, for example, Goliath has fifteen rows. They were only seating five.
Attractions are also regularly sanitized. Not every cycle is, but it is done consistently.
Overall, riding the coasters was fine, even with the mask. Just make sure your mask is nice and secure on your face. After an hour or two of walking around, I completely forgot I even had a mask on. You just get used to it.
Operation Oopsies
The park has been closed for a year, and it’s pretty clear that not a lot of ride maintenance was done. A common thing I heard from other guests was that they waited in line (sometimes over an hour) at a coaster, only for it to break down when they were almost to the front. This happened throughout the day.
It’s going to take some time for Six Flags to work out the kinks.
Another problem that cropped up was long lines for food. It’s honestly a common issue at the park on a normal day, so it wasn’t too surprising. But the Six Flags app does now support mobile orders. It’s a good idea to use it, though there are issues with that too, as the staff gets back up to speed.
The trouble is, just about every restaurant advertises mobile orders, but only about three ever showed up as options on the app for me. It was a bit of a nuisance to find something to eat. That’s especially true because many restaurants are closed and there’s no way to know that unless you walk over and check. It seems like the app should be able to add more information on what’s open and how long waits are.
For example, I decided to eat in the new Underground area, they have a new street taco restaurant. It wasn’t open when I got there. The chicken place was. Here’s what the line looked like:
That line took me over thirty minutes to wait in. Again, dredging up the social distancing issue, there were only a few markers. I figured maybe Six Flags didn’t expect this to be a popular spot, even though it’s new, so they didn’t anticipate the need for an extended queue. Unfortunately, this was a problem with many of the lines I observed throughout the day.
All passholders who decided to keep paying through the last year got a free upgrade to the next tier. Unfortunately, to get the new physical card, you have to wait in line at Membership services. Again, not enough queue and social distancing markers, or enough staff to meet the demand . . . even though this was a passholder preview and they knew that nearly every guest in the park would need to stop by this location.
Unfortunately, after the long wait, there was an issue with my account and I did not receive my free upgrade. They told me this was a common problem and took down my information to manually upgrade me. If that’s happened to you, make sure you check with Member Services during your next visit or try the online chat.
On the day of my visit, LA was still in Red Tier. That means:
- 15% park capacity
- 15% indoor capacity
- No indoor dining
As of tomorrow, April 3rd, LA County will move into Orange Tier:
- 25% park capacity
- 25% indoor capacity
- 25% Indoor dining capacity
We’re wary of what an extra 10% more guests will do to the issues we experienced. Let’s hope Magic Mountain can take the feedback they’ll be receiving this weekend and respond quickly.
Strap In
Now that we’ve talked at length about safety, let’s look at the exciting part, the rides. There’s just something special about hearing that familiar clack-clack-clack of the lift chain and the whoosh of the coaster trains whizzing by overhead. There’s no better place for it than Magic Mountain, as they hold the world record for most rollercoasters in a single park.
Good news, most attractions are indeed open with capacity changes. Bad news, the changes that are keeping you safe also make your wait time significantly longer. Just be aware that wait times are long. So, even with so few guests in the park (there are times when you are walking around that it feels like you are the only one there), wait times are similar to a semi-busy day.
West Coast Racers and the Underground
I was very excited to learn that West Coast Racers was open. I’m glad fans will get a chance to enjoy that amazing quadruple launch system.
We reviewed it when it was still in previews back in 2019 not too long before everything was shut down:
Six Flags Magic Mountain – West Coast Racers Arrives at the Starting Line!
The Underground also just happens to be an extremely well-designed area for this coaster. We said before that this is a very Instagrammable coaster and that still rings true. The whole “racing” element is mesmerizing to watch, I hung out and took a lot of pictures.
Of course “New” means popular and the line can get pretty long. The ride is still plagued by the same technical issues as when it opened over a year ago. The inside queue also can’t be used, so everyone is lined up outside. Luckily, the area is meant to have flexible space, so getting rid of some of the switchbacks in favor of a socially distanced extended queue is possible.
The area itself has a few restaurants and shops in it, but only the candy shop, West Coast Racers shop, and the Chicken Coupe restaurant were open when I walked by.
Speaking of Chicken Coupe, check out this ridiculous, awesome-looking waffle chicken sandwich. It was pretty good too.
Skip the A/C
Just like the aforementioned West Coast Customs, a few other attractions have closed their indoor queue. That’s noteworthy because there really aren’t that many indoor queues at Magic Mountain. Superman has a nice Fortress of Solitude queue, but guests are being stopped right before going inside. You can still ride, but you can’t wait inside.
Lex Luthor is a similar story. Except they’ve opted to have you skip the indoor queue entirely.
Batman has an indoor queue as well, but I didn’t see it open all day.
What’s Closed?
I figured not all attractions would be open for one reason or another. No water rides were open, which was unfortunate since it was 90°.
They all say “closed for the season,” but I’d anticipate at least Roaring Rapids would be open soon. We’ll just have to check back.
Over in Metropolis, Justice League was closed.
This is the only indoor attraction in the whole park. I never saw it open while I was there, but they are technically allowed to open it.
Other closed attractions included CraZanity, the Gearworks Theatre, Swashbuckler, Dive Devil, and the Whistlestop Train. But there is one coaster that’s been closed since 2019…
What’s Replacing Green Lantern?
Magic Mountain sent off Green Lantern to a different park three years ago. It had an interesting concept, but no one I knew ever wanted to ride it because it had a reputation for rearranging your spine. Six Flags filed permits last year to build a new coaster for 2021 in the DC complex of the park, taking over the station they built for Green Lantern.
Construction has not started on the new ride. It sounds like they had planned on building something similar to Jersey Devil in Great Adventure (which is supposed to open this year). That coaster kind of looks like they took the Matterhorn Bobsled vehicles and put them on a steel monorail track. Hopefully, something happens with this project in the near future.
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It’s time to give the family something to look forward to. Our travel partners at Get Away Today are here to help you with that by planning a future theme park vacation. There are all sorts of new theme park tickets and travel deals, including a 2 free days offer at Walt Disney World, hotel discounts, ticket deals to various theme parks, and SOON TICKETS TO DISNEYLAND: More details and to get a quote (HERE)
Let’s Hear From You
California theme parks are returning. And Six Flags wasted no time to open on the very first day allowed. There are things to work on, but overall it was enjoyable just to get back on a rollercoaster and jostle all my insides. How do you feel about heading back to the Thrill Capital of the World? Are you ready for the adrenaline rush or are you going to wait a bit longer?
At the time of this writing, the next available reservations are in a couple of weeks. Magic Mountain may work out the kinks by then, we hope.
More parks will be opening in the coming weeks, as well, so stay tuned to MiceChat, we’ll be covering them all. Here’s a handy guide to what’s open and opening soon:
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