Mysterious Sue
Strata Poster
*and California
At the end of June, the office sent me to another conference (yes, I know I’m a jammy sod); this time to Las Vegas. I’d never been to Vegas before and it didn’t really sound like a place I’d want to spend a lot of time in, so I touched down in the middle of the desert, hired a car and got the hell out of there. Magic Mountain-bound! On paper, tackling a five hour drive across the desert after a ten hour flight sounds like a bad plan. In reality, it was, well…a bad plan. But I got there eventually. And I’m so very glad that I made the effort because it was an amazing experience. Just pulling up when I got tired, opening the door into 50 degree heat and melting into the tarmac.
Just outside of Vegas, on the Californian border, is located the, frankly absurd, Buffalo Bill’s Casino and its Desperado coaster. It’s just there, in the middle of nowhere. Nothing and nothing and nothing and then, this giant cred looming up out of the desert! I parked up and melted across to the entrance.
The inside of the casino was a maze and it took me quite a while to find the way into the coaster. I saw a sign and an arrow to some machines where, in my sleepy state, I thought you could purchase ride tokens. Annoyingly, I simply managed to purchase $10 worth of tokens for the casino rather than for the rides. After some faff, I managed to sort out my mistake and, ticket in hand, I bounded up the steps to the cred with renewed vigour. At this point I was excited for the first ride of the trip and rushed for back row in the empty station, blissfully unaware of the awfulness that was to follow. Ok so it’s an Arrow and it’s getting on a bit. But it’s been left, unloved, under the blistering Nevada sun and that has not been kind to Desperado. Rough is an understatement. Bone-juddering, spine-crunching grossness was all it really had to offer and it wasn’t even saved by the view, which was mainly of the metal roof of the casino and the car park. The rush of warm air was very pleasant though – something that was to become a feature of the trip. Needless to say, I got out of there pretty quick and dashed for the exit.
Some thoughts on my first experience of a Nevada casino then…hmmm…it’s like being in a seaside amusement arcade but darker, with extra smoke and more with fatter, desperate looking clientele. Lingering under the smoke was a gross-smelling air-conditioning system that I suppose was trying to mask the smoke, but failing. To be fair, they had made some effort with the interior. There was a boat ride running through some themed scenery and a number of themed shop fronts.
I managed to purchase the most disgusting shot glass ever made.
Back in the car (which I affectionately came to name ‘**** Yaris’), I headed back out on the long road to California. First I drove through some mountains (which were the location of a mine that I would be visiting in a few days’ time for a fieldtrip). Then there were just miles and miles of desert that finally gave way to slightly thicker vegetation as I got towards California.
I was staying in a place called Castaic, about a five minute drive from Magic Mountain. The Sat Nav took me there through what I can only assume to be Indian reservation land with tin shack houses pitched up miles from the road. The road itself was so bumpy and undulating that it was almost like being on a cred! There were signs to drive with headlights on as you just couldn’t see what was coming due to the big dips! Finally, I got to my motel, which was a bit grim (but not as grim as some I’ve stayed in – it had a pool for a start) and zonked out for the night.
The sleep was well needed because I was about to tackle Magic Mountain in less than a day. It was a Sunday so the park shut at 9pm. But I had to travel back up to Vegas that night for an early start the next day (and I quite fancied squeezing in a look at LA as I was so close), so I promised myself I’d leave by 7pm at the latest. I was up and at the park ready for a 10.30 opening…or so I thought. I hadn’t taken into account the huge walk up to the entrance plaza or the fact that half of California seemed to have descended onto the park that day. I had dismissed the lazy person’s land train up from the carpark but soon regretted this decision when I realised just how hot it was outside and the fact that the path was somewhat uphill. The temperature was somewhere in the mid-40s all day (not quite the 50 degrees of the desert but still bloody hot for a Brit). Then it took me a good half an hour to queue through the gates and get into the park. Sigh. Strangely, I seemed to be the only person with an annual pass! Everyone else was faffing around with print-out tickets. I couldn’t understand this as in most Six Flags parks I’d seen huge numbers of people with annual passes. They are so cheap (compared to the UK anyway)!
First impressions then were of the imposing X2 right next to the entrance road. I love the red and black colour scheme that somehow makes it even more frightening! Then there’s the mess of track all together at the end of the car park, now with Twisted Colossus looking utterly ridiculous right in the front. Just what the hell is going on with that track!?!
So my plan was to head straight for X2 and get that out of the way early. But as I headed up the hill, I just couldn’t resist nipping onto Revolution as it had no queue and I love a good Swartzy. This one was great. It was ‘proper oldschool’ terrain, really long and twisty through the woods and with some great forces in the loop. The MCBR that holds you just before the loop is quite odd but I think adds to the anticipation. I love the way you catch glimpses of the ride from various places in the park too, and that once upon a time it must have been the first thing you saw on entering the park. There’s a real charm to this ride and it was a great start to the day. One down, 15 to go…(and that was discounting the four kiddy creds which I wasn’t even going to bother with).
So on and up the mahoosive bloody hill towards X2. The queue seems to start through a Panda Express which is a bit odd, and then it’s set off from the rest of the park along a bridge and out into the middle of nowhere. After the knackering walk in the heat, I was greeted with a 90 minute queue. Balls. I made the decision then that I was going to need a fast pass (sorry but I refuse to call it a Flash Pass, like the bloody superhero crap isn’t everywhere enough at Six Flags anyway!). This turned out to be the best decision I made all day. So I walked all the way back down the hill to the main gate and picked up a queue bot egg thing. As I had an annual pass, it meant I could add on X2 for $10. Even this seemed extortionate, but as I was haemorrhaging time, I decided to suck it up. I suppose it was as much as I’d paid for the Desperado cred the day before. Ohh well. I’d never used one of these before but they seemed straight forward enough. I had just 10 minutes to wait for X2 so I bunged it into the egg and set off back up the hill again.
So back up the hill, I waltzed into X2’s flash queue like royalty, trying not to think of how much each step was costing me. Maybe they should install a gold brick road for people using this hallowed entrance. But before I could go through the gate, I was greeted with compulsory lockers at $1 each. You’re having a **** laugh right Six Flags? Having bled yet more cash, I got my locker sorted and tried to hopelessly attach my locker key to my pocketless, beltless shorts. FFS! What is this hell? Not knowing which end would be best, I plumbed for ‘front’ row (furthest down the platform) and got in line. It was then that I realised that they seemed to be having some issues with one of the restraints. The system was refusing to give an all clear and send out the train, and they tried like 4 times to reset all restraints. In the end, they got everyone off and the engineer came and unscrewed a panel behind the dodgy seat (I’m pretty sure he broke it in the process of unscrewing it). He plugged something back in and they sent the train round empty (minus the dodgy cover). There were big cheers as the next train full of riders returned to the station. They must have been lying on their backs for bloody ages. Sadly though, the cheers soon turned to sighs as the ride ops called the ride closed for the foreseeable future. Bollocks. Off I went, unaware that the X2 add-on I’d purchased was good for one use only and I’d now technically used it up – more on that later.
Now it was like 12 pm and I was still functioning on UK time and starving, so with only one cred under my belt, I stopped to wolf down some lunch at Panda Express while I waited for the queue egg thing to go all Anne Summers on me for Viper. The food was inoffensive for Six Flags and I was soon rushing past the queue to the ride. I’ve never even seen a high loop like that before and the whole thing was obviously designed to cause you to get close to unconsciousness. As unpleasant as that sounds, I actually really enjoyed the intensity. The curved drop is quite slow but the series of loops that follows is makes up for it with ferocity and the intensity is maintained even into the final corkscrews. Although it’s getting a bit old and bumpy, like Revolution, it’s a very long and fulfilling layout. I’m convinced that the extreme heat is not good for coasters. Everything I went on over the course of this trip over a certain age was bumpy as hell. Still a very solid ride though for its age.
Now the coaster I was most excited about before coming on the trip was Tatsu. I love flyers and pretzel loops are my all-time favourite inversion, so I was dying to get onto this gigantic beast. Plus dragons
. The queue was outside of the main gate and restarted again the other side of an ice cream shop. Holy crap this park was busy! According to my rampant egg thing, I still had to wait over half an hour. So I shoved in Tatsu and went in search of the vaguely nearby Apocalypse in the meantime.
The woodie Apocalypse was in the far top left of the park, far away from everything else and that whole area looked quite empty and unloved. It did also contain the log flume but I just didn’t have time for that, so I Iegged it past some very bored looking games stall operators and ran into the queue. Literally, there was no one in this area or in the queueline and it felt like a ghost town. I soon learnt why after riding the thing. As it was a woodie, I instinctively chose back row (at least this park wasn’t enforcing the stupid ‘two people in the back row’ policy I’d met in Texas a few weeks earlier). I think the best word to describe the ride was ‘carnage’, and not in a good way at all. Now, I’ve been on a few bumpy woodies – some move up and down, some side-to-side, some even back and forth into the next car. I have no idea what this was doing, but it felt like it was going every way at once and so far up and down that it was trying to leave the track! My spine could directly feel every bloody bolt in the back row. Apocalypse makes Stampida and Coaster Express seem smooth as silk. Disgusting. And it’s a bloody GCI as well – so sad! At least I was out of there in no time and rushing back towards Tatsu. No wonder no one ever comes over to this bit of the park.
I had a while left on the egg so decided to try and squeeze in a ride on Ninja first. Surely not that many people could want to ride this old family coaster I thought, and sure enough, the queue was quite short. Getting there though was another story. Is this park part of some sort of government program to secretly exercise its youth? Up another hot and sweaty slope of doom, I found Ninja’s entrance. Now I love a good suspended Arrow coaster out of nostalgia and almost had a little moment when I saw the original enclosed cars like Chessington’s vampire used to have (I’m always sad I never got to go on Big Bad Wolf). I raced to join the short queue but soon realised that this was going to be a long wait. For a start, the ride has quite a long cycle - partly because of the slow lift hill to get back into the station, but mainly because, like all the other coasters I’d managed to get on so far, it was on one bloody train – despite the fact that the park was heaving! FFS sort it out Six Flags!
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So Ninja was fab, but probably only out of nostalgia. There’s much more swinging involved than with Vampire and there’s one particularly large swing that reminds me of what Vampire’s cave used to feel like, only this was out in the open so not as effective. The first bit of the ride was nice through the trees, but the whole thing suffered from lack of interesting view. Maybe, years ago, it had been better, but now the whole of the lower section of the park has kind of been abandoned with the exception of Apocalypse and the log flume, so you’re swinging out over water troughs and concrete.
It had taken me the best part of 45 minutes to get on Ninja and desperation was starting to sink in a little. I ran back round to Tatsu, for which the egg was going mental every time I missed my spot and added on another few minutes to my wait time, making my bag buzz like an infuriated insect. Into Tatsu’s queueline then and holy crap it was running two trains! I decided to wait for front row as this was such an anticipated coaster for me and you can’t beat a flier in the front. What can I say but WOW! The lift hill is terrifyingly high, especially as you can see the rapids boats shrinking away below you for perspective. That’s followed by a breathtaking first drop and then a soar back up through the corkscrew and floaty zero-G and the sideways horseshoe. This first section is perfectly paced and just slows leading into that pretzel loop of just OMG! It’s rare these days that even the general public are properly terrified by coaster elements, but everyone on my train properly lost it at the top of the loop. I don’t think anything will match that sensation for me. It’s so intense, yet not too much (for me at least, I know some people think it’s too much). I adore that ridiculous feeling of going headfirst over yourself- it’s the closest thing to actually flying you can get to. Then suddenly, before you can recover, you’re back up high again. Then it’s just one in-line and the brakes before home. It was everything I’d hoped and then some, so I made a vow to get in at least one more re-ride that day.
Feeling in a very jubilant mood after the delights of Tatsu, I carried on up the left-hand side of the park with a big grin on my face towards the land of the B&Ms. Now, I think it’s worth mentioning at this point that the ten hour flight, five hour drive and the feeling of walking around all day in an oven were starting to catch up with me. I felt like a melting snowman and was having to stop every five minutes to refill the multiple bottles of water I’d been lugging around. Plus, every toilet and every water fountain had a gigantic queue and the gruelling terrain of the park was playing its part. Plus, plus, the anxiety I was feeling at still having a million coasters to get through was building fast. It’s testament to the quality of the rides here then, that I was still enjoying myself. Never have I felt so stressed at a park, but I was thoroughly enjoying myself in spite of all that.
I think it was here that I mopped up the family cred, Gold Rusher. What an unexpected little gem! I nearly passed it by due to time constraints, but took a last minute lunge towards an empty queue line and was so glad that I did. It’s almost Swarty in length and terrain and criss-crossing track. Had I grow up in these parts, I’m sure I would have had a whale of a time between this and Ninja and Revolution! Rather amusingly, someone had piled up all of the lost hats from the ride on the way round and it was quite a big pile!
It was time then to drag myself over to get some B&M goodness. It was worth dealing with all the cheese cartoon theming * bleugh*.
Seriously?!
I plugged in Riddler’s Revenge into the Anne Summer’s egg as it had the longer queue time, and went off to ride Batman the inverted Batman clone. I really enjoyed this as always. It wasn’t as intense as some which gave a slightly different ride. I’d put it somewhere near Great White and Goliath at SFFT, both of which I loved but which, I felt were slightly more intense. To be honest, you can nitpick all day between a lot of B&M inverts, especially the clones, but ignoring the details, they always give a good ride. Sadly, there’s so much other stuff going on at this park that I think Batman gets somewhat overshadowed. Shows how spoilt the Californian’s are! That takes me up to 6 out of the 12 operating Batman clones and 4 out of the seven that are called Batman…
I’ve decided that queue bots are actually repurposed Tamagotchis. So many were sold, they must have ended up somewhere! So my little thing vibrated and I sweated my way back towards the stand-up Riddler’s Revenge. It was at this point that I realised that X2 was no longer on my egg. Being right over the other side of the park, I’d asked a ride-op if it was back up and running yet but no one knew nor cared. I realised X2 must have been one use, blast it, and made a note to sort it out after I’d ridden everything else.
I wasn’t really looking forward to the stand-up Riddler’s Revenge as I find them quite uncomfortable, especially the forces to the legs. This one however, had none of that and I had great fun through the inversions. Perhaps it is because of the large loops that the forces aren’t as great? Whatever it was, it was much more enjoyable than the only other B&M stand-ups I’d been on - Apocalypse (SFA) and Green Lantern (SDGAdv). Pretty sure I was sat next to another goon who was also single riding and egg-using and he was loving it too. People here were friendly enough but not as chatty as in Texas so I never found out. I would have loved to have had a re-ride on Riddler’s just for the unique experience of enjoying a stand-up, but there just wasn’t time.
Ignoring the vile ZacSpin for now (and secretly hoping I wouldn’t have time for it), I headed downhill for what felt like the first time all day to pick up the last B&M. Scream! was a traditional floorless, which I always love, and the bright colours were fab and made up slightly for it having car park views. Why Six Flags, just why?!? As with Batman, it was worthy of much more but I just didn’t have time to give it my full attention. Very enjoyable though as expected, if perhaps, not the best floorless out there. Always nice to see interlocking corkscrews. That’s both the Medusa’s done for me then
Annoyingly, Twisted Colossus, Full Throttle and Superman were not covered by my flash egg (bloody outrageous really), so I let it go to sleep for a while (it’d probably bleep later wanting me to feed it or something anyway). Also, Goliath wasn’t running that day. I wasn’t too disappointed as I’d recently ridden the other mega Titan at SFOT, which looked similar (even down to the colour scheme) and if anything this one looked a little less interesting anyway.
It was time then, finally, for the RMC conversion. Having thoroughly enjoyed Iron Ratter and New Texas Giant, I had nothing but high hopes and excitement for Twisted Colossus. I never rode the original woodie I’m afraid, so I can’t compare, but it doesn’t look anything like a wooden coaster any more in my opinion. That isn’t a criticism, it’s just the way it is. Still, I love the steampunk theming and the use of wood merged with steel ‘theme’ that they are pushing everywhere. This area was packed and had performers on stilts and juggling to promote the new ride. On top of that, the soundtrack was awesome! I don’t ever remember hearing any ride music anywhere at a Six Flags park before and was taken aback by this. I do hope it stays as it’s fab – bits of country and other things all thrown in.
I love the subtle hints of 'wood mixed with steel' in all the fences and theming. Such a cool touch.
I was actually enjoying the queue as it was giving me a break from rushing about for a while. It wasn’t until the extended queue entered the start of the proper queue that I realised this ride had a single rider entrance! Ohh well, only ten minutes wasted and it gave me a chance to sit down on a wall for a bit too. Amazingly, the single rider entrance was pretty much walk on and I was soon getting excited in the comfy seats with very odd, shaped lap bars. Soon we were off and the first thing you meet is that ridiculous patch of left and right, banked tracked. Just what the hell is that?! Whatever it is, it’s hilarious. It reminded me a little of Blå Tåget, the ghost train in Gröna Lund.
Image pinched from a video still to show the full extent of the weirdness!
But there was a lot more to come and we were soon sailing down the first drop and then whizzing around with some nice bumps of airtime and just fun all the way. Sadly there were no duelling moments, I’m pretty sure is was on one or two trains only all the time I was there. The coaster is also limited somewhat by its predecessor in terms of height and therefore, speed, but it is just fun and great for a family ride. RMC has somehow packed a lot of good stuff into that limited space. By the time it joined the green track and the second lift hill kicked in, I was giggling with delight like a child. But the the second half was much better than the first. Once we were over the lift hill (which is ridiculously slow and should really be speeded up as it ruins the pacing a bit in my opinion), the second drop is followed by some surprise snappy turns this way then the other, then back again. This is then followed by an amazing zero g, the end of which pulls away from the main direction in which the train is traveling, so that is prolongs the feeling of weightlessness for several seconds. Just absolutely joyful. I’d re-ride it a hundred times just for that element alone Back in the station, I ran round for another two goes, each time enjoying it just as much as the first. So much fun and it definitely lives up to its ‘twisty’ name.
By now, the temperature was starting to subside and my anxiety was waning as I’d burnt through the lower half of the park. I decided that (whether I liked it or not) I had enough time to face my fears and headed over to Green Lantern, which I’d queued up on the egg while enjoying Twisted Colossus. Too soon, I was in the station and faffing around trying to get on with another single rider - a nice Australian guy who said he’d never been on anything like this before (on the one hand I felt sorry for him about to go on this POS, but then, I’d already put myself through two of the damn things, so I felt worse for myself). It was as gross as expected and made my head hurt. On the plus side it didn’t spin that much, was less intense than Insane, and now I only have one more to go to complete the dreadful set).
It was time to say goodbye to that side of the park and head back round towards the main entrance. I decided to grab Full Throttle on the way through and then go sort out the X2 palaver. The path opened up into a large open area with a band playing some soft rock covers on a stage. It was really cheery and the atmosphere was great – there should totally be more live music at parks – and it really fitted the theming for the cred.
The queue for the ride sadly, was gross and just one big mess. Hardly anyone was being batched through to wait in the actual queue and everyone else was just held in a big free-for-all under a tarpaulin, miles from the ride. It really could have done with a single rider entrance as well, and the whole set up was total chaos. Anyway YOLO… so I waited my turn and finally got shoved into a car (no choice of seating here either, humph, although it bothered me less than the couples that were being split up across two cars - wtf?). I love a Premier launch and was quite excited for this, but overall I thought it was a bit lacklustre. The launches themselves were fun, but the ride layout was boring and nothing really happened at all. After the first loop there was just a bit of meandering about and then a stop, and then a really short reverse section. I get that going backwards gives you the speed for the returning rolling launch forward, but it was all a bit ‘what we’re going backwards, no hang on we aren’t, what exactly was the point in that’. The rolling launch was nice, true, but nowhere near as good as Helix or Anubis. In a park with so many high calibre rides, and rides that are very long in length, this really feels out of place.
Time was getting tight now so I headed back towards the fast pass shop to see if X2 was working and if I could get it put back onto the egg. I’d already loaded Tatsu while on Full Throttle as I really wanted a re-ride and it was still nearly an hour queue even with the fast pass – vile! But when I got to the shop, they told me that although X2 was back up and running and they could re-load it, I’d have to wipe off my wait time for Tatsu (which had already been queueing for nearly 45 minutes!). I said that was more than a bit crap! The guy was obviously at a loss at what to do with a tired, angry and sweaty Brit, so said ‘X2’s only been open for like five minutes and only has a 15 minute queue, why don’t you just go ride it?’. So that’s what I did…I walked all the way up the hill to find it had a flipping 45 min queue!! Grrr!!! **** it, I thought, I’m not missing it, even though It’d be like half seven by the time I finished (and I’d wanted to leave by 7 at the very latest) – so I sucked it up and got in the queue. Fifteen minutes into the queue however, the announcement came on again - X2 is experiencing problems, please go and ride something else. Are you kidding me?! So I went and grabbed some more Panda Express and ate it in like five minutes before running up to Tatsu and giving myself a big stitch. It was more than worth it though – Tatsu is just amazing, I love it.
So I wandered back down to the fast pass shop to go complain and get a refund for X2 after all the faff they’d caused me. Some kid went off to get a manager and 20 agonising minutes later someone appeared. I’d way missed my deadline to leave by 7 and was getting more and more pissed off so was not happy at all when the manager started faffing about some more about how to refund me a measly $10 – I could have left but it’s the bloody principle! Anyway, at this time, someone wandered in and said those magic words ‘X2 has reopened’. **** it, I was more than late anyway and felt no remorse at messing the people around who’d messed me about all day, so I asked them to forget the refund and put X2 back on the egg. With the coaster god smiling upon me, I heaved my barely functioning carcass back up X2’s hill for the final time and dived into the queue. I knew the drill by now – I was into the lockers like lightening, elbowing people out of the way and dashing over to the air gates. Finally I took a seat – it better be bloody worth it I thought!!!
Love these goony ride info boars that are in lots of the ride queues.
I’ve been considering for a while now how to sum up X2 and I just can’t seem to find the right words. It’s…just an assault to the senses…part utterly disgusting…part totally amazing!! I’ve never been on a ride before that I just can’t make my mind up if I love or hate. It’s so confusing. At first I had sheer terror as I thought I was going backwards down the sheer drop. Then it flips like a ZacSpin (but not in such a headachy way) before pitching you face first into the bottom of the drop. For most of the ride I was travelling backwards or on my back around what is, basically, a hyper. Jesus **** Christ, it was just unbelievable. Cannot wait for Eejanaika now. Bring it on! But before I could really process what was happening, I was rushing off and throwing my egg at the cretins in the shop and rushing off back to the car park. It was quarter to nine…FML.
It had been an amazing day though. I was a total idiot to try and do Magic Mountain in a day – I really don’t advise it even with a fast pass as it’s just too stressful - although I suppose I could have been more organised in the morning. I’d managed it all except for the two Supermen (no great loss for me as they’re glorified drop towers) and the four kiddy creds (which I wouldn’t have tried to get on my own anyway) and Goliath (which was closed) so I was feeling pretty good.
The park is amazing. There is so much (maybe even too much) in one place! The vast majority of rides are high quality and long in length and the line-up is as diverse as it is spectacular!
A bit presumptuous but arguably some of the best it’s true. It’s clear this park pushes to be world quality and with TC it is certainly continuing on the right track.
I love how everything, even the adverts are not afraid to be goony!
As I left, I was treated to a gorgeous sunset over the bottom of the park and a lingering glance at Twisted Colossus in all its ridiculous amazingness.
But the story didn’t end there…despite my better judgement, I decided that I wanted to see LA after all. I’d heard it was a bit crap and I figured, if I got it done, I wouldn’t have to go back! So I drove into downtown LA in a load of traffic and finally got to the main drag, somewhere on Hollywood Boulevard. I parked down a side street, shot out and took a photo of some random celebrity stars (mainly so I had something to show the parents other than coasters).
Then, I set the sat nav for the Hollywood Sign. Apparently, you can’t see it from the city so I drove up some ridiculous hill road past loads of houses around some reservoir with hairpin bends! Finally I spotted the damn thing and it was the most underwhelming experience ever. It was a sign, that wasn’t even lit up! This is the picture I took of the Hollywood sign. You can’t see it, but the flipping Crossways sign in Essex is bigger FFS!
With the whistlestop tour complete, I headed back into Las Vegas to find my hotel. It was like half ten and I had a five hour drive ahead of me. I may have cut this time down significantly at first with my foot to the floor of **** Yaris through the desert, but in the end I just had to pull up somewhere and sleep as tiredness got the better of me. I was in the middle of nowhere and fast asleep when some random person knocked on the window to check I was ok! FFS! People in the US are too damn helpful – in the UK I could have been having a heart attack and people would have just left me to get on with my own business, let alone at one in the morning in a parking lot! I’m not quite sure how I made it back as I was totally exhausted, but I finally pulled into the 24hr airport rental place and got a taxi to my hotel . Thank god Vegas never sleeps because I was not the only person checking in at 4 in the morning! Just as I crashed out to sleep, I did a double check and realised that my 9.30 meet time in the morning was actually 6.45!??!! WFT – how had I mixed that up!? Burdenous!! So I set my alarm for a pitiful one hour of sleep and went out in an instant.
View from my hotel (Four Seasons at Mandalay Bay – ****, thanks work).
I won’t bore you with too much work stuff, but I’ll just say that my schedule was more than catching up with me. I had a fieldtrip to a mine the next day, out in the Sierra Nevada mountains and managed to somehow keep awake and make polite conversation on the coach trip out. But I could have done without trekking around the dusty mine and chemical plants in 50 degree heat in a hard hat. Needless to say, it was a pretty gruelling day. But I had two days of conference in an air-conditioned hotel after that to chill out a bit.
I also found some time, naturally, to pick up the Vegas creds and have a look around. As I was working, I only managed a few hours here and there, but it was enough as Vegas is pretty much the sweaty armpit of humanity and the less time spent there the better in my opinion. You could actually see the Big Apple Coaster at New York, New York from my bedroom window so I managed to get out there fairly easily one evening. I waked up past the casinos Luxor and Exclibur (peeking into each as I went). Finally made it to New York New York and found my way to the humongous queue. Who the hell designed this? You have to put all your loose articles into a locker, but then pay for the ride at the end of the queue!?! Common sense wasn’t a strong point obviously. Anyway, at $14 I was only doing it once, so I waited for front row. As it happens, I got chatting to three Texans, who were making up the rest of the front car, about the floods in Houston I’d been caught in a few weeks ago. So the cred was a bit vile, but perhaps not as bad as I’d been led to believe. Certainly not a patch on Desperado. It came with the trademark warm desert wind effect as, even at about 11pm at night, it was still swelteringly hot. The view this time was fab though, streaking past the neon lights of Vegas, I felt on top of the world (or at least on top of a fake New York). Think I’d have been more impressed if it was an actual big apple though ;p.
That night, I walked up to the big posh casino the Bellagio half way up the strip and watched one of its fountain shows. It was good, but it only lasted for like two minutes. Before I came, I thought I’d have to lay at least one bet on to say I’d done it, but all the casinos stank of smoke, and by the time I’d seen about six, the last thing I wanted to do was spend any time in them gambling. So I gave some money to a homeless bloke with a dog instead and headed back to the hotel on the monorail.
After my conference, I had a couple of hours to spare in the afternoon before my flight home. I took a taxi up to the Stratosphere in the far north of the strip and bought a ticket up the tower. I hate heights, but I thought I might be able to cope with the slanty ride at the top to say I’d done it. There was no way in hell I was going on the claw thing though. I wanted to have a look at the rides first before riding but it turns out that you have to buy ride tickets before you get up the tower – more annoyingness – so I just didn’t bother in the end. I did go up the tower though, with its fastest elevator in the world, and got a view that was pretty much the same as the one I had flying into Vegas – a garish grid system surrounded by lifeless desert.
That ticked off, I walked south (grabbing a few geocaches on the way – I’d also managed to pick one up on the California-side of the border a few days before) and made my way into Circus Circus. Now this casino was pretty old and smelled the worst of the lot. I actually held my breath and charged in through some of the slot machines to find the Adventuredome at the back. The place was a bloody maze.
Finally found it and the place was really odd. Loads of rides crammed into a small space is usually my thing, but the whole place was like a giant conservatory! The UV protecting glass gave the whole place an insipid pink glow and, coupled with the smell of smoke and aircon (which was to be fair, only in the casino, but which I could smell on me for weeks afterwards, eurgh) made me feel a bit sick. I bought my tickets and waited in line for the originally named El Loco. But as I got to the front of the queue, the ride op suddenly closed the ride for 20 minutes. FFS! So I went and rode Canyon Blaster and then came back. Canyon Blaster was actually quite fab – an old school traditional sit-down, like a little sea-side treat. El Loco was actually really fab too, it had a great drop and some un-nerving banking and a ridiculous return into the station via a controlled drop – much more inspired than the boring POS at Flamingoland.
And finally…
So that was all of the creds done. As taxis were cheap in Vegas, I caught one down to the Bellagio and looked inside the tacky gardens and the famous foyer which was to be fair, quite cool. And that was it. Sadly, I completely forgot to look in the Venetian, but oh well, I saw enough of Vegas for one lifetime! It took three days to shift the sore throat that I’d developed form my hour in Circus Circus!
As usual, I’d crammed a lot into a short space of time. It’s fine though as I only had one day back in the UK before going on a two week holiday to the peaceful Tuscan hills to recover. I wrote this sitting in the sun, by a stream with a glass of wine in my hand and letting all the stress flow out of me. Still, sometimes you need to do crazy things to appreciate the peaceful days!
So I called this report Fear and Loathing, like the crazy film everyone loves as a student. Although no Johnny Depp appeared, there was definitely fear and loathing on this trip and lots of craziness. Fear that I was going to fall asleep driving back to Vegas, fear that my head was going to explode on the ZacSpin, and fear of never being an appropriate temperature ever again. There was definite loathing for X2. But there was also lots of wow factor, and a sense of satisfaction in finally tackling Magic Mountain. Then there was the amazingness of Tatsu and its pretzel loop and the sheer weird ridiculous fun times I had on Twisted Colossus and its gorgeous Zero G. And finally, there was the brute force of X2. Maybe one day I’ll be able to rationalise it, but for now I’m still in a state of WTF? Is this bat country?
At the end of June, the office sent me to another conference (yes, I know I’m a jammy sod); this time to Las Vegas. I’d never been to Vegas before and it didn’t really sound like a place I’d want to spend a lot of time in, so I touched down in the middle of the desert, hired a car and got the hell out of there. Magic Mountain-bound! On paper, tackling a five hour drive across the desert after a ten hour flight sounds like a bad plan. In reality, it was, well…a bad plan. But I got there eventually. And I’m so very glad that I made the effort because it was an amazing experience. Just pulling up when I got tired, opening the door into 50 degree heat and melting into the tarmac.
Just outside of Vegas, on the Californian border, is located the, frankly absurd, Buffalo Bill’s Casino and its Desperado coaster. It’s just there, in the middle of nowhere. Nothing and nothing and nothing and then, this giant cred looming up out of the desert! I parked up and melted across to the entrance.
The inside of the casino was a maze and it took me quite a while to find the way into the coaster. I saw a sign and an arrow to some machines where, in my sleepy state, I thought you could purchase ride tokens. Annoyingly, I simply managed to purchase $10 worth of tokens for the casino rather than for the rides. After some faff, I managed to sort out my mistake and, ticket in hand, I bounded up the steps to the cred with renewed vigour. At this point I was excited for the first ride of the trip and rushed for back row in the empty station, blissfully unaware of the awfulness that was to follow. Ok so it’s an Arrow and it’s getting on a bit. But it’s been left, unloved, under the blistering Nevada sun and that has not been kind to Desperado. Rough is an understatement. Bone-juddering, spine-crunching grossness was all it really had to offer and it wasn’t even saved by the view, which was mainly of the metal roof of the casino and the car park. The rush of warm air was very pleasant though – something that was to become a feature of the trip. Needless to say, I got out of there pretty quick and dashed for the exit.
Some thoughts on my first experience of a Nevada casino then…hmmm…it’s like being in a seaside amusement arcade but darker, with extra smoke and more with fatter, desperate looking clientele. Lingering under the smoke was a gross-smelling air-conditioning system that I suppose was trying to mask the smoke, but failing. To be fair, they had made some effort with the interior. There was a boat ride running through some themed scenery and a number of themed shop fronts.
I managed to purchase the most disgusting shot glass ever made.
Back in the car (which I affectionately came to name ‘**** Yaris’), I headed back out on the long road to California. First I drove through some mountains (which were the location of a mine that I would be visiting in a few days’ time for a fieldtrip). Then there were just miles and miles of desert that finally gave way to slightly thicker vegetation as I got towards California.
I was staying in a place called Castaic, about a five minute drive from Magic Mountain. The Sat Nav took me there through what I can only assume to be Indian reservation land with tin shack houses pitched up miles from the road. The road itself was so bumpy and undulating that it was almost like being on a cred! There were signs to drive with headlights on as you just couldn’t see what was coming due to the big dips! Finally, I got to my motel, which was a bit grim (but not as grim as some I’ve stayed in – it had a pool for a start) and zonked out for the night.
The sleep was well needed because I was about to tackle Magic Mountain in less than a day. It was a Sunday so the park shut at 9pm. But I had to travel back up to Vegas that night for an early start the next day (and I quite fancied squeezing in a look at LA as I was so close), so I promised myself I’d leave by 7pm at the latest. I was up and at the park ready for a 10.30 opening…or so I thought. I hadn’t taken into account the huge walk up to the entrance plaza or the fact that half of California seemed to have descended onto the park that day. I had dismissed the lazy person’s land train up from the carpark but soon regretted this decision when I realised just how hot it was outside and the fact that the path was somewhat uphill. The temperature was somewhere in the mid-40s all day (not quite the 50 degrees of the desert but still bloody hot for a Brit). Then it took me a good half an hour to queue through the gates and get into the park. Sigh. Strangely, I seemed to be the only person with an annual pass! Everyone else was faffing around with print-out tickets. I couldn’t understand this as in most Six Flags parks I’d seen huge numbers of people with annual passes. They are so cheap (compared to the UK anyway)!
First impressions then were of the imposing X2 right next to the entrance road. I love the red and black colour scheme that somehow makes it even more frightening! Then there’s the mess of track all together at the end of the car park, now with Twisted Colossus looking utterly ridiculous right in the front. Just what the hell is going on with that track!?!
So my plan was to head straight for X2 and get that out of the way early. But as I headed up the hill, I just couldn’t resist nipping onto Revolution as it had no queue and I love a good Swartzy. This one was great. It was ‘proper oldschool’ terrain, really long and twisty through the woods and with some great forces in the loop. The MCBR that holds you just before the loop is quite odd but I think adds to the anticipation. I love the way you catch glimpses of the ride from various places in the park too, and that once upon a time it must have been the first thing you saw on entering the park. There’s a real charm to this ride and it was a great start to the day. One down, 15 to go…(and that was discounting the four kiddy creds which I wasn’t even going to bother with).
So on and up the mahoosive bloody hill towards X2. The queue seems to start through a Panda Express which is a bit odd, and then it’s set off from the rest of the park along a bridge and out into the middle of nowhere. After the knackering walk in the heat, I was greeted with a 90 minute queue. Balls. I made the decision then that I was going to need a fast pass (sorry but I refuse to call it a Flash Pass, like the bloody superhero crap isn’t everywhere enough at Six Flags anyway!). This turned out to be the best decision I made all day. So I walked all the way back down the hill to the main gate and picked up a queue bot egg thing. As I had an annual pass, it meant I could add on X2 for $10. Even this seemed extortionate, but as I was haemorrhaging time, I decided to suck it up. I suppose it was as much as I’d paid for the Desperado cred the day before. Ohh well. I’d never used one of these before but they seemed straight forward enough. I had just 10 minutes to wait for X2 so I bunged it into the egg and set off back up the hill again.
So back up the hill, I waltzed into X2’s flash queue like royalty, trying not to think of how much each step was costing me. Maybe they should install a gold brick road for people using this hallowed entrance. But before I could go through the gate, I was greeted with compulsory lockers at $1 each. You’re having a **** laugh right Six Flags? Having bled yet more cash, I got my locker sorted and tried to hopelessly attach my locker key to my pocketless, beltless shorts. FFS! What is this hell? Not knowing which end would be best, I plumbed for ‘front’ row (furthest down the platform) and got in line. It was then that I realised that they seemed to be having some issues with one of the restraints. The system was refusing to give an all clear and send out the train, and they tried like 4 times to reset all restraints. In the end, they got everyone off and the engineer came and unscrewed a panel behind the dodgy seat (I’m pretty sure he broke it in the process of unscrewing it). He plugged something back in and they sent the train round empty (minus the dodgy cover). There were big cheers as the next train full of riders returned to the station. They must have been lying on their backs for bloody ages. Sadly though, the cheers soon turned to sighs as the ride ops called the ride closed for the foreseeable future. Bollocks. Off I went, unaware that the X2 add-on I’d purchased was good for one use only and I’d now technically used it up – more on that later.
Now it was like 12 pm and I was still functioning on UK time and starving, so with only one cred under my belt, I stopped to wolf down some lunch at Panda Express while I waited for the queue egg thing to go all Anne Summers on me for Viper. The food was inoffensive for Six Flags and I was soon rushing past the queue to the ride. I’ve never even seen a high loop like that before and the whole thing was obviously designed to cause you to get close to unconsciousness. As unpleasant as that sounds, I actually really enjoyed the intensity. The curved drop is quite slow but the series of loops that follows is makes up for it with ferocity and the intensity is maintained even into the final corkscrews. Although it’s getting a bit old and bumpy, like Revolution, it’s a very long and fulfilling layout. I’m convinced that the extreme heat is not good for coasters. Everything I went on over the course of this trip over a certain age was bumpy as hell. Still a very solid ride though for its age.
Now the coaster I was most excited about before coming on the trip was Tatsu. I love flyers and pretzel loops are my all-time favourite inversion, so I was dying to get onto this gigantic beast. Plus dragons
. The queue was outside of the main gate and restarted again the other side of an ice cream shop. Holy crap this park was busy! According to my rampant egg thing, I still had to wait over half an hour. So I shoved in Tatsu and went in search of the vaguely nearby Apocalypse in the meantime. The woodie Apocalypse was in the far top left of the park, far away from everything else and that whole area looked quite empty and unloved. It did also contain the log flume but I just didn’t have time for that, so I Iegged it past some very bored looking games stall operators and ran into the queue. Literally, there was no one in this area or in the queueline and it felt like a ghost town. I soon learnt why after riding the thing. As it was a woodie, I instinctively chose back row (at least this park wasn’t enforcing the stupid ‘two people in the back row’ policy I’d met in Texas a few weeks earlier). I think the best word to describe the ride was ‘carnage’, and not in a good way at all. Now, I’ve been on a few bumpy woodies – some move up and down, some side-to-side, some even back and forth into the next car. I have no idea what this was doing, but it felt like it was going every way at once and so far up and down that it was trying to leave the track! My spine could directly feel every bloody bolt in the back row. Apocalypse makes Stampida and Coaster Express seem smooth as silk. Disgusting. And it’s a bloody GCI as well – so sad! At least I was out of there in no time and rushing back towards Tatsu. No wonder no one ever comes over to this bit of the park.
I had a while left on the egg so decided to try and squeeze in a ride on Ninja first. Surely not that many people could want to ride this old family coaster I thought, and sure enough, the queue was quite short. Getting there though was another story. Is this park part of some sort of government program to secretly exercise its youth? Up another hot and sweaty slope of doom, I found Ninja’s entrance. Now I love a good suspended Arrow coaster out of nostalgia and almost had a little moment when I saw the original enclosed cars like Chessington’s vampire used to have (I’m always sad I never got to go on Big Bad Wolf). I raced to join the short queue but soon realised that this was going to be a long wait. For a start, the ride has quite a long cycle - partly because of the slow lift hill to get back into the station, but mainly because, like all the other coasters I’d managed to get on so far, it was on one bloody train – despite the fact that the park was heaving! FFS sort it out Six Flags!
So Ninja was fab, but probably only out of nostalgia. There’s much more swinging involved than with Vampire and there’s one particularly large swing that reminds me of what Vampire’s cave used to feel like, only this was out in the open so not as effective. The first bit of the ride was nice through the trees, but the whole thing suffered from lack of interesting view. Maybe, years ago, it had been better, but now the whole of the lower section of the park has kind of been abandoned with the exception of Apocalypse and the log flume, so you’re swinging out over water troughs and concrete.
It had taken me the best part of 45 minutes to get on Ninja and desperation was starting to sink in a little. I ran back round to Tatsu, for which the egg was going mental every time I missed my spot and added on another few minutes to my wait time, making my bag buzz like an infuriated insect. Into Tatsu’s queueline then and holy crap it was running two trains!
I decided to wait for front row as this was such an anticipated coaster for me and you can’t beat a flier in the front. What can I say but WOW! The lift hill is terrifyingly high, especially as you can see the rapids boats shrinking away below you for perspective. That’s followed by a breathtaking first drop and then a soar back up through the corkscrew and floaty zero-G and the sideways horseshoe. This first section is perfectly paced and just slows leading into that pretzel loop of just OMG! It’s rare these days that even the general public are properly terrified by coaster elements, but everyone on my train properly lost it at the top of the loop. I don’t think anything will match that sensation for me. It’s so intense, yet not too much (for me at least, I know some people think it’s too much). I adore that ridiculous feeling of going headfirst over yourself- it’s the closest thing to actually flying you can get to. Then suddenly, before you can recover, you’re back up high again. Then it’s just one in-line and the brakes before home. It was everything I’d hoped and then some, so I made a vow to get in at least one more re-ride that day.
Feeling in a very jubilant mood after the delights of Tatsu, I carried on up the left-hand side of the park with a big grin on my face towards the land of the B&Ms. Now, I think it’s worth mentioning at this point that the ten hour flight, five hour drive and the feeling of walking around all day in an oven were starting to catch up with me. I felt like a melting snowman and was having to stop every five minutes to refill the multiple bottles of water I’d been lugging around. Plus, every toilet and every water fountain had a gigantic queue and the gruelling terrain of the park was playing its part. Plus, plus, the anxiety I was feeling at still having a million coasters to get through was building fast. It’s testament to the quality of the rides here then, that I was still enjoying myself. Never have I felt so stressed at a park, but I was thoroughly enjoying myself in spite of all that.
I think it was here that I mopped up the family cred, Gold Rusher. What an unexpected little gem! I nearly passed it by due to time constraints, but took a last minute lunge towards an empty queue line and was so glad that I did. It’s almost Swarty in length and terrain and criss-crossing track. Had I grow up in these parts, I’m sure I would have had a whale of a time between this and Ninja and Revolution! Rather amusingly, someone had piled up all of the lost hats from the ride on the way round and it was quite a big pile!
It was time then to drag myself over to get some B&M goodness. It was worth dealing with all the cheese cartoon theming * bleugh*.
Seriously?!
I plugged in Riddler’s Revenge into the Anne Summer’s egg as it had the longer queue time, and went off to ride Batman the inverted Batman clone. I really enjoyed this as always. It wasn’t as intense as some which gave a slightly different ride. I’d put it somewhere near Great White and Goliath at SFFT, both of which I loved but which, I felt were slightly more intense. To be honest, you can nitpick all day between a lot of B&M inverts, especially the clones, but ignoring the details, they always give a good ride. Sadly, there’s so much other stuff going on at this park that I think Batman gets somewhat overshadowed. Shows how spoilt the Californian’s are! That takes me up to 6 out of the 12 operating Batman clones and 4 out of the seven that are called Batman…
I’ve decided that queue bots are actually repurposed Tamagotchis. So many were sold, they must have ended up somewhere! So my little thing vibrated and I sweated my way back towards the stand-up Riddler’s Revenge. It was at this point that I realised that X2 was no longer on my egg. Being right over the other side of the park, I’d asked a ride-op if it was back up and running yet but no one knew nor cared. I realised X2 must have been one use, blast it, and made a note to sort it out after I’d ridden everything else.
I wasn’t really looking forward to the stand-up Riddler’s Revenge as I find them quite uncomfortable, especially the forces to the legs. This one however, had none of that and I had great fun through the inversions. Perhaps it is because of the large loops that the forces aren’t as great? Whatever it was, it was much more enjoyable than the only other B&M stand-ups I’d been on - Apocalypse (SFA) and Green Lantern (SDGAdv). Pretty sure I was sat next to another goon who was also single riding and egg-using and he was loving it too. People here were friendly enough but not as chatty as in Texas so I never found out. I would have loved to have had a re-ride on Riddler’s just for the unique experience of enjoying a stand-up, but there just wasn’t time.
Ignoring the vile ZacSpin for now (and secretly hoping I wouldn’t have time for it), I headed downhill for what felt like the first time all day to pick up the last B&M. Scream! was a traditional floorless, which I always love, and the bright colours were fab and made up slightly for it having car park views. Why Six Flags, just why?!? As with Batman, it was worthy of much more but I just didn’t have time to give it my full attention. Very enjoyable though as expected, if perhaps, not the best floorless out there. Always nice to see interlocking corkscrews. That’s both the Medusa’s done for me then
Annoyingly, Twisted Colossus, Full Throttle and Superman were not covered by my flash egg (bloody outrageous really), so I let it go to sleep for a while (it’d probably bleep later wanting me to feed it or something anyway). Also, Goliath wasn’t running that day. I wasn’t too disappointed as I’d recently ridden the other mega Titan at SFOT, which looked similar (even down to the colour scheme) and if anything this one looked a little less interesting anyway.
It was time then, finally, for the RMC conversion. Having thoroughly enjoyed Iron Ratter and New Texas Giant, I had nothing but high hopes and excitement for Twisted Colossus. I never rode the original woodie I’m afraid, so I can’t compare, but it doesn’t look anything like a wooden coaster any more in my opinion. That isn’t a criticism, it’s just the way it is. Still, I love the steampunk theming and the use of wood merged with steel ‘theme’ that they are pushing everywhere. This area was packed and had performers on stilts and juggling to promote the new ride. On top of that, the soundtrack was awesome! I don’t ever remember hearing any ride music anywhere at a Six Flags park before and was taken aback by this. I do hope it stays as it’s fab – bits of country and other things all thrown in.
I love the subtle hints of 'wood mixed with steel' in all the fences and theming. Such a cool touch.
I was actually enjoying the queue as it was giving me a break from rushing about for a while. It wasn’t until the extended queue entered the start of the proper queue that I realised this ride had a single rider entrance! Ohh well, only ten minutes wasted and it gave me a chance to sit down on a wall for a bit too. Amazingly, the single rider entrance was pretty much walk on and I was soon getting excited in the comfy seats with very odd, shaped lap bars. Soon we were off and the first thing you meet is that ridiculous patch of left and right, banked tracked. Just what the hell is that?! Whatever it is, it’s hilarious. It reminded me a little of Blå Tåget, the ghost train in Gröna Lund.
Image pinched from a video still to show the full extent of the weirdness!
But there was a lot more to come and we were soon sailing down the first drop and then whizzing around with some nice bumps of airtime and just fun all the way. Sadly there were no duelling moments, I’m pretty sure is was on one or two trains only all the time I was there. The coaster is also limited somewhat by its predecessor in terms of height and therefore, speed, but it is just fun and great for a family ride. RMC has somehow packed a lot of good stuff into that limited space. By the time it joined the green track and the second lift hill kicked in, I was giggling with delight like a child. But the the second half was much better than the first. Once we were over the lift hill (which is ridiculously slow and should really be speeded up as it ruins the pacing a bit in my opinion), the second drop is followed by some surprise snappy turns this way then the other, then back again. This is then followed by an amazing zero g, the end of which pulls away from the main direction in which the train is traveling, so that is prolongs the feeling of weightlessness for several seconds. Just absolutely joyful. I’d re-ride it a hundred times just for that element alone
Back in the station, I ran round for another two goes, each time enjoying it just as much as the first. So much fun and it definitely lives up to its ‘twisty’ name.
By now, the temperature was starting to subside and my anxiety was waning as I’d burnt through the lower half of the park. I decided that (whether I liked it or not) I had enough time to face my fears and headed over to Green Lantern, which I’d queued up on the egg while enjoying Twisted Colossus. Too soon, I was in the station and faffing around trying to get on with another single rider - a nice Australian guy who said he’d never been on anything like this before (on the one hand I felt sorry for him about to go on this POS, but then, I’d already put myself through two of the damn things, so I felt worse for myself). It was as gross as expected and made my head hurt. On the plus side it didn’t spin that much, was less intense than Insane, and now I only have one more to go to complete the dreadful set).
It was time to say goodbye to that side of the park and head back round towards the main entrance. I decided to grab Full Throttle on the way through and then go sort out the X2 palaver. The path opened up into a large open area with a band playing some soft rock covers on a stage. It was really cheery and the atmosphere was great – there should totally be more live music at parks – and it really fitted the theming for the cred.
The queue for the ride sadly, was gross and just one big mess. Hardly anyone was being batched through to wait in the actual queue and everyone else was just held in a big free-for-all under a tarpaulin, miles from the ride. It really could have done with a single rider entrance as well, and the whole set up was total chaos. Anyway YOLO… so I waited my turn and finally got shoved into a car (no choice of seating here either, humph, although it bothered me less than the couples that were being split up across two cars - wtf?). I love a Premier launch and was quite excited for this, but overall I thought it was a bit lacklustre. The launches themselves were fun, but the ride layout was boring and nothing really happened at all. After the first loop there was just a bit of meandering about and then a stop, and then a really short reverse section. I get that going backwards gives you the speed for the returning rolling launch forward, but it was all a bit ‘what we’re going backwards, no hang on we aren’t, what exactly was the point in that’. The rolling launch was nice, true, but nowhere near as good as Helix or Anubis. In a park with so many high calibre rides, and rides that are very long in length, this really feels out of place.
Time was getting tight now so I headed back towards the fast pass shop to see if X2 was working and if I could get it put back onto the egg. I’d already loaded Tatsu while on Full Throttle as I really wanted a re-ride and it was still nearly an hour queue even with the fast pass – vile! But when I got to the shop, they told me that although X2 was back up and running and they could re-load it, I’d have to wipe off my wait time for Tatsu (which had already been queueing for nearly 45 minutes!). I said that was more than a bit crap! The guy was obviously at a loss at what to do with a tired, angry and sweaty Brit, so said ‘X2’s only been open for like five minutes and only has a 15 minute queue, why don’t you just go ride it?’. So that’s what I did…I walked all the way up the hill to find it had a flipping 45 min queue!! Grrr!!! **** it, I thought, I’m not missing it, even though It’d be like half seven by the time I finished (and I’d wanted to leave by 7 at the very latest) – so I sucked it up and got in the queue. Fifteen minutes into the queue however, the announcement came on again - X2 is experiencing problems, please go and ride something else. Are you kidding me?! So I went and grabbed some more Panda Express and ate it in like five minutes before running up to Tatsu and giving myself a big stitch. It was more than worth it though – Tatsu is just amazing, I love it.
So I wandered back down to the fast pass shop to go complain and get a refund for X2 after all the faff they’d caused me. Some kid went off to get a manager and 20 agonising minutes later someone appeared. I’d way missed my deadline to leave by 7 and was getting more and more pissed off so was not happy at all when the manager started faffing about some more about how to refund me a measly $10 – I could have left but it’s the bloody principle! Anyway, at this time, someone wandered in and said those magic words ‘X2 has reopened’. **** it, I was more than late anyway and felt no remorse at messing the people around who’d messed me about all day, so I asked them to forget the refund and put X2 back on the egg. With the coaster god smiling upon me, I heaved my barely functioning carcass back up X2’s hill for the final time and dived into the queue. I knew the drill by now – I was into the lockers like lightening, elbowing people out of the way and dashing over to the air gates. Finally I took a seat – it better be bloody worth it I thought!!!
Love these goony ride info boars that are in lots of the ride queues.
I’ve been considering for a while now how to sum up X2 and I just can’t seem to find the right words. It’s…just an assault to the senses…part utterly disgusting…part totally amazing!! I’ve never been on a ride before that I just can’t make my mind up if I love or hate. It’s so confusing. At first I had sheer terror as I thought I was going backwards down the sheer drop. Then it flips like a ZacSpin (but not in such a headachy way) before pitching you face first into the bottom of the drop. For most of the ride I was travelling backwards or on my back around what is, basically, a hyper. Jesus **** Christ, it was just unbelievable. Cannot wait for Eejanaika now. Bring it on! But before I could really process what was happening, I was rushing off and throwing my egg at the cretins in the shop and rushing off back to the car park. It was quarter to nine…FML.
It had been an amazing day though. I was a total idiot to try and do Magic Mountain in a day – I really don’t advise it even with a fast pass as it’s just too stressful - although I suppose I could have been more organised in the morning. I’d managed it all except for the two Supermen (no great loss for me as they’re glorified drop towers) and the four kiddy creds (which I wouldn’t have tried to get on my own anyway) and Goliath (which was closed) so I was feeling pretty good.
The park is amazing. There is so much (maybe even too much) in one place! The vast majority of rides are high quality and long in length and the line-up is as diverse as it is spectacular!
A bit presumptuous but arguably some of the best it’s true. It’s clear this park pushes to be world quality and with TC it is certainly continuing on the right track.
I love how everything, even the adverts are not afraid to be goony!
As I left, I was treated to a gorgeous sunset over the bottom of the park and a lingering glance at Twisted Colossus in all its ridiculous amazingness.
But the story didn’t end there…despite my better judgement, I decided that I wanted to see LA after all. I’d heard it was a bit crap and I figured, if I got it done, I wouldn’t have to go back! So I drove into downtown LA in a load of traffic and finally got to the main drag, somewhere on Hollywood Boulevard. I parked down a side street, shot out and took a photo of some random celebrity stars (mainly so I had something to show the parents other than coasters).
Then, I set the sat nav for the Hollywood Sign. Apparently, you can’t see it from the city so I drove up some ridiculous hill road past loads of houses around some reservoir with hairpin bends! Finally I spotted the damn thing and it was the most underwhelming experience ever. It was a sign, that wasn’t even lit up! This is the picture I took of the Hollywood sign. You can’t see it, but the flipping Crossways sign in Essex is bigger FFS!
With the whistlestop tour complete, I headed back into Las Vegas to find my hotel. It was like half ten and I had a five hour drive ahead of me. I may have cut this time down significantly at first with my foot to the floor of **** Yaris through the desert, but in the end I just had to pull up somewhere and sleep as tiredness got the better of me. I was in the middle of nowhere and fast asleep when some random person knocked on the window to check I was ok! FFS! People in the US are too damn helpful – in the UK I could have been having a heart attack and people would have just left me to get on with my own business, let alone at one in the morning in a parking lot! I’m not quite sure how I made it back as I was totally exhausted, but I finally pulled into the 24hr airport rental place and got a taxi to my hotel . Thank god Vegas never sleeps because I was not the only person checking in at 4 in the morning! Just as I crashed out to sleep, I did a double check and realised that my 9.30 meet time in the morning was actually 6.45!??!! WFT – how had I mixed that up!? Burdenous!! So I set my alarm for a pitiful one hour of sleep and went out in an instant.
View from my hotel (Four Seasons at Mandalay Bay – ****, thanks work).
I won’t bore you with too much work stuff, but I’ll just say that my schedule was more than catching up with me. I had a fieldtrip to a mine the next day, out in the Sierra Nevada mountains and managed to somehow keep awake and make polite conversation on the coach trip out. But I could have done without trekking around the dusty mine and chemical plants in 50 degree heat in a hard hat. Needless to say, it was a pretty gruelling day. But I had two days of conference in an air-conditioned hotel after that to chill out a bit.
I also found some time, naturally, to pick up the Vegas creds and have a look around. As I was working, I only managed a few hours here and there, but it was enough as Vegas is pretty much the sweaty armpit of humanity and the less time spent there the better in my opinion. You could actually see the Big Apple Coaster at New York, New York from my bedroom window so I managed to get out there fairly easily one evening. I waked up past the casinos Luxor and Exclibur (peeking into each as I went). Finally made it to New York New York and found my way to the humongous queue. Who the hell designed this? You have to put all your loose articles into a locker, but then pay for the ride at the end of the queue!?! Common sense wasn’t a strong point obviously. Anyway, at $14 I was only doing it once, so I waited for front row. As it happens, I got chatting to three Texans, who were making up the rest of the front car, about the floods in Houston I’d been caught in a few weeks ago. So the cred was a bit vile, but perhaps not as bad as I’d been led to believe. Certainly not a patch on Desperado. It came with the trademark warm desert wind effect as, even at about 11pm at night, it was still swelteringly hot. The view this time was fab though, streaking past the neon lights of Vegas, I felt on top of the world (or at least on top of a fake New York). Think I’d have been more impressed if it was an actual big apple though ;p.
That night, I walked up to the big posh casino the Bellagio half way up the strip and watched one of its fountain shows. It was good, but it only lasted for like two minutes. Before I came, I thought I’d have to lay at least one bet on to say I’d done it, but all the casinos stank of smoke, and by the time I’d seen about six, the last thing I wanted to do was spend any time in them gambling. So I gave some money to a homeless bloke with a dog instead and headed back to the hotel on the monorail.
After my conference, I had a couple of hours to spare in the afternoon before my flight home. I took a taxi up to the Stratosphere in the far north of the strip and bought a ticket up the tower. I hate heights, but I thought I might be able to cope with the slanty ride at the top to say I’d done it. There was no way in hell I was going on the claw thing though. I wanted to have a look at the rides first before riding but it turns out that you have to buy ride tickets before you get up the tower – more annoyingness – so I just didn’t bother in the end. I did go up the tower though, with its fastest elevator in the world, and got a view that was pretty much the same as the one I had flying into Vegas – a garish grid system surrounded by lifeless desert.
That ticked off, I walked south (grabbing a few geocaches on the way – I’d also managed to pick one up on the California-side of the border a few days before) and made my way into Circus Circus. Now this casino was pretty old and smelled the worst of the lot. I actually held my breath and charged in through some of the slot machines to find the Adventuredome at the back. The place was a bloody maze.
Finally found it and the place was really odd. Loads of rides crammed into a small space is usually my thing, but the whole place was like a giant conservatory! The UV protecting glass gave the whole place an insipid pink glow and, coupled with the smell of smoke and aircon (which was to be fair, only in the casino, but which I could smell on me for weeks afterwards, eurgh) made me feel a bit sick. I bought my tickets and waited in line for the originally named El Loco. But as I got to the front of the queue, the ride op suddenly closed the ride for 20 minutes. FFS! So I went and rode Canyon Blaster and then came back. Canyon Blaster was actually quite fab – an old school traditional sit-down, like a little sea-side treat. El Loco was actually really fab too, it had a great drop and some un-nerving banking and a ridiculous return into the station via a controlled drop – much more inspired than the boring POS at Flamingoland.
And finally…
So that was all of the creds done. As taxis were cheap in Vegas, I caught one down to the Bellagio and looked inside the tacky gardens and the famous foyer which was to be fair, quite cool. And that was it. Sadly, I completely forgot to look in the Venetian, but oh well, I saw enough of Vegas for one lifetime! It took three days to shift the sore throat that I’d developed form my hour in Circus Circus!
As usual, I’d crammed a lot into a short space of time. It’s fine though as I only had one day back in the UK before going on a two week holiday to the peaceful Tuscan hills to recover. I wrote this sitting in the sun, by a stream with a glass of wine in my hand and letting all the stress flow out of me. Still, sometimes you need to do crazy things to appreciate the peaceful days!
So I called this report Fear and Loathing, like the crazy film everyone loves as a student. Although no Johnny Depp appeared, there was definitely fear and loathing on this trip and lots of craziness. Fear that I was going to fall asleep driving back to Vegas, fear that my head was going to explode on the ZacSpin, and fear of never being an appropriate temperature ever again. There was definite loathing for X2. But there was also lots of wow factor, and a sense of satisfaction in finally tackling Magic Mountain. Then there was the amazingness of Tatsu and its pretzel loop and the sheer weird ridiculous fun times I had on Twisted Colossus and its gorgeous Zero G. And finally, there was the brute force of X2. Maybe one day I’ll be able to rationalise it, but for now I’m still in a state of WTF? Is this bat country?
