Journal: Our California Adventure - Part 8

It would seem that I was beginning to adjust to the time difference at long last, since we had planned to get up a little earlier and this morning I was struggling. Although we did have plans for the day, it felt really unusual to not have our time planned out for us and to have a whole group of people to meet up with. Today was the first day in our adventure when it was just the two of us, left to our own devices.

Thankfully, we already had plans and we were going to be hiring a car and driving up to Six Flags Magic Mountain. To be honest, this was some rather poor planning on our part, since Magic Mountain is North of Los Angeles so we were basically going to be driving all the way back past where we started, however in terms of planning, this was the least of our worries.

Given the number of car rental sites around the Disney Resort the husband thought that pre-booking a rental would be unnecessary. This didn't work out well though, we ended up wandering around Anaheim going to different locations before we found somewhere that actually had a car available. It really was third time lucky when we were able to get a car. By the time we got going we were already behind our planned leaving time by a little over an hour.

Now, you may have already heard about the traffic in L.A. You may have heard that it is a myth. I swear to you, it is not. For almost the entire journey on the interstate we were sat in traffic. All told it took just over 2 hours to do a journey that is only 61 miles.

At least we had finally arrived and parked up. Getting out of the car you could feel the effects of the park effectively being in what I would probably consider the desert. It was around 12 degrees hotter than the weather we had experienced so far which was far from mild already. It was scorching and was only going to get hotter throughout the day.

The first thing we needed to do was collect our fast pass. Six Flags operate a premium fast pass service called a Flash Pass where you can book your ride times on a special device they give you for the day. You simply select the attraction you want to ride next and it gives you a time to return, essentially reserving your space in the queue. The device then beeps and gives you a nudge when it is your turn to ride. Once you take your ride you are then free to make another selection. There are different levels of pass you can buy too which dictates the number of attractions you can use it for. We had opted for the platinum pass to make sure that we got on absolutely everything we wanted to on that day. Naturally there is a price per person for the privilege which depends on when you go. For us, we had visited the park before and missed a few attractions so it was absolutely worth the price to make sure we did everything.

Once we were in and our Flash Pass had been assigned we put it to good use to ride the attraction that we were most looking forward to. On our last visit, we were sorely disappointed because it was closed for upgrades. Thankfully, this time around it was definitely open so we made a beeline for X2. X2 is what they call a 4D or Fourth Dimension coaster. It gets that name from the fact that as well as being a rollercoaster, the seats also pivot and flip over adding a whole new dynamic to the ride experience. There are actually very few of these around the world and so we were glad to finally be getting the opportunity to ride one and thanks to the Flash Pass, we didn’t even have to wait the 60-minute queue time either!

It is incredibly difficult to explain just how insane X2 is or even how it works, so here is a video so you get a real feel for it…

The video really doesn’t do the experience justice though. It is like The Swarm at Thorpe Park dropped some LSD or something. It felt furiously fast, aided by the fact you had no idea which way you were going to end up facing next. I have not been an active member of the rollercoaster enthusiast community for some time now so I have no idea what is thought of the coaster or where it stacks up in other people’s opinions but I ‘flipping’ loved it – pun intentional. It is a beast of a machine which really offers a point of difference to many other coasters out there. I truly wish there were more of these around the world. In fact, I think it would really suit an adrenaline fuelled park like Thorpe Park. Perhaps I think it is so brilliant because it is so different to every other coaster I have ridden. There are only two other fourth dimension coasters in the world and they are in China and Japan. I genuinely loved the experience and I hope to see a few more of them crop up one day despite the fact that they come with a huge price tag. In my view, they are definitely worth it!

As is customary, especially when riding something for the first time, we decided to purchase the On-Ride Photo. We decided to pay the small amount extra and get the Photo Pass which would enable us to pick up On-Ride photos for all of the other attractions around the park as well as character meet and greets. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a waste of money as we were unable to find any other coasters that actually had the on-ride photo option which was very disappointing. When we questioned this with staff their attitude was that we could have had character pictures too but I will be honest and say we didn’t actually see any character meet and greets either.

Nevertheless, we had a great day blitzing around the park riding coasters again. X2 was definitely a highlight, along with Twisted Colossus. We had ridden the original wooden rollercoaster Colossus back in 2008 which was a pretty good ride but in 2015 it was given a massive overhaul to become Twisted. This overhaul was carried out by a company called Rocky Mountain Construction who have a knack for creating hybrid wooden and steel rollercoasters which have a reputation for being incredibly fast and performing ridiculous manoeuvres. We are lucky enough to have ridden another of their creations over in Kolmården, Sweden, so we were both very excited to see how this one shaped up in comparison. It most definitely did not disappoint. I think the thing that impressed me the most was its unrelenting speed. It simply doesn’t slow down and provides ridiculous levels of airtime and inversions. After riding, we both commented on how it had pretty much everything a rollercoaster should have. Check out this awesome video of it…

Again, the video doesn’t really do it justice, but then, when does a video ever do a rollercoaster justice. You have to ride them for the full effect to be truly appreciated. I would actually recommend Six Flags Magic Mountain for this and X2 alone, without the other 17 rollercoasters that they have. Mainly because some of those others are terribly bad. Scream! has become horribly rough and uncomfortable in the years since our last visit despite its lovely fresh coat of paint. It was not a fun experience to be honest and had a serious case of what I call ‘square-wheel-itis’, because that’s what it felt like it was running on.

Also on my hit list of coasters I have no desire to ride again is Apocalypse: The Ride. Don’t get me wrong, I am fully versed in how a wooden coaster runs and how they can be on the rough side. For the most part, that is exactly what you expect from a ‘woodie’ and what makes them enjoyable. It should feel fast and out of control but this was something else. It certainly was fast but it was also horrifically rough, leaving me with nasty headache to boot.

Green Lantern: First Flight can also be given a dishonourable mention. We had ridden a similar coaster type over in Gröna Lund (also in Sweden) which we did not enjoy very much but thought we would give this a go and see if it was any better. It wasn’t. I am going to go so far as to say that Intamin Ball Coasters or Zac Spins are among the most pointless and unenjoyable coasters I have ever had the misfortune of riding. Aesthetically, they look interesting and different but to ride them is a far from pleasant experience. If you ever give one a go I strongly advise you are careful with your neck because of the possibility of whiplash. On both versions, I have gotten off feeling like I might have actually done some damage to my neck.

While I am not adding this to my list of undesirables, I should mention New Revolution. I was a massive fan of the coaster back in 2008, because of its heritage as the world’s first modern rollercoaster to feature a vertical loop opening back in 1976. It was a very enjoyable but dated attraction. In 2016, theyintroduced the latest trend making its way through the theme park industry; Virtual Reality. Instead of riding normally, you wear a VR headset so that they can present a new scene to you. Prior to this, I had only ridden Galactica at Alton Towers and wasn’t entirely enthralled with the VR experience. I don’t hate it but I don’t think it really adds anything to the ride. It leaves me feeling ‘meh’. I would much prefer to see the real scenery around me instead of a fake CGI world. New Revolution had about the same impact for me. For Marc, it was worse and he had to remove his headset part of the way round as it was making him feel sick. I know some people really enjoy the VR element on rollercoasters but it just doesn’t do it for me. It feels too forced and reeks of the notion that they have run out of ways to make rollercoasters interesting. That or the park just doesn’t want to pay out to theme the coaster for real.

We also got to experience the parks newest attraction, Justice League: Battle for Metropolis. The ride itself is another of those shoot-em-up rides where the rider has to fire a laser gun at targets as part of the story. Being a big Batman fan I was very excited to ride this and be immersed in the DC universe. Unfortunately, within a few minutes of entering the attraction building everything came to a grinding halt as the ride broke down. We were told by the staff member to stay in the first room with the introduction video playing on a loop which in itself wasn’t really an issue, apart from the fact that the main doors then opened up and allowed the next batch of people to cram into the already busy first room. When the staff member eventually came back he started to shout some instructions except nobody could hear a word he was saying over the booming sound of the video that was playing. When he was asked to repeat what he said we were simply told to ‘forget it, just wait in here’. You have to love a member of staff who really cares…

The ride itself was fun enough. I’ve done better and I’ve done worse. For an overall theme park experience it has its merits, especially within a Six Flags park as they have a reputation for a lack of dark rides and generic rollercoasters on concrete floors.

All in all, we had a great time at Six Flags Magic Mountain but once we had ridden everything we wanted to, we had no real desire to stay and re-ride anything. I’d have happily ridden X2 again but the queue was huge and you can only use the Flash Pass once for this particular attraction. You'll notice that there were no pictures through this part of the article. We were both quite lazy and didn't actually take any. We had planned to do riding and then go round taking photos but by the time we had ridden what we wanted to we decided to call it a day and fight our way back through the traffic back down to Anaheim.

The traffic was certainly no better on the way back and we were both relieved to get into the Paradise Pier Hotel car park. After all the hassle of getting the car in the morning and the long travel times we wanted to have a relaxing evening so we made our way over to Disney’s California Adventure with the sole intention of enjoying the atmosphere of the park at night and taking photographs. We didn’t ride a single attraction and just enjoyed wandering calmly around the park, especially as night fell and all the lights came on around the park. For us, that is the beauty of the Disney parks. They are perfectly enjoyable even if you don’t ride a single thing or see a single show. We get a great deal of enjoyment from just walking around and soaking up that magical atmosphere. I actually find it very relaxing and that pretty much sums up how the end of our day panned out, so I will leave you with some dusk and night time photos: