Six Flags Magic Mountain

[BillM]

Did you read the article? There is no "fresh blood". It's just blanketed oversight now.

Yes I did. Seems like two dinosaurs are now gone from Knotts and MM. Sorry to see them laid off. But hopefully this will lead to "fresh blood" coming in at a later date. That's what I meant by my comment. Six Flags needs to get away from corporate running the parks. Each park is different and shouldn't be run the same in each location.

 

[Clive]

Yes I did. Seems like two dinosaurs are now gone from Knotts and MM. Sorry to see them laid off. But hopefully this will lead to "fresh blood" coming in at a later date. That's what I meant by my comment. Six Flags needs to get away from corporate running the parks. Each park is different and shouldn't be run the same in each location.

Yeah, I think two things can be true. Magic Mountain, despite some recent improvements, is not in good shape, and a change in leadership is probably a good idea. At the same time, this particular change in leadership (a shift from a single park leadership team to a broader regional leadership team) does not exactly bode well.

 

[GAcoaster]

I think all this ties in with the idea of “Regional Passes” being offered— upgrade to include the neighboring park for just a few dollars more. The idea of getting a Knott's and SFMM annual pass for a low price encourages people to visit both, especially if both offer different events. It means they have a unified strategy for advertising and marketing with regional parks complimenting each other.

 

[Southerncoasterer]

I see the regional approach being better for SFMM than Knott's. Park Presidents tend to get their asses handed to them at SFMM. It's tough to maintain enthusiasm for a park where employees regularly call out or do the bare minimum. Whole areas need an overhaul but corporate won't allocate the budget. Plans are drawn up for things the park actually needs, only to be told no, we want another coaster in there, but you can only build gimmicks because the budget is always the same $10-15 million. And who then gets the blame when it doesn't yield an attendance boost?

This way corporate has no one to blame but themselves, so they're less likely to tolerate a subpar park presentation.

 

[Rideguy70]

Walked around Hurricane Harbor a bit to take in the improvements. And there are a lot! It's basically a whole new waterpark. Practically every square inch has been refurbished, repainted, and/or updated. Main takeaways:

• Employees all have new tropical shirts, and there are brand new custom Hurricane Harbor trash cans
• All food service have updated facades, there are now two different drink refill stations, two new food shacks (one selling a teriyaki chicken sandwich--that's a new food item, isn't it?), and a bar
• All cabanas have been updated. All wooden cabanas now have fridges, fans, and food service. The upper tier will have safes, but they are not quite ready (staff seemed to think they'd arrive in the next 1-2 weeks). And while a few cabanas, notably ones near the wave pool, are still be being finished, once complete, they will have a total of 40 cabanas overall (up from the 32 they had before).
• All sand areas in the park have been removed and replaced either with grass or concrete. Sadly, in all honestly, a lot of the grass already does not look great (brown/dead and trampled)... but I can figure that all the sand probably caused problems for the slides and water filtration systems, so I get it
• There are small photo op touches throughout the park
• Not only have all the slides been refurbished, but nearly all buildings have as well
• There is now a fence all around the entire perimeter of the wave pool, I would imagine to increase safety and make the jobs for the lifeguards easier (which I can't argue). The movie screen has been removed.
• Tube rentals have been moved to the edge of the wave pool, instead of next to the main food location. Seating is now in its place.
• There is a new small store at the edge of the wave pool. No signage yet, but I figure one will be coming eventually
• The old Bamboo Racers slide has been replaced with seating
• All the loungers in the entire park have been upgraded, and many have shade structure tarps over them
• At current, the Diamond Elite seating area has returned to the far back corner of the park, near the Tiki slides. It is not fenced in, but there is a staff member watching over it.
• Men's bathroom/locker room is still the same in layout, but it does appear to have all new floors, walls, and fixtures... except, oddly, the bamboo wall and the benches.

Sadly, the new fence around the area is still pretty far from complete... it's maybe only about 1/2 down the main drag. And I did not actually get to go on any slides, so not sure if there any improvements there in terms of ops. But the slides do look great, and they all appeared to be operational. They do need to update the app, as all the photos of the slides are the old versions. The app also says Taboo Tower is closed, but it was open today (though it may have appeared one of the slides was down).

While it's a bummer they couldn't manage a new water slide, if you haven't been to Hurricane Harbor in a while (or ever), I'd say now would be an excellent time to go. It does seem they still have a few finishing touches to do (mainly the fence and cabanas), but overall it looks pretty amazing. I get the sense most guests were looking pretty impressed. I was.

A few posts below, but I have a lot more on my social if you want to look them up.

 

[Jerroddragon]

Yeah, Hurricane Harbor looks so good right now

I went Saturday and last year the park felt....dead but now it feels very much alive. The themeing has all been touched up and new photo ops all around the park
The only issue is the lines, the lines for food are still insane and many slides had full lines.

So I think the best time to go will be on weekdays when it opens for that and maybe the first hour or two of the day