Six Flags Magic Mountain (Los Angeles) – Friday 12 June

We thought that Six Flags Discovery Kingdom was pretty cool, but Magic Mountain is a whole new level. It has 15 rollercoasters, and the lamer of these are about equivalent to the best ones in Australia! The park is just huge and there are just so many cool rides! Forget Disneyland, if you come to LA go to Magic Mountain instead!! There are a few standard train style rollercoasters, but mostly they are a bit more creative – you either hang down from the rails, you stand up, you ‘fly’ (your seat is lifted up behind so that you are hanging face down), or on the X2 which is the most insanely amazing ride I have ever been on you do pretty much all of the above at any random stage of the ride – you have no idea which way up you are about to be facing!


Tatsu

Tatsu is the world's tallest and fastest 'flying' rollercoaster. For a few hours, Justin and I both agreed that it was the best ride we had ever been on - until we we tried X2 (see below)... Tatsu is still fantastic though, you really do feel like you are flying since the track is all above you and you are hanging face down.

(These are obviously not my photos!)










You can also see some video footage at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_eKfNi2T24


X2

(From the Magic Mountain website)
Unlike traditional coasters where trains only parallel the track, X2 sends riders screaming around its 3,600-foot maze of steel track aboard massive wing-shaped trains where the seats extend off of the track to the sides of the vehicle, allowing them to independently rotate you head over heels, forward and backward creating a one-of-a-kind "don't know what to expect next" sensation. X2 launches the extreme thrills of X into a new dimension with the addition of a light experience that changes with every ride.

Note the face-down drop!!

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=get9SEqKmxM (long but some good footage) or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-y-0IFiZqY (shorter but not as good) for videos.

Our photos from most of the rides (which we didn’t buy since they are all ridiculously expensive of course!) all looked pretty much the same – grinning from ear to ear! It was a fantastic day!!! :-)