Visiting Six Flags Magic Mountain After COVID-19
LOS ANGELES | CALIFORNIA
California has finally allowed the theme parks to re-open after COVID-19 as of April 1st, and no, that isn’t an April Fools joke. That means that Six Flags Magic Mountain gets to open again! We have been paying our monthly membership fee for over a year now without having access to the park, other than a couple drive-through events that they have put on for the holidays. So, needless to say, we were excited to get back to the roller coasters so we made a reservation for Sunday, April 4th. This blog will tell you what it was like to be back in the park after the pandemic.
SIX FLAGS MAGIC MOUNTAIN
A little background on the Six Flags membership - we signed up in late October, 2019 for a Diamond membership (one level below the top). That meant that we had less than five months to visit the park before they, and the rest of the world, shut down for a year. We did visit the park a few times and really enjoyed the days at the park. When COVID hit, the communication from Six Flags was not the best but I did learn that we had a couple options with regards to our membership. The first option was to pause our membership until the park re-opened. The other option was to continue paying our monthly membership fee and Six Flags would add on the number of months that they were closed to the end of our membership. In addition to that, they would upgrade us to the next higher membership level, Diamond Elite (the highest membership level). We opted to continue paying. The reservation app leaves a bit to be desired but it was functional and we were able to make our reservation. The earliest time available was 12:30PM so we signed up for that and couldn't wait until it was time to go.
ENTERING SIX FLAGS AFTER COVID-19
The parking lot was more full than we had ever seen it in the past, before COVID, so we knew we were in for a busy day at the park. The shuttle service has not resumed, I assume due to social distancing, so it is a good walk from the furthest edges of the parking lot. Once at the gate, entering the park was painless. There was a tent with a thermal camera that everyone walked through before going through the standard screening process and finally entering the gate. There were no lines and everyone kept moving, thanks to the timed reservations. However, that is where the lack of lines ended. Inside the park, our first stop was at member services to upgrade our passes. The line there was 10-15 minutes. After that we headed over to try and get our fast pass. The line was longer than we had ever seen but despite that we got in line. After about 30 minutes we decided that the wait wasn’t worth it and headed out in search of our first ride.
LINES AT SIX FLAGS AFTER COVID-19
The Six Flags app was telling us that most rides were a 5-10 minute wait. We walked by Full Throttle and the app said 70 minutes and the length of the line confirmed that so we kept going. Our next stop was Goliath, where the app said the wait was 35 minutes. We took our place in line at 1:10PM. We quickly realized that the line was longer than 35 minutes but decided to stick it out. It was about an hour into our wait that the app started updating the wait times on the rides. Goliath said 90+ minutes! The line ended up taking us two hours to get through but we finally got our first roller coaster ride in over a year. We decided to walk back over to the fast pass line to see if it had diminished - it had not. Once in line, we spotted a worker that was giving information to people in line. They told us that the line that we were in to get our fast pass was about 2 hours. That meant that by the time we got our fast passes, the park would be within 30 minutes of closing. They gave us a little tip to get our passes faster (if you want to know what they told us, send me an email so I don’t give it away to everyone on the internet). With that we got our two fast passes, one for Riddler’s Revenge and the other for Scream. On the way over to Riddler’s Revenge, we noticed that the line to X2 was only about 15-20 minutes so we jumped in line. The fast passes for the other two rides got us to the front of the line with no wait and took us to the end of the day. Another line that you have to be cognizant of is the food/beverage line. There is a pretty good wait at each of the vendors as not all of the are open at the moment.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON SIX FLAGS AFTER COVID-19
After talking with a couple of the employees, we found out that the park wasn't prepared for all of the visitors. They haven’t brought enough staff back to accommodate everyone yet. When we visited the park before COVID, it was never that busy and so people are confused as to why it is so busy and the lines are long when they are only able to open at 15% capacity. What I came to realize is that pre-COVID, Six Flags Magic Mountain was not high on everyone’s list of things to do so maybe 5,000 - 10,000 people would visit on an average day with all of the services open. That meant that it didn't appear that busy and lines weren’t too bad. Now, after a year of being locked inside and more and more people getting vaccinated, people are ready to get back to normal. With the park’s maximum capacity at 65,000, 15% means that they can still have 10,000 people per day in the park. Couple this with some rides not being open, many shops and restaurants closed, the lines grow. I would say that if you have a pass and are looking for something to do, go! Get your fast pass, ride the rides with shorter lines and enjoy an afternoon at the park.