Welcome to Theme Park Insider! Join the community or log in
Theme Park Insider
Facebook Twitter Pinterest YouTube

Best Day for Fright Fest 2011 up in SFMM?

Six Flags Magic Mountain: When's the best time to go this weekend?

From Steph Ramos
Posted October 26, 2011 at 7:41 AM
Hey everyone!

Now that Halloween is around the corner, a couple of my friends and myself decided on a sort of spur-of-the-moment trip to a theme park to take in the Halloween festivities.
Up on the block this time is Six Flags Magic Mountain's Fright Fest up in the Santa Clarita area...
Ok...so I hate to kinda admit this, but this will actually be my FIRST trip to a theme park during the Halloween season (Everytime I've ever had the chance to go to one of these events my health always seemed to fail me as I was growing up...)....so with that in mind, here's my question for you seasoned halloween theme park attendies:

In the case of Fright Fest up in Six Flags Magic Mountain...when's the best time to go? Keep in mind, this weekend is the last weekend Fright Fest is in full action at the park...so what day would be best? Friday, Saturday, or Sunday?

I'm looking for small crowds on rides, don't care much about the line wait for the haunted mazes, since we'll only probably do two or so...we're in it for the revamped ride senarios most of all....:)


Comments in chronological order. Most recent at the bottom. Scroll down to respond.

From Mike Gallagher
Posted October 26, 2011 at 7:58 AM
Steph, can you go Monday? The moderator on another board I frequent is a regular at MM, and he feels Monday (Halloween itself) will have virtually no crowds/waits, with even X2 being 15-20 minutes tops. It is a school day, after all. I can only speak from my own experience. Although I've never been to SFMM, the weekend immediately preceding Halloween has been a mob scene on both the Saturday and Sunday whenever I've gone to the Eastern parks. Friday's usually a little better, but "my" parks are only open Friday NIGHT. I don't know if that's the case with MM. Whatever you do, have a blast!

From Steph Ramos
Posted October 26, 2011 at 8:46 PM
Aww....wish I could do Halloween Monday...it would make the holiday all the more awesome...but I actually have class in the afternoon and can't afford to miss....:(
Hmm...as for the SF parks here on the west coast...they're open all day Friday through Sunday....halloween night seems to be closed at the park unfortunantly....
Well...taking into consideration your advice...Friday seems to be the best bet for my friends and myself (I don't go to school on Fridays so this will be no problem for me....). Thanks a lot for the advice! <3

From AJ Hummel
Posted October 26, 2011 at 9:14 PM
Just wanted to let you know that if you go again next year, try to go on the first (or second) Sunday of the event. That is when I went, and while there were lines during the day (not too long, but majors mostly in the 20-30 minute range), at night none of the rides were longer than a three train wait (except Batman, which was running only one train, and Tatsu because it is in the middle of a scare zone). Even X2 took less than ten minutes in line, while it was a 45 minute wait earlier in the day. The mazes, however, were surprisingly crowded. I didn't do any of them since they cost extra, but they looked to be about a 30 minute wait each.

From Mike Gallagher
Posted October 27, 2011 at 4:11 AM
I didn't mention that "my" parks are not open Monday at all. And since Halloween is my favorite day of the year, that disappoints me :(

From Steph Ramos
Posted October 30, 2011 at 2:21 AM
Well here's an Update for you guys:

Went on Friday, and didn't arrive at the park untill a little after 2 pm...
I was afraid this was going to be an issue in regards to crowds....but once we got past the gate we headed strait for Tatsu and only waited about 25-30 minutes to get on (The sign outside warned of an hour wait to board...realized quickly that was a major bold face lie).
Anyway...the day pretty much went on in the same fashion, with the mild exception being Green Lantern's First Flight...which took almost an hour to board (I let this one go though on account that its still pretty new and its boarding capacity per hour is pretty small in number). With the park's hours extended untill midnight that day, and our arrival to the park being around 2 pm...here's what we mannaged to accomplish in terms of rides:
-Tatsu
-Apocalypse
-Riddler's Revenge
-Green Lantern's First Flight
-Colossus (Backwards...the other track continued to run in its normal foward setting, but we never went back to ride it....)
-Batman the Ride (Terror Track re-vamp in place at this point of the night)
-Scream
-Apocalypse (With Terror Track revamp in place)
-X2: Area 19 (Also revamped for the holiday)

And that was our night...in all honesty I think we accomplished a pretty good set of rides considering our usual numbers during the summer season. We probably could've done more too, since we left about an hour before the park was scheduled to close officially, but by 9:30 we were all pretty burned out from running around that we just decided to call it a night after X2. The only rides I kind of regretted not trying that night was the Terror Track version of Riddler's Revenge, the Terror Track version of Tatsu, and the new version of Superman Escape from Krypton. I probably would've added Deja Vu to that list too had it not been recently closed for good...but that's a whole other story...
All in all though, it was a pretty good night. There were plenty of frights, and the Scare Zones were enough to make me majorly nervous to walk by in the low lights and fog...
Thanks guys for the advice...it really did help out! :)

This discussion has been archived, and is not accepting additional responses.