Tales of the Flowers: Time for another adventure! California Six Flags Magic Mountain visit

It's time to head out on another adventure! This time we're headed out to California for a week and we're going to try to cram in as much fun as we can!

For once, we're not on a super early flight. Actually it was around 5pm on a Saturday, which meant the kids had time to do gymnastics in the morning, come home and shower, eat dinner, and then drive to the airport. We parked in the long-term parking lot and caught a shuttle to the terminal.

Luckily we've got a straight flight to Los Angeles. No stops to change planes along the way!

It was a long flight going west, but at least we're headed to an earlier time zone.

Around 11pm, we made it to California, picked up the rental car (with no extra drama like the last time I was here), and drove to the hotel.

At breakfast the next morning at our hotel. Theresa's booked us the suite, so the kids have their own room with 2 double beds instead of having to share a pull-out couch. It made for better sleeping for everyone. Not that we're going to be spending all that much time in the room. We've got places to be!

First, we've got to do a little shopping for the week. The asian market we would always go to down in Torrance was near a Chuck E Cheese. Since we have the Summer Fun Pass we decided to stop in. From previous visits, we knew it wasn't a great CEC, but we wanted to see if anything had changed. And... no, not really. Games were functional, but ticket payouts were low compared to other CECs we've been to. Alli did win this Sponge Bob coaster game, and Ian won Flappy Bird a few times before the difficulty automatically increased. We'll save our credits for another CEC later.

There's always good produce here. T and the kids got some asian pears to snack on during the week.

Ah, and here's the good stuff. Rice cakes and other filled rice treats. We have something similar at H-Mart back in Orlando, but they are always too firm. These are nice and soft still. We joked that H-Mart orders them from here, and that's why they're so hard once we finally try them.

The kids are always one to try free samples. They found someone sampling fried gyoza and gave their regular "Kamsamnida" as a thank you. The sample lady was impressed and asked if I had a Korean wife. Yes, I do. "Oh, then you are very lucky!" Haha, yes, yes I am.

One more stop at Trader Joe's for some frozen treats for the freezer in our hotel room.

Then it was off to the "good" Chuck E Cheese. Last time we were here, everyone spent a lot of time on this basketball game. As long as you scored over 200 points (not hard since there are 4 rounds), you would win the bonus of 60 tickets!

But, despite putting up some high scores, they must have nerfed the ticket payouts since last time.

Good score! Low tickets. Boo.

Theresa practicing on Milk Jug Toss. She's building up her skills!

This one had a quirk where sometimes it would trigger the 250 point hole without having thrown a ball. That meant that you'd have an extra ball to throw every once in a while. We tried to use that to our advantage on the last ball. If you missed the Milk Jug, use a bonus ball and try to land it quick, before the original ball rolls into a hole.

Winning on Stack-It. We had fun despite the low ticket payouts, and grabbed a couple unique prizes (Crazy Aaron's Thinking Putty) with our winnings.

Dinner time. One of our favorites here is a Pakistani restaurant called Al Noor. I've tried to recreate their delicious Chicken Tikka Masala and I haven't been able to find the right mix of spices that makes theirs so amazing. We tried to make our own back when I was doing our Made At Home series, and I've had a few people comment that they had changed their recipe and that it wasn't as good.

If they did change it, none of us could tell. It was still as delicious and amazing as always. We ordered Regular spiciness thinking it would be a good spice level for everyone. But when we tasted it, it was more like the Spicy version I remembered. Ian kept powering through eat it and chugging water. I asked if he wanted something else, but he said it was too good to stop eating. That's got to be the spiciest thing the kids have eaten. But so delicious.

Monday 04/27/2026

The next day, Theresa went in to work in-person (she's usually remote), so that means the kids and I have the entire day for ourselves! We've got a few choices, but what we decided on was Six Flags Magic Mountain! We bought season passes that get us into every Six Flags and we're going to make very good use of them this summer. It was an easy drive from Manhattan Beach up to Valencia and we were among the first cars in the parking lot.

Who is ready to have a fun day?

Even though we're here early, the gates haven't quite opened yet. Last year our passes got us into a special entrance, but this year they've raised the criteria. We'll wait here with the masses until they open the park at 10:30am.

The park is open and we're off! Our very first stop is the craziest coaster we've ever been on, X2.

Once we arrived, we found that we'd caught up with all the early entry people. X2 wasn't open and wouldn't open for another 10 minutes while we all stood in line outside the queue.

Finally it was time! Back row (favorite row) for the kids, and just in front of it for me!

A big question in my mind was whether or not the "All Parks Photo Pass" that I bought from Six Flags over Georgia would work here. Given all the drama that I had with my pass here last year with the meal plan never working properly, I wasn't too hopeful.

But here they are! It works!

The kids just go on this one for me. Their legs whip around and it's a little painful.

Next up is one of my favorites, Tatsu! It's a flying superman style coaster and it's got big drops and lots of Gs.

Now, since we've got a full summer ahead of us of roller coaster parks, one of the things I was really waffling about was whether or not I should buy the All-Season Fast Lane perk. It's like Disney's Fast Pass, except instead of just getting 1 "cut the line" pass, you can go back-to-back-to-back as many times as you want all day! The one downside however is the cost. It's amazing to me that Six Flags offers an entire year of park entry for only $55, including free parking. If you want to add the Fast Lane perk though, that's an additional $500 per person... Jacob, who is coming on the summer coaster trip with us, was the one who convinced me. It's going to make for a much better summer when the lines are long if we can skip them. So, the three of us bought All-Season Fast Lane, good for every Six Flags/Cedar Fair park we're headed to!

We're flying!

Will the All-Season drink pass work here? Yes, yes it will!

And what about that troublesome dining plan?

No problem at all! Ian is enjoying a freshly grilled burger while Alli helps herself to his fries!

Crossing back across the front of the park, we've got to get a photo memory by the sign.

Then we skipped a 20 minute standby line, and immediately boarded on Full Throttle! Love it!

As we walked to the back of the park, riding Crazanity but no pictures allowed there, we came across a family of Canadian Geese and a couple goslings! Aww.

Over to the Chicken Coupe where the day before I'd seen a post about a new offering that I had to try. Chicken and Waffles! The chicken is hand-breaded (not the regular frozen chicken tenders you always see everywhere) and a freshly cooked waffle! Alli found a crispy chicken salad, picking out all the crispy chicken for Ian to nibble on.

Mine was delicious!

For some reason, Ian loves riding Apocalypse. It is a wooden coaster rattle trap. It's so shaky, violent, and loud.

West Coast Racers is a fun coaster because the two coasters launch at the same time and you get to race each other. Then after the first race, you move onto the 2nd track and go around again! It's two rides in one!

We spent a few minutes watching the baby geese as we walked to the other side of the park.

Then saw another family of geese with even smaller babies! Cuteness overload!

Twisted Colossus had a short wait, but it was nice to skip the wait it did have. When the attendant assigns rows, he comes to us first and so we get to request our seats before anyone else. Always the back row! We rode once, walked out the exit right back into the entrance and rode a 2nd time!

The kids both really wanted to go on Lex Luthor Drop of Doom, the tallest drop tower in the world, but sadly it is not running today. Goliath is still fun though, so hopped in the Fast Lane line and walked to the loading station. Ahead of us was a large group of 8, including a person who seemed to be a dedicated photographer/videographer.

As we passed people coming the opposite was we heard "Is that Nick Cannon?"

Sure does look like him.

His party went into the front row while we all loaded into the back car.

Goliath is fun! Our photo from the ride.

And yes, that's Nick Cannon celebrating his twin 15 year old's birthdays at the park.

Over at Crazanity riding again. It's one of Alli's favorite rides here. While swinging up high, 14 stories in the air, we looked down and still saw the geese sitting in the little grass park nearby.

So we spent a few quiet minutes sitting there watching them.

So sleepy.

Ninja was not busy, so we rode it 3 times without having to get off! The coaster is suspended from the track above and it really feels fast as it flies over the hills.

Making use of that drink pass all day. Not quite as many as we got in Georgia, but we didn't go thirsty.

Another ride on Tatsu, but this time from the front row!

Which is better? Front or back?

Both are good for different reasons. That first drop, looking straight down is great from the front row. The extra air-time you get is better in the back row.

Ian loved his burger so much this morning that he got the exact same thing again.

He ate it as we made our way to Great American Revolution. We were curious if all those bees that were in the queue last August were still there. Sure were!

Since we're here, might as well get a quick ride on Full Throttle, the featuring the tallest vertical loop (160 ft) in the world until 2016.

Despite showing Closed in the app, Food Etc has open and had the chicken, rice, and broccoli bowl that Alli was wanting for dinner. We wandered over to the goose park, but they had all left for the night.

The park is closing at 6pm tonight, and we've only got a few more minutes left to get in some rides. It'll take a while to get to the front of the park, so instead we're going to ride Apocalypse until the park closes.

We got in not one, not two, but four rides before they said this was the last train of the night.

Part of our day.

On the walk out to the car, we found another Canadian Geese family out for an evening stroll.

It's been a lot of fun today! Thanks Magic Mountain! Time to drive back down to the South Bay, but our day is not over yet!

After Theresa finished with work, she went out for dinner and mahjong with a group of California girlfriends. So me and the kids have even more time together!