Goliath at Six Flags Magic Mountain 
Basic Overview
Average Wait Time: 40 minutes Standing 235 feet in the air, Goliath’s orange track and teal supports are hard to miss. This mega-monster can be seen from far away, and towers nearly two times higher than mighty Colossus. Goliath sends a friendly message to other mega-coasters: “Don’t mess with me.”
The overall theme of Goliath can be described by the word “paradise.” Palm trees add interest as well as a station that evokes the feeling of an ancient Aztec temple. To me, it seems to be an ancient paradise island, baking in sunlight during the day. Running through the mist-cooled queue, I was surprised at how long the line was on a partially less-crowded day. I decided to use my fast-pass ticket and get directly into the station since I heard the wait was 40 minutes. Entering the station through the back, I finally realized why this monster was called “Goliath.” When standing near the gigantic lift hill, you finally notice how tall this thing really is, as it hovers far above your head. The wait inside the station passed in 10 minutes, and soon enough, I was strapped into the 6-seater hyper trains. Recognizing the trains just simply isn’t enough. These trains are so comfortable that you feel as if you could start reclining. The lap bars were a little awkward for me since I’m quite short, but others didn’t have a hard time finding a comfortable position. Finally, our lap bars were checked, and we were sent up to start our journey on Goliath. Upon reaching the top, you get a magnificent view of not only the park, but the entire city of Valencia pretty much, and you can monitor traffic on the highway if you please. Now you are slowed down, and unless you were watching the ride previously, you wonder if you are about to fall backwards. But no, you are pulled very slowly, as if to dramatize the 61˚ drop. Then, you are suddenly released, and seeing the tiny hole for the tunnel in front of you, you wonder if you will smash your head or not! The drop seems to last ages, but then you are pulled down into the 120-foot long tunnel. It seems that if you were to raise your hands, you could touch the tunnel’s ceiling. In just a second or two, you are pulled upwards out of the tunnel and into a turn that takes you around just over 180˚. This sends you into another steep slope that seems to last a minute. The next thing you know, you are flying up over a hill, providing a long duration of “hardcore” airtime. After enjoying this time in the air, the track makes a left, sharply banked, upwards turn that leads into the mid-brake run. Unfortunately, this brake run slows you to a halt almost, diminishing the flow of adrenaline. This is a big minus, but the upcoming series of intense parabolic track easily makes up for it. The track leads downwards off to the left again, and then it makes a sharply banked turn to the right, which throws you down even more. You can see the centrifuge helix coming up now, and in a matter of seconds, you find yourself traveling right to enter the extremely intense and long element. You pull out just as you think you can’t take any more, and sometimes people black out at the end of the helix. This pulls you up into another left hand turn that sends you soaring up into another right hand turn. This concludes the ride with the final brake run. Actually, you can still get a pretty nice view from the final brake run, with Superman’s 415-foot tower right there and Gotham city in the background, but you probably aren’t thinking about that right now. Think about it, you just went 85 mph, went through most likely the most intense helix you’ve ever gone through, and you've just conquered Goliath.
Pros: Smooth, intense helix, first and second drops, tunnel, comfortable trains |
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