California Coaster Kings visited Six Flags Over Texas for the first time! Several team members planned a Texas Tour for the summer, and the original Six Flags property in Arlington was the first to be visited. We absolutely loved the park, and spent two full days in the humidity experiencing classic rides such as El Aserradero, the Runaway Mine Train and Shockwave, as well as newer intense experiences such as The New Texas Giant and Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast. Join us as we take a look around the park in this trip report!
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Let’s start in the Spain section of the park! One of the park’s more unique rides is La Vibora. The ride’s tucked away in the corner of Spain and is located in a very beautifully themed plaza. The ride once opened as Sarajevo Bobsleds at one of our home parks, Six Flags Magic Mountain, so it was awesome to finally experience it.
The color scheme was very cool to begin with, but the ride experience itself is what really counts. Luckily it wasn’t busy during our visit, so during the two days at the park we actually manage to ride it quite a few times. Note though that each vehicle seats about three passengers and therefore the capacity is not the best, and lines moves slow. The ride itself is a lot of fun, it’s one of those coasters that has an old school feel to it, as it is a bit rough running through the mid-course brake runs, and feeling a bit less safe than some other coasters. But we enjoyed this ride very much, it’s a fun experience swinging over the track freely, feeling the car roll over the metal bobsled track. It’s something you can’t experience at many parks, and really added to the overall theme of Six Flags Over Texas. Standing out with its classic theme and layout. La Vibora was one of the surprise coasters on the trip, we had no clue what to expect, and we enjoyed it thoroughly. 
Right next door to La Vibora, near New Texas Giant and Titan we find our first real ‘original’. El Aserradero offers riders a trip down memory lane on the world’s first log flume (opened in 1963). The ride has two flumes, the original (flume 1) and one that offers pictures following the drop (flume 2). When we first visited the ride, flume 1 was closed, however, the line passed by the the deserted flume station, which at first caused some confusion, however, we found our way around to flume 2’s station. Both flumes offer the same track, with flume 1 weaving more through the trees surrounding the park. Neither flume offers an overwhelmingly intense experience, however,the tucked away turns make for a fun and relaxing experience with a fun drop to cap it off. Riding this is riding a piece of theme park history, and is a great way to beat the Texas heat. 
Speaking of Texas heat, the hottest ride at the park is currently The New Texas Giant. It was the first ever RMC hybrid coaster when it opened in 2011 and the overwhelming success of the ride has changed the industry drastically.
We were very excited to get a chance to ride this highly regarded and soon to be historically significant coaster, and stack it up to our own Rocky Mountain coaster back home in California. To our delight, The New Texas Giant is a smooth, well paced, airtime filled adventure much like many of the RMC coasters that have followed it. At nearly 5,000 feet of track, with no lift hill to break up the pace, The New Texas Giant is a relentless experience that seems to go on forever in the best kind of way. The first drop is a 79 degree 153’ tall unbanked plummet that provides quite a bit of airtime, especially towards the back.
Although there are no inversions, some steep overbanked turns are up next, and they are a lot of fun. The transitions out of them are quite snappy. After the overbanks, the remainder of the ride is essentially non-stop airtime hills, including a particularly strong double camelback over the river. The finale has the train barrel through three airtime hill filled tunnels before hopping one more hill and finally skidding into the breaks. Now, how does it stack up to other RMC’s? 
It’s quite honestly not as intense, as Twisted Colossus or The Joker, which makes sense, it was the first attempt. The lack of inversions, and the slightly less strong airtime, and the more conventional layout may take away from the intensity a little, but it does however have a wonderful old school feel to its layout, which we adored. The New Texas Giant still delivers a world class ride experience that just goes on and on, turn after turn, hill after hill. All in all, The New Texas Giant is one hell of a ride.
Near The New Texas Giant, in a wonderfully well themed western-section of the the park a nice cookie bakery is located. This, along with soft serve, is what Miss Abbey has to offer, and she does not disappoint. Choose between a small soft serve or 3 cookies for your dining pass snack. Soft serve choices are either chocolate or vanilla, and cookie options range from chocolate chip, to M&Ms, to frosted sugar. We personally suggest sampling Miss Abbey’s cookies, as they are her specialty!
Here we were at Six Flags Over Texas, the park that has an upgraded version of the locally well-know Goliath we ride weekly. We all know Goliath isn’t the best hyper coaster, yet it is enjoyable if you’re not on a hunt for pure airtime. The same counts for Titan, in fact Titan is a whole lot better than Goliath if you ask us. The lift is faster, not that it should matter much, but with it being the tallest coaster in the park, and the park being surrounded by flat land only, the height of the attraction felt much more impressive. 
The drop was enjoyable, felt about the same as Goliath, and was nothing special, though did provide a sweet look at the AT&T stadium in the distance. An added bonus was the fact that Titan’s tunnel is shorter and the train dives into a grass field, rather than a concrete lot, and this makes Titan look a whole lot better in general, because of the trees and grass surrounding the massive attraction. Continuing with the actual ride experience, the first helix of the ride, which leads into the MCBR is stellar. It single handedly makes the ride that much better than Goliath. We have to understand that this ride isn’t for airtime seekers, but for riders that look for a positive Gs filled experience. The upwards helix is intense, and the further towards the back of the train you sit, the more you feel it. It flies through this helix at such a nice speed that looking at the train flying through in the distance, looks like it’ll knock you off your sock. It does just that. The rest of the ride is very similar to Goliath and feels about the same, except you swerve around trees and vegetation, which is nice. The final turn of the ride has a lower elevation than Goliath and you hit the brake run with a LOT of speed, uncomfortably. The only downsides of this ride are the fact that it’s challenging to find (really, it’s a struggle to find the right path leading to the ride, and there’s no clear signage anywhere. Very odd for the largest attraction at a park), the braking was rough on the train, and the line is not merely as well themed as Goliath’s. Nonetheless, we truly enjoyed the ride, as long as you keep in mind Titan is a ride filled with intense twists and turns, not airtime, you will too.
Speaking of twists and turns, around the winding paths that snake through the forested park, you’ll find a ton of refill stations for your souvenir cup! For those of you who have never been to Texas; Texas heat is not like California heat. Don’t let the 10 to 20 degree difference fool you. Whereas California can tend to be 110 and dry during the Summer, Texas will be around 90 degrees with about 70% percent humidity. Humidity leads to sweat, and loss of sweat leads to dehydration. Enter Six Flags Over Texas’s refill stations. Not only do these refill stations offer a variety of Coca Cola products, but they are everywhere around the park. Utilize these as much as possible! The abundance of the kiosks were no accident.
On to one of the more surprising rides of our trip, Runaway Mountain. This ride offers incredible theming, both in its outdoor and indoor section of the line, plus it’s a completely enclosed roller coaster in the pitch dark at a regional park. How cool is that? For its small size, this ride offers a thrilling and disorienting experience due to the darkness and it’s surprisingly varied layout, that is rivalled by few of the indoor coasters that we have experienced before. Plus, it’s great to get out of the heat in anyway possible, and Runaway Mountain sure does that. Overall, the combination of thrill, theming, and air conditioning made this a must ride during both of our visits to Six Flags Over Texas.
Not far from the Runaway Mountain, opposite from the Rapids ride there’s another overlooked staple at the park. Oil Derrick is the park’s old school observation tower much like Sky Tower at Six Flags Magic Mountain. 
Unlike Sky Tower however, you can actually go up Oil Derrick, so we did. The elevator ride to the top is pretty neat, as the elevator is open air with nothing but a chain link type material for walls, once at the top, you really get a sense of height. Standing at 300 feet, Oil Derrick provides spectacular views of the rest of the park, as well as the surrounding area. It’s a great place to take photos, or just relax and enjoy the view. It’s nice to see the park takes care of Oil Derrick, and we quite enjoyed it. If you get a chance, go on up and enjoy the view.
From Oil Derrick you also get a great view of the classic looper right next to it. Shockwave is a classic Schwarzkopf double looping coaster that we couldn’t wait to try, and boy what an awesome ride! After climbing the lift, the train navigates a funky pre-drop turn to the right before rising up into the first drop. Toward the back of the train, Shockwave actually has some rather insane airtime, and the ride lets you know straight away on the first drop. Next up are two wonderfully forceful loops, that really punish riders with positive G’s, with only a brief break in between the two. You then turn around to the right, before dropping steeply while being greeted with a nice pop of ejector air. Another turn to the left is followed by an equally powerful drop that rises up into, once again, an airtime filled hill. After one more sweeping turn to the right, the ride hits the brakes. Overall, Shockwave is an awesome classic with tons of force behind every element. Despite what may seem like a rather uninspired layout, don’t underestimate this coaster, and make sure to catch a ride on Shockwave.
(VR) The New Revolution Virtual Reality Coaster is something I’m sure many of our readers have experienced in one capacity or another, and we were eager to try it out on a different Schwarzkopf classic, Shockwave. The VR program is the same, just altered for Shockwave’s layout. It’s a fun different experience to be entirely immersed in a whole new world. There was very little lag which we appreciated, although the mediocre graphics remained just that. In our opinion, although it’s still fun, Shockwave doesn’t really lend itself to the whole VR thing. The quick bursts of force here and there can’t be anticipated with the headset on, which can be uncomfortable at times. Regardless, this is something everyone should form their own opinion on, and if you haven’t tried VR yet, you should definitely check it out.
Right next door to Shockwave is another ride that sets the park apart in some way. Superman Tower of Power packed with two times the thrill compared to the S&S towers we are used to in California, as this ride is not only offers both a launch and drop section, while also being the tallest in the world to do both, at 325 ft. The ride launches you up the tower, and you get a brief chance to catch your breath as the ride bounces a bit. In addition the view of the park and the surrounding Arlington and Dallas Skylines is stunning, which you can admire as you are taken back up to the top of the tower, and after a brief pause, dropped, similar to the entire ride, Supreme Scream at Knott’s Berry Farm. To maximize your thrill on this ride, request the Blue Tower, as it has the strongest of the launches. For those white knucklers out there, request the yellow tower, as its launches are slightly less intense than its two neighbors. 
Superman is part of the Justice League and we were very excited to ride a Six Flags Dark Ride… Justice League: Battle for Metropolis was the first of many Sally dark rides by the same name. It is a Sally shooting dark ride themed to the DC squad of heroes the Justice League, whom you join as a recruit. With your stun gun in hand, you and the remaining Justice League take on Lex Luthor and The Joker to rescue your friends and take back the city. Prior to these installments, Six Flags wasn’t known as much for their prowess in the dark ride department, but Six Flags and Sally really cooked up an excellent well themed dark ride that we dare say is on par with some similar rides at Disney and Universal parks. The blend of practical and digital effects is mostly seamless, with stand out scenes taking place in both the real and virtual world. The animatronics are very high quality, especially the Cyborg in the queue and Joker towards the start of the ride.
Although the animation on the screens isn’t always perfect, it’s generally good and the world that’s created in addition to the shooting element helps make up for it. Top tier voice actors were chosen for the ride including Troy Baker as the Joker, and Kevin Conroy as Batman, which gives the ride a tremendous amount of authenticity. Lastly, the Oceaneering ride vehicles are both comfortable and provide some physical thrills with constant and seamless movement. Overall, Justice League: Battle for Metropolis is an excellent dark ride, it’s no wonder there have already been so many more installed.
After Pandemonium left at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, we finally got to ride a similar version at Six Flags Over Texas. This ride is a bit longer and spread out, and it sure took us by surprise! The ride has a nice speed and spins incredibly much. The ride spun more than our Californian spinning coasters like Undertow and Sierra Sidewinder and was a pleasant experience. 
The ride also features a variety of airtime hills, which while spinning felt out-of-control. The ride is by no means a headliner at the park, but it’s a fun experience nonetheless. It’s comfortable, family friendly, and a great ride to catch when you’re at the park and have time to spare. We hardly waited for the ride, about 20 minutes, but that was just the stairs to the station. So be warned, if the line looks even remotely long, it will be long, and you may want to move on to some other awesome rides nearby such as Mr. Freeze or the Runaway Mine Train. 
Nearby these two attractions, we find The All American Cafe. Located across from Aquaman, it is the Food Etc equivalent of Six Flags over Texas. This air conditioned oasis offers an abundance of food options, from pizza, to burgers and chicken strips, to vegetarian options. Another bonus, the Red Gold meatball sandwich that is offered at Magic Mountain and Discovery Kingdom is on the Dining Pass at Over Texas. If you are a meatball sub fan, this should be a go-to.
On to another classic! Runaway Mine Train opened in 1966 as not only the oldest roller coaster in the park, but also the very first mine train coaster ever. Built by Arrow Dynamics using their then new angled tubular steel track, Runaway Mine Train was built as a low to the ground family roller coaster that focused on terrain interaction, quick turns, and good theming. 
To this day, these elements continue to make it a fun ride for just about everyone. Although not butter smooth, especially towards the start, it’s not an unpleasantly rough ride, and the beautiful scenery is a great distraction for another uncomfortable moments. The ride is quite long featuring three lifts and three solid minutes of ride time. The various turns and dips are navigated and speeds of up to 35 miles per hour giving this old ride some thrills here and there, which are amplified by the old school not so smooth Arrow transitions. 
The ride’s finale consists of passing through a saloon before diving through a tunnel under a nearby pond and into the brakes. Runaway Mine Train changed the industry then, and is still a great ride today. We were pleasantly surprised by this little mine train, making it it one of the sleeper hits of our trip.
Located in a nicely shaded area in front of the entrance of the Runaway Mine Train is the Macho Nachos stand. This stand doesn’t just offer your typical chips and liquid cheese theme park nachos though. It offers not only gourmet nachos featuring meat and toppings, but also large hand rolled burritos, all on the dining pass. This is a great place to sit and wind down and observe the beauty of the park while enjoying some local Tex Mex fare.
Located in between Runaway Mine Train and Mr Freeze Reverse Blast is the Mini Mine Train roller coaster. This ride, installed in 1969, was very clearly built to be a mild family roller coaster. Despite a short and simple layout, due to its strategic and/or lucky placement, the ride offers great views of Mr Freeze. If you are lucky, as we were, will offer some very neat interaction with its next door neighbor.
Speaking of which… our personal favorite at the park is the outstandingly awesome Mr. Freeze: Reverse Blast. The ride is not always discussed among coaster enthusiasts, but of the six completely different Premier rides we’ve ridden, this was by far the very best one. You enter through the Snowy’s Ice Cream Factory building, which is located across from Batman The Ride, and you walk through an abandoned ice cream factory first. 
The line navigates through two levels of the building, eventually leading to a dual slide-track station where you pick either side to board the train. The station is themed awesomely as well of course, mind you that both the line and station hava A/C. But now… onto the actual ride. The ride is impressively intense the entire way through. Starting with a backwards launch reaching a speed of 70 MPH in 3.8 seconds, it’s not the quickest acceleration, but going backwards through a light-enhanced 190 foot long tunnel made the launch one of the best out there. It simply felt powerful. The ride then shoots up into its signature element, the Inverted Top Hat. With the insane speed, this element is incredibly intense and the a little disorienting as you just launched out of a dark tunnel. 
On your way back down the element offers some great backwards-airtime before quickly running through the overbanked turn on the ride. The train then launches up the vertical tower backwards, and once you think you’re already high up, the LIMs on the tower kick in and you just feel the train getting launched up the tower even more. Offering insanely awesome views while terrifying you, as what goes up, must come down. And in this case, incredibly forcefully. The forwards drop down is cool, not too spectacular, but very long. 
The overbanked turn shows off the ride’s speed by thrusting you through it, which is followed by the Inverted Top Hat again, this time going forwards and a bit slower offering some hang-time. The train then quickly decelerates inside the tunnel back into the Snowy’s Ice Cream Factory. Mr. Freeze, along with New Texas Giant, is the park’s must-ride attraction. It feels out of control and is just awesome. The ride utilizes a very awesome dual station and the lines move very quick. In fact, we’ve seen trains waiting to slide over and launch, and the line will hardly ever be over an hour, as the entirety of the line (including switchbacks, upstairs and downstairs, inside and outside) fit an hour long line. So whenever you’re at the park, don’t let the line scare you. It moves very quickly, and it’ll be worth the wait if there is one!
Batman: The Ride is one of the most cloned roller coasters in the world, so there’s no surprise Six Flags Over Texas has one. They are however so heavily cloned for a reason, and that’s because they are fun, smooth, intense rides and this Batman was no exception. We were a little surprised at how little theming this Batman had in contrast to its Californian counterpart, which was a little disappointing. You don’t walk through Gotham City Park, or enter the Batcave through a storm drain and under a destroyed overpass, you just kind of end up there after some switchbacks. 
The only pre station theming is one measly crashed car. Oh well, we were eager to give this Batman a spin regardless , and well, it’s a good solid ride. The two vertical loops are nice and forceful, the Zero G Roll really has a snap to it, and the corkscrews whip you through as well. Anyone who has ridden one of the various Batman clones know how fast paced and intense these rides are and this was no exception. The ride area however just consists of grass, which doesn’t really assist the whole Batman theme, but you can’t have everything I suppose. We really enjoyed our ride despite a bit of extra rattle to it. Good thing we like these, one down, two to go.
New to the Gotham City area of Six Flags Over Texas is a collection of three flat rides, appropriately all themed to Batman related characters. Catwoman’s Whip is Zamperla’s new take on the classic Huss Enterprise, and it’s a lot of fun. Rider get to sit in a floorless two person car, and unlike many of the remaining Enterprises, the ride cycle fully inverts you time and time again. The hang time on top is fun, and the positives on the bottom offer nice contrast creating a forcefulling balanced intense flat ride experience. It’s a whole lot of fun and feels a lot more free due to the floorless configuration. I wouldn’t however recommend this ride for those with weak stomachs.
Harley Quinn Spinsanity is actually a retheme of the park’s old Huss Crazy Legs but that doesn’t make it any less fun. This spinning flat ride is a bit nauseating but is a fun and crazy experience that guests of all ages can enjoy, all themed to the infamous DC villain Harley Quinn! Finally, the highlight of the flat ride package is Riddler Revenge a giant Zamperla Frisbee! It swing up to almost 150 ft up at 70 miles per hour, reaching a maximum angle of 120 degrees, almost inverting riders. This ride is tall, fast, intense, filled to the brim with floater airtime, and of course has lots of spinning. If that’s not exactly what a great flat ride sounds like to you, don’t know what to tell you. Riddler Revenge is an intense yet not nauseating experience that will leave you breathless, and what else could you really ask for.
If you’ve been reading this site for a while, you’ll know we’re big fans of the 150 ft tall Sky Screamer at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. If so, then I am sure you can imagine our excitement to ride the 400 ft tall Texas Sky Screamer at Six Flags Over Texas, and it did not disappoint! This ride offered the thrill of being 400 ft in the air being held by seemingly nothing but a few chains, the beauty of seeing the skylines of Dallas, Arlington, and Fort Worth, and also a great vibe, due to the speakers on the mechanism that takes you up the tower playing some chill flying music. Overall, 150 ft is nice, but it doesn’t compare to the the 400 ft big league that is the Texas Sky Screamer. 
Right next door was another one of the real classics on our trip: Judge Roy Scream. The ride is located nowhere near the other coasters in the park and is only accessible through a tunnel over at the Texas Sky Screamer. The ride opened in 1980 and is located along the lake across from the park. Besides the beautiful setting, we found it to be a beautiful ride. No intense height, no intense layout, but one of those beautiful old woodies that are a bit rough and very fun. 
The trains seat 6 people per car, in 3 rows of 2 riders, with a total of 24 riders per train, the drops provide a little bit of air, but other than that the train slowly crests over the hills. The ride is pretty smooth if you ride it towards the front, and seems to be relatively unpopular, which is one of the reasons we rode it quite a few times. We advise you step by this classic woodie as well when you get the chance!
The park also features some other funky rides. Yosemite Sam’s Gold River Adventure is the often forgotten second dark ride at the park, but believe it or not, it’s kind of fun. Although the storyline is a little simple, it seems Yosemite Sam has stolen a bunch of gold, and Bugs Bunny is after him for it with appearances of plenty of other Loony Tunes characters along the way. Now is this ride a marvel of dark ride achievement, absolutely not. Is it a fun break on a hot day and a good way to get off your feet? You bet it is. The animatronics are pretty weak, and there aren’t any breath taking drops, but if all you want is to get off your feet and get out of the heat give it a try. It’s a fun little ride, that might just become a guilty pleasure for you.
Another one of our guilty pleasures is located right next to the entrance of New Texas Giant: the Chaparral Antique Cars. There isn’t much to this ride as it is a simple car on track ride, in a model antique cars. Riders sit two in front and two in back, and take a peaceful trip around the Texas themed section of the park. Be prepared for a leg workout though, as the gas pedals on these cars have quite a resistance (possibly to keep people from going fast and rear ending other cars). Regardless, this is a fun relaxing trip through some scenic parts of the park that is great for the whole family.
Roaring Rapids was one of the first ever rapids rides when it opened in 1983. Built by Intamin, this ride features 12 person rafts that riders eagerly hop onto on hot summer days. The layout is essentially just a big circle, that passes behind the Runaway Mountain and Justice League show buildings before turning back around towards the station. Along the way riders are splashed by a variety of rapids and water cannons ensuring everyone getting off the ride will at least be wet, if not soaked. We liked the water cannons a lot, but other than that, nothing about this rapids ride really stands out. The scenery is well enough landscaped and riders do get wet, but it’s nothing to write home about. Roaring Rapids is a fun ride that does well in the Texas heat, and that is reason enough to ride it.
Six Flags Over Texas also features an old school steam train that circles the park, which offers awesome views of many of the park’s attractions, including New Texas Giant, Pandemonium, La Vibora, Shockwave, Superman, and the Runaway Mine Train. The train passes through a lot of nature, which the park is filled with, and can also be used as transportation around the park. It’s not a highlight of the park, but definitely a unique attraction that you may as well experience to move yourself around the park!
And to wrap up this report of our visit to the first ever Six Flags park, the original… Six Flags Over Texas, here’s a shot of the Texas Sky Screamer and the six flags! 
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Glad you had fun. Great report
Nice update i would love to go to six flags over texas. I would really like if magic mountain get that flat ride package insted of battle for metropolis. They can have villian section.