Posted on by Coaster Kings

CCCK — Six Flags Mexico — ACE South of the Border

 

Alexander: Who here’s ready for a “Six Flags Day”?

(consider carefully before answering)

Today we’re visiting what was — for a lot of ACE South of the Border attendees — the sole remaining SixFlags park to check off their lists: Six Flags Mexico.

– Over the years, many of our images have popped up on other sites and forums, awesome that our coverage spreads, not so awesome that not everyone mentioned where they got the images from. We are totally fine with our audience using our images, BUT ONLY IF credit is given to cabincrewcoasterkings.com. Thank you! –

I’m still missing a few (La Ronde, Six Flags America, and Six Flags Over Texas), but the most out-of-the-way Six Flags park is now squared away on my roster!

The rather large park (the largest in Latin America, if I’m not mistaken) has a good reputation; anyone who’s visited the Mexico park has insisted that it’s the nicest of the Six Flags properties (although that’s not saying much). Will Six Flags Mexico live up to expectations???

The special events entrance at the back of Six Flags Mexico has some nice curb appeal.

Today is “T-shirt day”. Everyone in attendance is wearing their ACE South of the Border event shirt. It’s really convenient to find other ACErs in the crowd on T-shirt day.

The Six Flags bus sits in the shadow of Superman el Último Escape. It’s driven by Mr. Six’s Mexican counterpart, Señor Seis.

Six Flags Mexico has a Mardi Gras parade! Floats and their pick-up trucks are stored down here.  We’ll take a look at the parade a little later.

SUPERMAN is testing!

It’s all “oooohs” and “ahhhhs” until the the mid-course brake run kills the buzz faster than a hornet on a bug zapper.

Speaking of annoying flying creatures, Batman: The Ride: Mexico Edition is back here too.

The entrance back here is useful but awkward. Once through the turnstiles you make a hard 180º around Batman before you find yourself in the midway proper.

The plan was to bring us to Medusa for ERT, but the old hag was having trouble waking up. Off to Superman!

We were escorted through Superman‘s gift shop and up the exit.

Superman el Último Escape gives two different rides: braked and unbraked.

With 3 train operation, the mid-course brake triggers when a train clears the lift before the train behind it dispatches. You gotta give credit for running 3 trains, but even a great crew can’t prevent numerous butchered rides.

While we’re on the subject of butchered rides, let’s talk about Medusa Steel Coaster.

To call it “butchered” may be a bit heavy handed, but as of 2016 Medusa Steel Coaster has suffered two critical performance blows: VR and polyurethane wheels. Medusa’s old steel wheels maintained momentum exceptionally well; poly wheels, while smoother, gradually slow the ride to a crawl before it reaches the station.

Also suffering in the performance department is Six Flags Mexico’s Boomerang — the very first ever manufactured. The 35-year-old coaster looks sharp but runs rough.

The abandoned Arrow car ride situated behind Boomerang is also in rough shape.

Roughness! Roughness, everywhere!

Batman The Ride is one of the best-looking Vekoma SLCs around but clearly the worst of the Batman coasters.

The addition of Batman was a significant part of Reino Aventura’s transformation into Six Flags Mexico in 2000. It was the first attraction to bring official DC Comics IP to Latin America and remains Mexico’s only inverted coaster.

Much like other Premier Parks–era acquisitions, Six Flags Mexico received a tremendous number of investments between 1999-2002, including 3 marquee roller coasters, a verging-on-excessive flat ride package, and numerous infrastructural developments.

Within 5 years the park’s major coaster collection increased by 300% and its overall attraction roster doubled,  catapulting the park from a local attraction to national destination.

Six Flags Mexico continues to receive a standard assortment of Six Flags mainstay attractions, like Justice League: Battle For Metropolis.

It’s funny; I’ve never done one of these before and I still don’t know what the story is because it’s all in Spanish.

For the entire time I was over in this area of the park, Superman glided right through the mid-course brake.

However, on 3 of my 4 rides, I got some serious Goliath–at–Magic Mountain mid–course braking. What a fickle ride!

 I guess I should consider myself lucky. My one “good” ride was when I’d decided to wait for the front seat. It was superb.


As much as I’d like to rate the overall experience based on my perfect front seat ride, I have to take into account that 75%  of my rides were disappointments. A lot is lost when the return to the station is taken at a glacial pace.

Six Flags Mexico has a lot in common with other Six Flags properties, but certain aspects of the park are distinctly Mexican – like this bizarre halfpipe basketball challenge. The probably wouldn’t fly in the United States for one reason or another.

Six Flags Mexico is one of many Six Flags parks with a Sky Screamer ride, but one of the few that managed to avoid the plague of Larson Super Loops

The Vekoma coasters here definitely liken SFM to its Premier Parks brethren (Six Flags New England, Discovery Kingdom, Elitch Gardens, etc), but the unique Superman was ultimately Six Flag’s only Morgan Manufacturing coaster.

In fact, aside from Medusa Steel Coaster and Superman el Último Escape, Six Flags Mexico’s collection consists mostly of production model rides.

Of all the S&S towers that have peppered Six Flags properties over the years, Six Flags Mexico’s Kilauea is certainly the best looking (and the only multi-tower complex other than Cedar Point’s Power Tower to feature a rounded top).

Tsunami, a Zierer Tivoli double figure-8, was Reino Aventura’s first coaster and the first Zierer Tivoli in the Western Hemisphere when it opened in 1981.

I know what you’re thinking. “Oh! A Huss Frisbee! That’s soooo Premier Parks.”

WRONG. Premier Parks opted for the knock off version: a SBF Dance Party. The Hawaiian-themed barf machine is the only other ride in the Six Flags Chain that makes use of the trademark for “Voodoo” (spelled “Vudu” in Spanish) that was first filed for Six Flags Discovery Kingdom’s Top Spin, and later famously lead to the emergency re-branding of Dorney Park’s Possessed  coaster.

Kilauea runs the Combo Tower program on its three sides, all of which were running simultaneously. Good job Six Flag Mexico!

Here’s one I’ve never seen before: A Huss Crazy Pineapple. It looks like a miniature Huss Flipper, but the platform does not raise or lower. Kind of a boring looking ride.

Any Six Flags Discovery Kingdom fans around? You’d recognize Six Flags Mexico’s Joker as Tony Hawk’s Big Spin / Pandemonium. When the ride came to Mexico in 2013 it received a fairly elaborate theme package including a functioning funhouse as part of the ride’s queue (similarly, Medusa Steel Coaster features a repurposed tilt house at the beginning of its queue).

My mid-day re-rides on Superman were the first for which I actually used the ride’s entrance.  The indoor queue (and the exit shop) are located in buildings original to Reino Aventura.

Superman’s queue features a remarkably mundane depiction of the Daily Planet headquarters. A lot of care was taken to recreate the banal characteristics of corporate office life.

Located between Superman and the park’s entrance is an excellent rapids ride that resolutely drenches guests with various water features – its most notable being a series of fountains disguised as children spitting on guests (and one boy PEEING on guests; a hilarious holdover from the Rieno Aventura days that somehow escaped corporate cleansing).

Here’s a rare one for ya!

Take a gander at Huracan, the only  Vekoma Waikiki Wave SuperFlip ride in the Western Hemisphere.

A precursor to the ubiquitous Huss Top Spin, the prototype Vekoma Waikiki Wave appeared at Louisville’s Kentucky Kingdom as Quake. The non-inverting Quake was ultimately a failure due to mechanical problems, as well as a offering an exceedingly gentle experience for such an intimidating attraction.


The Waikiki Wave SuperFlip came about when the ability to lock the ride’s vehicle in place was developed, which lead to numerous thrilling programming opportunities. Huracan can flip like a Top Spin or rotate its arms independently thanks to a hinge joint on the right arm.

That big grey box behind Huracan is Dark Knight, a Mack mouse identical to the Dark Knight at Great Adventure and Great America. Intended originally for Six Flags New England, construction began before all building permits were approved. Zoning agreements were never reached and the project was rerouted to Mexico. Ironically, a similar situation plagued Superman el Último Escape, which opened 3 years after it was announced.

Hey look! The Mardi Gras parade approaches!

The colorful floats contain dancers who throw beads at guests.

Two parade dancers threw beads right to me. I felt so special!

In addition to floats, the parade includes several troops of dancers (note the building in the background; that’s Medusa’s exit shop. The “Iron Horse Mining Co.” is a nod to the RMC Iron Horse track that composes Medusa Steel Coaster.

Speaking of Medusa, the only way to get good pictures of it is to take your camera into the queue. Medusa’s queue is VERY LONG. In order to ride, you have to go back out of the queue and put your camera in a locker. Because my desire to not deal with Six Flag’s arbitrary locker hogwash far outweighs my desire to take good pictures of Medusa, good pictures of Medusa did not happen.

I did, however, walk down to the park’s main entrance so I could see the entire entrance midway. Once through the main gate, the midway does a “?” shape around this tea cup ride, and then slopes upward past the rapids and Superman.

The atmosphere in some (key word: some) of Six Flags Mexico’s areas are beautiful.

Pueblo Mexicano (Mexican Village) encompasses everything from the main entrance all the way up past Superman.

Pueblo Mexicano leads to a central intersection, which is part of Pueblo Francés (French Village) and home to this beautiful double-decker carousel and a dolphin exhibit (former home of Free Willy star and Reino Aventura star attraction, Keiko the orca). Joker and Pueblo Polineso (Polynesian Village) are to the left, Peublo Vaquero (Cowboy Village) and Medusa are to the right.

Behind the carousel is Pueblo Suizo (Swiss Village), which is home to the only coaster in the park I forgot to take a picture of: a Vekoma Rollerskater called Roller. There’s no pictures of it for the same reason there’s no decent pictures of Dark Knight: Six Flags locker policies. Never made it back to that area with my camera.

Pueblo Suizo includes the park’s obligatory Bugs Bunny area, the unique Circo de Bugs Bunny. The circus theme is relic from the Reino Aventura days.

Nothing says “Swiss” like a glockenspiel situated over a Chinese fast food restaurant.

As you may have noticed, Mexican parks take walk-thru haunted houses very seriously. Pueblo Suizo is home to the year-round haunt Pandemia, and also literally the world’s most basic Musik Express.

Oh! And they have a rare Chance Double Inverter (which, like every other Chance Double Inverter, hasn’t run both sides since its inaugural season due to operational costs).

But what’s this? Right next door there’s another double-swinging-looping thing? And it’s completely abandoned! At first I thought it was a Zamperla Hawk (a la Hammerhead Shark at Discovery Kingdom), but it’s actually a rare SBF Space Gun!

The proximity in which these two rides are situated is baffling. They opened the same year, do very similar things, and are RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER (although Catapult is in Pueblo Suizo and Cuandero (“The Healer”) is in Pueblo Polineso).

About 1/3 of Six Flags Mexico is technically located in “Hollywood”. It features the most attractions and has the lowest level of continuity.

Boomerang, Batman, Sky Screamer, Justice League, and several other thematically irrelevant rides call Hollywood home.

I will say though that the obligatory Johnny Rockets is right at home in the Hollywood area, since both invoke the idea of 1950s Americana. (also, does it look like this burger is sweating to you? It looks like he’s sweating sesame seeds. Is he nervous that maybe his burgers suck? Spoiler: they do).

 Six Flags Mexico lacks a log flume (and there doesn’t seem to be any record of one ever being here), but a Hopkins Shoot-the-Chute called Splash (super original name) calls Hollywood home. Next to Splash is an advertisement for the waterpark that Six Flags acquired last year.

This ENORMOUS motor stunt show is actually the largest thing in Hollywood. I guess you could say that anything related to show business, entertainment, and blockbuster films (like DC Comics) are Hollywood-related by default.

But anything in the area explicitly related to Hollywood has to be looked for, like this Beverly Hills-themed shop. There’s also a tiny replica of the Hollywood sign behind Boomerang that’s so pitiful and overlooked that I didn’t bother to document it.

Is this the best Six Flags park ever? Probably not. Is it still really nice overall? Yeah I think so. You tell me.

Tomorrow is already our last day in Mexico! Sadness!

The good news is we have a full day at Mexico’s best park, La Féria Chapultepec Mágico, and we check out surprisingly awesome indoor kiddie park Perimagico.  For now check out these new CCK and CCCK reports you don’t want to miss:

Make sure to follow us on our social media for exclusive coverage!  Facebook–Twitter–Instagram

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *