After putting on a great Holiday in The Park event, there was a lot of work to be done for Discovery Kingdom to return to it’s normal form. Fortunately, the park has been working hard to accomplish this, and is doing a good job.
Most major decorations have been put away, including a complete re-transformation of Candy Cane Lane, Christmas Tree Forest, and Toy land.
Some of the old Christmas trees from Christmas Tree Forest are now in the habitat to increase behavioral enrichment. Very cool of the park to reuse old props in a positive way.
The sledding area behind Toyota stadium has been blocked off to let the snow melt. Strangely, there is still a lot of snow there many weeks later!
The rest of the area behind Toyota Stadium still has all of it’s lights hung up.
Leftover lights seem to be the only things left from the event.
Many of the bushes and trees throughout the park are still covered in lights. For some reason, many of them are still left on at night. Not quite sure why the park does that. The same counts for Six Flags Magic Mountain’s tree-lights at the front of the park!
There are advertisements around the park for the year round operating season, and Dare Devil Chaos ( Not a) Coaster. Dare Devil Chaos Coaster is now listed to be opened this summer, rather than the spring. Interesting, many state fairs can set these attractions up in a few days.
Aside from some old lights, you really wouldn’t know they even had a Holiday in The Park event this year. The really have cleaned up almost everything. Moving along, let’s see what’s going on in the park aside from that.
The most obvious thing, Superman: Ultimate Flight is closed for annual maintenance. What frustrates us, is that when we stopped by in the morning, an employee was telling a guest it would open later that day, despite the fact it won’t reopen for a month or so. The employee was clearly uninformed, and thus falsely informed guests about the park’s star attraction. C’mon this is something that all the staff should’ve been aware of! 
Kong was only running one train, and looking as photogenic as ever.
Roar is continuing it’s two train operations. Unfortunately, the recent re-tracking it had is starting to become less and less apparent. Hopefully they can do some work on it soon. Let Six Flags send some money to Cali for it’s CGIs, both Apocalypse and Roar could use some serious love! ;D
We didn’t grab a picture of it because loose articles are not allowed in the station, but one of Roar’s trains is getting very beat up and could use a refurbishment. The restraints have rather large chunks just missing. We hope to soon see the new generation CGI restraints being added to the Roar trains, like one of Apocalypse’s (SFMM) rows already has.
Speaking of refurbishing trains, Medusa’s third train seems to be getting worked on extensively while the other two are running. Many parts of the train have been removed, including some restraints.
Also, something neat to point out, B&M’s storage track is pretty unique. The up-stop, side friction, and running wheels stay completely off the track while in the transfer track, extended the lifetime of the wheels due to lack of stress. The train instead rests on a different set of wheels used exclusively for the transfer track.
The Butterfly Exhibit was closed.
Moving to the back half of the park, Boomerang and Ark have both reopened, after receiving some maintenance.
Tazmanian Devil however, remains closed, along with White Water Safari.
The Tiger Cubs the park recently received are no longer in the nursery, they are now featured in the show at Odin’s Temple. To read more about them, click here.
Speaking of shows, there are a decent number of shows running throughout January. Though in the summer season there are at least twice as many shows, and 3 more stadiums that are in full use then. 
We stopped by Drench! and were happy to see such a high-quality show running in the off season. Despite the low attendance to the park, the stadium was almost full due to it’s popularity!
At this point we just have accepted the fact that Tsunami Soaker will stay
open no matter what time of year, and it was not warm out there. 😀
Monsoon Falls was open for a good period of time, but ended up closing at
about three o’clock.
Sea Lion Stadium has been closed for some time and is undergoing some
serious construction. We’ll have news of the future plans for the stadium and its show, soon! Looking at the construction, it seems as if they’re creating a new decor for a future show!
If you look closely, one of the Vans on the construction site featured the
Lynco Associates logo. For those who are not aware, Lynco Associates does
work generally involving concrete and has worked with Discovery Kingdom in
the past. We can then expect Sea Lion Stadium to reopen with new concrete
work done as well. 
Loony Tunes ACME Fun Factory is closed for annual maintenance.
It actually looks like they are using it to store Holiday in The park
Decorations.
That’s about it for this update. The park is generally empty in January so
we encourage you stop by. They are also running Pink For The Cure, these
next five weeks. If you’d like to read about that click here. Otherwise,
here’s the Six Flags Magic Mountain Update from the same day!
This is where the ‘ice-sculptures’ used to be. Not all the decorative snow has been cleared yet. Seems like a pain to clean up. 
Santa’s workshop is gone. They yet have to place back the fencing that surrounded the Katy’s Kettle area. 
Most buildings are snow-free now. Except for the Cyber Cafe and Katy’s Kettle. 
The tree of heroes is gone, and some new plants have been planted. Expect flowers in within the next couple of weeks. 
I just notice how much this bill board bothers me… I wouldn’t mind seeing this one leave before any other of the many ads. 
After Xtreme Zone received a new/refurbished sign on the other side of the building, it seems as if the larger sign is currently being refurbished. 
Can’t wait for Ninja to return to 2 trains… I’d also like it’s station to receive a repaint of some sort with new lights. It looks a little disgusting by now. 
I took this picture some time last week and forgot to put in the update, but I’m very curious why the promotion booth at Six Flags Plaza has a picture of the Boomerang at Wiener Prater on it, with the Six Flags logo… Six Flags has a whole bunch of coasters, and a couple of boomerangs as well… So how come there’s not a Six Flags coaster in the picture? 😀
I hope that after Scream! received it’s make-over and repaint Tatsu is up next for a repaint. 
A few weeks after I purchased my 2015 Dining Pass, I stumble upon this sign… a Deluxe Dining Pass with snacks throughout the day is a thing now! Seems awesome, I’ll investigate if they have an upgrade for people that already purchased the regular pass. 
There are some more structural preparations going on at the second turn around. 
They’re also constructing the top of the catwalks on both sides of the lift-hills. 
Behind these walls construction continues, with most landscaping being taken out. 
And then Six Flags Magic Mountain re-used the #farewellcolossus photo-op set, and is now promoting Twisted Colossus! 
It looks pretty nice, but really I can’t wait to sit in the actual TC trains! 
Additionally, limited edition “pink” t-shirts and specially designed canteens will be available for purchase. A portion of the “pink” merchandise proceeds will benefit Susan G. Komen Orange County.
Though I really like these banners, they’re clearly Merry Farm!
Even more exciting, the train has received a new chassis! Meaning that the base of the train has been replaced, with new wheels, etc. It’s smoother, though not very significantly. It’s still a great ride!
The neon-signs are awaiting new neon-lights. 
Here’s the poster on the door, and the inside still wrapped up. 
The drop and lift-hill are being worked on most. For example, the entire conveyor belt from the last lift will be replaced. 
The new conveyor belt is ready to be installed and stored under the ride. 
In addition the fences/gates were taken out, and repainted black. (Used to be purple).
My guess is, that next week when they’re closed, they’ll start converting the park back to what it was, but they sure have a lot of work to do.
Funny enough I saw many people still taking pictures with the tree of heroes over at DC Universe.
The Holiday in the Park wreaths that the park hung up on almost every single lamppost, are pretty much all still there. I expected them to take them down earlier, like during the crowd-less operating days this week. 
The tree of water is turned off and the photo-op scenery is gone. The lights that moved are protected in their plastic boxes to be taken out soon.
Yesterday they were taking apart the stage. 
Today only the frame of the light-installations was left standing. 
Sorry for the blurry picture, but it’s time for the pistachio park walls to be fixed, the wallpaper is tearing off. 
Jet Stream, though still leaking significantly less than a couple of months ago, is starting to leak pretty badly again. 
The park did though manage to finally fix up the Xtreme Zone sign after the T was missing and the sign was faded for a very long time. 
Still hard to see, but there are a couple of significant gray spots on the first corkscrew for example. 
Moving on to Apocalypse. Which first off NEEDS RETRACKING! I gave it a couple of shots the last two days to redeem itself, but sadly enough Apocalypse has become very rough. Remember how rough Roar was at a point? Well Apocalypse is currently rougher than Roar ever was… Moving on to the cool news, row 9 (seats 17 and 18) on train 1 have new restraints, not just any new restraints, it’s the new GCI restraints for their Millennium Flyer trains. You may recognize them from Gold Striker, where all restraints look like this!
One day has passed since our Twisted Colossus Update, and a whole lot of track has been placed! The approach to the High Five element (both sides) is under construction. 
There are also a lot more track pieces on site, and they were starting to place track for the High Five element already!
The Top Gun structure is under construction, I have a feeling a lot of wood will be added in order for the element to become reality. 
They’re working on preparing the High Five element for track placement, though currently there aren’t many noticeable changes from last week. 
Twisted Colossus is stilll looking very pretty, in case anyone doubted that. 
Moving on to the part of the ride that has been drastically altered over the last two weeks, the old second turn-around!
1/3rd of the original height has been taken off, and currently the shaping continues for the Double Up, and the Outward Bank Floater that will be on this side of the structure. 
You can now see the station, and where the track will be placed that will mark the transition from blue to green. 
They trimmed down the huge structure quite a bit!
In the station not much has changed, they’re clearing it out more. If you look precisely, you may notice that the control panels have all been taken out and the floors are being leveled. 
And then there’s the ride that ‘screams’ for a repaint. It will either close tomorrow for its overhaul, or a week later, since the park extended their daily operations ’til January 11th. I’ll step by sometime during the week to figure out whether it’s closed yet, or not. 
A quick last, faded-paint-Scream shot!
Might not see this building again, ’til it’s repainted and the Looking Glass Theater. 
One quick look at the future Screampunk District made me realize how insanely badly the area needs a face-lift. I’m stocked for the future of Screampunk District!