coasterbill

I can only speak for the last 15 years or so but I think the park has dramatically improved in that time. If you don't mind, I think I'll break this down a little bit. Parking Prices go up over time, but it was expensive even 10-15 years ago and it still is. This doesn't bother me at all. Service I don't think this is any worse now than it was 10-15 years ago. It's always been mediocre. Not terrible, not great. Food See Above Non-Coaster Rides I agree with you on this, but it's not as bad as it looks. Let's think about the park in the year 2000. They had a lot of flat rides, but on most days they were all closed. We used to go to the park about 3-4 times each year around 2000 and 2001 and I never saw the following rides operate... Time Warp Spinnaker Evolution And almost never saw these rides operate El Sombrero Rotor Jumpin Jack Flash Chaos Looping Starship Movietown Water Effect Rotor The following rides were removed but have been replaced with a newer version of the same ride. Centrifuge G Force (Replaced with Deja Vu) Autobahn (Replaced with Fender Bender) So the non-coaster rides that were remove since 2000 that operated on a semi-regular basis and weren't replaced are Pendulum Pirates Flight The Right Stuff / Dino Island Rodeo Stampede (I admit that I really miss this ride) Hydro Flume Freefall Flying Wave Enterprise Music Express But in that time they have added Tango Skyscreamer Safari Off Road Adventure So we're down six flat rides. It's not good, but the park has been putting more of these in lately so I think they're headed in the right direction now, and there are two rides in particular (which I'll mention in a minute) that never operated during the "war on lines" but always operate now. Operations These have improved dramatically, to the point where it doesn't even seem like it's the same park anymore. When you went to the park 10 years ago, more than half of the flat rides would be closed. The park almost always runs every train on their coasters (they always have), and usually all of the flat rides are open including the Parachutes and Skyride which were always closed 10 years ago. It's not exactly Disney, but operations have improved dramatically and are the best I've seen at a Six Flags Park. I don't think the employees themselves were ever that bad, I just think the park used to be understaffed and now that problem is being corrected. Scenery If you want to talk about 30 years ago... be my guest, But in the last 15 years the theming has improved by leaps and bounds. The Boardwalk was completely revamped in the early 2000's and it looks much better than it used to with the plain white and blue buildings. They've added Golden Kingdom and Plaza Del Carnival which (for Six Flags) are very well themed areas. They replaced Bugs Bunny Land and Hernados Hideaway which were hideous (even by Six Flags Standards). We lost Old Country but this area wasn't well themed anyway, and we lost Super Teepee and the Wagon but neither of those things are really the end of the world . I'm not really sure how you can say the park hasn't improved in the theming department. I'm not saying it's good... but it's much better than it was. Coasters You brushed this off but that's totally unfair. In the last 15 years, the park has removed... Chiller: An unreliable launch coaster that was halfway decent but always had huge lines on the rare days when it was open. Great American Scream Machine: An icon, but it was a rough coaster that was unpopular with most people. Viper: One of the worst American coasters in recent history. And added... Medusa: a 7 looping floorless coaster that's still very popular Superman Ultimate Flight: a decent flying coaster that the GP eats up Green Lantern: A piece of crap ride that the GP loves for some reason Dark Knight Coaster: A fun family coaster Nitro: one of the best B&M hypers anywhere and possibly the most popular coaster in the park Kingda Ka: The tallest coaster in the world El Toro: Voted #1 coaster in the world in the Mitch Hawker Poll (based on the fact that favorite wood coaster was #1 on the steel poll and the #1 wood coaster was El Toro by a landlslide). So they made a decent coaster collection into one of the best in the world in less than 15 years and they now have the tallest coaster in the world, fastest coaster in North America and the #1 coaster in the world. I'm not saying this park is perfect, but I don't think it's fair to say that this park has gotten worse over time. I think the growth this park has shown is amazing.

Ka vibrates like crazy but not in the front seat, which is the only place I ride it anyway. I actually find the ride underwhelming when you don't ride in the front but when you do it's an amazing experience.

This is a nice surprise. The multicolored cars are a huge improvement.

I'm very disheartened by this news. The only good news is that they don't take over until October so we have one more summer of the park in it's current state. I've already expressed my concerns about this group on the last page, I have no idea how they managed to screw this up so badly.

I don't mean to be unoriginal, but the best moment on any coaster I've ridden is El Toro's OMFG ejector drop over Rolling Thunder. El Toro goes into some floater hills after the turnaround and lures people into a false sense of security and that drop (and the ridiculously fast transitions that follow) come out of nowhere. It's the best finish to any coaster I've ridden.

Definitely the Paratrooper a Funland in Rehoboth Beach. We've been going there for our family vacation since I was born. I've probably ridden it hundreds of times. As far as coasters, it's probably Bizarro. I just don't know which one. We've had Six Flags passes since 2000 and live right between SFNE and SFGADV.

I love the Titan POV. It looks like the kind of coaster you would build in RCT1 when you don't know how to play or how to bank turns and just want a ride that lines up with the station on the way back. Edit: Just realized you said the exact same thing on Facebook.

Even though that area is mostly dead, Batman usually has a 15-30 minute wait, and about a 90-120 minute wait during Fright Fest. The mouse coaster is really unpopular though and almost never has a line despite it's terrible capacity. It could probably get a nice boost in ridership if they add something new to Movietown.

Great Adventure has plenty of room for a giga if they want one, but they already have an outstanding coaster collection so I wouldn't expect to see one. At least not in the next few years. There are plenty of other areas where the park needs to improve.

Any park with two Schwarzkopf coasters sounds like a winner in my book.

It's probably from last season as it closes during Fright Fest for a haunted maze. The one in New England is good much the one at Great Adventure is much better as the theming is a bit more extensive and the audio is much easier to hear.

Nitro was running 2 trains most of the day. At one point they had to transfer one off for maintenance but it returned later on.

We went to the park yesterday and I have to say it's really nice to be back. It was freezing cold, but we were dressed for it. I saw almost every coaster in the park experience significant downtime (Nitro, Batman, El Toro, Skull Mountain, Rolling Thunder, Kingda Ka and Blackbeard as well as big problems on the Skyride as it got stuck 3 or 4 times throughout the day followed by a closure of about an hour each time). That being said, it was opening day and it was unbelievably cold so all of this was excusable and every major coaster and almost every flat ride managed to open up at some point throughout the day. When we got to the park at 11:30, most rides were still closed and the park was dead (it was dead all day). Every coaster was running below maximum capacity (except for Skull Mountain and maybe the boardwalk coasters since they suck and I rarely bother riding them). Nitro and Batman didn't even have their extra trains in the transfer areas yet but crowds were light so it wasn't a big deal. Operations were slow on every coaster (except for Kingda Ka) but this is normal for opening day, and on Nitro and El Toro the crews were having problems with restraints not being closed all the way, probably because of all the extra layers of clothing everyone had on. There isn't much of anything new with the exception of the pile of dirt near Northern Star arena but little touch ups were everywhere. New paint everywhere, New tower lighting on Sky Screamer (which look great), The "Bizarro Your Hero Now" sign returning, New Awnings on Houdini... not major stuff, but it's nice to see. Just a few notes on the rides... Bizarro: The biggest change was on Bizarro, as the audio has been removed completely. The speakers are gone and two more seats were added to the back row where the audio equipment box was. The ride was also running great, and we got 3 rides in a row without getting off because of the light crowds. We could have had more but we decided to go over to El Toro and marathon on that instead. Nitro: This coaster must have been running slower than normal because of the weather but it didn't feel like it. Probably because of the cold temps, it blew right through the MCBR and the last few bunny hills were amazing. It looked underspeed when watching it from the station but the whole ride delivered airtime anyway and it wasn't noticeable when on the coaster. Later in the day, this ride was a station wait which you almost never see. Kingda Ka: Kingda Ka was closed all morning but around mid afternoon they started to launch a few trains (most of which rolled back). We decided to walk over there, but it had been about 20 minutes since they had sent any trains and it felt like we were the only people in Golden Kingdom. One person in the group said something along the lines of "I don't know why we walked all the way back here, it's not open" and then immediately a train of screaming riders went up the hill and sailed over the top. We got 3 rides on it, it was a walk-on for the first two and about a 15 minute wait for the third but only because we waited for the front. The other rows were still walk-ons. It seemed like this ride closed for the day around 6 or 7 so it was only open for a few hours, but in that weather I didn't expect it to be open at all. The front seat ride was amazing, especially with it being so cold. El Toro: This was the only ride in the park with a line since it was only running one train. Still, the longest we waited was 30 minutes. Later in the day, it was a walk on and we ended the night with 4 consecutive rides on El Toro without getting off. There's nothing I can say about this ride that hasn't been said. It was running way under-speed because of the weather and the Rolling Thunder drop was delivering floater air instead of it's usual OMFG ejector air. Still, that first drop and first run of hills was absolutely throwing people out of their seats. The fact that it was so cold made it seem faster than normal (even though it's really the other way around). We're so lucky to live so close to such an amazing coaster. Other Rides Big Wheel Batman Houdini Skull Mountain Overall we had a great day despite the cold and we're looking forward to another great season.

I've never had the "pleasure" of riding Goudurix, so I stick by my post back in 2008 that the Great Adventure Viper was undoubtedly the worst piece of sh*t coaster I've ever ridden and I'm so happy it's rusting in coaster hell right now. That being said, after my last trip to Magic Mountain (and first in over a decade) I have two more to add to my bottom 3, amazingly bumping the Mind Eraser clones to 4th and 5th worst. X2: Sorry everyone but this coaster sucks. I rode it back in 2002 and hated it. Because of the way this ride is hyped up and the way everyone runs to it in the morning I was expecting something great, but after the first drop (which is really cool) this ride is complete crap. The fact that you can't brace for impact because of the way the seats rotate combined with the unbelievable roughness of this coaster makes for a terrible experience. We paid $15 per person for the Flash Pass upgrade on this coaster earlier this year because I was sure that we just caught it on a bad day in 2002. I assumed that the new trains must have helped make the ride great since it had a 90 minute wait and everyone in the park was talking about how amazing it was. After the ride, the overly excited ride op asked me and my girlfriend if we liked the ride and we didn't even have the heart to tell her the truth because she was so chipper about the whole thing... but this ride is beyond terrible and I'm never riding it again. You can paint it red, add fire effects and add speakers but this ride will always be a turd and it's only redeeming quality is the "Full Metal Jacket" sound bytes on the way up the lift (which I'm told almost never work). Green Lantern First Flight: I was really excited for this ride because of how unique it is and because it gets generally positive reviews with the exception of the complaints about lack of spinning. I'm not an overly religious person, but I'd imagine if there is a hell... WHEN I go there I'll be forced to ride this ride over and over again without getting off and they won't even have the decency to try to prevent the cars from spinning like Magic Mountain does. That last hill was the single most painful coaster experience of my life and we had slight neck and (believe it or not) not-so-slight tooth pain for the rest of the day from biting down so hard when we were slammed down after that last hill. I've ridden almost 200 coasters and have never had anything like that happen before. Overall we actually liked Magic Mountain a lot, and while these coasters were really disappointing, they had two coasters we expected nothing from (Viper and Tatsu) that we ended up loving. Ninja was a great surprise also.

It amazes me how people that frequent that park talk about it's improvement. I went for the first time ever last year and hated it. The park is ugly and poorly maintained, Superman, Batwing and Apocalypse were all running one train on a weekend in August and they don't have any bathrooms or shade in the back of the park. Everyone says the park has dramatically improved, so I can't help but wonder how awful this park must have been a few years ago. Sorry for beating a dead horse, but I couldn't help myself.

I couldn't take the offseason this year so at the end of February we went on vacation to California and went to Magic Mountain and Knotts while we were out there. Even though I'm not as deprived as I usually am this time of year I haven't been on El Toro since the last full day of the season and that's a problem... so we'll be there on Saturday. And we won't be going to the concert.

Usually its in the low 40's. It depends on manufacturer's recommendations. I know I have been to Hershey for Springtime in the Park and once it got to below 45 degrees the coasters closed. I will be there Saturday - only a 10% chance of rain and currently reads 47 degrees as the high. Great Adventure doesn't seem to have any interest whatsoever in manufacturers recommendations. I say this because on October 30th, 2011 on the day after a large snowstorm that gave us a rare "White Halloween", they opened all of the coasters (except for Kingda Ka which was closed for much of the 2011 season because of that cable snap). It was incredibly cold in NJ that day. Hershey never opened their coasters. Source stating all coasters were open. Weather that day Not that your'e wrong, but how do you know what the manufacturers recommendations are for the coasters? I've seen all sorts of coasters run in REALLY REALLY cold weather, and the rides worked just fine. It might be more up to the park to decide what they want and don't want to open. I've even been to Dollywood in freezing temps with all coasters open except Mystery Mine (Which they cited as being closed due to cold weather) and it was 30 degrees out. I'm just speculating based on the information that Hershey posted (which I linked to in my first post). I assumed these recommendations came from the manufacturers but I'm far from an expert on the subject.

Usually its in the low 40's. It depends on manufacturer's recommendations. I know I have been to Hershey for Springtime in the Park and once it got to below 45 degrees the coasters closed. I will be there Saturday - only a 10% chance of rain and currently reads 47 degrees as the high. Great Adventure doesn't seem to have any interest whatsoever in manufacturers recommendations. I say this because on October 30th, 2011 on the day after a large snowstorm that gave us a rare "White Halloween", they opened all of the coasters (except for Kingda Ka which was closed for much of the 2011 season because of that cable snap). It was incredibly cold in NJ that day. Hershey never opened their coasters. Source stating all coasters were open. Weather that day

Using the Robb scale... I left out smaller chains and pizza chains that I don't really consider "fast food" like Pizza Hut (which is crap by the way). 1: Chick Fil A (I hate myself for it but it's a great sandwich) Dunkin Donuts (all of their food sucks but their lattes more than make up for it) Pink's Hot Dogs (I had this for the first time at the original location a few weeks ago and it was heaven) Roy Rogers (I was told only the NJ locations have curly fries, Roy Rogers locations without curly fries like days without sunshine) Cinnabon Dairy Queen (only for the Blizzards) Coldstone 2: McDonalds (probably the most well rounded fast food place) Subway Taco Bell (It tastes good, so I try not to think about it and just eat it) Jersey Mikes Boston Market Panera Bread Panda Express Nathan's (no love for Nathan's in this thread?) 3: Burger King (the coke icees are great, other than that they change the menu every 5 minutes and it's different across the country) In N' Out Burger (what's the appeal of this place? the food is mediocre at best) KFC Del Taco Sonic 4: Bojangles (Your sweet tea sucks, get over yourselves) Cook Out Carl's Junior Hardees Wendy's White Castle Five Guys Sbarro (when I'm not in NY, Delaware or at Knoebels but want a pizza I go here, it's not great... but it's way better than the alternatives. I didn't include Chicago because I've never been there but hopefully will go soon) 5: Little Caesars (I'm from NY and have no tolerance for terrible Pizza) Papa Johns (See above) Domino's (This should be considered a weapon of mass destruction, not a pizza. And yes I've tried the "new" Domino's... this makes Papa Johns and Little Caesars look like Lomardi's) Jack In The Box (It should be illegal to serve this to people)

My girlfriend and I took a California trip this year so for the first time EVER, I got to ride some coasters in the offseason. We went to Knotts and Magic Mountain (along with some more traditional tourist trap stuff in LA and Hollywood) but our first coaster of the year was the Santa Monica West Coaster. It was actually a fun little coaster.

I'm glad you'll have a nice view of the beach while in line for Gatekeeper. I love the Wicked Twister queue for that same reason.

That last hill on zac spin coasters. Those are terrible, terrible rides and thanks to that last hill I don't think I'll be able to have kids now.

On the subject of Season Passes, I don't understand why every park hasn't rolled out the memberships yet. They're not available at Great Adventure, New England or Six Flags America but they're valid there. So when we went to Magic Mountain earlier this year we bought them. Now we'll never have to process a pass again. We can just keep the membership active and get free parking and free admission to all of their parks. Sweet deal, and it makes sense to them because they'll probably see more income spread out throughout the year.

I love Firefox because of it's great customization options, and if you use the Fasterfox add on it runs much faster than Chrome (at least on this computer). I'm a big fan of Chrome but Firefox is still my favorite.

There are plenty, but I have no problem with them adding these rides everywhere. I love them, and they seem to have mass appeal for all ages.