Canobie Coaster

The layout for the Big Air Coaster looks a bit larger than the one at the new Tom Foolerys at the Round Rock Kalahari. I like the idea blending a thrill and family coaster into one package, but I'm hoping this one has more randomized flipping (the Kalahari one flipped in the same spots every lap) and a better final turn. On the Kalahari one, the final turn was unbanked which caused some laterals/headbanging while suspended upside down. This one looks banked which should help.

Goliath was so good opening year. I still want to know the logic behind having a company that never once made an inverted train make one when the original manufacturer was still in business.

I checked with Elissa and she said I could post this photo I saw on reddit. Just look at the catwalk.

Bad news, the coaster is set to actually reopen on February 1. I'm not sure if I can post it, but there's an image I've seen floating around on Reddit looking directly at the lift and the derailment caused the entire catwalk to deform.

When was the last time that even operated? I've never seen it going once in my visits to the park over the past decade.

And the most bizarre part was that it wasn't maintenance that did that. It was the regular operator from the panel. I have a short video of the end of the cycle. I was too in shock to start recording it at first. Shore Shot Restraints Up.MP4 Thanks!

And if you're willing to brave possibly horrific crowds, they usually do a $5-10 unlimited wristband special opening weekend. But having done that once, I'd prefer to pay extra for a regular summer day when everything is a walk-on.

Wait, it derailed on the lift hill? Of all places to derail, I wouldn't have guessed there. I would have guessed that awkward second hill or something.

Casino Pier Casino Pier could be thought of as a phoenix. Ravaged by Hurricane Sandy, Casino Pier returned stronger than ever. And it's now one of the better Jersey boardwalk parks in my opinion. It has some solid rides and looks really well-kept. One of the biggest benefits is that the boardwalk at Seaside Heights is always hopping. And the park feeds off this energy. The star attraction is Hydrus, the park's Gerstlauer EuroFighter. The most improtant thing is that this coaster operates with just lap bars, which allows you to enjoy the quick transitions without beating your head. Plus, the lap bars really allow you to expereince the ejector airtime on the drop and hangtime on the inversions. 7 out of 10 But the ride I was most looking forward to was honestly Centrifuge, the park's indoor scrambler. Growing up in the Northeast, I've ridden my fair share of indoor scramblers and I love when a park takes a standard flat, shoves it indoors, and gives it a dance club like atmosphere to make an ordinary ride extraordinary. Centrifuge has booming music and blinding lights to result in a disorienting ride experience. I definitely prefer Astrosphere at Funtown, but this is right up there with Blizzard and Psycho Drome. 8.5 out of 10 Another highlight for me was finally getting the Hot Tamales credit I missed in 2017. It was a decent kiddie coaster with 5-6 laps. 2 out of 10 The last coaster is Pirate's Hideaway, one of the most objectively awful coaster out there. However, I find it so comically bad that it's funny. It starts in the station. The operators have to manually push the cars. And the final brake run doesn't actually fully stop the train, so you bump into the other cars in the station to completely stop yourself. The eggbeater lift is awkward, but would you believe it's not the most awkward part of the ride? With such a flashy facade and an indoor section, you'd assume this ride would have some pirates theming. But there's none. This is just a giant empty warehouse that makes Nickelodeon Universe look like Tokyo DisneySea. But the violent brake runs and wild laterals on the unbanked turns had me laughing hysterically. 3 out of 10 I also made sure to try the park's drop tower, Shore Shot. As expected, it delivered a fantastic view of the shore. But it had some solid floater airtime and it offered a double cycle. 6 out of 10 And one thing that made me chuckle is that when the park performed cleaning cycles, they'd do this odd thing where they'd dispatch the ride with the restraints up. It would raise up to the launch position, but then it would just lower back down to the ground. Last but not least, I also wanted to try Crazy Cabs since I hadn't seen one of these models before. It felt like a newer version of a tilt-a-whirl and the lights made it quite disorienting. 6 out of 10 Casino Pier is a solid boardwalk park with a good headlining coaster and some nice flats. That's what I expect from a park like this and it delivered just that.

This is going to spoil everyone who is used to the smoothness of the Coney Island Cyclone or a Zamperla coaster.

Considering this was the first test run on a cold (and what sounded like a windy) December day, this coaster is probably going to fly most days.

Jenkinson's Boardwalk Of all the New Jersey Boardwalks, probably the best one for young kids would be Jenkinson's Boardwalk. Almost every ride in the park is suitable for a young kid. And the boardwalk was a lot less rowdy at night than a place like Seaside Heights or Wildwood. But most importantly, you have the world's most juvenile Fun House. While not technically in the main park, the boardwalk has a Fun House that I believe Jenkinson's owns. It's just a 2 minute walk from the park. And it's the reason to visit Jenkinson's if you're a theme park fan. I had no clue it existed prior to my arrival and it blew me away, both literally and figuratively. While this fun house doesn't have some of the crazy slides and platforms you'll find on a European fun house, this one is extremely long with two disorienting mirror mazes and several themed rooms. One of which is a farting room. Yes, you read that right. Imagine a room with landmines. Except the landmines are whoopee cushions. And you can guess what happens if you step on one. If I were a kid, I'd totally spend a few minutes jumping up and down to farting noises laughing uncontrollably. 8 out of 10 Fun House Fart Room.mp4 The other appeal was two additional coaster credits. The "big" coaster was one of the newer SBF Visa spinner layouts that basically copies that of a wacky worm. And in some ways it's better than the old ones, but in other ways it's worse. On the bright side, the big drop is quite snappy if you're in the back because of how abrupt it is. I actually got a pop of airtime, albeit an awkward one since you immediately brake afterwards. But on the downside, the layout isn't very conducive to spinning. I think I prefer it to the original SBF spinning layout, but that's only because it's less common. 4 out of 10 The other coaster is a powered Zamperla in Tornado. While small, this ride actually had some surprisingly decent laterals for a ride of its size. It also had 5-6 laps and the operators were really animated every time we'd roll through the station. 3 out of 10 I don't think I'll be returning to Jenkinson's anytime soon because of the lack of thrill rides, but it's a cool pit stop if you've never been for the unique fun house and 2 coaster credits. However, if you have kids, I think this place should be higher up your list as far as Jersey boardwalk parks go.

They weren't able to open for Christmas this year, but I've been at Santa's Village in New Hampshire while it's actually snowing. And not only that, they'll run almost everything in the snow, including the coasters. Emily and I rode Rudy's Rapid Transit Coaster in the snow while getting pelted in the face by snowflakes. It was frigid to say the least!

Despite being hit by a blizzard that dropped 12" of snow overnight, Six Flags Great Adventure cleared up the park for the drive thru even tonight. A+ work by them!

As others have said, for whatever reason, Firebird is smoothest in the back row and roughest up front. It's the reverse of what you'd expect. In the back, the only brutal part is after the second corkscrew.

I agree the park will need to invest a lot into rides and TLC to dramatically improve the park, but the area around Keansburg didn't seem to be as popular and busy as the other boardwalks.

Thanks for all the information! Hopefully, the ride side can see an improvement like the water park. That's encouraging they fixed that side at least. That's one of the reasons I'm skeptical to travel some of the smaller parks in China. I still think the operator at Camden Park dispatching Big Dipper with my lap bar up and yelling at us to lower our broken lap bar was crazier. Long story short, we were evacuated and he sent the rest of the train and riders around. DelGrosso's has the same slide. There it's called Gravity Groove. The slide is unique, but it's not particularly thrilling since you crest the uphill section slowly (for obvious reasons). It's not uncommon to see it valley. That's awesome he got on Chaos! I'm not surprised they had rotating ride operators. They didn't have rotating operators the day I visited, but there were so few rides open they could staff everything normally. I definitely was disappointed.

I also forgot to mention the park got rid of their old Lusse bumper cars. I really wish I could have visited this park 20 years ago before it reached this state. I probably should have stayed in the car, but by that point I was committed to riding at least something.

Keansburg Amusement Park Of all the boardwalk parks in New Jersey, the one I was most worried to visit was Keansburg. Reports of the park are few and far between, but those who went reported closed rides, erratic hours, and just a bad overall experience. Even with those expectations, Keansburg still disappointed me. This has to be one of the worst amusement parks I have ever visited. Like many boardwalk parks, there's no true entrance. You can enter by the kids rides, you can enter by the adult flats, or you can enter down Machine Gun Alley like I did. And that really set the tone for my day. Note the logs sitting on the midway. These were the first of many ride vehicles I saw out on the midway. My main reasons for visiting Keansburg were to ride my first Pinfari looper, a rare Chance chaos, their recently renovated dark ride, and shamelessly get the kiddie credit. I went 1/4. And of course the only one of those open was the kiddie coaster. To Keansburg's defense, the ticket booth mentioned all of these rides (among others) were closed. At least half the adult rides were closed, but most of the kids rides appeared to be open except the log flume, which had the vehicles on the midway as I mentioned earlier. But there was no mention of these ride closures on the website. And when I tried calling them prior to visiting, my call went straight to voicemail. In retrospect, that should have been a warning to just stay at Six Flags Great Adventure. Remember how I said multiple rides had parts on the midway? That was how I found both Looping Star and Chaos. It was clear neither ride had run in 2020 nor would they run in 2020. I'd like to assume they ran in 2019, but that may be giving the park too much credit based on what I saw. Double Shot was also closed. I was sort of looking forward to that one as well to get a view of the beach and water. At least Double Shot looked like it could open later in the season (I visited in early August) since it had water dummies, but I have no clue if it ever did. The ride had fresh tarps on the vehicle advertising Coca Cola, but the ride's moniker atop the tower had torn off on one side and probably blown away. So what did I actually ride? One, I rode the Sea Serpent kiddie coaster. If you weren't able to tell from my photos, the park was dead so it was a walk-on. This was a decent kiddie coaster. The Miler ones tend to have more of a bite to them and I was just excited to actually see something operating at this point. 3 out of 10 The only other ride I tried was the Loop-O-Plane. I had only ridden one of these once before at a fair in Oregon and it's an intense little ride with some great hangtime. And I also couldn't help but chuckle at the loose wire just flopping around from one of the counterweights. 7 out of 10 The thing that shocked me most was that as bad as Keansburg Amusement Park looked, their affiliated water park across the street looked really nice. It's clear where the park has been funneling all its money, as the water park looked clean and freshly painted while the ride park looked like it was dying and falling apart. I know I visited in 2020, but it was clear the park's deteriorated state wasn't just due to the pandemic. This had been going on for years. I do want to come back someday for the rides I missed, but that would mean I'd have to willingly give up time at either Great Adventure or one of the superior Pennsylvania parks for this place. And I don't know if I could do that unless I got a verbal confirmation over the phone from the park that all three of those rides were actually operating.

I was at the park last Sunday and the weekend prior. The forecast was sunny and 60-65ish on both Sundays. Iron Rattler got a rush right at rope drop, but by mid-afternoon, there were only two rides with long waits were Joker and Wonder Woman. I think Pandemonium had a decent line at points, but that one was a one and done for me. In several cases, I was able to stay on the coasters without getting off. My recommendation is to go straight to Wonder Woman at opening. And if you want to ride Joker, I'd get in line right before closing.

When I was there at the beginning of October, they were skipping rows on the coasters outside of Batwing, Firebird, and Mind Eraser. I think they started loading every row sometime around mid-October from the reports I saw. I thought Wild One was running good. I love that coaster, partially since it was originally 15 minutes from my childhood home. Roar has always been a coaster I needed to ride in the very front. The airtime is best up there and it's the only seat that won't beat you to death.

The ride runs way better now that it was retracked. It's the best SLC now.

Hasn't Sandy's been fairly reliable (in the sense it doesn't go down for a whole day) since it opened? It seems like it's the other 4 that are more likely to have issues shutting them down for a day. Do they still have the clause that if you pre-bought tickets you'll need to pay the price difference?

I rode that one in both the day and night back in 2017 and I actually preferred it during the day so you could see the near-misses better, especially the one where you're above a water slide that's actively in use.

For now, I'd say it's an error on the Six Flags site because it wouldn't be the first.