xVicesAndVirtues

^sure, we’re trying to book 9/26! Let me know if it works for you and I’ll happily download MS Edge

Hey all, The bf and I are going to Europe in September and we're attempting to purchase tickets and make reservations for Holiday Park, but we're running into an odd issue, two odd issues really. The date we're attempting to reserve is open on their calendar but the website comes up blank when picking that date for a ticket purchase. Even more odd, if I try picking a random date on the calendar that does have tickets coming up as available, when I pick a date and then add a ticket to the cart, the "continue" button does nothing. Clicking the shopping cart button does nothing, too. I've tried using my phone, another browser, using my bf's Windows computer (I'm on a Mac myself), using my VPN to change my apparent location to Germany, clearing cookies, and even changing the language to German and going through the same motions. Of course, I contacted the park a few days ago and they replied with a very friendly message saying they had a system backup issue the day before, that the date we want is available, and that it should be working...but it isn't. Just figured I'd ask if anyone in the area has gone or if anyone has visited and had the same or a similar issue. There has to be some way people are buying tickets since the park is open right now and I'm sure they'd notice if nobody was there...lol. We're a little wary of waiting too long so we'd like to get advance tickets as soon as possible because we could really use some GeForce in our lives!

Jeez, this honestly sucks so much for the park and for the people in the surrounding area... "Because the technical infrastructure has also been heavily affected" sounds pretty grim and doesn't seem to bode well for the rest of this season. We're trying to plan a September Europe trip and we keep tweaking it due to changing circumstances surrounding COVID and the delta variant spread in Europe, but this was one park we were hoping to have as a sure visit because Kondaa looks incredible. And now this natural disaster seems to make a visit this year less likely. Best wishes to all of you who live in the affected area.

^Friend of mine was there yesterday and it's still closed.

^^I wouldn't recommend buying Flash Pass online. Unless it's like a freakishly busy day, I have never even heard of Six Flags running out of Flash Pass. I had looked two days before our trip and the online prices were nuts. In-park purchasing was much cheaper. Operations at this park were great the other day. Kingda Ka was running two stations and I can't remember them doing that in a long time. It went down two or three times for a matter of minutes but otherwise we saw it running all day up to and past closing time. El Toro was running both trains, Nitro 3 trains, Batman 2, Bizarro 3 etc. Occasional random all-train stacking because it's Six Flags and they'll temporarily lose their focus if there's a wheelchair guest, too-large guest, or someone asks them to solve too complicated a math problem, but otherwise they were cranking them out and when they did stack they recovered from it quickly. I don't really feel like I've ever needed a game plan for Great Adventure the way you do for some parks. Sometimes we start at Nitro, sometimes Kingda Ka, sometimes El Toro, last year I even went with a friend who was a bit cautious so I marathoned Batman with her for a while before getting her to go on Nitro. Still didn't have a problem getting as many rides in on everything we wanted.

^Jersey Devil is on platinum, which is why I think it's currently likely the best option if the queue is full. Otherwise I'd just get gold any other day. Also one thing we did notice was that the flash pass service center employees are still generally clueless as to the member upgrade pricing. I had to pull up the member benefits page on my phone and show them where it says that (DE members, at least, I'm not 100% sure about the other tiers) get an automatic tier upgrade (pay for bronze, get gold or pay for gold, get platinum), and he just kept pressing some kind of discount button until it was $5 cheaper than I calculated, which we were fine with lol. It was about $105 each for platinum the day we visited.

Visited the park today and it was very busy, but I can happily report that operations were outstanding. Everything was open and running multiple trains. Of course there were a few "Six Flagsy" moments here and there like Bizarro crew getting thrown off their stride by 3 guests coming through the handicapped line and some food service employees who had no clue what a mobile order was...lol but generally everything was very well-run and consistent. Bizarro and Nitro were both running 3 trains, El Toro 2, Kingda Ka 3 and Kingda Ka's crew was fastest in the park. We really liked Jersey Devil and it does a great job of splitting the difference between Nitro and El Toro. The restraints are awkward, though. We got Platinum Flash Pass and Jersey Devil was indeed unlimited on it. Upon arrival, the parking lot was pretty full and it steadily got busier as the day went on. You already know this is the best sh*t ever. If I really want to nit pick, there are some spots on El Toro that could use a little TLC, mostly coming out of the second large airtime hill, the bottom of the turnaround, and right before/after the speed hill. It wasn't brutal or anything, but a little bit headache-inducing when marathoning. But this is still basically the best coaster on the planet. We got one ride on Kingda Ka. It went down temporarily once or twice, but that's the sort of thing you expect with these. The operations were extremely fast and they were cranking out trains and it was running very smooth. Nitro was also running great. Super fast, great airtime, smooth, and they even got new restraint covers so the plastic wasn't all picked apart like in previous years. And we got a few rides in on Jersey Devil. It's still doing the thing where it breaks down a lot, but it's only for like 10 minutes at a time. There's a sign out front saying they're still calibrating it, but it really wasn't a big deal. Sometimes it would come back up and the flash pass would still show "delayed", but the ride attendants would just let us go through. The coaster was great. It wasn't as crazy nor as intense as the clone models like Wonder Woman. But it was still a very intense ride, just much more re-rideable. The elements flow very well together and the transitions are smooth and way less janky that some of the ones on the clone models. The restraints are different and more comfortable than Wonder Woman's, but they still manage to not be that comfortable. The lap bar sits awkwardly on your legs and if you accidentally pull it too tight, the drops can be a little uncomfortable. I think restraint and train design are RMC's biggest opportunity for improvement. It's not terrible or anything, just a little bit awkward. We also rode Skyrush the day before so maybe that contributed. The sea of people leaving the park. Honestly, I'm glad for Six Flags that they were so busy. I really want the industry to recover quickly and there's clearly a ton of demand right now. The fact that the park was so prepared to have a "normal" busy day impressed us. We've had several experiences this year with parks that have been a hot mess, like Busch Gardens Williamsburg basically falling apart on a busy day. I never thought I'd say that Six Flags as a company is handling such a major disruption better than the competition, but here we are. Go to Six Flags Great Adventure, you won't regret it.

^We never go on weekends because the park is usually slammed on weekends and dead on weekdays, but I haven't seen them use the second station in at least 2 years, if not longer.

Hey all, the boyfriend and I are planning on going to the park later this week and I've got a few questions. I have a lot of experience with this park so I know it can be slammed on a Tuesday morning for no reason and completely dead on a Saturday during fright fest for no reason, too, so for the most part I know what to expect, buuuuuut: I saw on a random Great Adventure insta fan page that Jersey Devil is available on Platinum Flash Pass. I'm taking this with a grain of salt because fan pages can contain all sorts of wrong info. Can anyone confirm this, and if it is, is it a one-ride type deal? And does anyone know if it's available on other levels of Flash Pass other than Platinum? I also took a look at Flash Pass availability online, moreso for the prices and to see if JD was listed, and I found that on a lot of days it says Bronze and Platinum aren't available, which is weird because I've never had a problem getting any level I've wanted. We went on a pretty busy day in the fall last year and got Platinum in person no problem. Do they maybe just restrict online availability? Given the unpredictability of the park, I don't want to spend like $300 on it and then show up and the park be a ghost town.

^Sounds like our recent experiences at this park and BGW, too. We honestly have no interest in going to any of their parks given the current state of the chain.

Ugh. I got the email today too including an "update your reservation" email, as we were planning on going Monday as part of a Philly-centric trip next week. I think we're going to take a ride up the good ol' turnpike and check out American Dream instead. Last August we had to entirely re-plan our Cedar Point and Kings Island trip because both parks stopped being open on weekdays, so we just went to Cedar Point on the weekend instead and omitted KI, which may have been a bad choice as we only got one ride each on most of the major coasters due to the access pass debacle, but weirdly got to ride Dragster 3 times. I do understand why these things are happening and I sympathize with the labor shortage issue. But I do wish they could give more notice with scheduling changes. We were just looking at Airbnbs and hotels near Cedar Point to go in August again, and we decided to hold off another month or so before booking anything to see how the season plays out. But other parks in the chain still following this pattern of "oh, by the way we're now going to be closed half of next week" makes us less likely to book a trip to any Cedar Fair park.

I’d love to eventually see a woodie in this park. I just wish that some park, somewhere, would pick up the phone and call intamin for a woodie rather than endlessly building GCI/Gravity Group coasters. Like I don’t hate either of them. But…Intamin.

Could this possibly be the aforementioned "new record-breaking" 2022 Gerstlauer coaster in a "challenging location"? I was looking at the park map and where the doors with the teaser are, and maybe the ride entrance/station/possibly launch area or lift (if it's a coaster) could start there and head towards the quarry wall off to the left side of Iron Rattler? Rattlesnakes and a quarry wall could certainly be considered a "challenging location".

^I think Ride Entertainment said that one is supposed to open somewhere in the US in 2022, so unless the timeline has been pushed back, it's likely not that one.

The park president actually says at the end of the announcement video for the resort that there will be a "record breaking new attraction" in 2023. Sooo coaster? But that could mean a lot of things.

I never said thank you to those of you who replied with the status of Superman, so thanks guys, I really appreciate it! We visited the park this past Friday 5/21 and had a decent visit. It was my first visit in about 5 years and my boyfriend's first visit to the park. Overall, operations ranged from slow to okay, employees were mostly friendly and seemed to be well-trained and doing their jobs. We've just started to do a small amount of traveling again and from what we've seen thus far, the industry is really struggling on a lot of fronts. Given what we've seen this year, I have to honestly report that Six Flags America probably has the second-best operations we've seen outside of the Orlando-area parks, after Six Flags Great Adventure. I'm still debating if I really want to post our experience from this past weekend in the Busch Gardens Williamsburg thread, as operations and the general experience there were depressingly poor. In all, I'm going to give some well-deserved props to Six Flags. The two parks we've visited this year are open and truly feel like they're prepared and ready for guests. Everything was running, all food and retail stores are open, and it just feels like they're trying. And we will visit and spend our money where effort is being made. Some photos: We got to the park about 45 minutes after opening on Friday night. As we walked towards the back, we hadn't seen a train sent yet, so we were relieved to see that the entrance was open. There we go! Okay, I'm still gonna call it like I see it. This "tetanus wall" is what guests stare at while waiting for the front row on their star attraction. Would it really kill you to run to Lowe's and get a sand blaster and paint sprayer, Six Flags? I remember this being described as "lipstick on a pig" when it was first repainted/converted into a floorless. They should have repainted Superman instead. The ear smashing is as real as it was when it was a stand-up. After all these years, Wild One still delivers an excellent ride. We rode back car, middle bench, and got a smooth and decently airtime-filled ride. The barely-banked helix at the end of the ride is killer. This is a classic woodie that can hang with the rest. Where the airtime happens. Superman, despite it's paint-peeled trains, track, and station, was running great. I really wish they'd give it some cosmetic love because after 21 years this coaster truly still delivers. I'd still consider it a top-15 or top-20 coaster. The layout is super funky but gives great sensation of speed, the laterals in the second helix are intense as hell, and the last 3 hills are orgasmic airtime, especially in the front. I got this great sunset shot as we were about to head out of the park. Thanks for a fun day, Six Flags America! I don't know when we'll be back since Baltimore is a little bit out of the way for us, but this is a fun park to spend half a day at and if you haven't been on Superman, those early-2000s Intamin hypers totally destroy any of the redundant B&M models still being built every year. Maybe RMC Roar one day?

Honestly, yeah thats what we're thinking. We're gonna go with our fingers crossed and hope it's open. If not, we'll give most of the non-SLC coasters a quick run then move on to our hotel. I haven't been since the painful stand-up was converted to a probably-painful floorless so there's that lol.

Thanks, guys! I commented on one of the park's posts so hopefully they respond. Fingers crossed about Superman. I was really looking forward to that coaster and haven't been on it in 5+ years but I guess we shall see!

^Any idea what is/was causing the downtime on Superman? And was your visit the same day you posted this? Going this weekend and hoping Superman is open!

^Correct. And their placement right before the station means riders will only have to be without their beloved instagram for <10 minutes, ride time included. I thought it was a great idea, too.

The boyfriend and I got to ride today during passholder preview, too, and I echo what Robb, Elissa, and others have said about the ride. I kept myself intentionally in the dark on social media over the weekend during team member previews because it's nice to come to a coaster from a fresh perspective sometimes. I've since read some reviews online and some of them pan the first half of the ride a bit, but we honestly really liked it and it balances the ride out a lot. I'm personally a big fan of quick directional changes and one of my favorite things has always been to ride B&M inverts in the back row because of the fact that you can't see where you're going. The high seat backs on Velocicoaster reminded me a lot of this, we rode in the back and that first half is a ton of quick little changes of direction and it has some cool moments with high turns, not taken at a lot of speed, but with little pops of air then a quick whip of the train to the left or right. The boost launch is quick as hell and there's a quick positive-G moment transitioning into the top hat...which, in the back row, I'm pretty sure we can count as one of the best "first drops" on any coaster. It was airtime all the way down, kind of like what you get on El Toro's or Skyrush's first drop. The double-helix back section seemed a little slow-ish to us, but this is based on just *one* ride. The barrel roll over the water scared the living crap out of me. The attendant pushed my restraint down pretty well and for a moment I literally thought I was about to go for a swim in the lagoon. Literally...I don't think I've had such an "oh sh*t" moment on any coaster in a long time. In short, this ride is amazing and is the kind of thrilling coaster Universal has been missing since the end of the day on September 4th, 2017 (I promise I'm not that crazy, September 4th is my birthday lol). The staff running the coaster seemed really hyped and made it an even better time, they were asking everyone how they liked the ride and really getting everyone excited. The energy around the ride seemed a lot like pre-Potter Universal in the best way. Please, Universal, more of this and less Jimmy Fallon/Fast&Furious/Harry Potter. We live about a mile from Universal and we've only gone once every 3-4 months the past couple of years. This will change that. Once the hype and line both calm down a bit, of course.

Darn, I checked my email about 40 mins too late and reservations are already full. update: keep refreshing, it came online again!

^I'm in the area for work for a few days and managed to sneak away for about 2 hours Sunday during the light on/off rain and I got 5 rides on El Toro without leaving my seat. When I first got there I didn't see them cycle for about 10 minutes and feared the worst but they were just waiting until they had enough people to fill cars 1 and 2 before dispatches so it wouldn't valley. The park was that dead. Left at about 2:00 PM and Toro had been running consistently all morning. It was running smooth as glass albeit a little slow, but it tends to run slow if it's cold, has long dispatches, or if the train isn't full. It was only about 60 degrees. But slow El Toro is still amazing.

I don't really care what we call it, I think it's pretty hard to mess up the awesome layout that is Lightning Rod, unless you maybe threw a 90s boomerang train on the rails or something. That being said, I do wish more of the layout was staying wood but I understand their decision at the same time. While I'm sure the airtime and 99% of the ride experience will still be one of the very best in the entire world, there is an undeniable feel to the way the trains run wild on that wood track that I think adds to the "oh-sh*t" factor of the ride. We just went to Silver Dollar City last weekend and I hadn't rode Outlaw Run since it was new and somehow I forgot that it's one of the best coasters out there. It was running totally insane and it had airtime I don't even remember it having years ago. I do have a question for one of the people who know every minute detail and aspect of these rides- does Lightning Rod run "soft" urethane or nylone wheels and does Outlaw Run run on steel wheels? I have absolutely zero knowledge of engineering but it sounded and felt like the wheels on Outlaw Run are steel, another detail I didn't remember about that ride.

^Nice report! I was there this past weekend as well and the storm/possible tornado on Saturday night about an hour after closing ripped the roof off the station at Wildfire and also did quite a bit of damage from the exit/observation deck platform as well, all according to the ride op manning the entrance, which was caution-taped off all day on Sunday. He said something about it ripping a hole in the water tower too, but I didn't realize they have a water tower there. The good news is that they already have people working on it and they expect the repairs to be done some time by next week.