YoshiFan

Superman Ultimate Flight at Great Adventure yesterday.

I thought today might be different with people getting there at opening and leaving earlier to go to parties.

The park is empty so far today, I guess a lot of people have other plans today. They just made an announcement that at 8:45 at the tree in the front of the park there will be a New Year's Eve celebration but I'll be gone before then to see what it is.

Skull Mountain on Sunday

I go to Atlantic City multiple times a year and am looking forward to this but I wonder how successful it will be. It seems like Ocean City has taken so much of the family entertainment business away with how crowded the boardwalk and 2 amusement piers are compared to Atlantic City. Although that's somewhat the casino's fault for closing many of the family friendly attractions that used to be there in the late 80's to 90's like the indoor amusement park Tivoli Pier in Tropicana, bowling alley in Showboat and some of the arcades in the casinos and then places like Taj Mahal having a no one under 18 policy allowed in the building except the restaurants connected to the boardwalk (this was around 10 years ago and I think they no longer have this policy). I prefer Atlantic City casinos to the casinos in the Philadelphia area because they tend to have older slot machines that are difficult to find elsewhere in the area but I know I am the exception. I have been at Golden Nugget or Caesars in the summer when it wasn't very crowded yet on a weekday in the winter Parx and Sugar House have more people at the slot machines. The parking doesn't help either. Caesars charges up to $40 in the summer and even up to $20 in the winter when the PA casinos all have free parking. Even Harrah's away from the boardwalk charges more. They comps and other perks seem to be decreasing too. Platinum status used to have separate lines at check in, player card services and at restaurants at the CET properties, now the only real benefit it free parking.

I didn't know the overflow lot wasn't paved. I have never had to park there and probably wouldn't want to be there on a day it was so crowded that they were using that lot.

Maybe they are only having Flash Pass available on days they expect larger crowds. It was open on Sunday (and not the Sunday before that) although not many people were using it (I did see 1 person using Platinum). They didn't even have the available list of rides posted.

Hydra, it rattles almost the entire ride and is almost completely forceless.

Great Adventure next week

Today was like the opposite of my trip to the park last Saturday. 30 degrees cooler and basically no one there. Nothing had more than a few minute wait except to see Santa (and that looked like it had 1/3 of the line it had last week). Superman and Sky Screamer were closed when I got there and Sky Screamer opened around 2:30 and Superman opened around 4:30 - 5:00. I wanted to keep riding but riding Nitro after when it was just above freezing really was uncomfortable and after that, I got 1 more re-ride and called it a night and I thought it was a very successful trip to the park getting 27 rides in less than 5 hours. This was also my 3rd trip in a row where they stopped Nitro on the lift while I was in line because someone had a phone out. All 3 times the person didn't get in trouble. On Sky Screamer they told someone 4 or 5 times to put their phone away and they refused. After the ride I saw a ride op go up to them to talk to them but they were able to exit the ride without being escorted out and it didn't look like security was called. In the ride stations they warn everyone if that if a phone is taken out then the person will be ejected from the park. I'd really like to see that start happening since anyone who gets caught knows they won't get in trouble.

Spring break hours have been released, they are going to be open every day from March 23rd to April 3rd from 10 to 8. That makes the offseason only 78 days. https://www.sixflags.com/greatadventure/plan-your-visit/park-operating-schedule

Great Bear at Hersheypark in August 2005.

I agree they need more food places open or at least more workers at the places that are open. Normally on the way out of the park around 6 - 6:30 I stop and get dinner and then a snack to take home because of the dining pass. Yesterday it looked like it was going to be at least an hour wait for dinner with only 1 or 2 lines open at the places I walked past. The snack lines were bad too and it looked like many of the places had run out of snacks like the popcorn bags so I didn't bother with either (lunch was ok with only 1 person ahead of me at the Garden State Grill).

Even when leaving the park after 6, there were long lines to get tickets and the amount of people walking in the parking lot towards the park was something I had never seen before (maybe on a Saturday during Fright Fest it is also like this?). Same thing with the cars entering, the line to the parking booths was gone but it was a steady amount of cars entering.

The park is extremely crowded although not surprising with the weather. From riding Nitro, the line of cars to get into the lot is backed up to the toll booths after you get past them (and a long line to get to the toll booth). Nitro's line is almost to the switchbacks. Crowds were low until around 3:30. Even Air Jumbo had an almost full queue when I walked past it earlier.

The 2 I thought of have similar names, Vertigo at Walibi Belgium and Vertigorama at Parque de la Ciduad. One barely opened at all, the other never opened.

I first heard the rumor in late 2006/early 2007 after Renagade was announced. People thought that Dorney would be next to get a GCI and then they ended up getting Possessed instead.

Once the Dinosaurs Alive contract is up, maybe a coaster could go there.

4 out of Dorney's 8 coasters are clones (Stinger, Possessed, Wild Mouse, Woodstock's Express). How did Six Flags ruin Great Adventure when they have owned the park since the late 70's? Many of Great Adventure's recent additions have been for families. The new play area for Hurricane Harbor next year, Safari in 2013, Adventure Alley in 2012 plus the reopening of family rides like Tango and some kiddie rides that were removed by the previous management. Plus Great Adventure has a much better selection of coasters for families and kids. Someone 44" can ride The Dark Knight, Blackbeard's, Road Runner Railway, Skull Mountain and Runaway Mine Train. At Dorney, all they can ride is Wild Mouse and Woodstock's Express. I live almost an equal distance away from both parks and would pick going to Great Adventure over Dorney any time. I'd rather be riding Nitro and El Toro than anything at Dorney.

If it really ends up being that warm, that would be awesome. I would have never expected to be at Great Adventure in December wearing shorts and a t-shirt and riding Nitro a year ago.

I wonder if it is because of Great Adventure that they have some coasters open. It seems too coincidental that they wouldn't run any coasters for as long as the event had been there each year then all of the sudden with Great Adventure running 7 coasters, they decide to open some non kiddie coasters too.

The park was getting really crowded when I left at 6:30. The midways had a lot of people walking around and there were many cars still entering the lot. From the parking lot it looked like Green Lantern was around 30 minutes.

Hydra's jojo roll. You go through the inversion so slowly that you hear coins falling out of pockets often and sometimes other items as well.

I'm also concerned it could lead to no single rider policies on log flumes. I know Morey's Piers already does that. It could end up like ferris wheels where it seems like you can't find any that allow single riders anymore.

It depends on when you go in the summer. On a weekend it will probably be needed. You could probably get away without it on a weekday if there are no major events scheduled that day like a concert. If you can go to the park in June on a weekday, that would probably be the best if you pick a day they are open until 9 (usually starting the 3rd week of June). School groups leave by 4 - 5 and it's usually walk ons the rest of the day.