YoshiFan

Some of the kiddie and family rides even have temporary extra queues set up for the lines. I noticed it at Deja Vu and at Road Runner Railway (I wanted to walk through the Seaport and see the decorations so I'm not sure if the extra queue for that ride is normally there).

The Dark Knight at Great Adventure around 2 1/2 hours ago.

I guess most people who wanted to go the park this weekend went on Friday or yesterday with the warmer weather. The park is empty today, walk ons for all coasters.

I didn't see a single person using Flash Pass yesterday which I was kind of surprised about since even on days when the park is empty I always still see a few people with Flash Pass. Maybe they would have had more Flash Pass users if they had big signs to let people know it is half price compared to the rest of the season. I don't know if the $5 off season pass discount still applies but that would make a regular Flash Pass $17 (website is showing the non passholder prices as $22 for regular, $35 for gold, $55 for Platinum). For years I have wanted Holiday In The Park and have said in the past I would have been happy with just Skull Mountain and the Dark Knight open and I would have still attended the event since 2 coasters is better than nothing (since the only alternatives in the area before Hershey this year were all kiddie coasters). As soon as I heard Nitro would be running, that was enough for me to want to get back to the park at least a few more times before January.

I'm here now. Crowds are very low although they just opened. Skull Mountain is running 2 trains. Nothing was done to the interior of the ride itself. Nitro is currently testing. It looked like Green Lantern has 1 train running. Batman is running forwards. Edit, Nitro opened at around 1:35, 2 trains running with no wait.

That would be interesting if it was on Flash Pass. I also am curious to see if they lower the Flash Pass pricing with fewer rides available than normal.

BOOM Note: they are not advertising Batman as "Batman: The Ride Backwards", take that for what its worth. Also, we now have a HITP "brochure" in PDF format, complete with a detailed HITP park map HERE. Looks like there is some conflicting information on their rides list. All of the Bugs Bunny National Park rides are in the open rides list and Bugs Bunny National Park is under the closed rides list. They even have the National Park Water Tower listed as being open.

It's nice to see the park offering ERT on the 22nd. The are already opening the rides early for the Santa Run race participants and probably thought they might as well give passholders another perk.

I'd also rather not see Shockwave because it would make us even wait longer to get a hopefully better quality coaster than Shockwave or Stinger.

The pictures of the lights are promotional pictures taken sometime earlier this week.

Thanks for the update, that's good to see Batman is running. How are crowds?

I guess Zumanjaro being closed was a last minute change. I was at the ride Sunday night and heard the ride ops talking about who was working at the ride this upcoming weekend. I'm happy to see Batman closed if they are returning it to run forwards for Holiday in the Park, I haven't ridden the coaster since June before they starting running it backwards.

Gwazi, it was so rough that I wouldn't have ridden the other side had it been open.

Runaway Mine Train at Great Adventure

The closing rides early seems to be worse when the park closes at midnight. Last year I was there and all the rides shut their lines at 11:30 even with no waits. I saw people complaining to a security guard at the closed Kingda Ka entrance that the park was supposed to be open until 12:00 and a security guard said "The park is open until 12, the rides aren't." If they are going to close rides early, they should post it ahead of time like Dorney used to on their website when the rides closed at 11 but the park and Haunt attractions were open until 12 (I think they stopped closing the rides early).

Absolutely: Great Adventure Dorney Hershey Knoebels Probably: Playland's Castaway Cove Gillian's Wonderland Pier Possibly: Six Flags New England Lake Compounce

I just hope Holiday In The Park is successful enough for it to not be a 1 year event. It would be very nice every year knowing the offseason is less than 3 months.

My 2015 season turned out a lot different than I expected. I got to Dorney 7 times and Great Adventure 19 times (with still a few trips left until January) and for all the other parks listed I only got to Playland's Castaway Cove twice. I did get to a lot more parks than I ever expected this year getting to all 4 Disney World parks in Feburary/March, Fun Spot Orlando in March, Cedar Point and Kings Island in June and Canobie Lake Park over Labor Day weekend. I went raised my coaster count from 96 coasters before this year to 127. Getting to Cedar Point has been something I wanted for 10 years and was happy to finally get the chance.

This is great, now there is only 1 closed weekend between the last operating day of the regular season and when Holidaying the Park starts. I wonder how crowded Friday will be, I thought it would be empty but schools in NJ are closed.

That would work with regular or gold but not with Platinum. Everyone using Platinum gets a wristband and if someone goes to a Flash Pass entrance with a Platinum Flash Pass and not the wristband, depending on the employee, they may not let the person enter the Flash Pass line. With the prices, I know a Great Adventure got rid of the discount for extra users on 1 Flash Pass and lowered the price. Platinum used to be $120 for 1 person and less after that, now it is $110 for person no matter how many people are using the Flash Pass

Here is a good report with crowd pictures from closing day on Sunday last year: http://www.greatadventurehistory.com/GATrips_Autumn_2014_11_02.htm

I'll have to try that next time I am at the park (or next year since I may not be back again until Holiday In The Park). 3 weeks ago I tried the 2nd row and even that was horrible.

Kingda Ka, I used to like the ride but since last season it has gotten so rough that it is almost unrideable for me. I normally don't mind rides that have a reputation for being rough like Scream Machine but Kingda Ka practically gives me a headache so I have only ridden it 4 times this season.

My sister knows some of the different coaster companies like B&M and Intamin from going to parks with me. I also got her to try major coasters. Before she would only try tamer coasters like mine trains and now I convinced her to try coasters like Nitro and Talon.

I consider both Dorney and Great Adventure my local parks. I go to Dorney around 12 times a year and Great Adventure around 20 times a year. My record is 24 trips to Great Adventure in 2013.