woolandmammoth

What an awkward line up of coasters. This park is certainly... interesting? I mean, whatever that green coaster is looks cool. I have no idea what to even call half of these rides.

I was wondering the same thing about the lack of turns. Perhaps they are trying to market them as compact, budget coasters. Their tiny footprint allows almost any park to find room for it. The only worry I have about a freespin at GADV is capacity. The park is full of people eaters and there are still 1-2 hour waits for everything in the summer. A 4D coaster on the lake would be massively popular and I am not confident that a freespin would able to handle those kinds of crowds. Anyone who has ever waited for SUF can tell you that GADV really cant handle anything but great capacity.

I will be at the park on the 31st. My last trip to SFNE was fantastic, but I could help but feel like the park needed one more heavy-hitter. It sounds like WC is exactly what the park needed. I hope this ride sets off a RMC steel coaster craze. Right now they are batting 1000, something not even B&M could say.

My girlfriend worked Shoot the Rapids last season and I've heard that it is one of the biggest maintenance headaches in the park. It seemed like the ride was down far more often then it was up. I can't help but think that after the accidents and reliability issues that Cedar Fair is kicking themselves over the ride.

It is crazy to see this park, or any park, grow so rapidly. Cedar Fair has really been doing a fantastic job with this park. If they keep investing in this park they way they have been, it will be the Cedar Point of the south in no time.

I wonder how this will effect the prospects of Cedar Point getting a similar dark ride as rumored. I imagine that if capacity is this big of an issue at a park like KBF, it would be an absolute disaster at Cedar Point. I'm surprised there is not more talk of issues with WMG's capacity as it has an advertised 650pph. One thing that I know about Cedar Fair is that they seem to take things like capacity seriously. Knotts will be looking for a solution to the capacity problems. I don't know enough about the ride to know what those fixes may be. Obviously the ride just opened, and I sure as heck haven't ridden it. I am basing my opinions off of the reviews posted.

I'm not sure that were going to see another launched wing-coaster so soon. I'm sure in typical B&M fashion they are going to want to keep an eye out for kinks that will show up in Thunderbird before building another model. This is their absolute first attempt with this tech, and something tells me they will tread cautiously with it. Needless to say, with Great Adventure's history with launched coasters, I could see them seeking out a B&M launched for it's capacity and reliability. Neither Kingda Ka or Chiller were exactly maintenance friendly. While I'd rather see a Premier take a whack at a modern giant launcher, I could definitely see the park taking the B&M launched route. I guess that really tramples my dreams of a Maverick like coaster

I know, at least last year, Magnum closes after the first drop falls. They are very careful with the ride after the accident. If it rains all day, they will operate the ride with 1 train. If it rains on and off, they will just close and open it with the weather. Can't blame them on that one though.

I'm 90% sure he was joking. Unless there is a reason that I'm missing that would suggest that lighting loops is trying to spread some false rumors. I took it as a jab toward the whole ZJ/KK v.s NJ debacle. I mean, Six Flags didn't even want to keep a fog machine after media day, never the less a flame thrower! Reminds me of Bizarro's media day when they shot confetti cannons and the wind blew the confetti onto the track. They spent about 45 minutes removing bits of paper from the entry to the cobra roll

However, what is decent speculation is that the stadium is boarded up. Another decent speculation is that the grandstand is decaying, hasn't been used in years, and the insides where concessions used to be sold are gutted. There are also markings all over the paths in that area. Granted, none of these things are confirmation, but they are enough to give us a strong indication that change is coming to that area. If you plan to one day utilize the grandstand, you don't gut the money making concession stand that is built into it! If it looks like a demolition, acts like a demolition, and sounds like a demolition, there is reason to discuss the potential demolition. Can you imagine if we only discussed things that were explicitly announced? Where would be the fun in that!

It looks like the people on the POV keep hitting the back of their heads against the headrest. Lots of forward/backward headbanging. I obviously haven't ridden it yet, but it doesn't look comfortable. Any word from anyone who may have ridden it? Am I just seeing things?

^ No harm, no foul! I was being optimistic. That is something that one should never do in regard to Six Flags! The good news is the El Diablo ride area looks great (in that photo). Excited to see how it looks as a whole.

To break up some of the freespin speculation, I purpose a hole in the theory. The space being cleared is 880ft long (thanks to google maps). Batman at Fiesta Texas is only 280ft long. That means that 3 of them could fit in the new space being cleared. I understand that S&S offers bigger models, but it would hard to believe that the bigger ones are 3 times bigger than Batman. To put into perspective the size of the land being cleared, it is about the distance from El Toro's first drop to it's turn around. Caution: Crazy Enthusiast speculation below While Six Flags can make some face-meets-wall choices, they do like to save money. What doesn't save money is demolition of things that don't need to be demolished, especially when those things could be used to help you make more money. Batman would actually fit in just the space where the grandstand is. However, we know that the grandstand, live stage, and aqua stadium are being removed. Not to mention, the lakefront property is probably fairly valuable to the park. I would think they would only want to put a huge-bang coaster there. A huge observation in the way of coaster design has been less and less lift hill supports. Look at I305 and Skyrush! Lets pretend that Great Adventure is building a world record breaking giga coaster. Skyrush is the most recent example of Intamin's supports so we will use it as the model. Sky Rush's supports are 150 ft away from each other. If a 350ft giga is being built we could calculate the scale between height and lift support distance to be (150*350)/200. That would mean the distance between supports would be about 262 feet. Great Adventure has wanted to build a coaster over the lake likely since the park opened. However, we all know that Jackson is concerned about the environment and won't let them touch it. Not to mention, draining the lake would be an expensive endeavor. What if we had a way of building a lift hill that could travel over the lake to another part of land without touching it? Remember the support distance we calculated before? That could give us a lift structure like this: For those that don't know, there is a cleared service road already on that stretch of land. This would minimize the amount of trees that the park would have to cut down. But what about the grandstand and the festival stage? Well, that could all be answered if the coaster followed a layout similar to this with the station being located where the stadium currently is: The flat ground length of the coaster would be about 2,700ft. This would likely be 5,000 - 5,800 feet when you account for hills and turns. This would make the coaster on par in length with I305. The locations, visibility, and non-visibility would make this one of the most marketable coasters the park could possibly build. I'm just dreaming, but it was fun to put this all together.

I think there is a chance we might see an S&S freefly. A good chance. The run from the grandstand to Fort independance is a big, stright, line. Its about the right amount of space needed for a bigger model. Let's not rule out how marketable "Giant 4D Coaster on the Lake" is of a description. Far from my first choice but it seems plausible.

Let's not forget about the old Koala Canyon and Fun Factory pads that's are sitting nice and empty. If the ride is to move through the grandstand and fort independance, it's course could easily lead it toward those spots. It could have a turn around that utilizes the space in Congo Rapid's infield. It would be a relatively narrow piece of space to work with, so I'd imagine a rather out and back layout.

Skull Mountain is usually my first stop. The airtime on the first hill in the back row is incredible. The rest of the ride isn't terrible either. Quick transitions, lots of directional changes, lap bars, intamin, well themed and in the dark. What more could you ask for in a family coaster! Wish they took better care of it. Really is a gem.

Skull Mountain has great theming. Up until the ride starts that is. Beware the glowing helix pumpkin! Spooky!

I think in a perfect world, an Intamin giga like I305 would round out GADV's collection perfectly. GADV would be neck and neck with Cedar Point In terms of line up. Since the odds of getting a giga are pretty terrible, a more realistic wish would be anything in the vein of Maverick. The park clearly knows that El Toro is a serious win for the park and might want to incorporate the fast and furious motif in their next next steel addition. Something tells me that if SIX FLAGS of all companies is getting started this early, it's going to be a serious addition. Old Country has the picknick groves that could easily be moved to the vacant parking lot near the old safari entrance to make space for a large coaster. It would also have great curb appeal by the entrance.

To those who don't closely watch this park, seeing the parks name up on the water tower may not seem like much. However, to fans of the park, it means not looking a geico ad that was too expensive to take down. Heres to hoping that this is a start to Great Adventure picking up it's pride and getting it's life back together. The past 8 or so years have not been kind. Also, no Jersey Boys El Toro ad! Seems like the ad craze Era is slowing down.

I'm hoping my next trip to Hershey yields better rides on Skyrush. Unfortunately, I'm stuck in the Thighcrush boat. That first drop was one of few that rival El Toro's, but it seemed like the rest of the ride wanted to break my legs.

I also noticed the Mega-phone instead of the regular auto-speiler they have. I thought it was pretty funny. hard to believe Kingda Ka is 10 years old.

If you skipped Coasters after Dark, you missed out! Everything was running despite the wind and cold. The longest wait I had all day was 10 minutes for the front row of Kingda Ka. All the ride ops were begging for re-riders and you could essentially stake out your favorite ride and not get off it the whole night. Nitro 6x El Toro 3x Kingda Ka 1x Zoomanjaro 5x Skull Mountain Swashbuckling Skyway We were only there from 6:30 - 9:00. Don't sleep on coasters after dark. Incredible trip.

My favorite part is "Thanks, Six Flags Great Adventure". As if that's all they would say. Why would they even say "Thanks"? That post is so laughably fake. Let's get the real discussion moving again. Even hearing people complain about how El Diablo isn't a Rollercoaster is more relevant discussion.

Ive found all the hurlers to be fairly dismal. There is just nothing special about them except that they are especially rough. I'm not even sure RMC could save that one.

I would love to see Dorney add one more major coaster. While possesed, talon, and Steel Force are great rides, the rest of the line up is lacking. I think it's plausible to speculate 2016 being a coaster year for them. Something like Skyrush/Maverick/blue fire/etc would really be up their alley. The real draw there for me is Demon Drop. I love Gen 1 drop towers and they are few and far apart these days. The rest of Dorney's flat collection is also fantastic.