El Toro_Ryan

Regarding Ka's line closing early, the only sense I can make out of it is that Ka has to close by a certain time so maintenance can do their nightly work and inspections. Back in June, the park was open until 4 am one night for grad night and Ka had to close at midnight for its nightly maintenance . If the line Saturday closed 3 and a half hours early at 8:30, then the ride must have had that long of a line but I doubt that. The park probably wanted the ride to close early for extra maintenance time. I've seem them do it plenty of times when Zumanjaro first opened. If that's the case, then GADV really picked the worst day for that if they had other days to do so. lol

Those crowds sound brutal. From what I remember, the park hits capacity when the regular lot, overflow lot, and hurricane harbor lot fill up which amounts to about 75,000 people in the park. Just for reference, on average days there are usually about 20,000 people in the park.

Anytime! Enjoy your visit!

You can. It's $0.99 a refill.

For those complaining that the park hasn't been using both sides of the skyway, apparently the one side the park hasn't been using has been having problems since early in the season. So, using one side wasn't because the park was trying to save a few bucks like we all thought, but actually for mechanical reasons. Two sided use should return for 2015 when the other side is properly fixed.

El Toro and Bizarro during some test runs in both the back and front. It's pretty cool sitting back and seeing all the empty seats in front of you. Toro does run noticeably slower with an empty train though. Bizarro isn't as bad.

I've ridden Steel Force a few times in the back row without a seatbelt and holy crap, the airtime was amazing. Plus the lapbar can only come down so far so I had a good 5 or 6 inches of free space. I do not recommend doing this though because I swear I would have flown out during the bunny hills if I didn't tense my thighs at the lapbar.

Was it only there in 05? My first ride on Ka was spring 07 I believe and I don't remember an infield queue. Interesting, never knew they utilized that space for queuing. I really like how TTD utilizes the infield for its queue. Yeah, it was only there for a short time in 2005 until the ride closed down for that entire summer because of a malfunction on the launch track. After that, NJ did not want anyone near the launch track so the original q-line that had to cross under the launch track was forbidden to be used. The current q-line was the overflow section of the old line.

That's weird Apocalypse vallied. Was the train fully loaded? I mean any roller coaster can valley but it's usually more likely on a cold morning test run with an empty train. I've seen El Toro valley once when I was training in March but it was like 30 degrees out and Toro hates the cold. Regular wooden coasters with steel wheels on steel track are less affected by cold weather so I doubt that could have been a factor. I think this is the first I've heard of a GCI valleying.

The Incredible Hulk at Islands of Adventure comes to mind for me. Every time I have been there, all three trains were running and the crew didn't miss an interval once. Literally the polar opposite of Bizarro at GADV. (Except when I'm running it )

The only reason I don't like them is that reason. Why buy so many parks, invest little money in them and then dump them? Well to be fair, it wasn't the current Six Flags management that bought up all the old parks. This all occurred when Premier Parks seized up as many parks as they could back in the 90's (including Kentucky Kingdom), and then purchased Six Flags from Time Warner in 1998. Premier Parks increased the size of its real estate way too quickly and this move basically jeopardized Six Flag's future and it's part of the reason why the company is under so much debt today. #blamepremier

The park has a few ideas to fix the problem but the problem is whether NJ will pass them or not. I guess we have to wait and see.

Kingda Ka used to have a monstrously long q-line its opening year when it ran through the infield of the coaster. Have any of you guys waited through what used to be the entire thing? I've heard it could take 5 hours.

http://www.toledoblade.com/Retail/2014/10/02/Coaster-painters-have-close-brush-with-Rougarou.html This article says the paint job should be finished in two weeks which is before Mantis will even close. haha

This was pic was posted on Screamscape. You can see that the catwalk around the trim has been repainted so I think the trim is staying. However, this doesn't necessarily mean the park will use it. The trim was there in the first place to reduce g-forces on rider's legs so that effect may not be needed as a sit down but the park and B&M may want to keep it just in case it's still necessary. Either way, the ride will be sick. Trim brake= super hang time or no trim brake= super g-forces.

Mantis was originally designed without a trim brake so hopefully it gets removed. Almost every B&M with a trim brake was designed to have a trim brake. Mantis is an exception.

Progress on Rougarou's paint job is continuing. They've moved on to the supports in the area they are currently repainting. Tony Clark posted these pictures on twitter earlier.

Maybe Green Lantern got rougher after being relocated. I've never found the ride that rough but the majority thinks other wise. And that digging by Zumanjaro's entrance was for the addition of light poles. There's a picture below from Greatadventurehistory.com of the footers for them. Hopefully this is the beginning of adding lights to the Golden Kingdom because it really needs them, especially in Kingda Ka's line.

Will it really take less time to load? Remember that on floorless coasters not only do you have to wait for the train to be perfectly aligned (which means that for a few seconds it's moving very slowly before stopping unlike mantis now which stops faster) but you also have the floor which has to lower and come up. Just a thought, as I actually don't remember how long it took to load the train when I rode it. Absolutely. Floorless coasters are unload, load, check restraints, and dispatch. Standup coasters are more like unload, load, check if guests are standing up, then check restraints, readjust seats for guests that failed to stand up, and then dispatch. The moving floors do add a few seconds to the load cycles but not as much as you think. The newer floorless coasters feature very fast moving floors that I believe take about 3 or 4 seconds to drop or raise as compared to Bizarro's which take 6 or 7. And being at Cedar Point, I'd expect some quick interval times for Rougarou similar to Raptor's or Gatekeeper's.

It's sat and it's fright fest. Park should be packed. Agreed. Ride as many rides as you can early in the day before things get crazy.

and Georgia Scorcher, which is the best designed standup coaster. I would think they'd save them for their own B&M stand-up coasters. Agreed. Let's not forget about the two Vortex's at Carowinds and California's Great America.

Based off the animations, it looks like they're adding magnetic brakes to the brake run. And hopefully they leave the trim brake off or completely remove it like in the animations because Mantis really hauls without the trim. Plus it's a bit more forceful.

Loving the new color scheme. I always thought Mantis had a great layout so this looks to be even better than it was before. Hopefully the ride will run three trains again too.

I never thought GASM was too rough, besides maybe the turn into the MCRB. Maybe it would have been more popular if the park let you ride with a pillow tucked between your head and the OTSR.... or a helmet. lol

http://www.themeparkreview.com/photos/sixflagsgreatadventure/nitro.htm Nitro looks photogenic to me. (But it needs a fresh coat of paint!!)