El Toro_Ryan

No, the bag policy has been around for years. GADV strictly enforces its bag policy so absolutely no one is allowed to leave any bags on the side of the station unless it's a medical bag. We do occasionally have grouper people in the station that only height check. They usually deal with people who brought bags up but that's usually only on busy days where we are staffed for that. You'd actually think explaining the bag policy to people who slip by would be simple but it isn't actually always with the city people the park attracts. haha I've gotten a lot of attitude from people who slipped bags through the entrance. This one dude who was a Six Flags America local actually got furious with me and told me his home park was better just because I told him he couldn't ride El Toro with his fanny pack or leave it on the side.

I see your point dude but as long as Gadv has lockers, there will be an entrance person at every ride with lockers. We're required to check heights again in the station to make sure no one who wasn't tall enough got past the entrance person. As efficient as everyone (including myself) wants a ride to run, safety still comes first.

Actually, the entrance person is the most important person working the ride. The entrance person ensures everyone is tall enough and that everyone has placed their bags in a locker before they get near the station. This greatly improves our efficiency because everyone just smoothly gets on the train. Occasionally someone slips past the entrance person with a bag and that greatly slows down our efficiency because we have to spend a few minutes talking to the person with the bag to explain to them that they will have to place their bag in a locker before they may ride. If we had no entrance person, we would have too many people who did not place their bags in lockers to deal with. Now if the park got rid of the lockers, having an entrance person would be a different story. So in this case, avoiding stacking is as simple as opening the air gates as soon as the train parks, checking restraints quickly and safely, and then sending the train out right after without any delay.

If Bizarro is anything like El Toro, then it probably runs much faster in the afternoon. One of the maintenance dudes at El Toro always says, "The longer she sits (as in the train), the colder the wheels get, and the slower she runs." haha

One day, I was talking to my friends about roller coasters and how I work at El Toro. So one of my friends tried telling me that El Toro was built taller after it opened so it could go faster. She claimed the new top speed was over 90 mph. I tried telling her no such thing ever happened and that I'm a good source because I'm a coaster nerd and I work at the ride but she still didn't believe me. haha Silly GP.

Hopefully maintenance can sort the C train out. Nitro was known for its smoothness so it'd be a shame for its reputation to be killed. Also, the operations really depend on the crew working the ride. Some crews are faster than others based on experience and overall commitment to pumping trains out. My guess is that the newer crews are behind the stacking and once summer comes around, you should be seeing much faster operations.

^^Are those helmets in the seats? hahah

Nitro is actually receiving work as we speak. The park recently repainted the exit ramp and entrance stairs with shiny new purple paint. Check it out. These photos are all from greatadventurehistory.com. Also, here's a good photo trip report done yesterday showing off the progress the park has made this year (including on Zumanjaro). http://www.greatadventurehistory.com/GATrips_Spring_2014_05_02.htm

I know you work the ride....is there a reason they are re-tracking the brake run first? Seems kinda interesting Not that I know of. My guess is that it's a test for possible retracking of higher stress points on the ride later down the road but I could be wrong. That area of track may have just needed some trackwork done. It is interesting thought. I've never heard of any of the other plug n' plays receiving track work.

Nothing is maintenance free my friend. In my opinion, El Toro did not need any track work. The ride is still nearly as smooth as when it first opened. Sure there's a few more bumps on it here and there but it's still smoother than most steel coasters I've ridden. Whatever the case, the park or Intamin probably thought this would be the best move.

Millennium Force is easily the roughest roller coaster I've ever been on....(tehe) Hurler at Carowinds before the trim brake and refurbishment was brutal. haha I loved the airtime the ride offered but the turns were awful.

Slightly off topic, but here's a picture of some of the new track work done on El Toro recently.

Nothing I've seen was as bad as Gwazi at Busch Gardens Tampa. I swear we sat on the break run for longer than the actual ride was waiting for the crew to load the next train. This was when the ride still used PTCs thought. I'm not sure if the situation there has improved since the park installed Millennium Flyers.

Great Adventure left that portion of Rolling Thunder under El Toro to preserve the crossover element the two rides used to share. According to the park, that was the only place where 2 (I guess 3 if you count Rolling Thunder as 2) roller coasters crossed.

I'm hitting Cedar Point up May 19th and the 20th and then hopefully Six Flags New England sometime this summer... Oh and Six Flags Great Adventure everyday practically because I work there.

I heard a rumor that the park is installing airbags along with the seatbelts....

just what SFGadv needs to make the lines even longer. it wouldn't surprise me if the added them I highly doubt it. Great Adventure already tried seatbelts on Nitro which didn't work out. Look on the past page to see a picture. And about belts ruining airtime, I doubt it. Millennium Force offers similar airtime that Nitro does but the airtime can still be felt with the seatbelts. Lapbars are more restrictive than seatbelts.

Haha and oxygen masks.

Haha exactly!! Soon we'll be forced to wear helmets, knee pads, and wrist guards with the added seatbelts. (Well...probably not but still.)

It probably won't be easy to change their minds but we should. haha It's a shame to see roller coasters with the best capacities in the industry shrink in half practically. If the seatbelts stay, hopefully employees become more in the groove of loading those trains. At El Toro, we can check seatbelts and lapbars at the same time due to the design of the trains. For the hypers though, it doesn't appear that seatbelts can be checked with the lapbars due to the seats B&M uses.

I highly doubt it. I've heard seatbelts were attempted on Nitro it's opening year but they were quickly removed when they were proven to be unnecessary. Hopefully the same happens with the Cedar Fair B&M hypers. Here's a pic from coastergallery.com when Nitro first opened. Those little black knob things are the seatbelts.

If when you ever think about moving, your first concern is if the area has a good park with good coasters near by. (Sorry if that's a repeat, I just jumped in on this topic. haha)

Done. haha

Haha I'm glad you guys all enjoy it. I'm so used to saying it at work that I figured it would make a good signature for myself.

Definitely try out Zumanjaro while you're there too.