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Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv) Discussion Thread


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I'm jealous of those who have already ridden El Toro. I won't be able to ride until 2008!

 

Let's hope that SFGAdv can maintain this ride, unlike another wooden coaster in the park which shall remain nameless.

 

Well, at least I got to ride The Voyage, which is my new #1 wood coaster!

 

It's a Pre-Fab, it should be REALLY easy to maintain it. (Except the Cable Lift). And even if they don't maintain it, it's not going to get rough any time soon.

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Short, quick, and to the point here..

 

Station: Very Nice job. Will be nice to see more than 1 train on it in the near future, as well.

 

 

Lift: VERY, VERY FAST!

 

 

Drops 1, 2 3: Incredible EJECTOR airtime, great ''yank'' over the hills (in the back). First drop is AMAZING!

 

 

Turnaround: Smooth, fast.

 

 

Small Hills/''Ramps'': Nothing special in the back, nice headchoppers though!

 

 

RT Crossover: AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME! Best element on the ride!

 

 

Curvy Part One: Whee!

 

 

Curvy Part Two: Loses a lot of steam.. kinda slow.

 

 

Brakes, Ride, Trains: Smooth, Unobtrusive, Reminded me slighty of Giovanola & Intamin trains having a kid! Check out them lapbars!

 

 

Good ride.. not a top __ for me though. I need something slightly more

out of control (ie. Hades, Tremors, The Legend, etc)

 

Ps: I rode in the front of the second-to-last car.

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I wonder how this will compare to The Voyage? Hmm.....

 

1 The Voyage

 

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2 El Toro

 

 

 

The first hill and out bound hills are WAY better on El Toro but from the turnaround to the end it’s all Voyages J

 

That the fact that I can drive 15 min and get more air then Superman at SFNE is amazing!

 

 

 

Twisterbret ...This is a recording

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14 rides on El Toro and these are my thoughts

The trains lack the T-bar and have more of a staple looking type setup. This is a tight fit for some larger people. It’s not that the bar won’t go down but the all clear is not set till the bar clicks to a certain point. Everyone got to ride but larger people would need some extra help getting stapled in and you do get stapled! Being stabled is not a problem. You feel every ounce of negative g and it’s extreme!! If the bar wasn’t resting on your legs I think you would be in a lot of pain hitting the bar so hard with your legs.

I have not ridden Balder but I have ridden Colossos at Heide-Park Soltau, which is a close cousin of El Toro. El Toro seems to have more extreme and sustained negative g’s on the outward run and the turn around is taken at a much high rate of speed. From the ground you can hear the upstop wheels screaming for mercy at the tops of the large outward hills. This is about the only sound you will hear. After the turnaround there is a pretty good drop in the back and then there a moment of rest with some straight track. I consider this the only weak part if the design. After the straight, you bank into a smooth fast left hander which turns into the hill that crosses Roller Thunder. This crossover hill produces amazing airtime in the back but it’s X3 towards the front. This hill also twists left on the way down which makes for some laterals. At the bottom of the crossover drop is the twister section. I was amazing how well these Intamin trains articulate and track thru this area. It’s fast and powerful and not as controlled as I would have though, which is great!! The last hill or so doesn’t do much, but at this point you are ready for a breather.

The first drop on El Toro is one of if not greatest first drop on any coaster, Expedition G-force included. EG has a nice slow roll-over which is lets you soak in the terror and gives that evil kickoff in the back. El Toro’s lift is so fast it almost seems like a shuttle coaster. The lift doesn’t slow down at the top. In the back of the very long train there are actually some laterals on the lift hill turn around (not Twister Craziness) While the first drop in the front seat is fun, you are going so fast you don’t really get to hang and check out the sites, but this is what makes the back so amazing down the first drop. The drop doesn’t have the large radius MF has and it’s got more speed so the drop is more of a Coney Island Cyclone (in the back) feel to it but taken to another level. You get that out of your seat feeling at the start of the drop but then the ride just presses you extremely hard at against the bar. It doesn’t slam you it more or less feels like it hit the Nitrous button after already being out of your seat. There isn’t a bad seat on the ride. There is air in every seat. I almost forgot to mention the great head choppers this ride has!

The bad news is the second train won’t be ready for a while so prepare to wait.

I’ve been waiting since the year the Beast open at KI for Great Adventure to get a wood coaster you could really brag about. El Toro is really something to brag about! Congrats to GA!! O Lay!

 

 

wow.....

 

i have to say i am a bit nervous about the first drop...did it make you loose your breath? i am not a "drop" person. im in it for the inversions...so the nerves have set in.

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wow.....

 

i have to say i am a bit nervous about the first drop...did it make you loose your breath? i am not a "drop" person. im in it for the inversions...so the nerves have set in.

 

You should be fine, I never lost my breath. Freefall makes me loose my breath when on my back.

 

As for the letting up, I thought after the turn around there was that straight area that didn't offer much.I thought the turn around was fast as hell. I was thinking today..I would have loved to see a long tunnel starting at the straight track, around the corner and ending at that sick airtime filled crossover. It might seem like I'm nick picking, I am not. I am completely happy with El Toro and can't wait to ride again!

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Thanks for the link. It just happened that I stumbled upon it afterwards while searching through the pages. This ride looks AWESOME!!! If there is any plus to living in NJ, then it may just be this ride!!

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i have to say i am a bit nervous about the first drop...did it make you loose your breath? i am not a "drop" person. im in it for the inversions...so the nerves have set in.

We must be related. I was not a 'drop' or an 'air' person. I want to be inverted. Or wanted to. Prior to this, I would not ride Nitro, and feared for my life on the third-rate SFAMERICA verision of Superman:ROS. This is different.

 

You are pinned in. If you aren't sufficiently pinned (stapled), the dispatcher's error sensors will go off & they'll re-staple you. You aren't going anywhere.

 

This is not an average straight out & back, up and down woodie. B&M and GCI seem to have hooked up and had a love child in Madrid or Mexico City, that must've been adopted by Intamin. It is fast, silky smooth, and curvier than Linda Carter as Wonder Woman. Perhaps because it is not as extremely tall as many steel coasters, the drops don't last that long. Or maybe it is because the angle of descent is so steep. You just don't spend long second after long second falling (or waiting to fall). Maybe it's kinda like if they tried to do Lightning Racer in steel, but taller.

 

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As for line length:

We visited today, June 13, with the park only open from 10-3pm. The crowds were light since it's a weekday and a short operating day. For the first time, we got a Flashpass. Loved it.

 

Theoretically, the Flashpass system times it so you wait as long as the regular line, but spend your time somewhere other than in the physical line. In reality, even the standard seems to cut the wait slightly. When we went to the Flashpass office @ 10:30, we chatted pleasantly with the clerk to verify that El Toro was open. He wanted to know if we wanted standard ($45 for 2 people) or gold ($100 for 2 people). I said all we really wanted to do was El Toro. We got standard, and incredibly kindly he called over to the station for status information, and put in a reservation for us in 10 minutes. We were done at 11.

 

We re-reserved through the sign, and it scheduled us for 11:36.

 

After that ride, we re-reserved again, and it came up as 1:11. Due to lines, the time eventually turned into 1:37. Everything else we wanted was a walk-on, so we did Nitro (my first through third times on it) & Medusa a few times.

 

After we arrived for our 1:37 ET ride, and 50 or so more people from the standard line were admitted after us, the coaster had technical difficulties. There was a delay of just under an hour. Since the park was closing at 3, they closed the regular line and sent everyone who'd be waiting in it on their way, and just let the remaining people in the Flashpass line into the station.

 

Get the Flashpass - with a new, record-breaking coaster opening, it's worth it. Reserve ET first, and KK second.

--------------------

I'm new to coasters, with only about 30 under my belt. My favorites had been Medusa-East at #1, Great Bear, Lightning Racer, some more B&Ms, another GCI, and Batwing. Medusa was disappointing after ET. My first ride on Nitro didn't really phase me after ET. I think I may be ruined for other coasters.

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It seems like there is a lot of debate on which wooden coaster will rank as number 1 or at least in the top 5 for the 2006 season. The Voyage from Holiday World, is battling it out with El Toro. The Voyage has an advantage because it opened up earlier. But now that El Toro is up and running, has anyone been on the two to give a comparison? Let us not forget about Balder or Colossus.

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^^^^ Ask and you shall recieve.

 

 

With my El Toro ride offically in the books, I thought I would pipe in on my Voyage versus El Toro opinion. I have been lucky to be near both rides when they opened.

 

My Voyage experience was that it was an amazing, creative layout that packs a major punch. The ride is ferocious and un relenting all the way through. There have been a lot of reviews on the net, so I won't go into detail on the exprience other than to say it was fantastic, easily my #1 at the time. My only qualm being the ride beats the living turd out of you so rerides will cost you some serious creaking and groaning the next day.

 

I was at Great Adventure in early May and I remember thinking El Toro looked a bit overrated. It just didn't have the same visual impact that the Voyage does. That said, I'll try and reconstruct yesterday's ride. First off, the train is ludicrously long. It seems to go on forever in the station. The gates open and you sit down in the very comfortable seats. I tried to pull down my lap bar to give me a little air and was told that the attendant would do that for me. This seemed silly to me, but as the attendant started putting the restraints down I kept hearing rumblings. As he got to my seat he leaned in and stapled the lap bar down. Now, I'm married, so it's not like I use my balls for all that much any more, but if I did, they would have been out of commision for a while. The attendant rammed the lap bar down and made sure I didn't even have room to wiggle at all. Little did I know I would be very grateful for this.

 

One other point, I was sitting in the second to last car. The ride slowly rolls out of the station and approaches the lift. As the car engages on the lift I was amazed at how fast the ride went up. So much like Millie, but it seemed even faster. Towards the top the size of this ride really kicked in. This is one monsterous woodie.

 

The train crests the hill and a beautiful thing happened. I actually got air on the crest of the hill. Around the turn we went aproaching the first drop. The visuals were like Nitro in that the second hill seemed way to close to ever allow a drop and rise in that short of a space. Now comes my first true opinion on this ride. The train started to straighten and drop. I found my self accelerating insanely and I hadn't even started to drop yet. In short order I was hurled down the most insane drop ever on a coaster. I have been on Millie, Superman ROS's and Nitro, the big drop rides, and I must say they don't even come close. El Toro's first drop was almost orgasmic in the sheer sustained ejecter air-time.

 

The bottom transition was amazingly smooth and the train rose towards the crest of the second hill. Again I was thrust towards the heavens as the train roared over the second hill. Pure bliss and the best sustained air time I have ever had. Third hill was same as the second. I could not believe Six Flags would allow such an extreme ride! As we approached the diving turn, I got some serious lateral negative G's and the trains negotiated the turnaround very smoothly. Not to say it was boring as the angles and transitions were a blast.

 

The next three air hills were smooth and fun, but nothing like the first three hills. As the train cranked a left turn in preperation for the twister section, it rose towards another innocent little hill. Holy God in heaven!!!! This little hill was the most insane airtime I have ever had. Remember when I wrote I would later be thankful for the stapled lap bars? It was for this very hill. I can only pray Six Flags won't trim this section. It was amazingly cool to see an entire train of hair standing straight up on this drop. Pure bliss!

 

The twisted section, while fun, was in reality a moment to catch you breathe from the insane first section. While the first half was very quick, the ride seemed to wind down in the second half of this section into the breaks.

 

I have read a lot of great reviews of the Voyage, and I also loved the ride. That said, while the Voyage is longer and visually more fun to ride, El Toro is the better ride IMO in that it is every bit as extreme, while being smooth enough to be re-rideable. It is trully amazing. We are blessed as coaster geeks to have two rides as great as this in one year. The airtime on the Voyage was amazing, but El Toro's just seemed more forcefull and better sustained.

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Thanks for the review. You gave a great comparison. Very detailed, too.

One of the things you mentioned was the speed going around the first bend. I just took a look at that youtube clip of the coaster going down the first two drops. You're right, there is a lot of speed going into it.

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Since this ride has a lot of ejection time, is it safe to wear glasses? I read somewhere that some guy's cellphone flew out of his pocket. I've been on a bunch of roller coaster and never has anything in my pocket flown out, and this includes rides with inversions.

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A woman lost her cell phone on El Toro during Media Day, and she never lost one out of her pocket before. I had items in my pocket angled in a way that I was sure that they wouldn't come out. Halfway through the ride, I felt my camera shift in my pocket and ended up holding if throughout the whole twister. I moved it to my overstuffed cargo pocket for safe keeping.

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They actually wanted me to take my sunglasses off until I showed them I had a strap on it. They are very clear about "No Loose Articles"...and for a good reason!

 

^^^^^Very good, descriptive review. Even after experiencing Toro a TON this past weekend, I am still very excited for the possibility of getting out to HW later this year to try out Voyage.

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On our first ride, in the middle of the train, my husband successfully wore his sunglasses after bending them into a very tight face conforming shape. On the second ride the ops had him remove them. That was on the trip that something (retainer, partial plate maybe?) flew away from someone ahead of us, so it was probably a good move. I put my cell phone in my rear cargo pocket for yesterday's ride in the third row, since none of the others seemed secure enough.

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