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Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv) Discussion Thread


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5 hours ago, coasterbill said:

Cases are rising like they are across the country. You can determine what a "surge" is since it's a made-up arbitrary term that the news likes because it sounds scary...

Aside from that we were at the park on opening day. There's not a ton to report. We had a great time but we went in knowing they would be understaffed, that lines would be huge (but we didn't expect to ride much) and that El Toro would be closed. We used our four line skips (Nitro, Kingda Ka twice and Wonder Woman) and otherwise just rode a few rides early (Batman, Nitro stand-by and Justice League) with short waits, Skyway mid-day from the fort side where lines are always shorter and Wonder Woman right at park close. Otherwise we just hung out and enjoyed seeing some friends and enjoying the unseasonably warm weather.

The only things of note that Joe didn't cover are that the Flash Pass line is back for Kingda Ka which makes waits shorter in theory (in reality a line behind 25 people to ride Kingda Ka is a 90 minute wait while you watch them cycle brakes, roll trains out, roll trains back, launch test trains, load trains, tell them to unload and everyone to take 2 steps back... all that good stuff. We don't know how long this delay will last and we recommend you check out great rides like Nitro and Superman blah blah blah.

Whatever though, we rode it and they let people wait for the front again so it was our first Kingda Ka front seat ride since 2019. We waited 2 hours with a skip-the-line pass. It was worth it.

It’s great to be back!

 

 

PS: I didn't walk over to take Jersey Devil pictures because I figured a bunch of nerds had already done that but it looks great.

Hey Bill, just one more question about Great Adventure. Did they load all rows on Nitro & Batman (for instance) or just every other one? At both 6 Flags Texas parks earlier this month, they loaded every row of every train. To achieve "social distancing" on the loading platform they installed plexiglass between the rows. I'm hoping this is a 6 Flags innovation for all their parks and not just for Texas.

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8 hours ago, coasternut said:

Wasn't Great Adventure open this weekend? Where are all the trip reports??? I've heard from a friend living in N.J. that Covid is surging in the state again

Here is our video report - Place was packed.

 

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2 hours ago, coasternut said:

Hey Bill, just one more question about Great Adventure. Did they load all rows on Nitro & Batman (for instance) or just every other one? At both 6 Flags Texas parks earlier this month, they loaded every row of every train. To achieve "social distancing" on the loading platform they installed plexiglass between the rows. I'm hoping this is a 6 Flags innovation for all their parks and not just for Texas.

Every row was loaded on every coaster, I have some footage of the ride ops in the video above. Dividers in most, if not all stations...

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Glad they're doing El Toro maintenance now rather than during peak summer season.

As usual, Nitro dispatches are quick; when they use all 3 trains, that's .... how many riders per hour?

Also, is the 3rd train for Bizarro only used during peak summer season?

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1 minute ago, Jason Maier said:

Glad they're doing El Toro maintenance now rather than during peak summer season.

As usual, Nitro dispatches are quick; when they use all 3 trains, that's .... how many riders per hour?

Also, is the 3rd train for Bizarro only used during peak summer season?

Wouldn't make too much of a difference, Bizarro was stacking all day. Dispatches were horrible... sure it was opening day, but the stacking was a bit outrageous... went and grabbed a skip the line to get that one done.

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5 minutes ago, jconsolmagno said:

Wouldn't make too much of a difference, Bizarro was stacking all day. Dispatches were horrible... sure it was opening day, but the stacking was a bit outrageous... went and grabbed a skip the line to get that one done.

The other thing about Bizarro is some riders clicking their seatbelt release latches while waiting on the break run.

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7 minutes ago, Jason Maier said:

Glad they're doing El Toro maintenance now rather than during peak summer season.

Yeah because why would they have done this during the last 4.5 months while the ride was closed?

 

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9 minutes ago, boldikus said:

Yeah because why would they have done this during the last 4.5 months while the ride was closed?

 

Wonder if it has anything to do with the lumber prices getting out of control... perhaps they needed to retrack some sections? Those are some big pieces of lumber that need to fit into the pre-fab'd Intamin slots.

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9 hours ago, coasterbill said:

If you didn't pause your Diamond Elite membership they upgraded you to a new tier called Diamond Elite VIP where you get four. I don't believe it's actually offered for sale though. Also: From my understanding this benefit is good forever.

Do you know if you can use the Diamond skip the line perks at all Six Flags parks? Magic Mountain is my home park (where my membership is linked to), but I'm going to the Roller Coaster Rodeo at Fiesta Texas in June and would love to use this feature there too

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1 hour ago, jconsolmagno said:

Wonder if it has anything to do with the lumber prices getting out of control... perhaps they needed to retrack some sections? Those are some big pieces of lumber that need to fit into the pre-fab'd Intamin slots.

The ride closed early last year for an unplanned issue and it took longer to fix than their usual offseason regiment.

Multiple rides were allowing people to wait for the front.  Nitro and Kingda Ka were allowing up to 3 parties to wait for the front.  It was operator dependent though.

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7 hours ago, californiarollercoasters said:

Do you know if you can use the Diamond skip the line perks at all Six Flags parks? Magic Mountain is my home park (where my membership is linked to), but I'm going to the Roller Coaster Rodeo at Fiesta Texas in June and would love to use this feature there too

Yes, you can.

As for El Toro, it’s sitting there with front-loaded water dummies in both trains. I’m sure it’s been testing or they had planned on testing it. Maintenance was working on it but not on the structure. It’s a mechanical issue that probably came up in pre-season testing (the ride is even certified for the season on the state website).

This is probably not a big deal and it almost-definitely wasn’t planned.

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If you read this thread during Holiday in the Park, you know Great Adventure will run their coasters in conditions hardly any other parks would.

A few days ago, I got to the area early and decided to wait over by Prospertown Lake, which has a fantastic view of the park.  Considering it was in the mid-40s with 30-40 mph wind gusts, I wasn't holding my breath I'd see anything running.  I was wrong.  Great Adventure confidently sent Nitro's trains completely empty.  And I have never seen a B&M hyper come that close to valleying.  It reminded me of that crazy hill on Arkansas Twister at Magic Springs that takes 7-8 seconds to clear.

The ride opened an hour late and I made sure to be on one of the first trains.  The mid-course trim was disabled and the return run gave far wilder airtime than usual.

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8 hours ago, DarienPoint said:

I saw some discussion about Flash Pass earlier...

 

I'm going next Wednesday, but the park has been busy. Would a Flash Pass be a good buy?

It depends what rides you want to ride the most.  I was there this past Monday and anything with multiple trains had almost no wait.  The rides with one train had bad waits.  Unless things change, Bizarro and Superman were the two rides on one train.  The other bad lines would be Wonder Woman and Justice League if you intend to do those.

Kingda Ka, Batman, Green Lantern, and Nitro were under 10-15 minutes most of the day.

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Oh I know this park runs coasters in conditions many wouldn't. I've seen Bill there talking about riding Nitro at times that makes me fear for his sanity XD 
 

On 3/31/2021 at 8:59 PM, coasterbill said:

I love this park. I really do...

So interesting, I mean the rides are ofc good but man...for most of my life I've hated the actual park lol and was always going downhill. Like it got to the point it was purely to ride a few rides but I loathed going. Esp knowing the type of parks you tend to like and feelings on others, this park always felt so half assed and dumpy at times, just with caliber rides.
In fairness, it's been like 7 years now. Perhaps things have changed.  I really should go again. Closely watching to see when Toro opens back up, deff will take a week day off and go asap. I reckon the crowds on an april weekday will be dead, as seems to be confirmed. 

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^ Hope your plan is to go next week then because they're not open on April weekdays otherwise...

https://www.sixflags.com/greatadventure/plan-your-visit/park-operating-schedule
 

13 hours ago, DarienPoint said:

I saw some discussion about Flash Pass earlier...

I'm going next Wednesday, but the park has been busy. Would a Flash Pass be a good buy?

If its busy, sure. Unfortunately for you, no one here is a fortune teller and therefore cannot confirm if it would be a good buy. Are you considering buying it in advance? Because if you do, and the park turns out to be quiet then no, it would not be a good buy.

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9 hours ago, JJLehto said:

Oh I know this park runs coasters in conditions many wouldn't. I've seen Bill there talking about riding Nitro at times that makes me fear for his sanity XD 
 

So interesting, I mean the rides are ofc good but man...for most of my life I've hated the actual park lol and was always going downhill. Like it got to the point it was purely to ride a few rides but I loathed going. Esp knowing the type of parks you tend to like and feelings on others, this park always felt so half assed and dumpy at times, just with caliber rides.
In fairness, it's been like 7 years now. Perhaps things have changed.  I really should go again. Closely watching to see when Toro opens back up, deff will take a week day off and go asap. I reckon the crowds on an april weekday will be dead, as seems to be confirmed. 

I do love this park, #3 as I said before. I've got to give it a #1 ranking for the most dangerous park I go to especially on Saturday afternoon. Line jumping and groups moving all over especially on Nitro (my fav). You get all the tough guys from: NYC, Philly and Jersey. Makes it interesting... I still love it, and you need to go...

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