Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv) Discussion Thread

[jetsplumber]

And my area supervisor is really cracking down on capacity this year and she made it a big deal to us yesterday not to double stack. She even had us practice checking the restraints where we had to lower each harness and buckle each seatbelt in under 45 seconds. That's with only 2 people on the train too. After that, we had trains dispatching while the the train on the circuit was in the cobra roll. So if you were concerned about Bizarro's operations, they're not as bad as you thought and look for them to improve. haha

That's amazing news! I've been waiting for Gadv to improve operations to this degree. I've had the pleasure of working at both Cedar Point and Gadv and the difference in operations is noticeable to say the least. It's exciting to hear Gadv now times their dispatches like Cedar Point does.

 

SFGadv operations are not even close to cedar points on the major roller coasters. SF better hire a ton more people if they want to be close to comparable.

 

We try our best though! haha We're on track for one million rides by the first week of August at Toro. I know Nitro usually hits one million in July. Skull Mountain, Batman, the Sky Ride, and Bizarro should hit one million as well. Ka probably won't since it's been closed so much for Zumanjaro.

 

I dont blame the employees, I blame management. El Toro is the big attraction at the park, there is no reason why there are not 4 attendants checking trains at all times. especially with all the fat people that are too lazy to check the test seat and slow up everything. that's just 1 example.

[coasterbill]

Honestly I know I complain about things at Great Adventure (building great themed areas and then closing half of them or adding things with no regards to those themes, no lights at all in the park, empty pads, everything in Camp Aventura...) but the staff is not one of them. Great Adventure has a great staff that's dedicated to making guests happy (especially on the bigger rides).

 

The Bizarro insight is really interesting but ops on that ride have been pretty slow in years past, frequently not even checking the first row until all 3 trains were in the brakes. They've improved this year though.

 

Overall operations at the park are very good... they're better at Cedar Point because the rides all have more staff but the staff at Great Adventure does the best they can. Also, unlike most Six Flags parks Great Adventure runs every ride at maximum capacity (I'm not counting KA because it runs most efficiently with 3 trains) and I really appreciate that. This year they're almost always running both sides of the Skyride which is something I never thought I'd see. Seriously... this is beyond shocking.

 

In addition to being fast, Great Adventure generally has very friendly staff too, especially on the big rides like Nitro and El Toro. They do the little things that many parks don't do that add so much to guest satisfaction like talking to the guests waiting in the station or letting guests re-ride coasters at the end of the night when nobody is waiting for their row (I hate when parks don't do this because there's no reason not to but very few parks do it).

 

Like I said, this park has a lot of problems, and cutting staffing to save money is one of them but the operators do the best they can with the resources they have and it's much appreciated. Now if only the other Six Flags parks could do the same thing...

[njcoasterguy34]

I've been to Great Adventure three times so far this season, and the only day they were running both sides of SkyRide was opening day. When I was there on the first and 7th of June, only one side was running.

[El Toro_Ryan]

What rides did you work at Cedar Point? And as good as we can improve our operations, I don't think our operations will ever be as good as Cedar Point's until GADV staffs more than 2 people to check restraints at all major coasters. Only Ka and Green Lantern have 4 people on the train at all times. Having 2 people works most of the time but you really have to hustle. The downside is that if a guest has an issue that you have to address, you have to hold off from the loading procedure until the issue is addressed. Was there a rule that attendants had to check restraints together at Cedar Point? When I was there, it didn't seem like it.

I worked Dragster at CP and Dark Knight at Gadv. Dark Knight basically ran itself so there wasn't really anything you could do to improve dispatch times because the cars moved continuously in the station. Dragster was a lot more hands on and I loved it. Our Team Lead made sure all team members knew that after safety, speed was the top priority. There was a pretty big crew over there too. 4 on load, 2 on unload, 1 for unload spieling, 1 for control panel, and 1 for launch control panel. That's 9 people on platform alone not including entrance, Fastpass, merge, and crowd. I don't think Gadv has enough employees to staff the coasters like Cedar Point does. Also it's a lot harder to get cross trained at Gadv than Cedar Point. At Cedar Point I was trained on Matterhorn, Dragster, Scrambler, and Dodgem within my first month. At Gadv I was at Dark Knight the entire year.

 

That's sick. Yeah I guess since Cedar Point has a surplus of workers, it's easier to get trained on other rides. The problem at GADV is that there isn't enough staff for you to go to train at another ride a lot of the time and you have to stay at your ride. I was lucky enough to get cross trained at Bizarro but that was only because Bizarro needed more people since they had less people than Toro did.

 

I've been to Great Adventure three times so far this season, and the only day they were running both sides of SkyRide was opening day. When I was there on the first and 7th of June, only one side was running.

 

That's weird. We usually have both sides of the SkyRide open more often than not, especially on weekends.

 

And honestly, GADV doesn't need the operations Cedar Point does most of the time. We're generally only busy on weekends and when we are busy, we still aren't as busy as the Point gets. But when we do have long long lines, we are staffed to have 4 people checking restraints. We usually do this during Fright Fest and some of the more crowded days in the summer.

[neil009]

^SFGAdv might not get *as* crowded as CP, but it's still one of the most heavily attended parks in the country. Of course it "needs" excellent operations, SF is just a bunch of cheap skates.

[El Toro_Ryan]

^SFGAdv might not get *as* crowded as CP, but it's still one of the most heavily attended parks in the country. Of course it "needs" excellent operations, SF is just a bunch of cheap skates.

 

I said the park doesn't need CP level operations most of the time. I work at the park. There's a huge difference in attendance between Monday through Thursday verses Friday through Sunday. We receive extra staffing on super busy days but most of the time, the staffing we have is sufficient for the crowds we receive and wait times at all rides never go above an hour. I've seen lines at CP reach an hour and a half on a Monday in May where as rides like Bizarro have station waits during the week.

[jetsplumber]

^SFGAdv might not get *as* crowded as CP, but it's still one of the most heavily attended parks in the country. Of course it "needs" excellent operations, SF is just a bunch of cheap skates.

 

you got that right, SF is definitely a bunch of cheap skates.

 

I went to the park for a few hrs wed evening(park was empty), nitro was only running 2 trains, the C train was off the track, I hope that means they are fixing it. I hope SF half ass maintenance will fix the problems on the C train.

[jetsplumber]

^SFGAdv might not get *as* crowded as CP, but it's still one of the most heavily attended parks in the country. Of course it "needs" excellent operations, SF is just a bunch of cheap skates.

 

I said the park doesn't need CP level operations most of the time. I work at the park. There's a huge difference in attendance between Monday through Thursday verses Friday through Sunday. We receive extra staffing on super busy days but most of the time, the staffing we have is sufficient for the crowds we receive and wait times at all rides never go above an hour. I've seen lines at CP reach an hour and a half on a Monday in May where as rides like Bizarro have station waits during the week.

 

its just not running a company correctly having 2 attendants checking a train, when it should have 4, whether the park has 20 min waits or a hr. its not being productive. and its making employees do way too much work.

[El Toro_Ryan]

^SFGAdv might not get *as* crowded as CP, but it's still one of the most heavily attended parks in the country. Of course it "needs" excellent operations, SF is just a bunch of cheap skates.

 

I said the park doesn't need CP level operations most of the time. I work at the park. There's a huge difference in attendance between Monday through Thursday verses Friday through Sunday. We receive extra staffing on super busy days but most of the time, the staffing we have is sufficient for the crowds we receive and wait times at all rides never go above an hour. I've seen lines at CP reach an hour and a half on a Monday in May where as rides like Bizarro have station waits during the week.

 

its just not running a company correctly having 2 attendants checking a train, when it should have 4, whether the park has 20 min waits or a hr. its not being productive. and its making employees do way too much work.

 

We all know Six Flags isn't in the best of shape finically but they're fixing things. Yeah there's only 2 people checking restraints on the roller coasters but I'd rather have a ride run at a slight reduced capacity than have the finances of the park jeopardized further. And I've rarely felt over worked and I work at El Toro which is the hardest roller coaster to run in the park because so many people do not fit on it but it's expected that we pull high numbers. Sure, I'd love to see 4 attendants on all the rides but I'd rather the company get it's act together financially first so that in the long run, we can have an even better Six Flags Inc. I wouldn't call it being unproductive, it's the opposite. We do the best with what we have and that's productive. From my very first day of training, it was made clear to me that high capacity is one of the main goals of the park when they showed a slideshow displaying all the rides that gave over one million rides that season. Six Flags awarded the rides department at GADV for being the best department out of all the Six Flags parks last year and possibly the years before that but I'm not 100% sure. Honestly, there are way better things to complain about GADV than rides not being staffed well enough, like all the shows and flat rides that disappeared during the 2000's.

[DevilsFlight]

Like Ryan said. Six Flags isn't great financially. They just barely escaped bankruptcy. Cedar Fair is pretty stable. They can afford to have twice as many workers on the rides. SFGAdv cant. At least not now. I've noticed improvement over the years. Hopefully as Six Flags' recovery increases they can get close to or even match Cedar Point's work standard

[neil009]

^SFGAdv might not get *as* crowded as CP, but it's still one of the most heavily attended parks in the country. Of course it "needs" excellent operations, SF is just a bunch of cheap skates.

 

I said the park doesn't need CP level operations most of the time. I work at the park. There's a huge difference in attendance between Monday through Thursday verses Friday through Sunday. We receive extra staffing on super busy days but most of the time, the staffing we have is sufficient for the crowds we receive and wait times at all rides never go above an hour. I've seen lines at CP reach an hour and a half on a Monday in May where as rides like Bizarro have station waits during the week.

 

My only point is that SFGAdv is understaffed, because they're cheapskates. If you disagree, then we'll have to agree to disagree. Whether the understaffing is due to bad decisions made in the present or in the past (resulting in their current financial state) is beside the point.

 

One thing is for sure, lines on weekends during peak season are abysmally bad. Perhaps the rides receiving four attendants who would normally have two would run a little faster if the four attendants were more used to working together as a team. Just a thought.

[Nitro1118]

I don't understand the hate. You can blame the park for many, many things... but coaster operations isn't one of them. They almost always run their coasters at full capacity, even during less-crowded months. They aren't CP, but for a regional amusement park they do a damn fine job.

[coasterbill]

One thing is for sure, lines on weekends during peak season are abysmally bad

 

They're really not... on a Saturday in the summer the longest you'll wait for anything is 45 minutes except for Superman and SORA because of their capacity. We almost always go on Saturdays in the summer because we don't get too many days off from work and we always have a great time even without a Flash Pass.

 

Fright Fest is a nightmare but that's the case in most parks.

 

I don't understand the hate. You can blame the park for many, many things... but coaster operations isn't one of them. They almost always run their coasters at full capacity, even during less-crowded months. They aren't CP, but for a regional amusement park they do a damn fine job.

 

Agreed.

[neil009]

One thing is for sure, lines on weekends during peak season are abysmally bad

 

They're really not... on a Saturday in the summer the longest you'll wait for anything is 45 minutes except for Superman and SORA because of their capacity. We almost always go on Saturdays in the summer because we don't get too many days off from work and we always have a great time even without a Flash Pass.

 

Fright Fest is a nightmare but that's the case in most parks.

 

Yeah, more like 45 minutes minimum on any major coaster. It would seem our experiences have been exact opposites. How intriguing.

[El Toro_Ryan]

One thing is for sure, lines on weekends during peak season are abysmally bad

 

They're really not... on a Saturday in the summer the longest you'll wait for anything is 45 minutes except for Superman and SORA because of their capacity. We almost always go on Saturdays in the summer because we don't get too many days off from work and we always have a great time even without a Flash Pass.

 

Fright Fest is a nightmare but that's the case in most parks.

 

Yeah, more like 45 minutes minimum on any major coaster. It would seem our experiences have been exact opposites. How intriguing.

 

I hope were talking about the same GADV because I've been going to the park since I was 5 and I've almost never encountered all lines being at least 45 min. I'll wait like 20 for Bizarro and 30 for Nitro. If you encountered the park with lines like that, then you must have went on a very crowded day. I think we've only had one or two days so far this whole season where that has occurred.

[michaellynn4]

One thing is for sure, lines on weekends during peak season are abysmally bad

 

They're really not... on a Saturday in the summer the longest you'll wait for anything is 45 minutes except for Superman and SORA because of their capacity. We almost always go on Saturdays in the summer because we don't get too many days off from work and we always have a great time even without a Flash Pass.

 

Fright Fest is a nightmare but that's the case in most parks.

 

Coasterbill is correct. I visit the park frequently, almost exceeded fifty times last year. I used to avoid weekends due to the perception that the crowds would limit my rides, but after one weekend visit a few years ago, I quickly realized that save for Fright Fest (and the rare exception if a special event is going on), the park does an AMAZING job at keeping almost all rides at as high of a capacity as possible. Now that I live farther away, I'm limited to visiting mostly on weekends (instead of dropping by for a couple hours after work), and my visits have not suffered as a result.

 

Even if the LENGTH of a line is long, your actual wait time is pretty tolerable.

[YoshiFan]

I have been going to the park once a week since opening weekend and haven't waited in a line more than 20 minutes all season. The only time I have seen lines more than 30 minutes this year were earlier in the day the past few weeks when there were a lot of school groups and I skipped the major coasters then and went back to them once the school groups left and lines were much shorter. Once Kingda Ka is open every day and Zumanjaro opens that should help with lines even more. I have only gone on weekdays though (except Sunday of opening weekend and Easter Sunday).

[neil009]

Ok, fine, SFGAdv never gets that crowded, the operations are excellent, everything's great, everything's groovy. Meanwhile, in Bizarro World...

 

[Password121]

I have been to the park on a couple extremely crowded days over that's couple years, but most times lines don't exceeded 30 minutes for the major coasters. For anyone who knows, approximately how long are the waits for Nitro and El Toro with completely full queues? I've seen these one time each, and I never got myself to wait in a line that long. I didn't see what the closest wait time marker said, but I believe those are estimated for one train operation.

[Nitro1118]

I have been to the park on a couple extremely crowded days over that's couple years, but most times lines don't exceeded 30 minutes for the major coasters. For anyone who knows, approximately how long are the waits for Nitro and El Toro with completely full queues? I've seen these one time each, and I never got myself to wait in a line that long. I didn't see what the closest wait time marker said, but I believe those are estimated for one train operation.

 

I'd say about 45min for Toro, and a little over an hour for Nitro.

[coasterbill]

El Toro isn't so bad with a full line, that happens all the time and like Nitro1118 said it's 45 minutes... an hour at most.

 

Nitro's line almost never fills up if it's not Fright Fest. You should never wait for Nitro during Fright Fest though as the line is about 2.5 to 3 hours when full even though if that happened on a regular operating day it would be much less.

 

There are 2 reasons for that, one of which is that they sell too many Flash Passes so the Flash Pass line is all the way down the Flash Pass stairs and the bigger problem which Great Adventure really needs to control is the exit passes. Exit passes take up a ton of seats on every train which causes empty rows to go out since people were lining up to ride with their friends. The exit pass line can extend all the way down the top incline on the ramp and it screws everything up.

 

Maybe someone can shed some light onto why this is such a problem at Fright Fest. It's not people with disabilities, so I'm assuming it's employees or friends of employees. In any case... avoid Nitro when the line is full at Fright Fest. Ride it in the morning or at the end of the night or not at all.

[boldikus]

On a September Saturday last year and on opening day this year waited for El Toro with full queue and two trains and it was 30-40 minutes both times. Every other time I've been recently I'd say its 20 minutes or less. Most times I go right for it in the morning to get it in a few times before lines. A few Sundays ago I waited an hour for Lantern with a completely full queue and two trains (don't ask me why I did this). That same day waited for Nitro with an almost full queue and it was 30 minutes. Think it was only two trains tho. Nitro is a people eater. If they are running all three trains the line moves very quickly.

[Password121]

Opening day I waited about 20-25 minutes for Nitro when the line was right after the switchbacks with 3 trains.

 

Do you guys think its better for the last weekend of June to go to El Toro first as I usually do, or Ka and Zumanjaro, then El Toro?

[jetsplumber]

Opening day I waited about 20-25 minutes for Nitro when the line was right after the switchbacks with 3 trains.

 

Do you guys think its better for the last weekend of June to go to El Toro first as I usually do, or Ka and Zumanjaro, then El Toro?

 

id hit zumanjaro first, followed by Ka. then el toro

[DevilsFlight]

Do you guys think zumanjaro will have 3 hour waits like SORA? That will be a nightmare if it is. But the capacity isn't bad. 24 people in all. That's more than ka.