Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv) Discussion Thread

[YoshiFan]

I think it is supposed to open in Late Spring so probably Memorial Day weekend.

[larrygator]

^^Memorial Day weekend has been the projected opening date for most of SFGAdv's recent multi-million dollar projects.

[boldikus]

This is not a trip report. This is me getting revenge on Coasterbill for texting me pics all day of an empty park two weekends ago.

 

If you thought about going to the park this weekend but decided against it you missed out big time. I haven't seen it so dead since the Coasters After Dark nights when the place was a complete ghosttown. Managed to drink a bunch of beer, eat twice, ride every operating coaster in the park (except the two kiddie coasters and GL), a bunch of flats, and marathoned the living shit out of El Toro... all in less than 7 hours.

 

I had friends heading to the park Sunday (who informed me it was also dead) but I had plans that day so I figured I'd head up solo Saturday via the train from Philly to Trenton and get an Uber for the 25 minute drive over to the park. Late Friday night my buddy Joey hit me up saying he and his friend Vinny could borrow his roommates car and go up early Saturday with me. I was up and out early in the morning, and on my way to his place in NE Philly when he texted me they couldn't get the car. Back to Plan A I responded I was getting the train to Trenton and they could meet me on it if they wanted to tag along. So with all the back and forth we didn't wind up meeting, traveling and arriving at the park until after 1. Bummed we didn't get there early for a morning Toro marathon, my fears quickly went out the window when the Uber driver pulled into the lot. I should really have taken a picture but there were less than 100 cars.

 

We got in the front gate in seconds and headed right to El Toro. Walked right into an empty station and boarded the next train. One train ops but no wait at all. It was windy so it felt sluggish after the turnaround but still a blast. Just took one lap and decided we wanted to see how the line at Ka was since Vinny had never ridden it and we made it our mission of the day to get him over his fear of heights.

 

Stopping over at Superman to see how dead it was (another Vinny never rode) we walked right up and had a two train wait (one trains ops) for Row 2. Again felt very slow but worth a ride with no wait.

 

Deadsville

Back into Golden Kingdom Kingda Ka was a station wait we went for rows 4/5 and I have to say I had quite possibly my favorite ride on it yet. Not sure if it was the chilly temps but it felt incredibly smooth to me on the launch and I got a really great sense of airtime down the drop.

 

Even though we told Vinny he didn't have to ride Zum if he did Ka, we still goaded him onto Zum and great ride as always. Walked right on.

 

Getting a hankering for a beer we walked around the Boardwalk back to Macho Nacho and had some beer and nachos! I almost got a burrito but decided on nachos at the last second. It was fairly busy but my food came right out and had no problem getting a beer quickly and wound up sitting for a while at the bar hanging out.

 

Lunch

After we were done we took another lap on Toro, still a walkon. Some pictures I took from Zumi's mile long queue.

 

Ole!

Vinny had never done Houdini so obviously without telling him what happens we took him on. No wait at all. A few people filled in behind us while waiting for them to open the doors. There was maybe 10 people tops on the ride with us. It actually "got me" a bit more than it usually does but barely any of the effects were working in the preshow. Lame. You'd think for Fright Fest they'd give it a little love. In any case it could use it.

 

With the sun setting and temperature plummeting we checked the scene at Joker and went for the purple side. 5 minute wait.

 

Ive only ridden once during my visit in September on the green and this time I tightened the restraint and didn't feel like I was gonna die. I also flipped a good 3 times. I enjoyed it but Joey and Vinny both said they thought it was lame. I think its a nice addition.

 

Big moon over Switlick Lake

Brrrrrrrr

Obviously with these crowds we didn't have to be strategic and continued hitting rides as we came to them. We stopped and had a quick but freezing ride on Skyscreamer. Made me feel a little dizzy and we went to Skybar next door for the first time to get some beer. Cool little spot to grab a beer or wine. Surely it gets busy on crowded days but nice to have a little bar to compliment Liberty Pub on the other side of Main Street.

 

Of course we had to hit Skull Mountain, literally walked into an empty station and right onto the next train. Back row, duh. Had a handful of people sitting in front of the train and we got an "I love Skull Mountain" chant going as we dispatched. Love it.

 

Cult of Skull in the building

In the spirit of sticking with indoor (read: warm) rides we popped over at Dark Knight. As we walked up they were letting a few people into the preshow so basically another walkon. Skull Mountain was a tad warm but Dark Knight was toasty as an oven. We didn't ask for it or anything but we got a completely trimless ride. Probably the best ride Ive ever had on DK - airtime and all. Glad we stopped by.

 

Vinny was bothered by the cold so he decided to stay at Dark Knight and keep re-riding, the other two of us popped over to Batman and had a one train wait for the front row. Smooth as butter and the only ride that felt faster than usual - all the other coasters all day (save for maybe Ka) felt sluggish with the wind+cold.

 

Around to Nitro we climbed in the back row and had a very sluggish ride in the moonlight. Slow but awesome. Longest wait of the day probably (almost 15 mins?) because as we walked up they were transferring the 2nd train off. Wait wasn't bad since we got to watch them do that. I've seen it before, but its better than standing there while they clean up puke.

 

You mean its not summer anymore? Better tell Grannys cause they still got the shandys

On the way out of here we stopped at Grannys for fries and chicken fingers and more beer of course. Summer Shandy in fact! I never go in Grannys cause anytime I pass there looks to be an hour wait for food with no available tables but we waited 5 minutes today and the place was deserted. At this point it was almost 7pm and I wanted to get a few more Bull rides in and we wanted to stop and get waffles so we headed there first but like most of the food places at this point, they were closed! Doh! All good, I understand, I'll save my indulgence for HITP.

 

PDC

Back into the dark and barren Plaza Del Carnival we hit a completely empty El Toro (Vinny would not ride - too cold) but Joey and I took a lap and Joey couldn't take the cold so I rode it 4 more times until I couldn't take it anymore. We were fine when the sun was out, but after dark we were not dressed for the cold. In fact Joey bought gloves and a hat outside Dark Knight but he still couldn't handle it. The night marathon on Toro was glorious. I had to play musical chairs a little but most of my rides were in the back car.

 

After the hellish week I had I needed a day like that. Again, if you thought about going but decided not to you missed out. Nothing like having one of the worlds best amusement parks all to yourself for a whole day. Mostly one train ops except Ka and Nitro but it didn't matter in the slightest. Sorry I didn't take a ton of pics - regulars to this thread have seen it all already, the photos I took were pics I was texting to Bill all day.

 

See you all at HITP!

 

Final tally:

El Toro

Superman

Kingda ka

Zumanjaro

Macho Nacho

El Toro

Houdini

Joker

Skyscreamer

Sky Bar

Skull Mountain

Batman

Dark Knight

Nitro

Granny's

El Toro X5

[coasterbill]

Late Friday night my buddy Joey hit me up saying he and his friend Vinny could borrow his roommates car and go up early Saturday with me. I was up and out early in the morning, and on my way to his place in NE Philly when he texted me they couldn't get the car.

 

The story of 3 guys named, Joe, Joey and Vinny going to Great Adventure by a convoluted series of connecting trains and Ubers from Trenton may just be the single most "Jersey" thing ever written.

 

This is me getting revenge on Coasterbill for texting me pics all day of an empty park two weekends ago.

 

To be fair I did deserve all of this, but did you park in a VIP parking spot for free? No. Well screw you then.

 

Back into Golden Kingdom Kingda Ka was a station wait we went for rows 4/5 and I have to say I had quite possibly my favorite ride on it yet. Not sure if it was the chilly temps but it felt incredibly smooth to me on the launch and I got a really great sense of airtime down the drop.

 

Row 5, WTF? Was this Joey's doing? I need to have a talk with that guy. F*ck row 5.

[boldikus]

The story of 3 guys named, Joe, Joey and Vinny going to Great Adventure by a convoluted series of connecting trains and Ubers from Trenton may just be the single most "Jersey" thing ever written.

LOL none of us are from Jersey!!!

 

To be fair I did deserve all of this, but did you park in a VIP parking spot for free? No. Well screw you then.

We didn't have to park! Uber!

 

Row 5, WTF? Was this Joey's doing? I need to have a talk with that guy. F*ck row 5.

LMAO It was me actually. I wanted to wait for the front but they only had two trains on and like 20 people waiting for the front so we just jumped in where we could. Honestly it was easily the best ride I've had on it so I'm glad we sat where we did.

[coasterbill]

The story of 3 guys named, Joe, Joey and Vinny going to Great Adventure by a convoluted series of connecting trains and Ubers from Trenton may just be the single most "Jersey" thing ever written.

LOL none of us are from Jersey!!!

 

I know you're not from Jersey but it was a Jersey trip and you Jersey-ed it up.

(people from Philly get so pissed when you say they're from Jersey even though you could throw a rock and hit NJ, lol)

[boldikus]

(people from Philly get so pissed when you say they're from Jersey even though you could throw a rock and hit NJ, lol)

 

When you're right, you're right.

[bill_s]

I did Sunday ... no rest for the wicked. The peak crowd was a large enough for me but by the time I left, a few minutes early because I couldn't take any more, maybe 30 cars in the lot. Warmer than Saturday but I'd spend a while on a ride and then need to get walking and warm up. With this a day trip from Virginia I crammed in 34 coaster rides as well as driving over 500 miles (rough guess 20 miles of coasters on top of that). I went from not hungry after a big breakfast was in Wrightstown, not seeing anything that good to eat as I just did earlier, to too big a hurry, and finally food services closing on me, but it all worked out with pizza dinner at Pasquale's down the road south of the park. Still knocked out.

 

Joined the Skull Mountain cult, well it was OK but it does have minimum restraints and surprises you how early it takes off like the back row of fullsize Arrows. Also enjoyed Dark Knight, weird ride. Harley Quinn was OK, they send it around twice (or did) would have been fine after 1. Joker purple side didn't flip but that was OK with me, this time anyway. Weirdly different, such as dropping rapidly while still sitting upright, short though, I felt like I wanted another ride just to get used to it but took too long. Ka gave a bit of air at the top unlike my previous rides that felt like they were barely making it. Nitro was cold on my first thing front row rides! 4th row reride was too slow then (wouldn't let us sit in the back) but my 2 sunset rides were wonderful.

[boldikus]

^ no Toro? Zum?

 

Also, welcome to the Cult.

[bill_s]

^^-- 12 Toros, unless that was the miscount and it was 11. 6 of which were rerides and one walkaround was by choice. Not a drop tower person ATM, although Voodoo at SFA HitP beckons as actually open and stuff, so maybe I'll be getting over it.

[JRice92]

Better late than never. This trip was my first time visiting Great Adventure, and my girlfriends first time in a Six Flags park ever. We woke up bright an early to get to the park. The day of our visit the parked opened at 11 so we found ourselves pulling into the parking lot at 9:45. When the gates opened we couldn't contain our excitement and headed straight for El Toro, smart move because that resulted in the first ride of the day and staying in our seats for four more rides. Next was Bizarro, which you have all said has the worst crew in the park. But something interesting happened when we were there. The line was short enough for us to walk directly into the station. With my girlfriend wearing her Raptor crew hoodie and me wearing my Millennium crew hoodie a ride op spotted us and starting talking about friends he has that work with us at Cedar Point, and then the crew proceeded to go into turbo mode. During our ride, when we were in the cobra roll there was a train on the lift, and as we hit the brakes the floor was dropping for the next one which resulted in us pulling right into the station on 3 train operation. I guess we were really lucky.

 

Using the advise of everybody we rode mine train, skyway to the other side of the park, and hit Skull Mountain, Nitro, & Batman. All of this was done in 1 hour and we had tackled quite a bit by the time noon hit. By 1 that day the crowds started coming in and for the rest of the day lines were about 30-45 minutes long. We sadly skipped the parachutes, the 1 ride op working was just moving so slow with a decent line we couldn't stand waiting in that line. Kingda Ka & Superman never opened all day but not a big deal. If you told me to pick one of the Intamins to not work all day I would have picked Ka. With Superman we knew we were going to Great America 3 weeks later so it didn't effect our trip.

 

This park as a whole has a fantastic lineup of coasters. But man the layout is awful, dead ends every way you go. It's easy to see each expansion was just tacked onto the old "edge" of the park. Operations at the beginning of the day were very quick, but as the day went on they got slower and slower. While there were crowds that day we didn't see any line jumping and we ran into TBPony414 for a little bit. Great Adventure is awesome and we will be returning on January 2nd.

 

Bizarro x1: Great floorless coaster one of my favorites in that category. Bonus point for fast operations when we rode.

 

Runaway Mine Train x1: It's a fun little ride, the second half was a lot of fun.

 

Twister x1: I love these flats but this one had a very short cycle.

 

Skyway x2: I love how long of a distance it spans, and just like any sky ride you get excellent photos and views.

 

Houdini's Great Escape: It was a fun little ride, we enjoyed it.

 

Sky Screamer x1: This was our first sky screamer and I found it way more thrilling than the Windseekers. While I find the Windseekers very relaxing but with the chains the Sky Screamer I thought was more thrilling. The operations here were the slowest in the entire park. Also -1 for someones hat flying off and hitting me directly in my face mid ride lol.

 

Skull Mountain x1: THIS. RIDE. WAS. AMAZING. We were so happy when we found out VR wasn't running or else we would have had to skip it. Theme 10/10 Music 10/10 First drop 10/10. We rode back row and were not disappointed. We got off literally screaming at each other "THAT WAS AWESOME!" If we had more time we would have ridden it more.

 

Joker x1: Rode the green side & flipped twice. It was a lot of fun, but like everybody else says I wouldn't wait more than 15 minutes for another ride on it.

 

Green Lantern x1: Oh God. Why did we ride this. You all warned us, but we didn't listen. Horrible, just horrible. I don't ever remember Mantis being nearly as bad as this. Tons of headbanging, and just all around not fun. Won't be riding this anymore.

 

Zumanjaro x2: It just keeps falling, and falling, and falling, and falling. That's what it felt like. With the length of the drop so long I liked this more than Falcons Fury. This is my favorite drop tower, and with Ka not running operations were very quick. One of my favorites of the day.

 

Batman x3: I love how much punch is packed into a short amount of time. I love positive G's and Batman clones always deliver.

 

Nito x5: This is now my favorite B&M Hyper. I find these to be so much fun, great floater air, the funky helix before the MCBR, & a great layout all together. It's a ride you can ride all day long and it would never get old. 2nd Favorite coaster in the park.

 

El Toro x9: We came to this ride with our expectation sky high, yeah we came for the whole park but we really came for El Toro. It is one of the single greatest coasters I've ever ridden on this planet. Ejector airtime, quick transitions, positive G's on turns, everything I love about an Intamin ride. This is the star of the park. I wish I could take this coaster home with me, it's that good and then some. I just want it to be next year so I can go back and ride again on a really warm day. El Toro is a spectacular ride.

My totally original shot

Joker

Looking at the front of the park.

There's a lot of tree's here. Which I liked.

Before our ride on the mountain!

Joker looks great!

Before riding Green Lantern, my face didn't look like this afterwards.

El Freaking Toro

Night rides!

Ended the night at Nitro.

[boldikus]

Awesome report, glad you enjoyed the park and welcome to The Cult.

[El Toro_Ryan]

Glad you enjoyed the park man! That operator at Bizarro was most likely my friend Leo. He's a huge coaster enthusiast and he's been pushing the Bizarro crew like crazy the last few months.

[coasterbill]

Awesome report! Glad you had fun (then again you strike me as the kind of person that could have fun at the DMV).

[coasterbill]

El Toro's "oh sh*t" crane is over by Nitro and ready for a fun filled holiday season of blowing B&M's "temperature recommendations" to hell where they belong.

 

It won't be needed today though because Nitro is absolutely flying.

[Jason Maier]

How often does the "oh shit" crane actually get used? (and have you ever seen it in action)

[coasterbill]

On El Toro, at least once a season. Nitro doesn't valley much but it's not for lack of effort.

[coasterbill]

We went to Holiday in the Park yesterday and ended up staying from open to close. Crowds were very large (which is always awesome to see for HITP) due to the weather. The Family rides all had insanely long lines, often spilling out of the entrance. Dark Knight looked to have a 30 minute wait which is insane to see, Skull Mountain could have easily been an hour, Skyway was 45 minutes and even rides like the Scrambler were up near 30.

 

Still though, it was an amazing day. They somehow managed to make Holiday in the Park (the best thing this park has ever done) even better with some great new lights over by the parachutes, an awesome new area near Joker that looks like it's straight out of a Christmas postcard, some cute animals and of course the addition of Joker, HQ and Skyway.

 

A few things of note.

 

1) The new show is a lot of fun. I probably preferred the Jack Frost show slightly, but this one makes up for the lack of a coherent story and less impressive acrobatics entirely with a series of adorable dogs in costumes walking on their hind legs and a really cool hula hoop routine. The show seemed to be a hit too as the theater was filled to capacity.

 

2) Batman has 2 trains this year for Holiday in the Park! They probably won't use the second train every day but it's nice to know they have it for busy days. Everything else is the same as last year. Superman has 1 train, Lantern has 1 train (but who cares?), Nitro has 2 and I assume Skull does too. Dark Knight and Joker have a full fleet of cars of course.

 

3) Skyway is a massive home run. During the day it had a constant 30 minute wait, at night the queue was overflowing. We waited though and it offers stunning views of the park. Especially Polar Point (which is easily my favorite area).

 

All in all it was an amazing day and we can't wait to go back. I completely sip the Holiday in the Park Kool Aid. It feels like an entirely different park during this event and I can't get enough of it.

 

On to the pictures...

 

A huge crowd gathered outside the gates at opening.

A huge crowd gathered outside the gates at opening.

A huge crowd gathered outside the gates at opening.

A huge crowd gathered outside the gates at opening.

A huge crowd gathered outside the gates at opening.

A huge crowd gathered outside the gates at opening.

A huge crowd gathered outside the gates at opening.

A huge crowd gathered outside the gates at opening.

A huge crowd gathered outside the gates at opening.

A huge crowd gathered outside the gates at opening.

A huge crowd gathered outside the gates at opening.

A huge crowd gathered outside the gates at opening.

A huge crowd gathered outside the gates at opening.

Last train of the night! I look like sh*t but in my defense it was 45 degrees at this point. All of a sudden an hour before close it got really gusty and cold with a few flurries. Nitro was still hauling ass though since it had been running all day. Yesterday it gave some of the best rides we've ever had on it.

 

Final Count:

Joker x1

Superman 1x

Batman 1x

Nitro 5x

Waffle De Lys 1x

Trouble in Toyland Show 1x

Skyway 2x

This is real, we're about to fly with the man of steel

I expected Skyway to be a walk on during the day but I was horribly wrong. These people have great taste. Lol

Polar Point is stunning

This is as "artsy" as I get. Take it or leave it...

Brit's gonna freak the f**k out when she realizes she has a huge ass snowman on her head.

Loving the new area. Early in the day they brought out a bunch of cool animals from the safari, including a one week old goat that they were letting everyone pet.

Holiday in the Park is the best

They did a great job on these trees over in Treetop Summit

Skyway was an absolute home run with guests

And it's easy to see why!

I can't get enough of these lights

One last shot of the new area

[Vonni]

^ Wow, that looks so good! Even better than last year! I'm so excited to go to HITP for the first time this year at SFStL!

[RollerManic]

Does Batman still defy physics?

Edited November 21, 2016 by RollerManic

[coasterbill]

^ Funny you should ask.

 

Yesterday was the first time in the history of Holiday in the Park that they had to close coasters due to weather. The problem wasn't temperature (it was slightly over 40 degrees which is a heat wave for HITP), it was wind. Wind was gusting over 50 MPH, even forcing them to deflate the big snowman and get some decorations out of harms way.

 

Poor snowman.

 

I expected to hear that all the B&M's were closed, especially since the weather was keeping crowd levels so low that they wouldn't be able to fill the trains, further compounding the problem. Of the four B&M's, 3 were closed all day and one operated all day and by all accounts was running like it was a 90 degree summer day. I'll let you guess which one that was.

 

PS: Joker also operated all day, along with the family coasters and of course Skull Mountain and Dark Knight.

 

Edit: At the end of the night it was apparently snowing and had dropped into the 30's with the same wind speeds. The ride was still open.

[jfruge]

I have a quick question...my wife and I visited SFGADV on October 30 and rode just about everything. We found however, that Green Lantern was nearly unbearable as a ride. Does anyone know if this is an issue with B&M stand ups or is this ride just aging badly?

[I Like Theme Parks.]

^I pretty much avoid most stand-up coasters because they make my legs very uncomfortable. Lots of people don't like their roughness (even though I thought Green Lantern wasn't that rough). I'd assume that stand-up coasters would age quickly because the trains would be heavier. But I don't know for sure, since on GL all I could focus on was my legs.

[El Toro_Ryan]

How often does the "oh poo-poo" crane actually get used? (and have you ever seen it in action)

 

They position the crane at the end of the first brake run and run its cable along the brake run with pulleys and then down to the saddled train. They attach the crane to the saddled train and then slowly pull it up the last hill into the brake run.

 

2) Batman has 2 trains this year for Holiday in the Park! They probably won't use the second train every day but it's nice to know they have it for busy days. Everything else is the same as last year. Superman has 1 train, Lantern has 1 train (but who cares?), Nitro has 2 and I assume Skull does too. Dark Knight and Joker have a full fleet of cars of course.

 

Glad you enjoyed Holiday in the Park!!

 

Joker and Dark Knight do not actually have full fleets but are better off than most of the other coasters at the moment. Joker is running 4 out of 5 cars and I'm not sure how many cars Dark Knight is running but I know the ride always has a car or two pulled out for rehab.

[coasterbill]

I have a quick question...my wife and I visited SFGADV on October 30 and rode just about everything. We found however, that Green Lantern was nearly unbearable as a ride. Does anyone know if this is an issue with B&M stand ups or is this ride just aging badly?

 

Normally I hate recurring conversations that show up over and over again but I love this one because I love professing my complete hatred for this garbage coaster.

 

Anyway, standup coasters for the most part all suck the big one. That's why Cedar Fair is converting them to floorless coasters. Because body type (height, size, number of pain receptors (lol), etc.) matter so much, it's inevitable that each one will have some people that enjoy it more than others. Personally I hate every standup coaster I've ridden except for the Carowinds Vortex but most people want that ride to die in a fire. I've heard good things about Riddler's Revenge but personally I think that ride is a complete dumpster fire. They mostly all completely suck except for possibly Georgia Scorcher which gets overwhelmingly positive reviews. Aside from that each ride has it's fans (because as I said, different body types lead to dramatically different experiences with standup coasters), but the consensus is that they all completely blow.

 

Personally if I had to rank all of the standups I've ridden I'd put this one at the very bottom but a lot of that has to do with ride time. They all suck hard, but because this is a long ride you have to endure it's unending sucktitude for a longer duration of time and for me that makes it the worst standup coaster ever. It's also ugly as sh*t.