Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv) Discussion Thread

[boldikus]

You're sure you weren't looking at Trenton?

 

That was my first thought, but yeah. I assumed it was Trenton until we crested the lift and saw Trenton. You could clearly make out the buildings, mainly that weird triangle thing (which is apparently called "One Liberty Place" and not "that weird triangle thing", the more you know...).

 

 

There are two - Liberty 1 and 2. They were the tallest buildings until Comcast opened theirs, and now is opening another.

 

I have never been able to see Philadelphia from GreatAdv's tall rides because I have the eyesight of a bat and don't wear my prescription glasses on the rides.

[coasterbill]

..... I've heard you can even see Los Angeles from the top of Ka.... (who will pick a fight with me over this one.)

 

You can usually see a sh*t ton of smog from Kingda Ka, so that checks out.

[BigBad]

I feel like I've seen Atlantic City (maybe it's Wilmington) from the top of Zumanjaro. I've definitely seen Philly, and then I saw one, perhaps two, city-looking building clusters south of where I saw Philly.

 

I'll pay attention from the top of Nitro the next time I ride during the day (so in April).

[B&MIntaminGCI]

Stopped in to the park with my best friend yesterday to grab my wallet that I lost a month ago. The second we got into the parking lot we said "F it" and wound up staying. Which was unfortunate for me because all I was wearing was a thin $10 hoody from Primark.

 

Got through security and went to Lost & Found, they had my wallet, I asked where I left it or where they found it and they said in the Kingda Ka lockers, (Which means it survived a week in the lockers, we went on a Saturday, it survived a Sunday, Friday, Saturday and they found it the following Sunday). Thank god it's flat and black and the locker it was lost in was the top row.

 

We got our food with our dining pass and then took a quick spin on Batman in the back row. It was good but I felt like it was running slower than usual. I didn't really get the forcefulness that I got in the summer and during Fright Fest (where it was running CRAZY fast) but maybe it's just me. It was also warmer than I thought given the wind and the cold and what I was wearing. I can say though when you're riding a roller coaster in hardly any clothing and it's freezing, it feels significantly warmer when the ride ends

 

After that we made our way over to Nitro and got a ride in the back row as well, this was wear I was nervous, because going 80mph in nothing but a light hoody, but low and behold it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought. My hands were the coldest part of me and it was riding pretty well, not as good as the summer but I would say it was riding better than Batman was.

 

By the end of Nitro it was completely dark and all the lights were on and the park is absolutely beautiful. I got a few pics but not too many.

 

 

 

 

[coasterbill]

Nice report!

 

In general, Batman was hauling so if they actually had it running faster than that during Fright Fest, god damn

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Thanks to everybody who posted recent reports. I agree, Bill, on the hot chocolate mug. $9 with free refills the day of and $2 refills any other day is actually a pretty good deal. SDC's mug is $13 with $1.75 each refill, including the day of, so Six Flags actually has the better deal.

 

And I can vouch for it being socially acceptable at work as it has become my new work mug. I like the blue and white colours on yours. Mine is so hilariously Six Flags though.

[B&MIntaminGCI]

Nice report!

 

In general, Batman was hauling so if they actually had it running faster than that during Fright Fest, god damn

 

I felt the opposite, I felt like my ride Sunday was significantly slower, like it was even visibly slower to me. The helix after the 2nd loop was nowhere near as intense as it was during the summer/Fright Fest and the wing overs didn't give me that crazy snap I was used to. But the last time I rode during Fright Fest was absolutely bat s**t insane, I've never had a ride on Batman like that and I've been going consistently since 2006. It felt like my legs were going to be ripped off and the wingover, turn over the exit of the Zero G Roll into the 2nd wing over was a straight up disorienting blur on the ride and I loved EVERY second of it. I was actually winded when we hit the brakes Even my friends who just come with me noted that that ride during Fright Fest was way faster than normal.

[gardyloo!]

Great report as always Bill! The transformation from one the worst to one of the best seasonal events from this park just amazes me! Wonder if they allow any scarfs or beanies on any of the the rides. Despite the fact that people be freezing their ass of, it woudn't surprise me if they don't. Taking into account their strict loose aricle policy and all.

[coasterbill]

Thanks! And yeah, they would totally allow it but it's been my experience that Nitro has little interest in hoods, scarves or anything else you came up with to try to stay warm and blows it all down anyway. I usually wear gloves, at least 2 hoodies, a jacket and just give up on everything else

[gardyloo!]

Thanks! And yeah, they would totally allow it but it's been my experience that Nitro has little interest in hoods, scarves or anything else you came up with to try to stay warm and blows it all down anyway. I usually wear gloves, at least 2 hoodies, a jacket and just give up on everything else

 

Yea gloves seem to be a must if you wanna prevent frostbite.

Nitro seems to be a trendsetter btw, as silver star over at europa park is also open during this winter season. Hopefully more parks will continue this trend!

[Canobie Coaster]

I dressed like I was going skiing and had no problems what so ever on a 15 degree day.

[Keetz]

Got my HITP fix this Sunday from 2:45p - 8:30p and had an absolute blast. The temperatures were ~15 degrees colder than Saturday, which resulted in practically no lines. The park was decently crowded from 3-5:30 but really emptied out quick. The operations were stellar and we got a ton of re-rides. As the sun set we consumed a few adult fun beverages and had a blast with multiple rerides on all the coasters in the dark. The best kind of Six Flags day.

 

Random Musings:

 

Turns out, if you bought a 2018 season pass, they process it upon entering the gate. All they did was scan the ticket, scan my finger, and give me a card. No picture, but hey who cares, it was $72 for all six flags parks.

 

Got a chance to ride the Joker 6x and found myself really enjoying the ride compared to when I first rode it. The first ride was the longest wait for a coaster of the day at maybe 3 minutes. Later in the day we got 2 rides on green without getting up, then 2 rides on purple. It's a really fun coaster when the line is short. We averaged 2-3 flips each ride. On one I got 4 flips which was awesome.

 

Batman was hauling and giving me grey outs which is always fun. During the night, I'm not a fan of the lights shining in your face for the new video system. It was incredibly disorienting. So beware.

 

Only issue the whole day was regarding Green Lantern. The ride went down around 6pm allegedly due to cold temperatures? They were only running one train but the ops said it had something to do with the brakes. Didn't get to ride, but not too mad about it.

 

Got my first and maybe only ride on Justice League, it had a 15 min wait, and the ride was just okay. It can't compare to other shooting rides like Midway Mania at Hollywood Studios, but a good addition for gadv.

 

By 8pm the skyride had a 1 minute wait, so we hopped on to get the full HITP experience. I really love the park during this time of year with all the lights. Almost makes up for no El Toro.

 

Finished the day on Nitro getting a front seat ride, and then 2 rides in row 4 because they were front loading the train. Now I have the soundtrack stuck in my head.

 

Overall:

Joker 6x (3 green 3 purple)

Superman 3x

Nitro 6

Batman 4

Skyride 1

Justice League 1

Skull Mtn 1

That indoor Mouse 1

 

Cedar Fair - please run your B&M hyper models, they can do it.

[boldikus]

Turns out, if you bought a 2018 season pass, they process it upon entering the gate. All they did was scan the ticket, scan my finger, and give me a card. No picture, but hey who cares, it was $72 for all six flags parks.

They've been doing this for at least the last four seasons.

 

Only issue the whole day was regarding Green Lantern. The ride went down around 6pm allegedly due to cold temperatures? They were only running one train but the ops said it had something to do with the brakes. Didn't get to ride, but not too mad about it.

Sounds like a win-win to me.

[coasterbill]

Only issue the whole day was regarding Green Lantern.

 

... you mean the fact that it exists? Yeah, that is an issue.

 

The ride went down around 6pm allegedly due to cold temperatures? They were only running one train but the ops said it had something to do with the brakes. Didn't get to ride, but not too mad about it.

 

Queue times says the ride was only down for a few minutes and then reopened (and then went down again, and reopened again soon after) so it wasn't closed due to cold. That was a close one, I was worried the park had regained their sanity for a second.

 

But yeah, in the end you came out ahead by not riding it. It's a piece of sh*t.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

Ha, yeah. I mean, I don't hate it like Bill does, but yeah, it's not great. I wouldn't care if I never ride it again.

[Keetz]

But yeah, in the end you came out ahead by not riding it. It's a piece of sh*t.

 

Put me in the very small club of people that enjoy Green Lantern. My few rides on the coaster were all really fun. I'll even be controversial and say I like Green Lantern more than Rougarou. Take my opinion with a grain of salt though, I liked GASM and Viper when they were at GADV and don't care if a coaster ~rattles~. If we wanna talk about a piece of fecal matter, it's Apocalypse at SFA.

[YoshiFan]

I was at the park for around 5 hours yesterday and there was a good amount of people there for a Sunday. The Skyway had over a half full queue only a couple of hours after park opening. Nitro got up to around a 30 minute wait around 5:00 although that was probably because it had reopened after a breakdown. I walked onto the front row after it reopened and by the time I walked around for a 2nd ride, it became a 20 minute wait that fast and more and more people kept getting in line. For the crowds, the wait time for food wasn't that bad. I waited around 5 minutes for dinner at the Main Street Pub.

[coasterbill]

This is very anecdotal but I feel like crowd levels for Holiday in the Park have grown noticeably since the event started. To say I'm thrilled about that would be an understatement.

[YoshiFan]

I think you are right. I was there almost every week in 2015 and other than 1 Saturday in December when it was 70 degrees, crowds did seem lower on those trips to the park compared to last year and from watching wait times, this year seems to have hardly any empty days. As much as I would have liked to have been able to stay at Nitro and re-ride multiple times, I'll take the still reasonable wait times and see Holiday in the Park successful and can't imagine having to go back to a 5 month offseason.

[Jason Maier]

Are all the coasters (besides Dark Knight) running one train each? And how long have the lines been?

[coasterbill]

Dark Knight, Joker, Skull Mountain and Nitro have multiple trains (Nitro has 2 of it's 3). Superman, Green Lantern and (obviously) the kids coasters have one train. Batman might have a second one available but when I was there they were only running one.

 

Coaster lines are generally manageable during Holiday in the Park, though on some of the busier days they have gotten up to about 60 minutes. That's rare though and generally only happens on unseasonably warm days.

 

The longest lines in the park are generally for Justice League and Skyway after dark. The first few hours of the day, you basically have ERT on every coaster.

[boldikus]

Anyone going this weekend? Gonna be a cold one!

[coasterbill]

Please note that today's snow day at Six Flags has been cancelled due to a snow day at Six Flags.

 

 

It's completely understandable, but a tremendous headline.

Edited December 9, 2017 by coasterbill

[Canobie Coaster]

Who would have thought a snowball fight would be cancelled due to snow?

[coasterbill]

For anyone not following this "snowball fight" thing, the funniest part about it is that they never intended to use snow. They were using stuffed fake snowballs and paying Guinness World Records to show up and certify it, which is complete bullsh*t.

 

This was the dumbest idea ever.

 

If you're going to have a snowball fight and enter into the Guinness Book of World Records, use snowballs. The fact that it was cancelled because of actual snow is sweet justice for whoever currently holds the record for "world's largest snowball fight".