Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv) Discussion Thread

[JJLehto]

Nice! Clearly staffing is not an issue going forward, its almost like they were right to go moderately out of the gate and see how things go instead of full speed and realize "oh shit". Six Flags should enjoy their moment in the sun while they can XD 

[wildcattb5]

4 hours ago, coasterbill said:

The park quietly updated their summer hours a few days ago.

They've extended them! 9:00 closes most nights and 10:00 closes on Saturdays. Awesome to see!

Guess SF is truly serious in making sure they are doing the exact opposite of Cedar Fair this year. Still unbelievable how the tables have turned (well, for now at least)

[KBrylczyk]

17 hours ago, Masquerade said:

Anyone who uses the term "pork roll" is not part of the Union.

I suppose you're one of those heathens who takes the time and syllables to say "taylor ham" like you're some kind of elitist with a better vocabulary, huh?

 

[Garet]

On 6/11/2021 at 12:32 AM, JJLehto said:

That said pretty funny that anyone would bash on the ride than later say oh well still better than 90% but typical enthusiast shit lmao I am more and more glad I stopped following the community and just experience things myself. Esp considering anyone posting their opinion on YT/online kinda has to ham it up to get attention etc 

 

It's like that for pretty much anything though: news, restaurants, movies, political commentators etc. Is it obviously just trying to get clicks by having an extreme reaction? Move on. I always just find a couple of users or reviewers whose posts I generally agree with and see what they have to say.

[CP_RULES]

Way less excited about riding Jersey Devil after getting a chance to ride Wonder Woman at SFFT... Judging by the POVs available on YouTube it appears to have the same restraints. I have never experienced “restraint complaint” until riding WW. Who decided super tight rubberized shoulder raping devices were the best option for these intense rides? I’d rather headbang than have it feel like rubber erasers are being feverishly rubbed against my shoulders the whole ride. Shame, WW was my most anticipated coaster and now I don’t even care about riding Jersey Devil when I visit. Shorter lines for me on everything else while people wait, I guess?

[Masquerade]

2 hours ago, KBrylczyk said:

I suppose you're one of those heathens who takes the time and syllables to say "taylor ham" like you're some kind of elitist with a better vocabulary, huh?

 

I'm merely cognizant of my speech paradigm apropos in a delicatessen milieu, Roz.

[JJLehto]

2 hours ago, Garet said:

It's like that for pretty much anything though: news, restaurants, movies, political commentators etc. Is it obviously just trying to get clicks by having an extreme reaction? Move on. I always just find a couple of users or reviewers whose posts I generally agree with and see what they have to say.

Quite true, oof music is especially bad. 
And yeah same I like to take jabs but there are a few enthusiasts who's opinions I value mostly bc I think they're fair, well thought out, and in general...seem to align near mine over time so I've come to trust them. One of those have indeed said Jersey Devil is great, but not quite the same OMG WTF intensity and force of railblazer/wonder woman but they of course loved it. Which I think is fair, it's larger and less compact and visually doesn't whip around as much so that all seems sensible. And with RMC's it's like comparing gold to more gold anyway, more is nice but **** you still got gold. 

Still excited to ride it and stoked Great Adventure finally has a new + unique ride, and that an RMC is near me. I'll prob get a season pass bc of it. So mission accomplished SFGadv!

[jagnyc]

I was passing by the park today, so I took a ride on Jersey Devil during member previews. It was down for a bit, but once running they were loading trains quite quickly. There was no line to begin with, but had there been, I think it would have been tolerable. I only rode once, in seat eleven, and it was great! I'm looking forward to taking a few more laps in a couple of weeks. I think it will be a hit with most. I've only ridden one other RMC, Wicked Cyclone, which is high on my list of favorites. I wouldn't rate Jersey Devil as high based on today's ride, but it's a lot of fun and at moments quite forceful. It's a nice compliment to the lineup. 

[Zand]

Excited to finally get on this thing tomorrow! Are they letting you request seats or is it assigned and luck of the draw?

Very low expectations heading into the park tomorrow. Will go right to Devil at opening. If the park is a sh*tshow then that might be the only thing I ride. Not getting Flashpass, but if lines aren't too bad then obviously I'd like to hit the essentials like Nitro, Batman, and El Toro. At least if I quit early, I can stop at Connecticut's best park on the way home (Quassy!). After seeing the horror pictures from the last couple weekends I have no idea what to expect tomorrow.

[michaellynn4]

From what I'm reading in reports, it's assigned seating, but they try to accommodate seating requests.

[jagnyc]

@Zand It's assigned seating. I didn't notice anyone requesting seats, so I'm not sure if they are accommodating. Have fun today!

[Lightnin Loops]

3 hours ago, Zand said:

Excited to finally get on this thing tomorrow! Are they letting you request seats or is it assigned and luck of the draw?

Very low expectations heading into the park tomorrow. Will go right to Devil at opening. If the park is a sh*tshow then that might be the only thing I ride. Not getting Flashpass, but if lines aren't too bad then obviously I'd like to hit the essentials like Nitro, Batman, and El Toro. At least if I quit early, I can stop at Connecticut's best park on the way home (Quassy!). After seeing the horror pictures from the last couple weekends I have no idea what to 

A few friends of mine  have said,  they will let you sit where you want if you ask. 

[JJLehto]

Makes sense, w/ very rare exception have I ever seen anyone be denied if they asked. Yeah I hear crowds are brutal as would be expected on a weekend here w a new ride. Deff going this week, will keep an eye on the weather and try to aim for a day that may be cloudy/rainy but not toooo bad. Hope it keeps some more crowds away. Looks like Mon or Tues are candidates! 

[Zand]

Another thing I haven't seen mentioned but maybe missed it...does it have a single rider line? Feel like they'd want to make sure the train is full every ride when theres only 12 seats, but I haven't heard anyone mention it.

[JJLehto]

I hope! Single rider lines are such a huge break, why don't more places/rides do it? But yeah esp hope so with a 12 person train. 

[YoshiFan]

If it does have a single rider line, hopefully they place it at the beginning of the line rather than close to the station like every other one in the park except Zumanjaro. Many of them barely save any time because you could be in line for a while just to get to where the single rider line entrance is.

[jagnyc]

Everyone is a single rider on Jersey Devil!

[bert425]

^yup

 

its why sfft did away with their single rider line on ww and made it flash pass

once people realized that everyone is single rider?  There was no benefit to that line - which became just as long as standby 

 

so now just used for flash pass 

[Zand]

Still the same concept as rows though. If there's a party of 2, but only 1 seat left, you need a single rider to fill it in order for the party of 2 (or more) to ride on the same train.

[AmyUD06]

I swung by the park today at around 4:30, to find the main parking lot 80% full, Flash Pass sold out (they were giving all-season FP holders 2 skip the line passes,WTF?), And Jersey Devil with a 2 hour line. Yeah I'll try another day LOL.

[Zand]

The convenience store at the Montvale rest stop on the GSP needs to update their mural.

[ytterbiumanalyst]

4 hours ago, Zand said:

Still the same concept as rows though. If there's a party of 2, but only 1 seat left, you need a single rider to fill it in order for the party of 2 (or more) to ride on the same train.

Yes, but I like how SFFT would try to fill 3 trains at once so you could grab that single rider or group of 3 and fill all the trains. Very smart, and very necessary with 8 riders per train.

[coasterbill]

I know that the world isn’t exactly clamoring for another Jersey Devil coaster review but I figured I’d do a brief post with my thoughts.

We went yesterday and got tons and tons of rides all over the train in the morning and at night (the park stayed open an extra hour since they were so busy).

Let’s set some expectations: If you’re expecting Wonder Woman, you’re not going to get it here. I actually feel like the best way to look at this ride is that it’s more similar to the pacing of a regular RMC than one of those old batshit single rails but people positively lose their shit over regular RMCs so that’s not a bad thing.

First off: The ride area and queue are very nice. My expectations for this park in that department are always low and none of it will change your life but it’s better than I expected so kudos on that front.

As for the ride, it was running all four trains and when it got in a groove it’s capacity was better than you would expect. I’m sure it’s capacity is realistically higher than rides with higher theoretical capacities like El Toro and Bizarro on a lot of cycles since the restraints are very forgiving and the boarding never stops. It’s not like El Toro where the train is loaded and then it’s that “recheck 3,5,6... we got 6, lost 6, now just 3 and 5... we lost 2... now just 6... verified” bullshit.

As for the ride itself, I guess let’s just go element by element.

- The view from the lift is great. It’s a really nice view of the lakes and of Nitro. At Sunset, it was crazy. This is where Six Flags should take all of it’s Nitro social media / website / marketing photos from.

- The first drop delivers insane ejector in the back and even solid ejector in the middle. 

- The first inversion is nuts everywhere and just an awesome element overall. 

- The next hill is an ejector hill with insane ejector airtime everywhere in the train. This will probably be a lot of people’s favorite part of the ride.

- The stall following it is a blast. If the ride is running fast it’s wild, if it’s running slow then it might even enhance this element.

- I thought that the turnaround would be a throwaway element but it’s absolutely not. In the back maybe it is, in the front it made me yell out an involuntary expletive. That’s RMC single rail pacing at it’s finest.

- The next inversion is the most underrated thing on the ride. Throw your hands up and just enjoy it. It’s a really cool element where it feels like the world is in slow motion. I guess it’s not that forceful compared to everything that came before it but it’s just as much fun.

I’ll admit that from this point forward, the ride definitely chills out a bit. The pop into the midcourse is nice but nothing crazy. The best way thing about the second half is the visuals. The headchoppers are great. My favorite element of the second half is the left turn after the midcourse because it just feels like there’s no clearance there and the turn is very tight.

Every airtime hill on the second half provides mild floater air. Think “Nitro’s final camelbacks in December” airtime... maybe. The people complaining about this ride are probably judging the entire ride on this 10 second stretch, which is dumb.

I firmly believe that the designers expected this part of the ride to run faster and it’s possible that they can tweak it to get it that way, maybe even just by dialing down the timing and having it sail through the midcourse. Even as-is though, it’s still fun.

Despite ending the review on a low note with those last few hills, the ride is insane. The pacing on the first half is awesome and if the midcourse would have been the final brake run everyone would be blowing this ride. It has ejector air, it has “oh shit” moments, it has a forgiving restraint and a low height requirement and it looks great. It fills a nice niche for Great Adventure.

Everyone is going to love this ride from the regular day-guests to the extreme thrill seekers (unless they’re just jaded as hell). At most parks in the northeast, this would be the best ride in the park. It would probably be my favorite ride at Lake Compounce, Dorney, Six Flags America, maybe Hershey (or at least top 2), Nick U, La Ronde (except it would run one train), possibly Busch Williamsburg... you get the point. I think most complaints about this ride are due to people being spoiled as hell by the fact that it’s not the most intense ride in the park with the strongest ejector airtime in the park but it’s still super intense and has crazy airtime. The problem is that across the park you have the tallest coaster in the entire world that goes 128 mph and one of the best, if not the best Intamin airtime machines ever built. 

We walked in with lowered expectations after reading the reviews but after riding it I realize that every enthusiast in New Jersey is just comparing everything to El Toro which means they’ll just end up hating everything forever. Go in expecting regular RMC Ibox pacing but with the unique ride experience of a single rail and you will love it.

Ranking isn’t my thing, but I’d say that El Toro is clearly the best ride in the park but after that depending on my mood this might be my second favorite. It could also be Kingda Ka or Nitro at any given time. God, we’re spoiled.

Ignore the haters, come out and ride this. It’s wonderful. 

We love Jersey Devil!

A few general park updates:

- Great job by the park staying open an extra hour because of crowds. They filled the parking lot which I’ve never seen outside of Fright Fest. How busy were they? Well...

(we walked by, it was not a typo).

- Now that Kingda Ka can run independently of Zumanjaro, the gloves are off. The crew yesterday was the best I’ve ever seen on that ride. They were practically running.

Also: There is no longer a station grouper and you are free to wait for row one no matter what. We did, as we always do. Amazing ride...

- I’m so used to riding Nitro in the winter that I forget what this thing can do when it warms up. That hill before the swoopy hill into the helix (I named that element just now) was providing borderline ejector air all day long.

- We rode the Flume. We asked if we could not be grouped, we were denied. I should have just jumped in the lake to get less wet. Please stop doing this, nobody likes it. 

- The new temporary dinosaur thing was cool. After 6:00 you can pay 5 bucks and do it as a walkthrough rather than a drive through. It’s better than Dinosaurs alive was. The animatronics are pretty solid.

Overall we had an awesome day (thanks to Flash Pass). Come out and ride this thing, you won’t regret it. Just don’t do it on a Saturday unless you’re getting there at opening, but if you do you should rope drop the Flash Pass building, not Jersey Devil. Flash Pass lines stretched back to the Joker entrance yesterday. They really need to improve that system.

[Zand]

Standing in a line to get into the line. Employee just came by to say it won't be open for at least another hour with guys working on the lift.

That's a...uhhh...good start on the first day open to the public.

Edit: They've changed their wording from "extended delay of over an hour" to "major delay, we recommend you don't wait for it."

GREAT!

Edit again: Closed for the day! Guess I'll ride whatever doesnt have an insane line and head out. Sounds like it ran fine for all 4 days it's been open. Figures once I make a 4 hour drive it shits the bed.

[JJLehto]

Yeah it really speaks about the quality of the lineup when a ride like this is NOT the automatic best in park and people can be let down it isn't "more". I piss on this park a lot, and I will never stop lol, BUT it does have some great rides. Also speaking of being spoiled it is kinda funny how quickly we went from OMG WOW about RMC to now we can gripe that one is less great than others/gotten spoiled that not EVERY RMC is a contender for best coaster lol 

But yeah I'm stoked and yeah kudos/sorry to yall that have no choice but to do a weekend LOL not a chance in hell, least not till later in the season. I'm glad the week is currently free to me. Watching the weather tomm may be too much of a washout, maybe tuesday. 

 

EDIT: @Zand damn! Sorry man That is brutal. Sucks hat happened and yeah it's just shit luck and can't be helped but oof terrible public opening day for sure. Hope ya can enjoy the rest of the rides, maybe next time but man that does hurt sorry