Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv) Discussion Thread

[Zand]

There's secretly electrified wire just inside the wood, so anyone who puts a key or other metal object on it will be electrocuted and become food for the Jersey Devil.

Pretty awesome sign though!

[coasterbill]

I mean... these are the people that they're dealing with

 

[tndank]

New sign is great.  

[KBrylczyk]

^ That sign looks wonderful.  Shame what's gonna happen to it.

[Superbatboy]

They really did a nice job with the area surrounding JDC. Nice to see SF actually put some effort in. 

[Masquerade]

9 hours ago, coasterbill said:

Also this should be set back from the path because if it's actually made out of wood, everyone is going to scratch their names into it in 5 seconds.

[michaellynn4]

He killed 16 Czechoslovakians!

Seriously though, love the little touches. Was waiting for this to finally get installed.

[Chasehat]

10 hours ago, coasterbill said:

I mean... these are the people that they're dealing with

 

They were just making up for the fact that the flume was closed!

[coasterbill]

The park has quietly updated the hours for a few operating days in the coming weeks:

Friday, June 25th - 8pm close (previously 7pm)
Saturday, June 26th - 9pm close (previously 8pm)
July 2nd through 4th - 10pm close (previously 9pm)

[Chasehat]

Stopped in for my first visit of the season today and had a great time as usual. Park wasn’t as crowded as I expected but the gold FP helped us get more done than we would’ve in 6 hours.

 

Also, idk If it was a Saturday and they were expecting it to be super busy, but when we pulled into the lot at 9:15 they let us straight in and thru security and then thru the front gate right away. We got the flash passes squared away by 9:45 and when we got to Devil at 9:50 they let us right on and seemed to have already been cycling trains for a bit. Love to see that from Six Flags.

 

Operations were pretty solid across the park, Bizarro sucked as usual but everywhere else seemed really solid, walk of shames were really slowing Toro down tho.

 

Rides:

 

Jersey Devil (x1)- Not going to get too in depth since everyone in this thread already seems to have this covered and I only managed to get one ride in the front seat. It’s a great ride, it has some fun moments of airtime (especially the first camelback), cool inversions, and the turn around caught me by surprised with how forceful it was. And as Bill said in his review, the return run of airtime hills is a lot like Nitro’s just on a smaller scale. It’s probably my 3rd favorite ride in the park, behind Toro and Nitro, but hopefully at some point this year I can snag 
a backseat ride as the ride looks absolutely wicked in the back.

 

El Toro (x5)- the greatest coaster on the planet was in top form today. What can I say that hasn’t been said? The ride is absolutely spectacular and my rides in 6-2 were as smooth as I’ve ever experienced. Much better than my rides last year on my one trip when they were filling only like 8 seats and it was bouncy as hell and slow. 
 

Nitro (x3)- Nothing much to say here, the ride is absolutely spectacular and is one of the most underrated coasters I’ve ever ridden. Still my favorite B&M Hyper.

 

Batman (x1)- How a 28 year old B&M that is this snappy and thus forceful is still glass smooth is mind blowing to me. Such a terrific ride.

 

Skull Mountain (x1)- The drop in the back is still nuts but there’s a lot of gaps in the building now letting sunlight in hopefully that gets fixed.

 

Kingda Ka (x1)- I’m in the minority but from the front seat I prefer this over Dragster (albeit slightly). I’ve just always felt the launch on this hits much harder than Dragster and I’m not big enough that the OTSRs bug me and obviously it’s glass smooth in the front. Also, it’s so nice not needing to wait forever for it now that Zumie can run with it.

 

Zumajaro (x1)- We had a Ka train launch when we were about 3/4ths of the way up and the tower started shaking like crazy! Absolutely my craziest ride on Zumie since it opened. It honestly adds so much to the experience.

 

Superman (x1)- I used to really like this ride but over the last few years I’ve kinda soured on it. I’m just not a big fan of the way you lay on flyers and this one is so boring outside of the pretzel roll

 

Bizarro (x1)- As always a fun relaxing floorless with some nice forces for a B&M. Not much to say here expect for it somehow still has the worst crew in the park for like the 10th year in a row.

 

Another fantastic day at the park. If I could just drop Superman from SFNE (my home park) into Great Adventure I would literally never leave. Can’t wait to return and hopefully grab some back seat rides on JD.

 

Pics:

 

 

[xVicesAndVirtues]

Hey all, the boyfriend and I are planning on going to the park later this week and I've got a few questions. I have a lot of experience with this park so I know it can be slammed on a Tuesday morning for no reason and completely dead on a Saturday during fright fest for no reason, too, so for the most part I know what to expect, buuuuuut:

I saw on a random Great Adventure insta fan page that Jersey Devil is available on Platinum Flash Pass. I'm taking this with a grain of salt because fan pages can contain all sorts of wrong info. Can anyone confirm this, and if it is, is it a one-ride type deal? And does anyone know if it's available on other levels of Flash Pass other than Platinum?

I also took a look at Flash Pass availability online, moreso for the prices and to see if JD was listed, and I found that on a lot of days it says Bronze and Platinum aren't available, which is weird because I've never had a problem getting any level I've wanted. We went on a pretty busy day in the fall last year and got Platinum in person no problem. Do they maybe just restrict online availability? Given the unpredictability of the park, I don't want to spend like $300 on it and then show up and the park be a ghost town.

[SharkTums]

^^Great report. I think I would die if I was on Zumanjaro and they launched a Kingda Ka train. 

[Chasehat]

3 hours ago, xVicesAndVirtues said:

Hey all, the boyfriend and I are planning on going to the park later this week and I've got a few questions. I have a lot of experience with this park so I know it can be slammed on a Tuesday morning for no reason and completely dead on a Saturday during fright fest for no reason, too, so for the most part I know what to expect, buuuuuut:

I saw on a random Great Adventure insta fan page that Jersey Devil is available on Platinum Flash Pass. I'm taking this with a grain of salt because fan pages can contain all sorts of wrong info. Can anyone confirm this, and if it is, is it a one-ride type deal? And does anyone know if it's available on other levels of Flash Pass other than Platinum?

I also took a look at Flash Pass availability online, moreso for the prices and to see if JD was listed, and I found that on a lot of days it says Bronze and Platinum aren't available, which is weird because I've never had a problem getting any level I've wanted. We went on a pretty busy day in the fall last year and got Platinum in person no problem. Do they maybe just restrict online availability? Given the unpredictability of the park, I don't want to spend like $300 on it and then show up and the park be a ghost town.

I had the gold FP on Saturday and JD wasn’t available.

[Zand]

3 hours ago, SharkTums said:

^^Great report. I think I would die if I was on Zumanjaro and they launched a Kingda Ka train. 

Last time I rode Zumanjaro, KK launched right as we dropped. Missed the sweet visual by like 5 seconds. Based on how quick they were launching KK trains, both rides should run together quite a bit. Plus Zumi usually doesn't have much of a line so you could always give it a few tries!

[Kstr737]

I rode KK and Zumanjaro for the first time once each on Wednesday.  The Zumanjaro ride timed perfectly that we dropped and raced the Ka train down the tower.  I had the right most seat in the right most car.   It was surreal.  Apparently there is no timing and it appears to happen about one out of every 25-30 times.

We had Platinum and Jersey Devil was on it.  This wasn't advertised at the pick-up point.  We didn't realize it until we were waiting in line for JD to open and one of the crew told us.  Scanning through the wristwatch it was indeed there and did activate when the ride opened (around 3 pm).  We were told it was platinum only.  First time they made us wait in the pre-security line.  Then once the entrance team recognized and cleared us, we could go right up to the formal queue entrance and skip the pre-security line.

They were running a strict locker policy (ala Steel Vengeance) though with no metal detectors.  3 or 4 people were looking for bulging pockets (front and ass) and kicking people back.  Closest lockers are by Nitro.  And those were filling up/breaking.  End of the day my all day locker was no longer working but hourly rentals still were going at the location.  

And for good reason.  My friend caught someone's Jeep keys on during one lap.  We asked the train including Canobie in the front seat but he wasn't driving a Jeep. (and probably knows better)

[tndank]

Was JD unlimited on FP or one of those 1 time use BS situations?

 

[jackinbox]

35 minutes ago, tndank said:

Was JD unlimited on FP or one of those 1 time use BS situation?

 

Nope, it's unlimited.  

[xVicesAndVirtues]

Visited the park today and it was very busy, but I can happily report that operations were outstanding. Everything was open and running multiple trains. Of course there were a few "Six Flagsy" moments here and there like Bizarro crew getting thrown off their stride by 3 guests coming through the handicapped line and some food service employees who had no clue what a mobile order was...lol but generally everything was very well-run and consistent. Bizarro and Nitro were both running 3 trains, El Toro 2, Kingda Ka 3 and Kingda Ka's crew was fastest in the park. 

We really liked Jersey Devil and it does a great job of splitting the difference between Nitro and El Toro. The restraints are awkward, though. We got Platinum Flash Pass and Jersey Devil was indeed unlimited on it.

Upon arrival, the parking lot was pretty full and it steadily got busier as the day went on.

You already know this is the best sh*t ever. If I really want to nit pick, there are some spots on El Toro that could use a little TLC, mostly coming out of the second large airtime hill, the bottom of the turnaround, and right before/after the speed hill. It wasn't brutal or anything, but a little bit headache-inducing when marathoning. But this is still basically the best coaster on the planet.

We got one ride on Kingda Ka. It went down temporarily once or twice, but that's the sort of thing you expect with these. The operations were extremely fast and they were cranking out trains and it was running very smooth.

Nitro was also running great. Super fast, great airtime, smooth, and they even got new restraint covers so the plastic wasn't all picked apart like in previous years.

And we got a few rides in on Jersey Devil. It's still doing the thing where it breaks down a lot, but it's only for like 10 minutes at a time. There's a sign out front saying they're still calibrating it, but it really wasn't a big deal. Sometimes it would come back up and the flash pass would still show "delayed", but the ride attendants would just let us go through.

The coaster was great. It wasn't as crazy nor as intense as the clone models like Wonder Woman. But it was still a very intense ride, just much more re-rideable. The elements flow very well together and the transitions are smooth and way less janky that some of the ones on the clone models. The restraints are different and more comfortable than Wonder Woman's, but they still manage to not be that comfortable. The lap bar sits awkwardly on your legs and if you accidentally pull it too tight, the drops can be a little uncomfortable. I think restraint and train design are RMC's biggest opportunity for improvement. It's not terrible or anything, just a little bit awkward. We also rode Skyrush the day before so maybe that contributed.

The sea of people leaving the park. Honestly, I'm glad for Six Flags that they were so busy. I really want the industry to recover quickly and there's clearly a ton of demand right now. The fact that the park was so prepared to have a "normal" busy day impressed us. We've had several experiences this year with parks that have been a hot mess, like Busch Gardens Williamsburg basically falling apart on a busy day. I never thought I'd say that Six Flags as a company is handling such a major disruption better than the competition, but here we are. Go to Six Flags Great Adventure, you won't regret it.

 

[BigJoe123]

Construction is moving pretty quick for Lil' Devil (Rumored name for the coaster).
Credit- Kyle Majkowski on Facebook.

[AmyUD06]

Any idea on the cost to upgrade a season Gold Flash Pass to Platinum for just one day?

[KBrylczyk]

Quote

Any idea on the cost to upgrade a season Gold Flash Pass to Platinum for just one day?

[mtavenger55]

Ticket purchased. Going Thursdah July 1st!!!!

[chschris1]

I am planning on going to this park Friday July 16th and was curious if I should just go ahead and purchase Platinum Flash pass. I have only been to this park once and it was 2014 so I am not sure what to expect on a Friday in July. The last time I went was while Zumanjaro was under construction so Kingda Ka was closed and Zumanjaro was not yet running. 

 

I want to be able to spend a lot of time on coasters and rides and don't want to waste my money buying platinum if I don't need to. I'd also take any other advice on navigating this park at opening and any other suggestions anyone has? THANKS! 

[coasterbill]

I don’t really think Platinum is necessary if you want to save money but I would buy some type of Flash Pass. Generally though if you reserve the ride as soon as you scan in to the previous ride (make sure you get scanned, sometimes it’s not right at the greeter), by the time you finish waiting in the station, ride the ride and walk over to the new ride it should be time to ride with the mid level Flash Pass.

You can also take the opportunity to wait a few extra trains for a better row since you’re technically waiting for two rides at once anyway.

You can also get the regular one and just ride Jersey Devil while waiting for other rides since it’s not on Flash Pass (though that could change, so check first).

[xVicesAndVirtues]

^Jersey Devil is on platinum, which is why I think it's currently likely the best option if the queue is full. Otherwise I'd just get gold any other day. Also one thing we did notice was that the flash pass service center employees are still generally clueless as to the member upgrade pricing. I had to pull up the member benefits page on my phone and show them where it says that (DE members, at least, I'm not 100% sure about the other tiers) get an automatic tier upgrade (pay for bronze, get gold or pay for gold, get platinum), and he just kept pressing some kind of discount button until it was $5 cheaper than I calculated, which we were fine with lol. It was about $105 each for platinum the day we visited.