TR: Four Hours at Great Adventure -- April 9th, 2OO6

[Legendary]

I went to Great Adventure for Opening Night last Friday and things were excellent. Granted, Shapiro and company were in the park, so I was anxious to get back once they had left. Well, that opportunity was afforded to me sooner than later.

 

I returned to the park this (Sunday) afternoon and found much of the same. I breezed through the gate and was greeted by a greeter handing out park guides and wishing me a nice day. As I progressed down Main Street, I noticed Taz, Yosemite Sam, and Daffy all interacting, dancing, and taking pictures with park guests.

 

I headed towards Movietown and the park was bustling with activity. It was Girl Scout Weekend, or something. Spinmeister is still being reassambled, as is the case with the Flying Wave. Wonderwoman and Batman were greeting guests by the Musik Express (which, along with the Big Wheel and Buccaneer, had all of it's lights replaced and flashing) and the Henna Tatoo place. I noticed The Flash riding the bumper cars with the kids. Chiller: Robin was going full throttle (which I hadn't seen in a while) and Chiller: Batman had some maintenance activity going on around it.. I'd expect it to open soon.

 

Batman: The Ride was running two trains, as was Nitro (third is still being rehabbed). I noted more characters in Looney Tunes Seaport and new, cheerful, cartoonish music being played there as well. I planned on taking a ride on Nitro, but as I entered the queue, the ride shutdown, stranding guests on the lift hill. So I set my sights on Skull Mountain, also running two trains. I passed the former site that housed Evolution and noted that it was being put to good use as a smoking area for guests.

 

I took a walk along the Great Lake to the otherside of the park, and noticed that the Sky Ride was in full operation, both stations. Another thing I noticed were the plentiful ''sweeperettes'' and how clean everything was. Plenty of employees with pans and brooms, and those neat little "claws" picking up trash throughout the park. Cutting back onto Dream Street, I took a ride on Houdini's Great Escape (the kids loved it) and noticed that the Great Character Cafe had installed new tv's inside.

 

Great American Scream Machine was running all three trains (again!) and Superman: Ultimate Flight running two. Heading back into the Golden Kingdom, I queued up for Kingda Ka; it broken down intermittenly (4-5 times) but only one breakdown was lengthy (20-some minutes). It was running two trains, left side station. I heard from some guests on the ride out of the park that it had a quite lengthy shutdown earlier in the day and when they complained about it at Guest Relations, "they were satisfied with the results".

 

Kingda Ka ate up a nice chunk of my time, so after that, I hit Medusa (2 train operation) and very short wait. Checked out the Mine train/Frontier Adventure Skyride station -- both had longer waits than I had the patience for at the time. So I took a quick walk around Bugs Bunny National Park where I saw Petunia Pig and Bugs riding the Carousel with one of the younger Girl Scout troops and headed back over to Nitro (running now.. with two trains again) to end my night.

 

Since my car is in the shop, I headed out to the parking lot when I got a call from my ride; saying she was made to park in a side lot for pick up/drop off by the Safari. Asked security about this, and apparently, pick up/drop off has been moved to the area that was formerly used for parking for the Safari employees, I believe. It's adjacent to Kingda Ka. Anywho, I waited for the tram to come pick me up (2 running) and a short while later, I was off at the third stop (after a nicely narrated ride.. keep that guy!) the pick up and drop off area.

 

Overall, I saw much of the same as last weekend. Maximum capacity on all *available* trains, a very, very clean park (bathrooms included), lots and lots of security (Jackson Twp Police, "EVENT SECURITY, park officers), lots of streetmosphere and costumed characters all over the park, and park photographers all over the park, instead of just the front gate (people want their pictures taken in front of more things than just the fountain) and that was clearly abundant at Main Street Photo -- which was absolutely MOBBED when I was on my way out of the park.

 

Overall, a very nice time. And speaking with some supervisors today, expect things to just keep getting better from this point forward. (Sorry to burst bubbles, but everyone I talked to today pointed more towards early June as ET's opening, NOT Memorial Day weekend, as I had heard last weekend). Of course, this was not ''official'' so YMMV...

[rjholla2003]

Memorial Day Weekend, June, it's only like a day difference anyway. That's really nice to hear that the charachters were riding things with the kids. I didn't see that at all opening weekend.

 

I'm suprised that Shapiro made two visits to Gadv on opening weekend. I knew he was there on Sunday, but I'm suprised to hear he was there on Friday as well.

[SharkTums]

I'm glad to hear this Rob, I only hope it stays this way. SFMM seemed to have about 6-8 weeks of good visits in a row, then fell back into their old ways. Maybe if Shapiro visits more of the parks more often it will stay better.

 

Is 2 Train operation on Ka good?

[Rider117]

They should have 4 trains running but the other one is waiting to get done with rehab.