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Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv) Discussion Thread


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WTF is this abortion of a waffle?

 

Also, why would they put this on the dining plan? If they saw that the old waffles were so good that people were buying them even though they had the dining plan, why would you give them away for free? Obviously these won't be nearly as good now since Six Flags is making them, but what's the logic behind this?

 

 

Maybe because everyone bitches the dining plan is pretty shitty food and they took alot of stuff off this past season, by adding these more people will love the plan

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So I might be headed to the park on Saturday November 4th (the first weekend after Fright Fest). Any idea on crowds? I know its bring-a-friend-for-$10 but was hoping it'd be pretty calm.

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So I might be headed to the park on Saturday November 4th (the first weekend after Fright Fest). Any idea on crowds? I know its bring-a-friend-for-$10 but was hoping it'd be pretty calm.

 

Lines will be very short and you'll have an amazing time. Bizarro, Safari (kind of) and Mine Train will probably be closed for the season though. Skyway will probably be temporarily closed until Holiday in the Park.

 

Also, it's Grape Adventure that weekend if you're into that and (if you care) Safari is open for people who pay the Grape Adventure upcharge with the safari option.

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Made my first visit of the year yesterday (Saturday, 10/22). Arrived around 12:30 and started riding around 1:30 after standing in security line, buying season pass, getting flash pass, and finding locker. Left the park around 10:30 and was able to ride/ do the following (each 1x):

 

- El Toro

- Nitro

- Kingda Ka

- Zumanjaro

- The Joker

- Justice League

- The Dark Knight

- Superman

- Safari Adventure

- Skull Mountain

- The Manor (maze)

- Total Darkness (maze)

 

Would have been able to do Kingda Ka another time and Green Lantern if both hadn't closed at the end of the night.

 

Some notes / comments:

 

- The platinum flash pass was well worth it. The park was very crowded during the day and insanely crowded after 6:00 p.m.. Flash pass waiting times at night were all anywhere from 6 minutes to 15 minutes, implying hour to two-and-a-half hour waits for everything.

 

- El Toro and Kingda Ka remain my favorite rides.

 

- In terms of mazes - Total Darkness was ok, The Manor was meh. Thought about doing another one (Wicked Woods), but line was crazy long. Waited about an hour for Total Darkness - wasn't worth it. If you're going to get maze tickets, would get them at the stand near Justice League - barely had to wait.

 

- Ride ops were generally pretty good and fast. Definitely room for improvement to implement single riders, groups of two, etc. where there are empty seats. There's of course always a balance of just getting the train out vs. filling riders.

 

- Food lines were very slow and disappointing pretty much all day / night.

 

- Not sure why, but there was a huge line outside the "Ride Information Center"...?

 

- Noticed that several of the photo stations outside rides (for on ride photos) were either closed or not working. Wonder if they haven't been selling as much lately.

 

- Not sure how often / when it makes sense to get the multiple locker option ($8 for two hours at multiple locations vs. $1 for two hours at one location). Don't think you'd ever be able to justify enough rides in two hours to pay for the multiple

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Guys, I am an idiot and didn’t look at the schedule for today. We drove up from VA and have a bunch of time to kill before the 5:30pm opening tonight. Can anyone tell me - what time does the parking lot open? We want to be at/through security as fast as possible since it’ll probably be an absolute madhouse and go right for the flash pass center. If we go over there at 4:30 is that too early? Can we stand at security until 5:30 to breeze through?

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I don't know when the lot opens but people line up in their cars outside the gates all the time. Personally I'd probably go to iPlay America. There are a bunch of restaurants right up the road where you can grab lunch (there's a Friday's, a couple of sports bars, stuff like that...), their arcade opens at 3 and then at 4 you can ride their SBF spinning coaster which is actually a lot of fun. Just ride it once when it opens, get in the car and you'll be at Great Adventure 30+ minutes before opening. It's a super weird place that has a bunch of family rides but caters to adults for some dumb reason. They're basically a wanna-be Dave and Busters (for example... tonight is adult night with no kids allowed from 9pm to 2am).

 

That sounds better than sitting in the Six Flags parking lot playing "Count the Potholes".

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Yea, if you're already up there, I'd give the same advice as Bill. iPlay is 15 minutes up the road and a great way to kill time until Six Flags opens. It's not going to be a madhouse at 5:30, so don't be afraid of not being there immediately at opening.

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Is the mini bowling considered part of the arcade, do you know? What is the cheapest way to ride the spinner? There are 3 of us. Staying on topic, this is our cousin’s first time to SFGAdv! Prior to last month when he tagged along with us to BGW he had only been to SFA... once... lol. Poor guy. He absolutely loved Griffon and Apollo’s Chariot so I’m guessing he’ll love Nitro. Will report back, of course!

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Thanks for the info on iPlay, we had a great time there yesterday! I played some skeeball and a few other random games, then sat myself down at a coin pusher machine and my eyes glazed over. Before we knew it it was just after 5 so we left and headed to the park. Unfortunately it was dark so I took zero pictures but below is a TR of how our evening went.

 

We parked by the security tower at SFGAdv right at 5:30. Got through security in record time, went to the various locations to finish process our season passes, lunch meal deals and the photo pass. It was already crowded so we got in line for Flash Passes and that's when I realized we left all our IDs in the car since we are now following the minimalistic "don't lose your wallet or phone on coasters" lifestyle. Well, crap! Usually they hold an ID until you return the QBot but thankfully they told us if you have a season pass they can just scan that. Whew, crisis averted. Many thanks to alilstronger who mentioned a few pages back that the app had a discount on Flash Passes and we could ask to upgrade from regular to Gold and pay the difference. We were able to do that and save quite a bit of money!

 

A lot of rides seemed to be having problems warming up and/or staying running so we weren't as productive as we usually can be but it was still a fun evening. Watched the parade of ghosts at 6PM and tried out Justice League. I'm absolutely horrible at shooting games but somehow got 98,000 points and crushed everyone in our ride vehicle! I thought it was a decent ride but was a little disappointed with how little time you spent in each room and how quickly we passed that cool Joker animatronic but it's a solid (and indoor!) addition.

 

After that we took a few spins on Nitro and hit up Skull Mountain. Then I waited in a line for a snack and told the boys I'd meet them at the Flash Pass entrance Sky Screamer, which they wanted to ride. One of these days I'll learn to never split up from SO because he disappears and it has caused a lot of confusion trying to locate him in the past. When I say I'm meeting someone at the entrance to Sky Screamer I don't mean two buildings down at a dark picnic table, or 200 paces in the opposite direction at the dark bathrooms, I mean at the actual FP ride entrance. Since we were being minimalistic I was the only one with a phone and I also was the only one with money or passes but SO had the QBot. I got to Sky Screamer and waited, and waited, and waited... and the crowds kept getting heavier and heavier. They couldn't have gone too far but trying to find 2 generic looking guys in black hoodies in a sea of thousands of other people also in black hoodies with fog machines going was proving to be impossible. I was staying put though and just over 30 minutes later they finally showed up saying they went to ride Squashbuckler (I didn't even know what that was so would never have thought to look there) after Sky Screamer and it took much longer than planned to get on. At least we were reunited so could continue!

 

We went back and forth about what to ride next since Ka and Superman were both listed down on the QBot but eventually decided to take the Sky Ride over to Bizarro. Had an awesome ride in row 2 and they were doing a decent job with 3 trains going. The amount of people who tried to ride with their velcro capes, blinky horns, etc. on and then struggled to remove those items with the restraints down was ridiculous but the ops did a good job dealing with it. Since our cousin was with us and he had never been there we wanted to get him on as many things as possible instead of just marathon El Toro all night like we normally would do.

 

Next up was El Toro which was sporting quite a long standby line that was spilling out into the midway. Whoever was holding the line back before sending people up into the station did a great job as it never got super crowded up on the platform! They were not patting anybody down but asked people to put things in lo.ck.er.s. Shockingly, most people didn't comply which caused some chaos during loading as people struggled to put their phones away or throw things to friends behind the air gates. Could have used you, El_Toro_Ryan! Had 2 awesome rides in the magic seat at which point we were able to reserve Ka even though we hadn't seen it go. We had 35 minutes to kill so people watched and rode the parachute drop which was a walk-on. As we went to click our QBot to the attendant's, Ka went down and despite seeing people working on it for a while it never came back up. Eventually we bailed so the boys could get hot chocolate and I had an Icee because I am part penguin, then went on Zumanjaro and finished the day on Superman just before midnight.

 

Our cousin had a great time and can't wait to go back next summer with us to experience the safari and the ton of other rides we didn't get on. I'll be back up in December for HITP and it looks like they're basically ready to turn on all the holiday lights already. A gold star to all of you who read this!

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Eventually we bailed so the boys could get hot chocolate and I had an Icee because I am part penguin

Nothing wrong with that. I never understood people who can't drink delicious cold beverages in the cold. They are still delicious

 

Anyway, cool report! Glad you got reunited eventually i'd imagine without cell phones, as you said, that can definitely suck. Sounds like flash pass made for a great night.

 

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Nice report! Needs more photos.

I agree! Ok just for you, here are the only two I took on Friday

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Hilarious Stinky Feet bathtub squirt game at iPlay. You shoot at either foot or the bar of soap.

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This was sadly as close as my cousin got to riding Ka on Friday.

 

I never understood people who can't drink delicious cold beverages in the cold. They are still delicious Anyway, cool report!

 

Fellow cold beverage in cold weather lovers, unite! The snack I stopped for earlier in the night when I was lost in the dark alone with the roaming scare actors was a chocolate shake from Johnny Rockets and I got quite a few looks at that as well haha. When I had the large Icee at 11 PM there were tons of people walking past us with huge throw blankets around them and several ladies shuddered when they saw me happily sipping away while they shivered and rubbed their shoulders. It's not like it was all that cold out, it was high 40's and absolutely no wind!

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Awesome! ^

 

The parks story on their Instagram last night featured a great live shot of Dead Man's Party and Nitro. Here is screenshot I snagged.

 

Screenshot_20171029-140054.thumb.png.49f0a8d5a015263c77b26b0f84941d1e.png

Also, the park is closed today to the surprise of absolutely no one. Unfortunately for a few, they didn't make that announcement until four minutes after they were scheduled to open today, and the crazies that showed up were turned away at security.

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I really want to get out here sometime for one of the bonus days. Looking at the schedule I see the park is opened on Nov 7th. So far I have checked and schools are in session and this day just stands out. Is there something I'm missing? Like some sort of event going on? I'm thinking this will be a great dead day at the park, but figured I'd ask first.

 

Thanks

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Bounced by for a few hours on Saturday early in the day. Got there about 20 minutes before opening and they already had attendants in the parking lot directing traffic, that was a new one on me. We ended up parking to the far right (I usually prefer by the barricades near the security tower, but eh, whatever). We ended up processing my soon-to-be 3-year-old daughter's first season pass, getting our 2018 dining passes added, and picking up the new purple drink bottles. Speaking of those purple bottles, is it just me, or does the color attract wasps? We had them all filled with water only and yet those wasps were hovering around them like crazy. All told, the entry and renewal process took all of 15 minutes, which isn't bad for Six Flags. Was expecting much worse with it being the last weekend to process the renewals & get the Gold upgrade, but all in all, it wasn't bad at the beginning of the day.

 

The big kiddo and I did a few rides for ourselves. Although this is our home SF park, he still hadn't been on their Joker since it opened, but this past year he rode the clones at Six Flags New England as well as Six Flags Great America, so he was happy to finally get around to this one. A short ten minute wait at 11:20 got us directed to the purple side. We hopped in the car facing towards Harley Quinn, and proceeded to have one of the best rides on a Joker yet with five full flips and a large amount of upside-down hang time! Glad to see they've definitely made improvements to it after that lukewarm opening season. After Joker, the wife, kiddo, and kiddette all hopped on the carousel and the two kids got on one of the tandem horses (I think it was a chicken). I sat this one out to babysit the stroller. My wife reports that the carousel feels even more rickety this season than it has in years past. Between that and the fact that it just looks beat up, it would be nice to see them pump some money into a restoration of the carousel much like SFMM did recently.

 

We cut through the arcade and made our way towards El Toro, with a stop off for a quick Macho Nacho lunch. Their burritos are still IMO some of the best food in the park; although I miss the quesadillas, these are jam-packed and filling. There was no line and the food came quickly, which again was a pleasant surprise for a Fright Fest Saturday. After we wrapped up our lunch, we split into boys and girls groups, with the kiddo and I hopping onto the Bull for a quick couple of rides, and my wife and kiddette spending some quality time on Tango. Again, the lack of lines early in the day helped us get a pair of rides in quick succession, walking right onto the train both times. According to him, Toro has now reclaimed his top spot for favorite wooden coaster and Lightning Rod has dipped back down to #2. This changes on a daily basis for him though, and I'm sure by the time we revisit Dollywood in December it's probably going to change again. After we got our two rides in, we jumped right next door to El Diablo which also had an empty queue; this was another one that the kiddo had yet to ride although he's been on a bunch of clones (seriously, I think just about every park we visited on our summer road trip had one of these Super Loops). It was a little disappointing that it had such a short ride cycle compared to others, but going upside down and hanging up at the top for what feels like an eternity is always fun, screw the haters. XD

 

After we met up with the girls again, we gave the daughter some quality time and hit all the kiddie rides in the Bugs Bunny National Park section. Her big brother was more than game to ride with her, and I really appreciate the fact that he doesn't mind accompanying her. To him, a ride is a ride is a ride, whether or not it's a tiny little balloon race ride or a 400' tall drop tower. As for her, she's only two and she absolutely LOVES all the rides. What she doesn't love, though, is waiting in line, and she's not shy about letting everyone know it. Vocally. LOUDLY. Hopefully as time goes on she'll manage to develop her patience skills.

 

By this point in the day, it was about 2:30 PM, and we had a Halloween party in the evening to get to, so we wrapped it up with a pair of tall rides; the kiddo and I made the long trek back through the Golden Kingdom and got on Zumanjaro. He had a bit of a rough experience last year where he got a bloody lip from the ride, and was a little bit self-conscious that it was going to happen again, so I had to reassure him that it would be fine. He sat back, kept his head leaned all the way back, and glad to say this time it was without incident. Phew! Then, as we all made our way back through the Kingdom again, the kiddette and I queued up for her first-ever ride on the Parachute Drop. Again, a little bit nervous about this as this was the tallest ride she'd ever been on (not counting the self-enclosed Kissing Tower at Hershey's), but she rode it like a champion, and was waving bye-bye to her big brother and mom down on the ground, as she marvelled at how small they were getting. It's a mild ride, for sure, but fun and unique and one I never mind hitting.

 

As we exited the park around 3:10 PM and headed back to the Turnpike to visit our previous engagement, we couldn't help but chuckle at the ridiculous traffic heading the opposite direction. Cars were backed up all the way past the McDonald's & Wawa just off the exit, all lining up to get in. If you ever have to go to Great Adventure on a Saturday during Fright Fest... do exactly what we did and get there at opening, otherwise you're gonna be in for a bad time. But for us, an early start + perfect weather + no lines = a great four hours at the park!

 

Not much in the way of photos but here's what I've got:

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The kiddo waiting for El Diablo, and representing the Cult. (We'll be back next weekend with his best friend who just made 44" this year, and he can't WAIT to introduce him to it!)

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Yours truly and the kiddette getting some "air" time. :)

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Yours truly and the kiddo getting some air time of a different variety, as only El Toro can provide!

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After careful review, yes, we can confirm it was indeed a chicken.

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Thanks for the awesome report, Chris!

 

As for her, she's only two and she absolutely LOVES all the rides. What she doesn't love, though, is waiting in line, and she's not shy about letting everyone know it. Vocally. LOUDLY. Hopefully as time goes on she'll manage to develop her patience skills.

 

We dealt with this with my 4 yr old nephew and now with the other nephew who just turned 2. Sucks so bad. The 4 yr old is now slowly starting to get that everyone wants to ride and he has to wait his turn (I use the old "what's great about waiting is we get to watch the ride and see how it works!"), but the 2 yr old has no concept of why we're waiting, and jumps between being pissed off that we're just standing there and being completely indecisive about whether or not he even wants to ride. Your son is awesome though, he's so into it! I can't even imagine riding a drop tower at 5 yrs old. lol

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So I might be headed to the park on Saturday November 4th (the first weekend after Fright Fest). Any idea on crowds? I know its bring-a-friend-for-$10 but was hoping it'd be pretty calm.

 

Lines will be very short and you'll have an amazing time. Bizarro, Safari (kind of) and Mine Train will probably be closed for the season though. Skyway will probably be temporarily closed until Holiday in the Park.

 

Also, it's Grape Adventure that weekend if you're into that and (if you care) Safari is open for people who pay the Grape Adventure upcharge with the safari option.

Bummer about Bizarro. Are all the other major coasters expected to be running? I was thinking of taking at trip there next weekend. Thanks!

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