Photo TR: The Jersey Shore & SFNJ

Monday - July 17, 2006

Morey's Piers – Wildwood, NJ

 

Every year, around this time in the summer, my parents, brother, and usually my girlfriend Ali make the trip down to SFGADV and the Jersey Shore. Unfortunately, Ali was not able to make the trip, but the rest of us went as planned. We left Rhode Island about 4:00 am and successfully avoided New York traffic, arriving in Wildwood, NJ at 11:00. For those of you unfamiliar with Wildwood, it is a long boardwalk stretching down to Cape May, featuring six blocks of public beaches and three awesome amusement piers. We didn't waste any time-after checking into our hotel in Wildwood Crest, my brother Cory and I threw the sunblock on and hit the beaches.

 

After about half an hour swimming in the Atlantic, it was time for rides-and Morey's Piers have LOTS of them. As mentioned before there are three piers, I will list them from North to South.

 

Surfside Pier

 

We paid the $40 each for the multipark wristband and started with Surfside Pier. (Morey's rides use tickets but bands are available) I noticed a lot of changes to this pier, (I hadn't been to Wildwood in about 2 years) some I had known about and some I did not. New for 2005 was the AtmosFEAR Drop Tower. I believe it is a Zamperla Z-Force but I could be wrong. The ride is near the end of the pier, overlooking the adjacent waterpark and offers a great view of the Atlantic Ocean.

 

One cool thing about Wildwood's rides is that they are basically all intertwined into eachother, and some even go below the boardwalk and very close to other rides' areas. So is the same for the Zoom Phloom, which is definitely my favorite log ride ever. The flume features two huge drops and a very long elevated course over the waterpark and amusement pier and seems to come WAY to close to the Vekoma SLC. After the first big drop, the logs enter a tunnel labeled “under the boardwalk” and that's what they do... There is a small dark-rideish section in which the song is playing and there are some scenes that show what might happen under there... This ride is very unique, one of the best on the pier. You don't get completely soaked but the water was nice in the unusual heat.

 

Renovated very recently (and I was a bit skeptical about this) was Dante's Inferno. (a ride-thru ghost house) It is now known as Dante's Dungeon and has been completely rebuilt, with a new facade, actual props and tricks that work, and most importantly a live actor or two... All I can say is WOW, what a difference in quality. The facade features new artwork and a demon that spews fog/smoke down onto the pier below. The three-headed dragons are still there, about the only thing I recognize from the older ride. Dante is a two-level haunted house that sends the little carts outside a few times for a quick turnaround before crashing back through the building. It reaches the bottom floor via a long outside ramp, which is where the actor scared the hell out of me just out of the non-rider's view. GREAT new props, can't believe they went and fixed this gem up. Well done Morey's! If you're a dark ride fan, check this one out.

 

Besides having some kiddies and flat rides like a Condor, Gravitron, a giant slide, fun house, etc. Surfside has a few coasters as well. One of the little changes was the windstorm-like coaster was replaced by a coaster from a neighboring pier-The Doo Wopper, a 50's themed wild mouse coaster that oddly enough sells an onride video from wireless cameras. I was surprised they put the cameras on such a minor coaster. This ride is fun, and like everything else that day, had no lines due to the extreme heat. The coaster opened a few years ago, and used to be located on Adventure Pier and was moved here recently.

 

At the front of the pier is a Flitzer coaster which is just an 'ok' ride, a zippy little fairground coaster. The most noticeable ride, perhaps in the whole area is the Great Nor Easter, a Vekoma SLC. It was painted this year to a bright white color so a lightshow can be displayed on it after dark. It looks pretty good too, with this and Atmos Fear making a pretty impressive appearance. It seems this coaster has been taken care of better than any of the many SLCs I've been on over the years. The coaster is slightly modified to have the station on the left side, and it's unbelievable how they intertwine the twisted layout around waterslide towers and walkways, the Zoom Phloom and other surrounding areas. The climb up the lift offers a view right out onto the ocean, ride is definitely a good example of what an SLC should be, all about location.

 

So now we're walking south down the boardwalk to the next pier. If you plan on visiting Wildwood, either plan on doing a lot of walking back and forth between the ride piers, or ride the infamous tram cars that travel down the yellow paths on the boardwalk. Every time one approaches, the extremely repetitive but delightfully cheesy “watch the tramcar, please” spiel is heard. It's funny watching the crowded boardwalk open up just enough to let the trams through. The tram costs two dollars each way, since we'd been eating Jumbo's pizza (which is the best I've ever had) we decided it would be better to walk off those calories and save the few bucks for upcharge rides. Speaking of which... there are two haunted houses and many “extreme” rides that require an extra fee.

 

The two haunted houses that require an extra fee are “Zombie World” and “Den of Lost Thieves” and they are both located on the boardwalk between Surfside Pier and Mariners Landing. We had ridden both before but decided to give Zombie World another try. Den of Lost Thieves is a Sally shooting dark ride themed to pirates. It's decent, I forget exactly how much it cost but it wasn't too outrageous. Zombie World is the better of the two, you can't miss the huge animatronic monster in front of the building luring guests to drop the $5 (w/coupon) for this unique shooting ride. You board a wide caged car that creeps through a good-sized track in which you shoot zombies and monsters that jump out in front of the cage. No cardboard cutouts here, all lifelike stuff so I found it to be worth the money, I suppose. You can also re-ride immediately for only a dollar more, making it only $3 a ride. Good stuff, check it out if you're in the area.

 

Mariners Landing

 

We did the two north piers first as Adventure Pier didn't open until 4pm that day. Mariner's Landing also has a nice waterpark on the pier (Raging Waters, the other is Ocean Oasis on Surfside Pier) Onto the rides: Mariners has two coasters: The Sea Serpent, a Vekoma Boomerang in great shape, and Rollie's Coaster, a surprisingly smooth, well maintained Pinfari Z40 model. The pier has a suspended monorail that runs parallel with pedal carts around the back half of the ride park and waterpark. They also have what I think is the best flat ride in Wildwood-The Maelstrom which is a KMG Spinout.

 

Mariners Landing has a giant wheel built right over the waterpark, and has most of the kid's rides of all the piers. Newly refurbished and given new life, is “Pirates Of Wildwood” which is the park's old “Dark River” haunted boat ride. Upon entering your boat, you're given a pair of 3D glasses. Believe it or not, the 3D effects actually work, but are mostly just ultraviolet paintings. There are some actual moving props and some good effects on this short dark boat ride. I found it to be much better than the old Dark River version.

 

Adventure Pier

 

The last of the three piers is my least favorite, but has the best coaster of all three parks the Great White. Great White is a CCI out and back with some unique elements and like all of the other rides at Morey's offers a beautiful view of the Atlantic. The steel supported wooden coaster begins with a dive under the boardwalk and then turns to climb the lift hill. Airtime is plentiful on this coaster and as long as you hit it before it gets dark, you can basically reride as many times as you want. My brother and I had the train to ourselves for a couple of rides. Great White is definitely something special and is worth the trip to Wildwood alone.

 

Adventure Pier has some classic boardwalk stuff like a skyride, gokarts, a retro “snake slide”, maze, etc. but also has modern favorites like the S&S Screamin' Swing, Skycoaster, Spring Shot, and Chance Inverter. It's a fun park, but flooded with upcharge rides so there's not much you can do with your wristband here. Jersey Junkyard is a pretty dull haunted house and the only one that didn't get any love over the last couple years. AP also has the area's only walkthrough haunted house “Curse Of The Mummy 3D” which is pretty unexciting, and has the painted on 3D effects, but hey, it's a walkthrough and they're becoming pretty rare these days.

 

That's day one of my trip, please enjoy the following photos.

While my brother and I were just randomly posing near the Great White, SharkTums bursted through the boardwalk and was like "YeaaaaahhhhH!!!"

Who says White coasters can't jump? This thing has some serious airtime issues! I love this photo...

Jersey Junkyard, the name says it all.

Chance ride of death, the inverter, located at the entrance to the Great White.

A must if you like "extreme" rides.

The Great White, and the rest of Adventure Pier.

Sean and Cory taking a breather before the next long hike to Adventure Pier.

I suppose the will be today's "signature shot"... The Sea Serpent with the giant wheel in the background. And what?

Pirates of Wildwood. It was actually pretty neat. Check out the awesome new facade!

At the entrance to ML, is Jumbo's Pizza, the best pizza I've had. Ever. They have these funny signs all around the outdoor eating area, about 6 different ones, all pretty funny.

Mariners Landing from afar.

Also between the two piers is the Golden Nugget, This ride is just bizzare, and it's been abandoned for years since Dinosaur Beach closed. It combines a wooden coaster with a dark ride. Morey's is attempting to relocate the ride.

Grawrrrrr!! I'm evil zombie creature, gimme $5.99!

The entrance to Zombie World. The building looks small from the outside, I have to wonder where the hell the ride is!

On your way to Mariners Landing you will find this, one of two shooting dark rides-Den of Lost Thieves.

I wish I had taken some photos of TGNE at night with the awesome lighting.

Talk about foot-choppers!

The Great Nor' Easter looking sharp in its new bright white paint.

Dante's Dungeon, the best haunted house in Wildwood was a huge surprise, right on level with some major park's haunted houses. Don't let the outside of the ride fool you!

When we met up with mom later, we actually convinced her to try it out. That's her in the front of the log.

The Zoom Phloom, easily one of the best log flume rides out there. Such a long ride, and just a lot of fun.

Well, I was having fun until Shark Tums came along... The leg was later amputated.

For 40 dollars, they have a combo that you can ride the Slingshot, Screamin Swing and the Skycoaster. Which I thought was an amazing deal.

 

Glad you had an awesome time at Morey's. Did you play Fascination?

HAHA! I kicked your ass!

Tuesday - July 18, 2006

Ocean City, Atlantic City, Seaside Heights

 

This will be a pretty short report considering I was at three different destinations throughout the day.

It was SO hot today... Still in the upper 90's and I was missing a leg from yesterday's adventures. Not good when you're expected to walk three more boardwalks. Luckily, the casinos in Atlantic City pitied me, and decided to only take an arm, seeing that a leg was already gone 2 days into this Jersey trip.

 

Ocean City wasn't nearly as good as I had hoped it would be, and I couldn't ride the two fairground type coasters on account of they open at 1pm and we were there in the morning. The area is nice, don't get me wrong, there just didn't seem to be many rides here... and I'm not much of a credit whore so the coasters were just meh to me...

 

Atlantic City was fun, the Wild West casino is pretty cool, and we ate at the Rainforest Cafe. There are two coasters in AC, a kiddy coaster which I obviously passed and a ridiculously priced Wild Mouse which I've already been on before, so still... no coasters. An hour North and we were heading into Seaside Heights, which isn't as good as Wildwood but better than the two aforementioned places.

 

Seaside Heights has a nice boardwalk and two amusement piers, Funtown Pier and Casino Pier. Funtown is supposedly closing down at the end of the year to make room for condos. I had ridden all of their rides last year so there was no need to ride anything there. I did take a stroll through as it may be the last time I'm able to do so... They have a decent walkthru haunted house, a looping star, a crazy custom wild mouse which is pretty fun and has a couple of surprising drops, a double shot, a family coaster, go karts, a copyright infringe-o-rific spongebob dark ride, etc. This place seems kind of ghetto but it will still be sad to see it go for real estate purposes.

 

I really love Casino Pier for some reason. It's not very big, but every thing's clean, modern rides, constantly being updated, you get the picture. CP has a Disko new for this year, replacing the Zamperla Power Surge. It was my first Disko ride and I really enjoyed it, just wish it went faster. These rides which seem common are enhanced by the fact that they're right on the beach, so they get some credit there. Other rides are a gorgeous Huss Enterprise newly renovated, Star Jet, a wicked Miler coaster with a huge drop and awesome layout, another unusual Wild Mouse, a portable log flume, a kiddy coaster (hot tamale, for you whores) lots of other flats and kiddy rides and the best ride there; Stillwalk Manor a really impressive dark ride.

 

Stillwalk Manor isn't a portable haunted house, even the outside of the building looks fantastic. The ride is LONG and features props that will actually startle you, and a level of detail not typically seen on boardwalk haunted houses. It's an absolute must for dark ride lovers. Besides the Disko, I was also pleasantly surprised to find another new for 2006 ride under construction: “Pirate's Hideaway” a Wisdom , partially enclosed dark ride/coaster. The ride was only half complete, so I snapped some photos before they finish it up. See my thread on this ride for a history on what it replaced, the wizard's cavern, I will repost the photos here...

Bud Man and his sidekick Cory. Cory loves his "buds". Yes, that's a fraggle hanging proudly from his crotch. He won it in the crane game.

Parts for "Pirate's Hideaway". You can see the vehicles here.

Awesome! I love when they remake classic rides.

Wicked haunted house, Stillwalk Manor. I know, not too many photos here... I was saving the memory for El Toro.

Wednesday - July 19, 2006

Intamin Goodness at Six Flags Great Adventure

 

We could only stop at SFNJ for a little while, and I come here several times a year anyways...

 

As soon as the park opened, we knew El Toro wouldn't be ready so we headed to the always reliable, Kingda Ka. An hour and a half of downtime later, we were on board. Great ride as usual, not usually worth the wait but I could only really do this side of the park with my limited time, so the 30 seconds of intensity was worth it I suppose.

 

By the time we were leaving the Golden Kingdom, El Toro was done with block testing and it was time to get my first ride on an Intamin prefab wooden coaster.

 

I got two rides in, both towards the back of the train. waited 30 minutes each. OMG... I won't describe the layout in detail as it's been done many times over but it is an amazing ride. The cable lift is so fast, the ride-so smooth. The airtime is just nonstop from drop to finish. ET is now my #2 behind SROS, if it had tunnels it probably would have beaten it.

 

I'd have to say one of the best parts is just coming off the lift and coming around the turnaround, and you realize just how steep that drop really. If you haven't been on El Toro yet, get out there and ride it. And for you West Coasters... get on a plane, it's worth it.

 

These two coasters were all we were able to do before leaving. The wait times were unbearable and the heat was still intense. Nitro-1 hr 20 mins, Superman 2 hrs, Batman, 1hr, Chiller-closed. Typical GADV-ness, lots of rides down. I'll be back later this year when the crowds die down and the ghetto line cutters go back into their holes for the winter.

Twisting through the trees and chili plants. Hope you enjoyed the TR.

 

GO RIDE EL TORO!!!!

There's air up there...

It sounds more like a jet engine than an "Intamin fart".

Near vertical Intamin joygasm.

This ride is insane, no bull.

The gate

Overview from the skyride of the front of the park.

Blurry, but you get the idea...

Looks like you had one awsome trip.......any tips on the pier? I'll be going in the first week of october. I know the first day will be the pier and the second SFNJ.......

Looks like you had an awesome time, this is the kind of trip I think I wanted to take to New Jersey next month. Everything seemed very clean (farcry from the nasty stories I heard) and it looked like it was all worth the trip. I'm more excited than ever for the trip I want to take now.

Rider, I did not play "Fascination", what is it? I also didn't know about that combo deal, but I'll be sure to take advantage of it next time. Those huge upcharge rides must have a REALLY nice view of the ocean, which is what it's all about.

 

Noyzz, as far as tips for the pier. I'm not sure which city you mean, but in general, if you want to get all the rides in, on any day of the week I would hit them before it gets dark as it gets very crowded. Especially if it's hot in the daytime, the rides will have no lines and the waterparks will be crowded, but they'll invade the rides once it cools off and the neon turns on.

 

DE, I highly reccomend a trip similar to what I did, and yes it is very clean and Jersey as an entire state is very under-rated. I would avoid hotels for less than a hundred dollars a night though, dn't make the same mistake I did if you want to have a 100% clean trip. Bring those shower sandals...

Thanx for the tip!........