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Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv) Discussion Thread


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Also - any other suggestions for Halloween theme parks in the general NJ / NY / CT / Eastern PA area (e.g. Dorney, Lake Compounce), or is SFGA the best?

 

Seriously, go anywhere besides Great Adventure. Lake Compounce does a great haunt. It's probably the best theme park haunt in the Northeast. I love Dorney's haunt too, ride lines are virtually nonexistant and house lines are reasonable. You're more likely to get scared at Knoebels even though all they have in the way of Haunts is the car ride and regular Haunted Mansion.

 

By the way, all mazes at Great Adventure are upcharges but if you actually want to do anything you'll need the express wristband which is $50 per person on top of your admission (you'll have time for 2-3 mazes tops if you get the regular one at $30 per person). You would need that in addition to the Platinum Flash Pass but I strongly suggest that you avoid the haunts at Great Adventure and spend your time riding their awesome coasters instead.

 

Last night we waited an hour for Blood Shed at Great Adventure and it was the worst haunt maze I had ever seen in my life. We waited an hour for it, El Toro had a 5 minute wait. We definitely made the wrong choice there.

 

Thinking of going to Fright Fest weekend of 10/21-10/22. Have been on this weekend around 4 years ago and seen crowds beyond what I thought was imaginable. Safe to figure nothing has changed and worth it to get a platinum flash pass if I want to do the main rides?

 

Yes, and even then expect massive wait times due to an obscene amount of exit passes (to the point where it's hard to even walk down the exit stairs when exiting some rides). Avoid Nitro like the plague from late afternoon on, even with Platinum Flash Pass.

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Thinking of going to Fright Fest weekend of 10/21-10/22. Have been on this weekend around 4 years ago and seen crowds beyond what I thought was imaginable. Safe to figure nothing has changed and worth it to get a platinum flash pass if I want to do the main rides?

 

Also - any other suggestions for Halloween theme parks in the general NJ / NY / CT / Eastern PA area (e.g. Dorney, Lake Compounce), or is SFGA the best?

 

Just avoid SFGADV, their freight fest is packed and the mazes arent that great. If you want a Six Flags Halloween event go to SFNE as they are less crowded and have more or less the same mazes.

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In spite of the warm weather and humidity, we had a really nice day @ the park on Saturday. Stayed true to my avoidance of the joint all summer and hadn't been up since Memorial Day weekend so felt great to get back and ride some amazing rides and hang with awesome people. I didn't take too many pictures, and with the ones I did I had a little fun with the filters.

 

Headed out of the city early with my two buddies Slim and Poop stocked with a cooler full of beer and made a quick pitstop at Wawa for some morning munchies. We aimed to arrive at 10:30 opening when we realized on the way into the park that they didn't open until 11. With 40 minutes or so to kill we just got a good parking spot and tailgated because of course we did. Shout out to the old woman at the toll booth who informed us it was Fright Fest and had us dying when she admitted that she knew she was scary looking!

 

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Blood Fountain is back!

Slim had a bit of a hangover so he planned to simply process his 2018 pass, utilize his dining pass for some free food, and otherwise just take it easy. Getting through security was a breeze with no wait at all but the line at the main gate was slow as molasses, assuming due to people getting their new passes processed. Painful.

 

We also had planned to meet up with Coasterbill and Britt, but they had plans to hit the safari first (of course) while we headed to Justice League right away to avoid long waits later, since Poop and I had yet to try it. We had about a 10 minute wait and hopped on. The ride area looks fantastic as does the theming inside the queue/station. I was impressed. After the first screen the thing just sorta powered down for a couple seconds and I was rather disappointed that we'd got a bum ride on our first try. No worries, it quickly started back up with no other noticeable hiccups after that.

 

I have to say I was rather blown away by this ride. While its not exactly seamless with how it takes you into each little prop area between the much more immersive screens (never thought I'd say that about a dark ride lol) the two final scenes actually gave me a little vertigo. Really really awesome ride. The cherry on top was that I absolutely creamed everyone in our car.

 

Since we skipped my usual right-to-the-Bull approach to this park, I was a little worried we may have missed the early morning ERT you always seem to get upon hitting Toro @ opening, nevertheless we hopped on the Skyride to head over to the east side of the park.

 

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Wish yall were here!

Upon touching down we noticed Runaway Mine Train was running and had an empty station, and with it being up and down all summer for trackwork, I couldn't resist hopping on. If you know me I have a soft spot for mine trains and this is one of the best! It was running extremely well, and from here we'd find out just about everything in the park was. Choo-choo!

 

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Ominous

Finally heading over for some serious air, Slim sat out our first lap on The Bull to head over to Macho, nicely holding our sh*t so no need for a locker. We ran into The Dude ElToroRyan greeting guests at the front of the ride. Sup Ryan! Amazingly, even though it was after noon already, the ride still had a station wait and we boarded the magic seat. Sweet lord how I missed this ride. Outstanding. Somehow the frame on Poop's sunglasses cracked while going over one of the camelbacks and he somehow caught the lens as it flew out. Hilarious. Upon returning to the station I noticed if we moved up two rows we could ride again, but Poop couldn't face any more of that intensity so I told him to head to Macho while I rode once more. While now in a wheel seat, the ride was a good bit rougher, but its still the smoothest wooden coaster I've ever ridden. The thing was absolutely flying.

 

I could have played musical chairs some more but didn't want to leave my pals waiting, and not having my phone on me had no idea what Bill and Brit were up to. I headed to Macho and found the crew and ordered myself up a nice big strawberry daiquiri. These are really good here, albeit a little pricey, but good enough for me to get two of them. Shout out to the friendly bartender who said she was from Jamaica. Always nice to chat with friendly employees that don't act like they hate their job. We split an order of loaded nachos that were also super good. I love me some Macho Nacho.

 

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Yummy

Bill and Brit eventually made their we way over as Slim, Poop and I were decided what to do next. We all decided it would be stupid not to hit Toro again since we were so close and the ride was still dead, so we got one more lap on it. Ryan was now up in the station loading trains so we got to say what's up again. Thanks for that absolutely stellar ride, dude!

 

From here we popped into Safari Discoveries to say hello to a few furry friends and shortcut our way into Golden Kingdom. Most of us didn't want to ride Kingda Ka, but everyone was up for a drop of doom. Amazingly we had a short wait but the line moved quickly despite them still not being able to run the two rides simultaneously (you didn't hear it from me: rumors around the park are pretty strong about the roofs of Zumanjaros gondolas being altered so the park can finally run the rides together. We shall see...)

 

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Checking the queue times on the the app we noticed Nitro had a five minute wait, so we slogged all the way over to another station wait, and had a fabulous zen ride. Completely hauling, smooth as butter with generous servings of airtime. Bill, Britt, and Slim in front of Poop, myself, and random dude that got on with us. As soon as we started up the lift we came to a stop, and while a few preteen girls in the back row behind us started freaking out about getting stuck I yelled out for the entire train to hear that it was likely "because some asshole had their phone out!!" Little did I realize it was the dude sitting next to us! lol!

 

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The guy seemed to genuinely feel bad and was surprised it was an issue, though we explained how serious an issue it was and how the park has been cracking down, about the locker situation, etc. When we got off, a security guard was waiting on the exit ramp with the guys phone. We didn't stick around to see what happened.

 

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We continued around this area of the park getting phenomenal rides on everything - our front row ride on Batman was glorious (and the air conditioning is still on blast mode in the tunnel in the queue, even in the station), same over at Skull Mountain.

 

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Skull Mountain was seriously one of the highlights of the day, giving us an absolutely amazing ride. I know we joke about how "great" this ride is, but it felt especially insane. Barely a wait, and we were well into the afternoon by now, sometime after 3pm. Strangely the park felt crowded on the midways, yet rides kept having little waits. We also tried to do Dark Knight (Poop had never ridden it) but when we walked up to it, it had shut down.

 

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Photo by Coasterbill

We wandered a bit before we stopped over at Liberty Pub to down a couple beers and hang in the shade. We talked about hitting Joker but by now it had a 30 minute wait, according to the queue times on the app. All of us getting hungry, around 4pm we walked over to Best of the West to find the place empty.

 

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We all got some grub and beers and headed out to the back deck to sit and enjoy the serenity of the perpetual turtle orgy. I had the pulled pork sandwich with fries and Guinness. Everyone else got different stuff - chicken tenders, etc. All seemed to enjoy.

 

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Checking the queue times we could tell the park was starting to get more crowded, with Justice League sporting a 70 minute wait, and Ka at an hour. Bizarro just around the corner was only at 20 minutes and we all agreed we could go for getting twisted, and the wait would be good to allow us to digest our grub.

 

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Too impatient to wait for a train/fireballs

This ride is criminally underrated and was absolutely ripping. All the effects - fire mist, lights, etc were all working. Shame they shut the photo booth down for this, I wonder if its ever coming back. One of my favorite inverting B&Ms. So so so good.

 

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Bill, Britt, Boldy, Poop and Slim (photo by Bill)

As mentioned, my buddy Slim was still feeling a little crappy so having hit everything we wanted, and the crowds increasing we grabbed some Dipping Dots, left Bill and Brit to deal with the incoming onslaught of Fright Fest guests, and got the f*ck out of dodge just before 6pm. I tend to avoid Fright Fest but was itching for some good rides, and just like in the past years - if you come EARLY in the day in September, you can enjoy getting a lot of riding in without a lot of waiting. We had a nice, chill, slow paced day with a ton of amazing rides, lots of laughs, good food, & good times with great friends. Much needed.

 

El Toro 3x

Justice League

Nitro

Bizarro

Batman

Skull Mountain

Zumanjaro

Skyride

 

Some amazing sunset action on the way home I got some shots of.

 

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Thanks for reading!

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Awesome report! That was definitely a great day with a great group. That's an interesting rumor about Kingda Ka, we rode it after you guys left (because I've been seriously deprived of a front seat rocket coaster ride this summer thanks to Top Thrill Dragster breaking down every f*cking time I so much as look at the thing) and we sat on the launch track forever waiting for Zumanjaro to drop. Most of the people on the train thought the ride broke down.

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The haunted houses are not worth it here at all. They are themed extremely well but that is where it ends. They are not scary at all. They send way too many people through at once. The only scare I had was a young boy scaring people in one of the queues. Getting in my face is not scary - jumping out from behind things is. They never did this at all. They just stood there shaking their home made rattles in EVERY haunted house. My BF and I wasted over $100 last year to get into all of the haunted with the fast pass for them and regretted it.

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Bill and Brit eventually made their we way over as Slim, Poop and I were decided what to do next. We all decided it would be stupid not to hit Toro again since we were so close and the ride was still dead, so we got one more lap on it. Ryan was now up in the station loading trains so we got to say what's up again. Thanks for that absolutely stellar ride, dude!

 

Anytime man!! Great trip report!

 

(you didn't hear it from me: rumors around the park are pretty strong about the roofs of Zumanjaros gondolas being altered so the park can finally run the rides together. We shall see...)

 

Lol I've also heard these rumors and may have seen a thing or two

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(you didn't hear it from me: rumors around the park are pretty strong about the roofs of Zumanjaros gondolas being altered so the park can finally run the rides together. We shall see...)

 

Lol I've also heard these rumors and may have seen a thing or two

 

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Looks like you guys had a good time. I like your friends already; Slim's NASA shirt is cool, and anyone who dares to go by the name Poop is ok by me.

 

LOL Poop is one my ride or die dudes. Such a solid guy. Always up for fun times, though Zumanjaro freaks him the f*ck out.

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(you didn't hear it from me: rumors around the park are pretty strong about the roofs of Zumanjaros gondolas being altered so the park can finally run the rides together. We shall see...)

 

Lol I've also heard these rumors and may have seen a thing or two

 

If this is true that would be absolutely awesome! Luther is 100x better when Superman launches, I can't imagine how sick Zumanjaro would be with Kingda Ka launching overhead.

 

Great report! Looks like a fun group. I feel for your poor hungover friend.

Edited by RAWKIN_coaster38
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Here's the direct link to the article in Popular Science.

 

Six Flags is my science lab

 

Larry Chickola, Chief Corporate Engineer, Six Flags

 

I’m responsible for all of Six Flags’ amusements, from the kiddie rides to the roller coasters, in all 18 parks in North America. Right now we’re considering making a new roof for Zumanjaro, the world’s tallest drop tower.

 

The seats have mesh roofs to protect riders as they shoot 415 feet into the air and plunge into free-fall. We want to make the whole roof bigger because that would make certain design changes easier in the future. But we don’t want to increase the air resistance on a ride that relies on speed. That means finding a light mesh that will cut through the air with less resistance.

 

So I hooked my laptop to sensors that measure air pressure 1,000 times per second, and brought it over to Zumanjaro with some mesh samples. I needed my laptop to stay open while it rode up and down, so I figured I’d just strap in and hold it myself.

 

We found a material that lowers the roof’s wind resistance by 30 percent, and weighs half of what we use now. Luckily it took me only 25 runs—and I got an amazing view.

 

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Unlike the auto correct pain in the A$$ that turns fluffy, fluffy bunnies filled with medicine and goo into fluffy, fluffy bunnies filled with medicine and goo

Last I checked no one is forcing you to post to our forums. So if you're going to complain about our word filters please let me show you the exit door...

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Edited by robbalvey
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Okay, I just found this forum and it's so awesome and hilarious. BUT I need some help. So a little backstory...

 

I am planning on going on a weekend trip with some friends to Six Flags Great Adventure in a few weeks. Now we're thinking about getting the Flash Pass for the first time. I've done numerous research and looked up reviews on them and so far I've gotten majority positive reviews about them. Now I have about...two questions haha. 1. If we get Platinum or Gold, do any of those require us to wear a wristband? (Why do I ask you say...... most likely you didn't say ) I ASK THAT because I was trying to in a way, finesse and pay a little cheaper. There will be 10 of us. Each flash pass holds up to 6 people. So I wanted to know since there's really no way of them confirming, maybe we can rotate the Pass. So BASICALLY

 

- We'd split the cost of a 6 person flash pass between 10 people (so for each person it'll be a bit cheaper)

- 6 people would ride once - We'd give the pass to the remaining 4 people, and 2 who are willing to be wild and go again will join them to make up a full 6

.... Writing this and reading it I know this may seem like a lot and extra work, but I honestly feel like it's not a lot of work, BUT I am just trying to get as much information as I can to see if I came up with a decent idea, orrrrrrrrr if I should just shut up, delete my account and forget I ever posted this..

 

Thank youuu

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I went to SFGAdv for the first time ever this past weekend.

 

I found the operations to be pretty good (better than SFNE). Never had a wait longer than 5 mins for El Toro was nice, same with no line for KK on Sunday.

Random thoughts:


  1. El Toro is my favorite wooden now.
  2. First BTR, a very solid ride.
  3. Justice league was well done.
  4. SUF is average compared to the Vekoma flyers.
  5. I really liked GL, no nuts or head smashing.
  6. KK area is themed well, but then they stopped adding things, closed half the area, and put no effort into Zumanjaro so it looks sloppy now.
  7. What is with all the dead ends/lack of cut throughs in this park.

 

I was disappointed by frightfest though, the mazes acting was average, and there were too many people in at a time (and lines even with the 50$ express pass were still long). The scare zones were small and spread far apart, with not much in the way of Halloween decorations in between.

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Okay, I just found this forum and it's so awesome and hilarious. BUT I need some help. So a little backstory...

 

I've bought a two-person Flash Pass before for four people and we just rotated using it throughout the day whenever we saw fit. You should be just fine. Key thing to remember - once you have your device scanned for your ride reservation, immediately schedule the next one. This way the countdown on the new reservation while you're still in the station and riding. It'll make sure you maximize the value of it.

 

What is with all the dead ends/lack of cut throughs in this park.

 

Didn't used to be that way. Ten years ago, I'd have told you we had a great layout. Unfortunately, management changes through the last decade have closed off a bunch, primarily Old Country in 2008 and the Golden Kingdom in 2011. It seems as if the park is slowly working to reopen the Old Country path with JL this year and Cyborg next, but no word on GK.

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Popped in for a couple hours today. Only my fifth visit of the year -- been too busy hitting all the other parks that I've been neglecting my unofficial home park. Got in the gates pretty quickly at opening, immediately bounced over to Joker to throw my crap in a fluffy goo bunny for two hours, and worked on hitting up the west side of the park. Yes, that includes my phone, thanks to their new-this-season rules that prohibit any "loose" articles even in zippered pockets, so I bit the bullet and tossed the phone in -- so that means no pictures for this report. (Sorry! Wall of text incoming.)

 

Against all my instincts telling me to go to El Toro and marathon the crap out of it, I ended up walking over to Kingda Ka first, and was handsomely rewarded with a front row ride on the first train of the day. Always a rush! Afterwards, took the long deep walk back to Zumanjaro, where I was again the first rider of the day... and the only rider two times in a row. The ride ops asked me if I wanted to ride again once I touched down, and I said... "um... sure! But won't I be f*cking over everyone at Kingda Ka?" "Oh, no, not at all. It's down for maintenance right now." Yup, they got two trains out the gate before it went down. Par for the course around here.

 

Cut through the Wild Walkway to get over towards El Toro, and was thoroughly impressed by the size of their lion cubs. They've grown so big! After acting like a crazy cat lady for them (and the other miscellaneous animals on display, such as the goats and flamingos), I finally dragged my butt out of that section and hit up Toro... only to see them still cycling empty trains at 11:30 with a line all the way back to the lockers. Noped right out of there and decided my time would be better spent getting twisted. So instead I migrated to the far back corner and got a quick pair of rides on Bizarro; one all the way in the back row, and one in the front. Of course they were running three trains with only six riders (at most) per train, why wouldn't they be? Still, always a good ride, still my favorite floorless, and one of the few that I put up with the mild ear-boxing I get from B&M's OTSRs. (Funnily enough, I never seem to have that problem on Batman: The Ride... but that's another story for later.)

 

After a pair of Bizarro rides, my plan of attack was to hit the fort to get in a single lap on Runaway Mine Train and then take the Skyway back towards Joker, where I parked my luggage. RMT... the nostalgia is powerful with this one, as it's one of my earliest roller coaster memories, when I was but a kiddo of my own visiting the park with an aunt who's no longer with us. I can't NOT ride it whenever I go. They ended up retracking a portion of that airtime hill right before you go over the lake, and although I had heard bad things about it, it's not too terrible and hardly noticeable. More noticeable audibly than anything. By the time I got off the train, I noticed that El Toro was now sending screaming patrons through its course, so I put the skyway on the back burner (sorry, Bill) and jogged back over to the Bull, where the crowd had already been processed through enough that I was able to get a walk-on in car 5's middle row. Viva la Bull! It was full of a lot of first-time riders today, and it was great to hear their screams of terror turn to joy. She's running great as ever!

 

After asking someone what time it was, I discovered I still had about 20 minutes left on my locker rental, and so I hopped in a relatively short line for Joker, made even shorter by the unused single-rider line leading straight to a party of three. Score! We headed off to the purple side, and they definitely improved this thing since last season. We got three complete rotations in full, and when we weren't flipping, we were upside down. Glad to see it's doing good, and hopefully the next time I come with the kiddo, I'll finally be able to get him on it (now that he's done the ones at New England and Great America before actually getting on the one at his home park).

 

Hit up my locker, grabbed my phone to find out that I had exactly one minute left on the rental. Boo-yah. Since it was getting close to 1, I swung over to Primo's and grabbed a chicken caesar for lunch, walked over to the Skybar and got some lemon-lime seltzer out of the Coke Freestyle machine, then continued walking over to Granny's so I could chill out at an air-conditioned table. Powered through that because I had dates with the east side... and first up, I wanted to feel the intensity. Aw yeah... Skull Mountain incoming! Walked through the structure and was greeted with a mild crowd in the station, but no line for the back seat. The kids, they just don't KNOW. Unfortunately, it appears that someone else couldn't handle all that intensity, because as soon as the folks in the last car walked off the ride, we were greeted by a certain smell... and what looked like the remnants of Six Flags' "Famous" Chicken Tenders all over the front of that car. The ops team did their thing to clean it out, and while they cycled that car through a few times to let it air-dry, they brought in the second train. Unfortunately it was really sunny out today, so the, uh, pitch blackness of Skull Mountain couldn't be experienced in its full glory, what with all the sunbeams poking through. Who cares? Still got thrown out of that seat going over the drop. Still got to rock out to awful death metal. It is everything you expect as it always is.

 

Next up on my hit list was Nitro, and over here I was greeted with a walk-on in the second-to-last row thanks to them running three trains and cycling them through with crazy speed and total efficiency. They were pushing them out so fast that I made the decision to walk all the way back around and actually wait for the front row... which took all of three minutes. Nitro's not the tallest, fastest, or most twisted hyper out there, but again, who cares? I absolutely love the insane amount of floater air it provides and I would be happy to ride this non-stop for a day.

 

But after my third lap on Nitro, and time ticking down before I had to make the drive back to Queens, I decided to check out Batman for a lap or two. Unfortunately, I was stymied there, as although there was no one posted at the gate, the ride was down for maintenance. Rather than run out the clock waiting for that, I walked back towards Metropolis for my first look at Justice League. Hadn't been at the park since it opened. Looks way impressive, but the line was silly long at that point, so again I put it in the pile for next time. I still had a few minutes to kill before I had to hit the road, so I wrapped up my day with a few games at the Studio 28 arcade and a Dippin' Dots for the walk back to the car. Clock hit 3:00 PM, turned the key on the ignition, and with four hours, thirteen rides, a lunch, and a snack under my belt, I called it a successful half-day at the park.

 

-- Minor edit; I just went back and counted... apparently this was technically my fifth visit this year, not my third. I'm counting New Year's Day at HITP, plus apparently I forgot one other time.

Edited by coneyislandchris
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