Great Adventure, 11/10/16

I had the opportunity to get to the park today and get some end of season rides in some of the rides not open for Holiday in the Park. After Sunday, Kingda Ka, Zumanjaro, El Toro, El Diablo, Tango and Parachutes are all closed for the season with Runaway Mine Train, Bizarro and Safari Offroad Adventure already closed for the season. With nice weather and bring a friend free it was less crowded than I was expecting, although I didn't think it would be that crowded overall on a Thursday in November even with NJ schools closed.

Nitro was first with the B and C train running. The A train is taken part behind the building where the trains are stored and you can see it from the brake run. It was a station wait and was excellent as always. I walked around for a 2nd ride this time waiting at the end of the stairs.

The Dark Knight had no pre-show running and the room almost full so with a line to the station I guessed it was around 25 minutes and thought I would go back later. It was the same with Skull Mountain with around a 20 minute wait so I skipped that too.

Sky Screamer was a 3 cycle wait. On Six Flags TV, there was an ad showing all the new additions to the chain in 2017 and when they showed Justice League, I heard people talking about how cool it looks and I'm sure it will be a real popular ride.

El Toro was around 10 minutes and was mostly smooth in a non wheel seat. After 2 rides I was going to ride Kingda Ka but it was broken down so I went to Zumanjaro instead. There was no wait and after 2 rides I saw Kingda Ka cycle and empty train and then a train of riders. After getting to the queue it had broken down again and with many people leaving the line, I thought it might be a while and didn't want to spend time waiting only for it to possibly breaking down again. I haven't ridden Kingda Ka since April and only got 4 rides total this season but that's ok since it's not one of my favorite coasters in the park.

The Parachutes had about a 5 minute wait with 2 out of 4 sides open. Green Lantern was closed the entire time I was at the park with the train in the station. Superman is down to 1 train probably for the rest of the season just like last year when Superman, Green Lantern and Batman were all running 1 train during Holiday in the Park.

By 6:00 the park was starting to empty out and most rides were walk ons.

This was my 3rd trip to the park since The Joker opened and I finally decided to try the coaster with almost no wait. 3 cars were running. I got the purple side and the seats and restraints were comfortable. I hoped the car wouldn't flip too much and it turned out there were 0 flips, just a few half flips. The vertical lift was cool and not better than vertical lift hills where you are lying on your back like Fahrenheit and Impulse. It seemed like the coaster was at the end of the circuit very fast and didn't make me dizzy like I thought it might.

I thought the coaster was overall ok and I can see riding the coaster a few times a season but not every trip to the park, especially if it has a long line. Maybe I'll try the green side during Holiday in the Park. The Joker was also the 50th new coaster I have ridden since the beginning of the 2015 season. I never expected that I would have tried that many new coasters in only 2 seasons after mostly only riding a few new coasters each year before that and hope to get to 150 next year (The Joker was #146).

Skull Mountain had an almost empty station and I went for the last row. I was surprised that car 5 was closed off but not broken because people were riding in the car. After a re-ride and walking past the side of the building I saw the new Flash Pass entrance was closed so it looked like they were using the old system of Flash Pass going up the exit. I wonder what the reasoning for that was since it seems strange the park would have gone to the trouble to build a new Flash Pass queue and merge point in the station only for the addition of VR and then go back to blocking off a car for Flash Pass.

After another ride on Nitro I went back to The Dark Knight that was a walk on and another Sky Screamer ride also with no wait.

There were a lot of Holiday in the Park decorations already set up and I look forward to visiting again and seeing the park with lights all over from the Skyway and having 9 out of the park's 13 coasters open.