Great Adventure 5/15/14

With it being Student Council Day, there were a lot of school groups at the park today. When I got to the park around 1:30, Nitro's line was in the switchbacks and Batman was into the outside part of the queue. Skull Mountain had a 3 train wait so I went there and went to The Dark Knight. 6 years ago today, also on a Thursday, the ride opened and 6 years later a lot of people still have no idea what the ride is like. One person asked me if anything jumps out at you during the ride and I mentioned the clowns in the subway car at the end of the ride.

Blackbeard's had no wait and Deja Vu was a cycle wait. Lines were starting to get shorter and Batman's line was out of the tunnel with about a 15 minute wait. The front row had a very long line. Nitro's line was just past the 30 minute sign and I rode the coaster 5 times having to wait an average of about 10 minutes each time.

It was a little after 5 and I went back to Skull Mountain with no wait and took the Skyway over to the other side of the park. The Skyway had a few minute wait and earlier in the day I saw it had a full queue with 1 side running.

I walked onto the front row of Runaway Mine Train and then walked onto the Log Flume. It was raining on and off but not enough to close the rides. Bizarro had 3 trains running with no wait. I went for the front row and noticed that I was able to get another click in the restraint and thought there was a slight chance I might be able to try El Toro.

I tried the test seat and got the red light to turn off but the green light didn't turn on. I thought that maybe the green light was broken since if the red light went off, then there was a good chance I would be able to ride.

There was no one in the queue and I went into the station picking the first row I saw with no one waiting which was the first row of the 2nd to last car. I noticed the belts on the actual train were longer than the test seat, I guess because on the actual train you have to get a certain amount of slack in the belt and maybe the test seat belt was shortened to where the yellow line is on the actual train.

The ride op checked the lap bar and pushed it down another notch and when I saw the visual scan and hearing the ride op at the controls saying dispatch I knew I was good.

The lift hill was really fast and the first drop was really steep. The ride was moving so fast it was difficult to process what was happening with all the transitions/hills/turns right after one another. The airtime on the first few hills was extreme. I really liked the first banked turn and then the hills after that were good too. My favorite part of the ride was the twister section at the end of the ride. Getting to the brake run, it was still strange to be riding the coaster after so many trips of walking past it.

I'm going to have to ride the coaster a few more times to decide where I want to rank it, but I know it's going to be somewhere at the top of the list.

If the park wasn't closed, I would have gone for a few more laps but that will have to wait for another trip. It would have been a good trip to the park anyway and riding El Toro made it a way better trip to the park

Yoshi, I'm SO EXCITED FOR YOU! So very cool. Glad you finally got to ride, and I'm glad you enjoyed it so much. Congrats on the weight loss and the new credit!

I dream of one day hearing that "Click" on El Toro again. (Sigh....)

Nice report! It sounds like you had a nice day.

By the way...I may have said this before...but any time there is a school-related event where there are a lot of "yellow tanks" (School Busses) assume that a lot of the kids will go home on or close to dinner time and the park will be yours. The parent chaperones can only take so much!

A lot of music in the parks events are taking place in a few weeks and while the parks near me get full...they empty out en-mass after most of the award ceremonies.

Thank you both.

Even when I don't leave from work to go to the park, I have been trying to go to the park later in the day and stay until closing with the school groups leaving by 4:00 or 5:00. I have been to the park the past 3 Friday's and it was nice the last few hours having basically no one there. Last Friday at Batman, I heard the ride ops mentioning they had 72 riders from 7:00 to 8:00.