Great Adventure, 8/21/12

Since daily operations are ending soon and I have only been to the park once since summer started I decided to go to the park today even though I thought it might be crowded since it is the last week of summer vacation for some school districts. When I got to exit 7A on the turnpike, I saw a few buses leaving which always is a good sign the park is starting to clear out for the day.

The lot was about 60% full and I entered the park around 5:45. Nitro's line was in the switchbacks so I went to The Dark Knight to see the new themeing added. Skip the next paragraph if you don't want to read about the new themeing added to the ride.

They were running the pre-show really well today not closing the doors until the room filled up so even though I just missed getting into one pre-show, 2 minutes later the doors opened up again and the person at the door started the film as soon as the doors open. There was no air condition in the pre-show room and was uncomfortable. The new lights in the station and flames at the beginning and color lights around the lift hill were nice to see. I would also like to see the hologram billboards working again too.

I went to Skull Mountain next, the line was just out of the station but it took a little longer than expected because a family of 4 was arguing about something causing a few minute delay. I think they took someone else's seats and didn't want to move.

I went back to Nitro and the line was just at the end of the switchbacks. The line moved really fast taking about 20 minutes to get into the station but then there were some issues with riders (with one case, I was surprised to see the ride op really slamming the restraint into one rider to try to get the yellow sticker bar to show) causing the total wait to be just under 30 minutes.

I went back to Skull Mountain waiting 4 trains for the last row again. Fender Bender had an almost full queue and I'm sure it will be very popular for a long time.

Green Lantern's line a little before the 30 minute sign but the single rider line was open. I rode twice waiting a little less than 10 minutes each time using the single rider line (including the wait to get to the entrance to the single rider line).

I haven't ridden Kingda Ka in over 2 months so went there next but the ride op at the entrance said it was a 2 hour wait. I didn't believe it so went to look and the switchbacks were full plus another switchbacks that looks like it might have been part of the old queue. It looked to be at least an hour and I didn't feel like waiting knowing the ride could break down at anytime as that has already happened to me a few times this season while I was in line and the most I am willing to wait for the coaster is 20 minutes.

I walked back to Green Lantern but the single rider line was now closed and didn't feel like waiting in the regular line so I went to Blackbeard's, waited 5 minutes and got the last row, walked back to Skull Mountain and waited 2 trains for the last row and then got 2 more rides having to switch seats.

Fender Bender's still had a long line so I went to Deja Vu. The cycle seemed a little longer than the first time I tried the ride in early June.

The Skyway had 1 side open and was around 15 minutes so I took it to Frontier Adventures, walked onto Runaway Mine Train and then went to the Log Flume which had no wait. The boat I was told to go to had a few inches of water in it which I have never seen before so asked to get a different boat.

I finished the day at Bizarro, waiting a little less than 10 minutes and then getting a re-ride. I exited the ride at 10:06 and it was past 10:30 by the time I got to the car after stopping in one of the stores for a minute to check out what was on sale. They had some patriotic Six Flags shirts on sale for $6 for passholders but it had a Giant Inverted Boomerang as the design so I wasn't interested (maybe if the park actually had the coaster I would have considered getting it).

Despite some crowds, I still managed to get a lot of rides in 4 1/4 hours in the park so it was a great trip to the park.