Great Adventure, 8/21/14

I went to Great Adventure on Thursday for my first trip to the park since June. I got there just after 5:00 and saw the lot didn't look too crowded for one of the last weeks of summer vacation for some school districts. The only ride listed on the closed rides board was Zumanjaro which was closed the entire time I was at the park.

I went to Nitro first and the line was to the 60 minute sign. 3 trains were running and it took around 30 minutes, a little longer than normal. I was prepared to let people go in front of me to avoid the C train because it has been running horribly this year and I got the B train which was smooth.

Batman was next with no wait for row 7. It looks like they changed the braking where the train completely stops on the brakes outside before advancing to the holding brakes right before the station.

The Dark Knight had no wait and it was nice to see the Bat Signal working again. The horn on the clown subway car at the end of the ride was not working this time. I hope during the offseason they fix all the broken effects since a lot of them are no longer work.

Skull Mountain was a station wait with 2 trains running. It was the same with Runaway Mine Train.

The Log Flume was only a 5 minute wait and the water level in the trough seemed to be at a higher level than usual.

Bizarro had 3 trains running with a station wait. This was the first time this season I saw the mist turned on from the Auger of Doom. Dispatches were slow with double stacking.

El Toro had almost the first set of switchbacks full and was just over 20 minutes for the 5th car.

While on the brake run on Bizarro I saw that no Kingda Ka trains were launching. When I walked over there after El Toro, I saw it was broken down. A few minutes later they launched a few empty trains and then opened the line. There was hardly anyone waiting from before the breakdown and not many people waiting for the ride to open and it was around 5 minutes for a middle row. This was my first Kingda Ka ride of the season and at the end of the ride I got a headache. Even though I really wanted to take advantage of the short line and go for multiple rides, I decided against it and went back to the other side of the park.

Skull Mountain had an almost empty station and I was able to get 5 rides in a row before going back to Nitro waiting around 10 minutes. A night ride on Nitro is one of my favorite things in the park. I finished the trip at Batman walking onto row 2.

Even though there was still around 25 minutes until the park closed, I had enough coaster rides for the day and decided to leave before closing which is rare for me. I'm hoping Zumanjaro will be open on my next trip to the park.