Great Adventure, 9/27/13

Like the last 2 weeks, I was looking forward to another Friday night trip to Great Adventure since it's almost always low crowds and a great chance to ride as many coasters as you want.

Last year on this Friday, I had my trip cut short because of bad rain and most rides shutting down plus Adventure Alley flooding. I left a little earlier this week and got to the entrance gates at 5:05. There was a larger crowd than I was expecting with it still 25 minutes before opening. At 5:20, they let the premium passholders in.

Since Nitro wasn't ready when I went to it the past 2 weeks, I went to Batman and was the only person there. About 2 minutes later, I was told I could enter the queue and almost got a solo ride until 2 other people went into the station before the air gates were opened. I was going to stay on the coaster for a re-ride but it had broken down.

After Batman I went to Nitro and got 3 rides with no wait and then walked around so I could get the front row waiting 2 trains and then got another re-ride.

The Skyway was only running 1 side, not that 2 sides were needed with such low crowds.

Bizarro had no wait except for the front so I went to the last row.

Runaway Mine Train also had no wait and after that I walked over to Rolling Thunder to see if demolition had started. Nothing has changed but I noticed the lights were on in the area under the station and the train storage building. Last week they added a bench in front of the entrance and a sign at the entrance to the queue saying "This Ride is Closed Today"

Kingda Ka was next, it was a station wait. For my first ride, I was waiting for the 2nd row when a ride op asked me if I was a single rider since the front row had an empty seat so I could sit there if I wanted which was nice. I walked around for 3 more rides. For the 4th ride, there was a breakdown and 1 ride op was encouraging everyone to leave and come back later since he said the line will likely be very short when it reopens. I decided to wait around for 15 minutes and if it didn't reopen I would leave. It opened around 10 minutes later but because so many people had left the line, we had to wait for more people to enter the station so enough rows would be filled. Because the station was so empty after the train got back to the station, they let our train have a re-ride.

Green Lantern had a mostly empty station but I waited 2 trains for the front row and then moved to the 2nd row for a re-ride. I saw Superman had around a 20 minute wait and didn't feel like waiting so I skipped it today.

I stopped at Blackbeard's and went to Deja Vu both with no wait. Same with The Dark Knight. The clowns in the car at the end of the ride have been fixed. A lot of the season only the lights turned on without the horn sound and the car didn't move towards you.

I went back to Batman which was a 2 train wait and walked around for another ride and back to Nitro for a night ride. The line was just past the stairs. After the ride, while on the block brakes, the ride broke down and it took a few minutes for the train to re-enter the station so we could exit.

It was around 10:40 so I walked over to the Skyway with no wait and got to Bizarro's station with less than 10 minutes before closing. The station was completely empty so I went for the front row and was able to ride again without having to change seats since the station was still empty.

Throughout the night, I heard people saying how they couldn't believe how many coasters they were able to ride or how empty the park was. It seems like most people don't go on Friday nights until the last 2 of the season. Most of the coasters have overflow queues set up. Anyone who has been to the park before knows how long the queues for Superman and Green Lantern are and I'd hate to be at the park on a Saturday during Fright Fest when those queues are full, let alone going into an overflow queue.