I need some advice: SFGAm or SFGAdv

I am trying to plan which parks I am visiting this year and I need help choosing one more park to add to the list. I've narrowed my search down to either Six Flags Great America or Six Flags Great Adventure. Which of the two is better and why? I will only be visiting one day and I live in Ohio, so please also factor that in. Thanks!

Full disclosure, I've never been to SFGAdv. But I live in the Chicago Suburbs, so I've been to SFGAm numerous times. And you'd think that I'd say come here to the local park, but that's not the case. Everything points to Great Adventure. It's likely a longer drive, depending on where you are in Ohio, but they have the tallest roller coaster in the world, a B&M Hyper that appears to be really fun (I'm not a big Raging Bull fan... after the first drop it's kind of meh), and then there's that El Toro thing. They also have what sounds like an amazing drop ride, as well as a safari ride. Can't find those in most Six Flags parks. I think Great America is a decent park, but even living near Chicago, I normally spend more days at Cedar Point than I do at Great America.

^^What he said.

Great America is a nice park, and it is home to one of my favorite coasters, Raging Bull ... But given the choice I'd choose Great Adventure without a second thought.

Great Adventure. Hands down.

El Toro & Nitro is worth it alone.

Great America is a nice park. Great Adventure isn't. Both are worth visiting for different reasons.

I've withheld my input because I haven't been to Great America, but I don't understand how Great Adventure isn't considered a nice park by some. It's beautiful and has a killer lineup of coasters and flats. Even when they added more flats than they could consistently run, even when some of the coasters I was counting on riding for the first time were shut down all day, I had a great time. I get that sometimes poor operations can sour an experience, but to not consider it a nice park doesn't compute.

I'm with you. I've had great visits there and like the park. It has some ugly empty spots and could use some sprucing up and paint but it isn't bad park.

I did a trip to great Adventure a few years back, and spent 3 days there back to back just hanging out because I think the place is really awesome. I can see where some might disagree if it's somewhere you get to go more often, but I really enjoy it there.

Now, had it not been for some circumstances and a less than busy park, I might think otherwise. Some people visit parks on the busiest days, have an absolute miserable time, and swear off the place. I can see that - CP is my home park and I love it there, but get me in that place when it's overly packed, and I'm bolting.

I've been to both and am in favor of Great Adventure, not because it's my home park but for some of the aforementioned reasons. My track record is very limited - 120 at last count - compared with others on this site but of everything I've ridden, El Toro remains my favorite. Yeah, there are some really awesome coasters that threatened to overtake it - notably Outlaw Run, Iron Rattler, New Texas Giant, Boulder Dash and Leviathan - but I keep coming back to El Toro, which is now at #2 on the CB list and won the best coaster award from another website 2 years in a row. That coaster alone is worth going for. And I'd have to agree that Nitro has it all over Raging Bull. The trim brakes on the 2nd hill of RB just about killed it for it. So Great Adventure doesn't have a wing coaster (loved X-Flight) or intermediate woodie (loved Viper as well) but it does have a nice mix, several solid extreme thrill rides and a nice landscape. upsdownsandupsidedown.com

Great America, by a landslide. It's my home park and I've come to appreciate it more over the years.

My last visit to Great Adventure was in 2006 and it will be some time before I return to that ...place. Kingda Ka was a cruddy 2nd rate version of Top Thrill Dragster and El Toro wasn't my bag of tea (they were pushing the lap bars down seemingly further than possible.). I loved the Chiller and Rolling Thunder but both of those double coasters are gone.

Great America is much more well-rounded with plenty of classic flat rides and a rare gem called Whizzer. American Eagle and Viper are excellent woodies. The crowds are typical for a Six Flags park, but not nearly as awful as the Jersey park.

Raging Bull gets tons of crap due to the trim on the third hill, but what an awesome (and totally unique) "variety" layout. Demon isn't very popular but I love that KICK on the first drop. The caves and disco tunnel are fun too!

I would recommend Great Adventure by a landslide. After my two day visit to Great America two years ago, I vowed it would be a long time before I visited that Chicago park again. My visits were on weekdays in early June, and the ride waits extremely long and the food service was even worse.

In the last couple of years the Jersey park operations have improved greatly, and most weekday evenings, you can get eight rides in on El Toro in an hour. Even though there are parks that I like better than Great Adventure, marathoning El Toro is, to me, the best way to end a day. (Now, the waterpark, stay away unless it is raining.)

Both have great coaster collections, so as a thrill ride enthusiast you really can’t go wrong with either park. While Great America may be prettier (or at least, more filled-in), Great Adventure has some unique things that you can’t find at most parks outside of Florida. The unique animal exhibits and safari give Great Adventure the slight edge, assuming comparable travel time/cost.

Great America is my home park, but I'd go with Great Adventure. El Toro especially stands out. Great America lacks a signature ride like that.

@eightdotthree Would you please elaborate? Also, I plan to go to one of these two for mainly for the coasters, but also maybe for the major thrill rides.

I'm on Team Great Adventure. Six Flags Great America is no slouch by any measure, but I just don't feel like there's any one category in which it bests Great Adventure. For starters, Six Flags Great Adventure is genuinely a beautiful park. It has a great setting, with beautiful forests and lakes and rivers around it. There are plenty of areas where it's really quite nice to just sit down and relax for a little bit (the lake area in the back being the most noteworthy). Honestly, I could easily spend two days there just to give myself time to walk around and ride the attractions at a more relaxed pace.

When it comes to the attractions, though, I give Six Flags Great Adventure even more of an edge. At Six Flags Great America, there are probably more coasters that I find to be very enjoyable, but only Batman - The Ride completely blows me away (on my rankings, you'll see several with 5 stars at the park, including Goliath, but I have my own personal subcategory of five-star rides that would deserve a 6th, and Batman is the only one in Illinois to which I'd bestow that honor). At Six Flags Great Adventure, you still have Batman (and Superman Ultimate Flight, of which I'm one of the few people who thinks it's a pretty great ride in its own right), but you also have El Toro, Nitro, and Bizarro which completely rock, and Kingda Ka and Green Lantern are no slouches either.

I will say that operations at both parks are comparable. Both tend to be toward the upper end of operations at Six Flags parks, but my experiences have varied (and I've not experienced Kingda Ka since Zumanjaro or whatever it may be called was added) over multiple visits to those parks.

Ultimately, you can't go wrong either way, and I feel like Great America has a bit more history to it with rides like Whizzer and the original Batman, but in the end, Six Flags Great Adventure has the edge by a good margin in my opinion.

I'll recommend sfg America. Just because I live within driving distance and I've never been to great adventure

Really? "Given the choice between poop and pie, you should eat poop because I've never tried pie."
</rant>

Both parks are excellent and I haven't been to either in about 10 years, but there really aren't many things GAm. has that GAdv. doesn't. GAdv's hyper is better, its drop ride is better, its woodie is better (from what I hear). So you've got KK, Bizarro, Green Lantern, Joker vs. XFlight, V2, Viper, Whizzer. While not quite as comparable head to head, I still give GAdv. the nod on each of those comparisons (though the second and third are virtually ties).

Everyone seems to have said this in a roundabout sort of way:

Great America is the better park, but Great Adventure has better rides.

Not really. At least for me, I was trying to say that Six Flags Great Adventure is both the better park AND home to the better ride collection unless you're really desperate to try out Whizzer. ;)

CoasterCritique said:
@eightdotthree Would you please elaborate?

Great America is a more complete park experience that has some... "Charm." Yes. I said it. I haven't been there in years, but I enjoyed Great America far more than I did Great Adventure.

Great Adventure is the very worst of Six Flags design during their build everything phase. They added new things without any attention to the old and as a result the place feels at times like it's about to close for good and at times feels like one of the best park experiences in the country. It's odd.

If all you care about is getting your rides in Great Adventure is great, especially if you can get there early in the season when the crowds are light.