MOB SCENE AND UNIQUE RIDE AT SFGAd Sunday May 25

Because a staff member had told me that Sundays tend to be less crowded than Saturdays at SFGAd, I decided to go on Sunday. What I failed to take into consideration is that this Sunday was a triple whammy: 1) holiday weekend, 2) bring a friend free day and 3) concert at the park. When I arrived at approximately 10:20am, there were more people than I have ever seen trying to get through the gates. It took a good hour to gain entrance, half an hour alone to get through the metal detector. Although I did manage to grab four rides on El Toro fairly quickly, the ride queue suddenly got much longer and from that point things went downhill, no pun intended. What I normally do after El Toro is go to Bizarro but Bizarro was down all day. The line to get on Nitro was unmanageable so I decided to try Batman and managed to get on in about 20 minutes. I wasn’t sure I could survive a ride in the last row but I not only survived it; I liked it so much that I went for a second one. It almost felt like a different ride due to the greater intensity and I doubt that I will be willing to sit anywhere else again.

As the day wore on the queues for the rides, including Batman, became prohibitively long. I thought that I might have to give in and buy a FlashPass but the line to get a FlashPass was almost as long as some of the ride lines! So it was a no go.

Because El Toro and Kingda Ka had approximately equal wait times and the latter had been closed since opening day, I decided to ride KK. Kingda Ka had actually not been scheduled to open until the completion of Zumanjaro but the park decided to run it for Memorial Day weekend. As it turned out, the wait to get on was over an hour and a half. What do you do when you’re almost at the loading station with a full bladder? Elbowing your way through the long queue and going back the way you came would be very difficult. I did have an opportunity to make a quick exit near the loading area but after waiting all that time I decided to stick it out and get the ride over with, hopefully without incident. I survived – although it was a close call and I was thinking that anyone would who wait that long to ride Kingda Ka and not even be able to enjoy the ride must be plain crazy.

The highlight of the day was a rather unusual ride on Bizarro. They finally got it up and running at about 7pm but it seems that the only people immediately aware of this were me and a couple of girls. The girls had caught the first train to be dispatched and I caught the second. I took a seat in the back row and was the only person on the train! I didn’t know whether the ride ops would dispatch the train under the circumstances but they did, lmao. Never had I ridden a roller coaster on which I was the only rider. This was pretty bizarre, too weird for words, but kind of fun – the closest I’ll ever get to having a private jet - being on a coaster with 31 empty seats. Will probably never happen again. After my solo ride a few more people had shown up but no-one was waiting for my row so I stayed on for two more rides. This more than made up for the problems I’d experienced trying to get on other rides.

After a dinner break I headed back to Nitro and the queue was down to about an hour but I had only 45 minutes before I was due at the bus stop so I never did get to ride Nitro. Of course I would have been able to had I known that the New Jersey Transit bus scheduled to leave Six Flags for Philly at 9:30pm would not even show up at the park until 10:00 and wouldn’t leave until about 10:15. I felt sorry for my bus riding buddy Corinne, an elderly lady who works at Six Flags as a cashier and had to be back at the park the next morning. This is a woman who’s so motivated to work at Six Flags that on the days – Monday through Friday – when NJ Transit does not operate bus service from Philly to Six Flags, she gets up at the crack of dawn and takes a bus from Philly to Atlantic City, AC to Lakewood, Lakewood to Freehold and Freehold to Jackson. How anyone who must be at least 70 has the energy to do this is beyond me but she's an inspiration.

Since you posted this three times, I'm going to copy and paste my reply into all three so when two get deleted, my reply will be in the one that gets left... Nope. CoasterBuzz will not let me, for obvious reasons. I will just save this on my computer so if it gets deleted, I will have it to post later. lol

I'm going in a few weeks, after staying away for about eight years due to crowds every time I went. I'm going to be in Wildwood for a week vacationing so I thought, "Why not?" This time, my plan is to get a Flashpass at the slightest sign that the park will be too busy. I'm going to get there early and see.

I really hope that they get the new drop ride open before I go. I also hope Kinda Ka is open when I am there. I'm not holding my breath though. I'm going in with low expectations so maybe I will be pleasantly surprised.

It was nice that they opened Kinda Ka for the holiday. I wonder how far along they are at opening the new ride?

I can only imagine how mobbed it must have been, if it required three posts just to describe it.

Sundays on a three day weekend where Monday is a holiday are packed at any park. How do you not know this?

And why, oh why do you rely on "staff members" to give advice on what's the best day? Or anything for that matter? Responses to those kind of questions from the park are pat answers at best.

I will say this for you, Bobbie. Reading your trip reports that are fraught with these calamities make my worst theme park experiences seem like a breeze. So, thanks!

Considering how mobbed you described the park as being, I would say you were quite lucky to get as many rides in as you did. But seriously, if I ever got to a park entrance and saw that kind of scene, I would've bailed faster than you can say "Mini-Golf."

On another site I read that the main lot was completely full and they were using the overflow lot on Sunday. It's too crowded for me when then main lot is around 75% full so I can see why it wouldn't have been a good trip to the park that day. The worst is Fright Fest Saturday's if the weather is ok. Main lot full, overflow lot full and then they park cars in Hurricane Harbor's lot until that gets full. After that, they start parking cars on the grass anywhere they can.

LostKause said:

I'm going in a few weeks, after staying away for about eight years due to crowds every time I went. I'm going to be in Wildwood for a week vacationing so I thought, "Why not?" This time, my plan is to get a Flashpass at the slightest sign that the park will be too busy. I'm going to get there early and see.

If you are going to the park on a weekday crowds should be somewhat low and I hope you have a better visit to the park this time compared to past trips.

I've gotten a handful of solo rides in the past. The one I remember most was Flashback at MM. The park was pretty empty and nobody was even remotely in the area all day.

I think the only time I was the only passenger on a train was on Runaway Train at GrAdv a few years back. May have been Opening Day, and there was brief snow squall while I was riding. So, my lone solo ride and my lone snow ride, all in one shot!

Yeah, but was there volleying involved?

Not this time :)

Well, I'm disappointed now.

I've been the only coaster rider many times, I've managed more than a few days at empty parks. ("welcome back, Mine Ride... rider!) It's a little unsettling, because I always wonder if maybe its my turn to go, (what better end for me than on a roller coaster, right?) and if it is, maybe it's God's way of making sure I don't take anyone else with me. But, no, I'm still here and have miraculously survived every solo ride so far.

The scariest occasion was when we were in Vegas and late one night I went over to New York New York to ride that hell taxi they call a coaster. The place was pretty busy, but I took a minute to hand over my stuff to my non-riding partner and by the time I got to the platform I was the only one. I got in the back seat, and rode that ride for the first time all by myself, in the dark, in the cold of night. I was petrified the whole time.

If I was the only one on a Togo, I'd be petrified, too.

I had a train on Scream! at SFMM all to myself several years ago. That was actually pretty awesome.

Oh yeah, I would avoid GA on a weekend day... ever. The only times I will go is during a weekday after Mem. Day before kids get out, on a Thu during the summer, or a weekday after kids get back in school. Never on a weekend. Ever.

Looking forward to the Riding of the Bull event however! :)

Gotta say, I'm a little disappointed, but for a different reason. The headline says "MOB" and "SFGAd"....not even one mafia joke from yous guys? What has happened to Coasterbuzz?

The only joke I can think of involves Mike Gallagher volleying with a ride op about where to sit until the ride op made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

That's a nice little back row you got there....it'd be a shame if anything happened to it.

LOL Andy/Justin!

If you don't give up the back seat, we can always turn this ride into a pallet of pencils. Your choice, Mikey.