My First Big Coaster Trip Part 5 (SFGAd 5/30)

Day ten Sunday May 30

The last few days were spent with the wedding. It went off smoothly, and my best man speech even got rave reviews from everyone. I woke up Sunday after getting a terrible night sleep. Almost got lost twice on the way to Six Flags Great Adventure. I went with three other people. My other brothers fiancé and her two kids.
Got a Q bot. I still don’t quite understand this thing. I like how they wait until the last second to tell you about the gold q bot. I guess that would have cut the time in half, but with four people it would have been a hundred bucks.

Hoped on Nitro first. Great ride. I loved it. It might be better than Raging Bull, but I still have to stand up for my home park. The helix was intense, and the ride had great pops of airtime.

Skull Mountain was next. It could have used a little more theme inside the ride. It really is a dark ride I guess. There was some hold up because someone who had just ridden lost something on the ride. Good luck finding it.

Got another ride on Nitro. Still a great ride. Back seat was great.

Batman was just like Great America’s except for in placement. It is always cool on inverts to look down on people while on the first drop. The qbot situation in the station leaves a lot to be desired. They put you in a holding pen and I guess you are to only take the 7th row. The ride before we got on about 12 people in front of me just loaded up all over the train. What is the deal?? Some supervision from the ride ops would have helped.

Started the long walk to Madusa. Along the way hoped on the Runaway Mine Train. Ehh. My knees got jammed during one of the drops.

Madusa was great. Two trips one in back and one in the second row. The crowd hadn’t made it back here yet so the waits were minimal.

Viper was next. I tried to get across the point to the other people in my group that I had heard the ride is a little rough. I was not prepared for how painful this piece of garbage was. This should be taken down now before someone gets seriously hurt. Worst coaster ever.

Rode the Rodeo Stampede. I enjoyed it. I guess this is just a break dance themed with cows ?

Rolling Thunder was up next. Couldn’t really find any airtime. Was only running one side, but at least with two trains.
Great American Scream Machine reminded me of Shockwave. I wasn’t a fan of that and I am not a fan of this. Rough, but not as rough as Viper. I don’t think it is possible for another coaster to be that rough.

By now the crowd were in full effect. I had heard bad things about the crowd. Even some non coaster fans told me about how they don’t go there because of the crowds. Now I never felt unsafe at all, just annoyed as hell. Stupid, annoying, obnoxious..yep, that was the crowd.

Grabbed some chicken nuggets and went to watch the batman catwoman stunt show. I paid 6 bucks for 5 chicken nuggets. The stunt show was all right. Some of the timing on the fights were off. They would react way too early and be ducking before the punch was even thrown. I bet later on in the year they get the timing down better. I got my pic with Batman afterwards, so that was cool.

Had a qbot time for superman but it went down. I didn’t realize that until we had walked all the way back. So then a time for the Chiller came on, which was two hours from the current time!!

I loved Houdini’s Great escape. It is almost Disney-esque in themeing. The room effect was very cool. I’m surprised Six Flags bothers to keep this ride going.

The other people I was with left about 5, having had enough. I stayed and my qbot time for the chiller arrived.

Chiller was a nightmare. The qbot time was like 2 hours after I reserved it. They were only running one side, Robin. They had to run one train qbot, one train regular line. Some ride op was explaining to a guy how it is the software fault that they can’t take reservations away from the program or something…..how about trying to get both sides going? Restraints were tight, but I wasn’t in too much pain. Launch was ok. The ride was good. I would have loved to ride the batman side instead, but oh well. I guess the wait in line was over 2 hours.

Superman was up now. Just like at home except placement of the que. Hey, at least it ups the track record.

Hoped on the fantasy fling. More of the great crowd as people were trying to put their feet up….one guy even took off his shirt and threw it to his buddies…while the ride was spinning!!!!

One last ride on Nitro and I was out of there. Nitro is great. God bless B and M. I left early because I wasn’t feeling all that great, and I needed to get out of there.

The ride ops ran the gamut here, from going in slow mo to going all out. Park lay out was a little rough, in that its not a circle. I actually enjoyed some of the small themeing they did in certain areas, like the Fantasy area where the buildings looked like cup cakes. I’m not sure how soon I would come back, but I defiantly wouldn’t pick the Sunday of a holiday weekend.

Dan, next time you come back, come on a weekday. If we knew you were going we would have warned you about Viper. It gave me a migraine on one of my visits.

I knew Viper was going to be rough, but I figured I would get the credit. I will tell anyone now that this ride is not worth the credit. Thank God the ride is short.

I figured a weekday would have been better, but this was the only day that would fit on my tour.

I hated Viter also. Nitro is now my new favorite steel. Thank you B&M :)

I can't imagine who likes Viper? Maybe only sadists. Really, this is a new level on my roughness scale. Next time I ride Iron Wolf, I will ride it with a smile.

Nitro was so good I had to buy the shirt :)

Great American Scream Machine should remind you of Shockwave, as they're the same ride, only GASM is taller. I'm glad you hate Viper as much as the rest of us. It has such a small footprint that I don't see it disappearing antime soon though. And yes, the Rodeo Stampede is a Huss western-themed Breakdance. You can find the same ride at SFA, only they have the park version without the platform. Houdini's Great Escape rocks, but after you've done the preshow once, you kind of wish you could skip it for all future rides. It's one of the rides that Vekoma got right. Lastly, Nitro is a good ride, but it's extremely great at night.

I have to ride Viper now just to see how bad it is!

YAY NITRO LOVE!! And what is with all this Viper bashing - that ride owns! Hahaha I actually don't mind riding it and will definitely ride it if the line is short. I just get such a kick out of seeing EVERYONE come off complaining and holding their heads. Makes me happy. :)

But yeah, about Nitro...I usually ride it a day after riding SFNE SRoS and I'm always worried that I won't like it as much (esp this trip, SFNE SROS WAS OUT OF CONTROL!!!!)...all it took was a front seat, right hand side ride to make me remember why I love it so much.

And then who could forget those amazing night rides....ahhhhhh.

JC, looooooooooooooooooooooooooooves Nitro