SFGAdv - 6/26/23

After a few days of geeking out on some history in Gettysburg, Valley Forge, and Philly we resumed the coaster portion of our road trip with Great Adventure. Having not been in 20 years I only remembered long extinct rides and that the park was in New Jersey. I was a bit disappointed that Springsteen wasn’t playing as we entered the park. Bob Jovi was. Close enough, I guess. With storms in the forecast and every school group under the sun in the park we were in for an interesting experience.

Some highlights:

• Jersey Devil was a complete walk-on at opening, surprising given the number of teen groups at the park. I loved this ride! It has the violence I’ve come to expect from RMC but was well paced too. My only frame of reference for RMCs single rail coasters is Wonder Woman at SFFT. Jersey Devil is a great improvement.
• Nitro didn’t open with the park and wasn’t even testing.
• I hopped in line with my son to ride Batman. I was going to take a pass since I’ve been on enough clones to not force myself through the torment B&M inverts have become to me. With one train operations this line crawled and was sweltering hot. Just before we got on, the ride closed for inclement weather.
• With all outdoor rides closed we headed to Dark Knight for a few laps. Both times we were stuck in front of 8th graders dropping F bombs left and right. The second time I could tell my kids were getting super annoyed. I thanked them after the ride for being generally well behaved.
• Skull Mountain wasn’t much better. We weren’t stuck by any annoying groups in line, that is until we hit the station. Holy crap is that a loud platform! I don’t remember much about the ride with the loudest screamer on Earth in the row behind me.
• We sucked it up and bought food at the park. Finding an open food stand was more challenging than it should have been. Luckily we didn’t have to wait long for our mediocre pizza and garlic knots.
• At this point the outdoor rides, including Titan were opened. Less than 10 minutes later we got a quick lap in. Pretty solid ride and the location near the river is a definite plus. The highlight of the experience though had to be the two teenagers who climbed over a chainlink fence to be the last in line. Terrible use of line jumping.
• We tried Batman again but it was broken down for a mechanical break down this time. Back to Dark Knight I guess.
• The kids wanted to ride the Harley Quinn ride so we gave it a whirl. Decent forces for a junior coaster. Two laps to boot!
• I wanted to check out Houdini since I have some great reviews about it. Closed.
• We made our way over to Runaway Mine Train. Negative reviews all around. Even being a walk-on couldn’t save this brutal ride. Ankle padding on the restraint should have been a dead giveaway.
• Wanted to try El Toro…broken down.
• My son wanted to take a ride on Superman. Broke down as they waited in line.
• Green Lantern was a walk-on but I’m too old for that sh*t.
• Storms were rolling in again. The kids chose Dark Knight as their last ride. They got as close as the platform before it broke down. A sign that the day was done.

Six Flags is not like the other chains, and that is not a good thing. Today’s visit made it clear that I’ve outgrown their product. I think my kids have too. Even with some great rides there is nothing special about the experience. We were openly debating leaving the park after less than two hours. We’ll be canceling our memberships when we return from the road trip. Here’s hoping SFNE on Friday is a better day.

Mulfinator:

At this point the outdoor rides, including Titan were opened.

I had to look this one up, but...I assume you meant Nitro?

Also had to look up Dark Knight, I'd completely forgotten they'd built this. My last visit was in 2006, so DK wasn't there.

I'm a little surprised about the negative reviews of Runaway Mine Train, but only because I don't remember much about it other than it being your average mine train.

Don't sweat Houdini. It was neat, but I wouldn't consider it a "can't miss" attraction.

Sucks that so many rides were closed. Was Kingda Ka also down, or did no one have any interest?

Yup, Nitro. I don’t know if that was autocorrected or me being distracted by my son asking for a phone charger. Repeatedly.

Mine Train had a moment before the drop over the lake that we were thrown around more than the norm.

Ka was closed. I know there was a cable snap recently but rumors said it was already testing. We didn’t see any movement on it.

I feel your pain at SFGADV. That's why I have yet to ride the Jersey Devil. After our terrible experiences there as a passholder/member I can't bring myself to do it buying a day ticket.

I think we may take your advice and get there right at opening and go right to Jersey Devil. Get as many laps as we can without having to wait.

Did you get to ride Medusa or was that down?

I feel the same as Vater about Houdini, but you'll get another chance at SFNE. Their version was running the last time we visited. Hopefully you'll get the credit.

I may have to use your, "Today’s visit made it clear that I’ve outgrown their product," because that's exactly the same way I feel. 😄

Wow - based on this I'm feeling extremely lucky about our recent visit. Other than when they took down Nitro to remove a train, all the rides were working throughout the evening. (Exceptions being Kingda Ka and El Toro, but that wasn't a surprise.)

Runaway Train is pretty rough indeed, in a wow-has-this-art-advanced-in-50-years way, but I still think it's fun. Harley Quinn turned out to be the most ridiculously fun ride I've been on in a while - whatever the opposite of "anticipointment" is. I'm with you on Batman; it put me on the bench for a while. (I think being in the back seat didn't help.)

I really hope you get to ride Houdini at SFNE - it's terrific. Having said that, it came closer to making me hurl than any other ride I've been on. So be warned. (And close your eyes if you need to.)

And yeah, their food is amusement park food from the same era as Runaway Train.

Medusa was running but we were short on time before the storms. I was also the only one in my party with even a passing interest in riding.