Six flags great adv. 7/24

I like to start by saying I have a gold pass for sf's, so I brought my friend for free and he brought his girlfriend. Going in it looked like it was supposed to shower a couple times, but it turned out to be a beautiful day.not sure if I get into preferred parking with my pass but we drove next to it and found a spot where I could fit my car through, I parked the closest I've ever been to a park entrance. Also I'm not sure if they just started this this yr or what, but instead of being stuck at the entrance until 10:30 they let us in at 10, corralled around the fountain and season pass holders could leave at 10:20. I waited with my friends though til 10:30.

Since I've been to the park a lot and they never had been I let them decide what to do( king da ka and zumanjaro were closed til around 2ish). They wanted to ride el toro first but they hadn't even started the safety checks yet, it didn't open until 11:45 so we waited 45 mins but at least we were the 1st train. It wasn't that good of a run honestly, we were towards the back. I usually sit 2nd to last car back row. But there was to many ppl in front of us and my friends still wanted to just get on the ride.

After toro we went through the door towards bizzaro that wasn't opened yet so when we got to bizarro no one was there and we rode it 3 times without getting off. Right as we were leaving a huge crowd was headed towards it. We went on the runaway mine train which was actually pretty painful for us, we hit the skyway a quickly hit skull mountain. We got in line for Nitro which was a little over an hr. We lost are seats to our rows 3 times to platinum flash pass holders including on nitro.

After, we hit batman which was around a 15 min wait and rode front row which changed the whole ride for me. We rode the dark knight next which was a walk on. We ate then headed over to zumanjaro which was and hr and a half wait. I wasn't really scared I was more just enjoying looking around the park. It's sad to see where rolling thunder once was and there be nothing but that one small section of track. Kingda ka was about an hr wait and we sat 3rd row. ( his gf wouldn't ride zumanjaro or ka)

Superman was down so we got in line for green lantern which was around 20 mins. It was probably the most painful ride I've taken on it, my legs felt terrible. Superman opened back up before we got on gl . Superman was the worst experience of the whole day. We were stuck in the station for a half hr in itself. Platinum pass ppl kicked us out again and the ride ops were just plain bad. On the last break run before the station there was throw up under are row, it was disgusting.

We headed back to toro and rode it 2 more times. The 1st ride was so good in my seat, I'm not sure if it's the red train or what because my final ride we rode brown train and it was completely better. We left after 8:30. It was a good day.

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It's cause I was in Mobile view

Phillie2 - - -> It was kind of you to allow your friends to decide where and what to do. Sometimes "guests" want you to give them the tour and sometimes its best when they set the pace. Depends on the age I guess.

I'm seeing a pattern though that bothers me about Great Adventure. If the park is supposed to open at 10:30 (It used to be 10) everything should be up and running and ready to go as the rope drops.

I hate to see the running of the blls over there only to see the herd confused that there is nowhere to really run to.

Phillies2 said:

...( king da ka and zumanjaro were closed til around 2ish). They wanted to ride el toro first but they hadn't even started the safety checks yet, it didn't open until 11:45 so we waited 45 mins but at least we were the 1st train.

GrAdv can be be really inconsistent in what time they admit, how far you can go, and what's open, all in that half-hour from 10:00-10:30.

As much as I see Six Flags making improvements, the inconsistency of the gate openings, as well as not having things up and running by admission time, is something that really irritates me. I don't know if it is organization, tech issues, or what, but I really think it starts off the experience for the guest in a negative way. I'm not by any means a Six Flags hater either. Even Wal-Mart preps their store and has the one checkout lane open by stated business hours.

I don't quite get the Platinum Flashpass. Sure, you get to ride twice in a row, but with the Gold, by the time you book your ride, go up to the gate, and get seated, you can re-book the ride and just walk back around. People fall for it all the time, but seems silly to me.

For kdk and zumanjaro when we were on runaway train the ride op was nice enough to fing out about the rides for us. He said he wasn't sure they would open and that they both were failing there safety checks. My friend who had never been before ( he only had gone to hershey) was pissed that el toro wasn't open when the park open saying this would never happy at hershey. At the end of the day he said he's open to going to other parks still but he won't be going back there

I guess I've been fortunate in that El Toro has been up and running when the park opened on my last several visits. As to KK and Zumanjaro, I thought that the park had the logistics worked out pretty well but they may need fine tuning. The original idea, per the park's press release, was to have Kingda Ka trains launching at Zumanjaro riders but just before the drop ride opened, the State of New Jersey decided that the park could not operate the two rides simultaneously. This doesn't seem to impact Zumanjaro as much as KK because the drop ride can be safely loaded - thanks to a retractable roof - while KK trains are operating. Two KK trains typically go by while ZU is loading. However, the KK trains have to wait for ZU to go through a cycle. The last time I rode KK, the gondolas on ZU were just beginning their ascent so I knew that we would have to sit on the launch track and wait for them to come back down before being launched. I haven't done the math, but the whole setup means that there will be a 30-second delay for every other KK train so I wonder how this will affect ride capacity over the course of an hour or a day. Probably not significant. As to safety checks, it may be just the train I rode - don't know one from another - but this ride on KK was the shakiest I ever had and from the 2nd row this should not have been the case.

Three other people - two with whom I rode and myself - find Runaway Train painful.

Bobbie1951 said:

I haven't done the math, but the whole setup means that there will be a 30-second delay for every other KK train so I wonder how this will affect ride capacity over the course of an hour or a day. Probably not significant.

Maybe I'm just a capacity stickler, but this sounds awful. Given how short the trains are on KK and the fact that they only use one station these days, I can't imagine this is remotely pleasant.

I don't understand this. In getting permits and reviewing plans and animation, wouldn't this have been brought up and discussed sooner? I mean, when you're discussing rides worth millions of dollars, wouldn't as much as possible NOT be left up to chance with the New Jersey recreation authorities? Am I missing something?

I don't think you're missing anything. It seems that a lot that happened was haphazard and last minute. The press preview had been originally scheduled for May 22 but the ride wasn't ready so it was rescheduled for July 2 but then cancelled because as of July 2 the park still had not gotten a permit to operate Zumanjaro! They said that the powers that be were still reviewing the documentation. The park sure acted fast, as it opened two days later. At what exact point it was determined that KK and Zu could not be operated simultaneously I can't say. But given the sequence of events, I'm inclined to suspect that it was later rather than sooner.

Someone on another website suggested that Zumanjaro might turn out to be one of the park's biggest failures. I don't know. Now that the single rider line has gotten longer, I've had ample opportunity to observe the reactions of people coming off the ride. Some are shaking their heads but most of them are all smiles. Still, back to what Apollo Andy said, this is sort of screwing things up for Kingda Ka. I was accustomed to being on the launch track for about 10 seconds max and having to wait for ZU to do its thing is bound to make an already unmanageable ride queue even longer. On the other hand, if you're on the first train to be dispatched, you can now sit on KK and relax, knowing that you have about 30 seconds before bracing yourself for the launch.

On another site I read that before Zumanjaro, the target for Kingda Ka was 60 launches an hour and now with Zumanjaro open, they are getting 36 launches an hour so a 40% reduction in capacity. Yesterday the park was reported to be empty and someone said they waited 75 minutes from the 60 minute sign. I am not willing to wait more than 15 - 20 minutes for Kingda Ka so I guess I won't be riding the coaster much anymore unless I go to it right at opening before the crowds get there.

Is it time to blame Chris Christie yet?

Well, wasn't there a bridge that was closed after the accident?

Thankfully, it seems like everyone is doing a pretty good job of badmouthing the park without my help. :)

I'm still stuck on the idea that SFMM is running a nearly-identical coaster/drop tower combo. CA is known for earthquakes, and certainly at least as picky about regulation as anyone out there.

I find it hard to believe that SF failed to make it known to NJ that they intended on running the two rides together (I mean, it was in the promo videos and all). Which leaves me thinking that NJ might have decided *after the fact* of approval that the rides weren't specifically authorized to run in conjunction. Then again, we have history of SF not getting it right in planning stages (SFDK's tilted tower, SFNE's failure to get permission for their ride).

With so much incompetence around, hard to know where the blame lies on this one...

At Magic Mountain, the coaster goes up one side, not overtop like KK.

I'm not 100% sure, but SFDK's sure felt like an attempt to pull one over on the local zoning board. I distinctly remember the V2's going in the same year and SFDK's being advertised at 150' and SFGAm's being advertised at 185'. The only explanation in retrospect is the attempt to pass off a 185' ride as being 150' tall.

I would hope SFGAdv. wasn't trying to pull something like this on NJ and got caught.

Ironically, making them change it made it the best of its type. Also, a black fly in your chardonnay.