Six Flags Great Adventure, 4/1/10

I decided to take a trip to the park for the 2nd time in less than a week, I thought crowds might be a problem but wasn't expecting it to be jammed especially after last year where lines during Spring Break week where around 15 - 20 minutes at the most.

I got to the park around 4 and the lot was around 75% full. From the lot I saw Superman had at least a 75 - 90 minute wait. First place I went was the Looney Tunes Shoppe to get my Funatics exit pass.

Nitro had almost a completely full queue and Batman was into the garden area so I went to Nitro. There was a huge line at the exit ramp and I ended up waiting almost 20 minutes with the exit pass (so much for skipping the line like the pass says). 3 trains were running and they had row 6 blocked off for exit pass and special access but they started to load the entire train from the exit for 2 trains to clear out the line, some people actually got the front row using exit passes. I got row 9 and saw the flashpass line was down the stairs.

The Dark Knight didn't look too bad so I went there next, 25 minute wait. They weren't even trying at all to make sure the cars went out full as I saw lots of cars going out half full.

Skull Mountain looked to be at least 30 minutes, the sky ride had a full queue and even Blackbeards looked to be around 30 minutes.

I went to Scream Machine, the line was in between the 30 and 60 minute sign but after 10 minutes in line and seeing the line barely move, I left and by then the line was into the swtichbacks. 2 trains were running and were stacking everytime. Twister was closed.

Rolling Thunder had just the left side open and had 2 or 3 switchbacks full. Knowing how long the line is after the switchbacks and how slow the dispatches are, I figured it was at least 45 minutes so skipped that too. Runaway Mine Train is still closed and 2 people were working on one of the trains. Bizarro had almost a full queue and the Log Flume's queue was about 2/3 full, so that was around an hour if not more.

I had enough with the crowds and lines so I decided to leave the park. A day like today showed with so many rides removed and SBNO that the current rides remaining all had huge lines as a result. There were 8 non kiddie coasters running, add in Fling, Skyway, Jolly Roger, Log Flume, Parachutes, Tea Cups, Carousel and that is only 15 non kiddie rides running in the entire park.

Besides the coasters stacking and slow dispatches the other rides were not running at full capacity. The parachutes have 4 sides, each with 2 chutes.1 might not be ready yet but why was only 1 side with 2 chutes running? The queue was almost completely full and with how slow the ride loads it was probably around a 90 minute wait if not more. Same with the skyway, only 1 side running with a full queue. Rolling Thunder should have had both sides open with all 4 trains running with it being so crowded. I know it is early in the season but the rapids open would have helped as well (SFA has their rapids open for the season already). With Scream Machine, I was expecting it to be around 20 - 25 minutes, but the way the line was moving it was probably going to be at least 45 minutes.

I also hate to bring it up so frequently but I keep seeing the lockers having the opposite happen of what they were meant for. It's supposed to speed up dispatches but it seems to slow it down with people throwing stuff to the sides in the station and then the ops have to give them back the item to take on the ride (like a jacket) or the rider spends time arguing causing even more stacking.

I'm going to try again next week after NYC schools are back in session as well as Jackson school district and hope crowds are better then.

^this is surprising to me... ive been going to six flags parks during the spring breaks for a number of years now and they have almost always been dead and made for great days... the weekend days are bad... but this was a thursday, very surprising

Wow, I had a slight notion of making a trip there this coming Mon. but without a SP like you have Yoshi there is no way I would willing pay for those kind of waits. Even at the 'everyone pays the kid price' promotion running right now which would make longer waits somewhat palatable I'm not willing to take that whoopin'.

I don't think next will be as bad, a lot of schools including Jackson school district start up again on Monday. NYC schools start again on Wednesday. I am guessing Monday will not be empty but will have shorter waits but am expecting Wednesday and Thursday and possibly Friday to be like 2007, where I went on the Wednesday when school was in session for almost everyone and everything but Superman was a walk on.

This is more of a normal experience at that park for me. I always have bad luck with crowds and crappy capacity at SFGAdv.

If I wasn't a passholder and hadn't been to the park in years and yesterday was my first trip or first trip in a while, I would probably not want to return so fast. I know the park can do better than that with operations so it was annoying to see it being run like that.

Kind of like with King's Dominion, I haven't been there since CF hastaken over the park but I was there in 1996, 1997 and 2003 and all 3visits were horrible and even though I only have 2 credits (Rebel Yelland Ghoster Coaster), I am hesitant to go back.

The lot wasn't even full yesterday and they weren't using the overflow lot either. I know during Frightfest they also use Hurricane Harbor's lot for the main park. If queues were full yesterday, I'd hate to see lines when the park is at capacity.

Yoshi, we ended up going on Saturday, so thanks for the tidbits you provide about heading to the park. You mentioned the operations being spotty and we found that to be very true as well. I use spotty because we ran into a little bit of everything:

• El Toro had the quickest operations we've seen in three visits. They were rolling trains out and we only waited 30 minutes with a full queue.
• Med...er, Bizarro was pumping out trains ridiculously quickly. It seems as though trains seem to stack here without exception, but they probably got trains out every 75-90 seconds, so the line was really moving. We were really impressed with this crew.
• Kingda Ka was launching regularly. The line was around 45 minutes, and after about 40 minutes of that wait it decided to break down. I've been to this park and still don't have this credit! Gotta love Intamin launchers!
• Nitro was only running two trains and with a full queue was around an hour. They weren't dispatching as fast as they could (one train every 2 minutes) and the line was really creeping, unusual for a B&M hyper.
• Batman was around an hour. They were only dispatching about one train every 2 to 2.5 minutes so the line really moved slow.

Overall I was pleased with the operations and the park in general especially given the crowd size. I'm curious to hear about what Sunday was like.

My wife and I were there for Season Pass Holder's Day on Sunday (4/05/10).

To call the park empty would be an understatement.We were there from 10:30 

till around 2:00.

1.El Toro was ready to go with 2 trains when the park opened.

  They did eventually have to remove a train because of the lack of riders. 

2.Every coaster was a walk up with maybe a 1-2 train wait for

  for the front,including Ka.

3.Rerides were the order of the day.The ops were being real good about it.

  If no one was waiting in your row,just stay on.

  If somone was waiting,you could move to another row.

  We got rerides on every coaster we went on,including KA.

4.The ride ops were really hustling even with 1/2 empty 

  trains.

5.Nitro was running 3 trains while we were there.

  Some were going out with just the front row filled.

All in all a unique (but very good) day at GA.

I was at GAdv yesterday too. In 36 years of attending, I've never seen it so empty. I was on the first Toro train of the day, and got to stay on for a second ride. Then I had to leave the station and walk around while they took one train out of commission. After that, I never left the station, except to eat around 3:30. I had 75 rides to that point, and got 15 more in two riding sessions before I couldn't do anymore. Ended up with 90 rides, a new one-day mark for me on ANY coaster. I was glat Runaway Train was running, unlike Opening Day. It's a special coaster to me, as it was one of the first "big".. :)..coasters I ever rode back as a nine-year-old.

Hey bobcat..I understood Nitro wasn't running for chunks of the day. Did I get bad info? They were only running two trains when I made it over around 4pm...got 10 rides. KK shut down briefly as I was about to board.

Mike

Egad. 90 nearly consecutive rides on Toro...

Mike Gallagher said:
Hey bobcat..I understood Nitro wasn't running for chunks of the day. Did I get bad info? They were only running two trains when I made it over around 4pm...got 10 rides. KK shut down briefly as I was about to board.

Mike

Mike:

We were over at Nitro around 12:00 and they were still running 3 trains.We went back and forth between Nitro and Batman for about an hour.During that time we didn't see Nitro go down.

We were wondering why they kept running 3 trains when they were sending some trains out with people only in the front row.

If I would have made a visit to SFGAdv yesterday, the park would have been packed. You would have been lucky to have rode Toro once, and KK would have been down for the entire day. A flash pass would have been necessary for you to get a few rides in. ;)