Six Flags Great Adventure, 4/23/08
Associated parks:
None
So many people were going into the park that it took 40 minutes to get to the parking booths. The lot was maybe 50% full at this point, not counting the overflow lot which was empty.
Walking to the entrance I saw SUF had a huge line and even GASM was down the stairs. I went to Movietown first and went to Batman. The line was just outside the tunnel with the fan and was 20 minutes for the front. 2 trains running. They need to keep the stair area cooler as it was really hot in there with so many people in line.
I went to Nitro next, the line was right at the 30 minute sign. 15 minute wait for row 6 with all 3 trains running. Lots of air time.
Skull Mountain's line was well into the cave, not worth it. The skyride was running but only 1 side with not that many cars and it had a full queue. Even BBLTT had a huge line. Decided to try Jolly Roger, was a lot more intense than I was expecting for what looks like a family ride but still tame.
Superman's line was all the way to the exit of the tunnel at the beginning of the line with no switchbacks being used. Still it looked like an 75 minutes or more easily. GASM's line was almost up to the switchbacks, 20 minute wait with 3 trains running. Not too rough today though the train completely stopped on the MCBR.
ET had a full queue, RT was running the right side only with 2 trains, looked like a 20 minute wait.
Medusa's first area of switchbacks was full, the line was at the 60 minute sign. 25 minute wait for the front. 3 trains running
RMT's line was almost to the end of the fort area, but no switchbacks were used. Looked like 25 - 30 minutes.
I went back to Batman, the line was into the park area and went to Nitro which was into the switchbacks. I didn't feel like waiting that long for either of those, went back to GASM with another 20 minute wait and saw they now had both sets of switchbacks open for SUF, and the line looked to be around 2 hours.
I had to leave anyway since it was around 4:00 at this point and the lines were getting worse, the lot looked to be 2/3 full when leaving.
I didn't think the park would be dead even though it was last year on a weekday in April, but I expected a lot less people there. I also know lines weren't that bad overall for a park, especially with the lines Great Adventure is capable of getting but for someone who regularly visits Dorney where 5 - 10 minutes is considered a long wait, and my last 2 visits to Great Adventure being almost nothing but walk ons, I am not really used to waiting in line that much. Next time, I'm going to get there at opening.
It was nice to see the parking running 3 trains on Nitro, GASM and Medusa, but loading needs to be faster as it didn't help that much as trains were stacking and sometimes double stacking, probably because there were only 2 people checking restraints for most coasters.
The no loose article policy was annoying people today as people left drinks on the side at Nitro, and one of the supervisors who was checking restraints kept getting into arguements with people about the items. With their permission, he threw out all of them. I also saw tons of trash in the station due to people leaving empty soda and water bottles there. At Medusa, people were leaving pocketbooks, bags and shoes and they didn't say anything. Batman removed the shoe cubbies and now they say you can only leave sneakers, flip flops have to be sat on. They really need a consistent policy for all the coasters, especially since last week at Medusa, people were told they couldn't leave sneakers or any shoes with a back to them.
Ride Count:
Batman, 1x
Nitro, 1x
Medusa, 1x
GASM, 2x
Jolly Roger, 1x
First time at the park for my niece and nephew (14 & 10 yrs. old) and they want to go on KK first. I think that is to get that fear out of the way instead of looking at that structure too long for fear they may decide not to ride.
I would rather go to ET first and get at least two rides on that quickly. I know they'll want to do SUF but they'll never wait two hours.
Should make for an interesting day.
I went last Saturday and though crowds were pretty bad early in the day, they eased up by 6:00 pm and even El Toro was only about a ten minute wait. Not bad for a Saturday with eighty degree weather.
otterkpr said:
It might not be higher attendance but actually cause by lose of capacity in the park from the removal of several flat ride and closing a section the park. All that adds up to be a lot of extra people in the remaining lines. I expect many of the other Six Flags parks (SFGAm will be a nightmare) having the "more crowded feel" this season.
Theres no reason that SFGAm would be a nightmare. The rides they removed all had terrible capacity (not to mention downtime), that The Dark Knight will just about make up for. By the end of the season with the amount of downtime each of the rides would normally experience, and taking their low capacity into account, The Dark Knight will have a higher number of guests that have ridden than the 3 rides combined (on a year to year basis). No nightmare.
Its a Friday though, in my experience Fridays are not usually as busy for some reason. Who knows, its a crap shoot.
As we drove into the safari my niece (14) started getting a little apprehensive about the steep drop on KK and my nephew (12) is riding her and telling her it's not straight down, 'it's a spriral'. Like that's really making her feel better about the situation. She never actually said she wouldn't get on though.
An hour later at park opening we walk through the gates and now my nephew has decided that KK will have to wait for another day. I believe his thought process is to wait until he brings a friend so that if he doesn't like it at least he'll be on with his friend whereas if he rode it today and didn't like it he may not get on when he takes a friend.
Kids!?! No wonder I'm childless.
All coasters, one ride each.
*ET- first ride we got on. Walked right on. I love this coaster, it just goes non-stop. Good wood is really hard to beat. A little intense for the kids, they think they liked it but they've never been on anything quite like this.
*RMT- only front seats and us in the rear went out. They thought is was going to be rinky-dinky and I told them it has a train on the front, pretend is Big Thunder Mountain. Well it caught them off guard with how it ran it's course. Fun little ride.
*Skyride- you don't get too many of these anymore (HP,DW & DL all gone) so I always do them when I can.
*SM- is it just me or is every loading platform at this park just so loud? There's a recorded loading spiel that you can't even understand and there wasn't a crowd in the station. I try to make this ride fun but it's a bore to me.
*Nitro- one of those rides that always delivers for me. I'm not into ranking coasters but this one surely would be in my top 10 (wood and steel). Niece wasn't sure about when going up the lifthill she looks over to the left and asks it that's part of this coaster too. After I asked her to open her eyes at going down the second hill she was fine, even putting her hands up.
*Batman- hmmm, it's good and I know I'm opening myself up here, but I prefer Great Bear over it. While heading back into the station I announce to my troops the obvious, 'it's a little more intense than GB'. My nephew leans forward from three seats over and says "a little?'. Guess I'm getting older, I don't need all those flips and rolls.
*SUF- wasn't even testing when we went in so by now it's got a 75 min. wait (which turned into 90 with the brief shutdown as we're only 25 people from the bottom of the stairs) so we braved it. I wouldn't wait this long for this ride but they both wanted to get on it since he loved Batwing last year and she missed getting on that.
The parts on this type of ride that are nice is when you're sailing around a curve and it indeed does give you a sense of flight but I could live without that inside loop. These rides are like standups to me, gimmicky, I'll get on them if I'm there and have the time but I wouldn't go out of my way.
*GASM- looked like a 30 min. wait as we started to enter the queue and I did an about face. Told them it's a bit rough and not worth the wait today. We'll get it another time.
Waited 15 min. to get some fries, ate, then got our season passes processed. That was somewhat painless and provided a good laugh as our picture taker took my nephews picture without even telling him. "You're done!" The same with my niece but she was somewhat prepared after seeing what he did to her brother and I was surely ready with a smile! He was moving people out the door!
*Medusa- I told them they would like this and they did. Very enjoyable ride. Only floorless I've been on (although if I wasn't 6'3", Nitro could be considered one) so I've nothing to compare it too but this I could ride alot (vs. Batman).
That's it. I did check on Ka at 4:15 and it was a 2 hr. wait and was down for mechanical issues at that point so it could have been longer. Caught the tiger show on the way out, it was a nice effort.
Park was clean, security was out in force and it appeared that ride ops were doing the best that they could. That's all I ask, make the effort to get the ride loaded and on it's way.
Pretty good day, headed back on Mothers Day to use our first bring a friend free coupon. A nice perk in the coupon book was a ticket to also bring a friend free to ANY SF park. In addition to bringing a friend free to GA there are several allowing you to bring a friend for $14.99. Not bad but golly they do give the gate away.
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