Six Flags Great Adventure announces Zumanjaro, a 415-foot drop tower

I'm disappointed in this announcement. I'd much rather see a B&M wing rider or diving coaster than a ride that lasts only a few seconds. On the bright side, removing Rolling Thunder opens up a lot of possibilities for the next few years.

Not to me. I assume a lot of that space will be used for walkways to Ka's tower/Zumanjaro. Maybe some flats, midway games, food, etc.

I'm probably gonna pop down there tomorrow morning. I'm unexpectedly off work.

I like the idea. Frankly, it's refreshing to see Six Flags showing some restraint at their larger coaster parks. They don't need a new coaster right now, and given the company's insistence on adding something at every park each year, this seems like a good way of doing that without building themselves into a land-locked situation.

When will they take RT down? I'd like to ride it one more time before it goes for old times sake.

Good rubbish to bad riddance! I'm glad for the Zumunda announcement though.

Most expected announcement of the season....

bunky666 said:

When will they take RT down? I'd like to ride it one more time before it goes for old times sake.

Next Saturday, the 8th, is the last day to ride RT.

I like the "racing" aspect of the three carriages dropping alongside each other, I think that's pretty cool. More importantly, the space opened up by the removal of Rolling Thunder is large enough for a wing coaster or something else large for next year.

Im predicting RT's replacement to be a RMC Steel or Topper type with inversions, Interacting with Toro.

Pretty good move. I always wondered as it was one of the few majors to not have a drop tower of some sort. Even a S&S type.

I have trouble with the idea of this "shattering" a record. It's only marginally bigger than the one at Magic Mountain, which in itself is only marginally bigger than the one in Dreamworld...

No love for Rolling Thunder? This is my husband's childhood park and he's broken up about it; it was his first "big" roller coaster. I can't say what it's really like at its best; I've only ridden it once because on my second of two visits there they didn't even bother opening it. On my first visit they had only one side open which I understand is normal. It was running one train resulting in an hour wait on a day when most rides had very short waits (though there were certainly enough people willing to stand there and wait to ride it). It also rode like it was full of potholes. All of that seems to add up to a case of neglect rather than an intrinsically bad ride. I'm sorry I never got to ride it in better days.

^^ it honestly used to be a great ride. The hills on the back half could fling you out of the seat at times. I've never had trouble with it being rough, and in fact, it just made a lot of noise and went super slow the last time I rode it. I'm honestly glad I get to ride it at least once more on the 7th.

^^^Oh, you know how marketing / media works. "Zumanjaro Marginally Breaks a Record for 2014!" just doesn't have the same allure.

^On top of that it's not a unique concept to attach a drop tower to a launch coaster. It's old news lol.

I'm a bit distraught they're removing Rolling Thunder because I haven't ridden it and because I don't really see the wisdom there. As I said earlier in the thread, it's not broken, it's not very old, and it doesn't really need to be removed because the park has plenty of space elsewhere for future expansion.

Open Old Country back up with a functioning Pendulum (they're among the funnest flat rides) and we'll talk.

It makes perfect sense to me. SFA needs a racing coaster and we've taken about all we can from SFGAm. :)

^America is Great America's younger sister. She gets the old baby clothes and toys.

Lol I seriously didn't notice this until you mentioned it.

This is very exciting! The one ride that really stood out to me and my family as missing from the park was a drop tower. Although Rolling Thunder was still a fun ride (surprisingly not too bump) it was time to make way for new thrills. I wouldn't doubt it if Rolling Thunder was costing a lot more to maintain then it used to.

Great Adventure HAD a drop tower and they scrapped it.

Quick question for anyone that might know: why build these huge drop rides onto existing coaster textures rather than do a free standing tower? Less money? Better stability? A little of both? Less real estate used? I'm just wondering because visually, one would think a separate drop tower would create more "oomph", and less people would be confused as to what ride they're going to be riding. Especially with weird names that no one can pronounce, let alone remember.

Also, has anyone else started to just call this ride Jumanji?

I would think it's all about keeping the cost of installing the ride lower. Why build a tower for the ride to travel up and down when you already have a perfectly usable structure already built.

Confusing people with two rides in the same place is kind of a good point, although I think this problem is already solved by having entrances in very different places for each ride.

About the towers name, it is well-known that when creating a brand, like a band name for example, you should focus on making it easy to pronounce and understand. You should avoid misspellings. A lot of people have ignored these rules (like me) but they are well-known rules nonetheless.

My music project is pronounced to sound like orphan head. It is spelled Orfanhed. lol