Zumanjaro, tallest drop ride in the world, finally opens at Six Flags Great Adventure

Next year, they are going to add a spinny ride to the top of Kingda Ka's tower, resulting in the closing of two of their main attractions for half the season. It will be hilarious to see the disappointed faces of people who paid hundreds-of-dollars and time off of work to visit the park, only to be turned away from the rides that made them want to revisit the run down, overpriced theme park in the first place.

As for me, this park doesn't exist anymore. Cedar Fair does everything much better.

This breaks my heart, Travis. Great Adventure is one of my favorite parks, perhaps for nostalgic purposes. They have their issues, but I still think its one of the better Six flags properties.

I grew up going to GAdv and have some really fond memories of the place. The Log Flume, the old teepee (now gone), the Yum Yum Palace, the Conestoga...

My first invert was GAdv's Batman, and I rode with my mom who is no longer able to ride for health reasons...long before I got bit by the bug.

Since, I've gone back multiple times, mostly good visits. There have been a few hiccups to be sure, but the park is NOT a hole...not IMO.

LK, CF does a crappy job of allowing rerides. Every park has faults so gradv is like all the rest to me, but until CF builds a great woodie like eltoro i will continue to visit gradv!

I was there once in 2001 I think for a few hours on the way to Dorney, and it did not impress me. It was kind of a dump at the time. Obviously this opinion is largely irrelevant now, as a dozen years have passed.

From what I hear, I'd be more worried about the extremely low capacity the two rides have. Supposedly, they can't run both rides at the same time. So they send two Kinda Ka trains, pause Kinda Ka to allow the drop, and repeat.

They should just make one long line for both. Then everyone can be equally as miserable.

Was not being able to run both rides planned or is this another Intamin engineering oops?

Or is it even true?

(no one seems to be able to really confirm it yet)

Yeah, but when has that ever stopped us from complaining before?

I've seen the same reports, with Zumunjaro averaging 4-5 minutes between dispatches for theoretical capacities of 288-360pph. The line could stretch to Philly.

Hopefully it's something more like a coaster being certified to run one train, then getting another certification later for additional trains.

You know, I did visit the park when I was younger, and I do have some good memories of the place. The first year Batman was open made me question my reality, because I had no idea that a roller coaster could do that at the time. They do have what used to be an awesome log flume. Log flumes are a dieing breed, so any park that keeps them around is at least doing that right. If only their flume got a little TLC, it could be amazing as it used to be.

And El Toro is awesome...

If it is true that the park can't run both Kinda Ka and the drop tower at the same time, then that news will eventually come out. If it does turn out to be true, it will even further my poor opinion of the park.

However I am not so sure it is true. Magic Mountain successfully attached a drop ride to their coaster tower with no problem. It's not the same kind of structure though.

As for capacity, I know not to get into that debate again. If this park wants to build a record-breaking, extremely popular, 300 people per hour ride, that has a buzzkill line so long you have to pee in a bottle halfway through your wait, it's not going to affect me in any way, because I'll be at a different park having a great time. SFGAdv is well known for being a very busy park, so if this capacity issue is true, it is a very bad move, and add yet even more of my poor opinion of the park.

So what you're saying is that you don't like SFGAdv?

Was it that obvious? lol

To summarize the above post, Despite not enjoying SFGAdv as much as other people here, I have had some good memories of the park. There were a few positive points in that post too. :D

LostKause said:

Magic Mountain successfully attached a drop ride to their coaster tower with no problem. It's not the same kind of structure though.

One key difference is that Kinda Ka has a launch cable. When, something goes wrong with the cables, the people at the bottom are right in the line of fire of the shrapnel of a fraying cable. From the videos, I don't really see any protection for the people on the ride (other than the hydraulic room, and that only helps the people on that side of the ride). Seeing as how Kinda Ka, Dragster, and Xcelerator have all had major problems with the launch cable, I wouldn't want to be near that infield when a train launches.

The cable also ignores the more obvious issue of the fact that you have a 120 some mile an hour train flying at you, and people like to ignore the loose article policy, and film the ride. How long will it be before some yahoo wants to try and hit the riders on the drop ride with something from the launching train?

Knowing first-hand the trajectory of loose articles on this kind of roller coaster, I don't see that as a major issue. I could be wrong though. In my experience working at Cedar Point, loose articles on TDD almost always fall to the ground under the drop side of the coaster tower, and actually kind of far away from the rides structure. I have stood in the infield of TDD many times while the ride was operating, and never had to wear a hardhat or was aware that I had to be careful of falling objects.

Maybe the ride vehicles on the drop ride would benefit from having a wire cage built around them? That would either suck a large egg or be totally awesome! At least build a protective roof over each rider on the drop ride's vehicles.

As far as the issue goes that both rides can't launch at the same time, if it is true, it is a really stupid oversight on Intamin's part. I am very excited to discover if this is fact or fiction.

I'd say it would be as much the fault of Six Flags as it would anybody if they could only run one of the two rides at a time. That's something you need to look into before you go out shopping for a drop tower to bolt to the front of one of your roller coasters.

Next up, they're going to attach a sky screamer to the side of it and have the world's tallest swing, on the world's tallest drop ride, on the (currently) world's tallest roller coaster.

I just read details of this topic on Screamscape. I know that Screamscape isn't 100% reliable, but if it is to be believed, it's pretty bad. The short version of the story is that the State of New Jersey is making the park link the two ride control systems together. One runs a few cycles while the other is put on hold, then vice versa. It's causing very long wait times.I want to see a more reliable news source.http://screamscape.com/html/six_flags_great_adventure.htm