Six Flags Great Adventure Trip Report – June 2, 2016

In case you missed it yesterday, I’m in the middle of a small theme park road trip. After Wednesday’s visit to Six Flags America, my next stop was just under 200 miles north at another Six Flags park I was visiting for the first time, Six Flags Great Adventure. Located in Jackson, New Jersey, Six Flags Great Adventure is centrally located to both Philadelphia and New York City.

Great Adventure was the brainchild of New York businessman Warner LeRoy, who used the name as an all-encompassing umbrella for his proposed entertainment complex in the area. The complex was intended to feature seven areas; a theme park, a safari park, a floral park, a show park, a shopping district, a sports complex and a campground.

Ultimately, only the first two areas were built, and the park was acquired by Six Flags in 1977. It was the first park acquired by Six Flags, and the fourth Six Flags park overall, behind Six Flags Over Texas (1961), Six Flags Over Georgia (1967) and Six Flags St. Louis (1971, as Six Flags Mid-America). Featuring 13 roller coasters as well as a 350-acre safari park, Six Flags Great Adventure occupies 510 acres, making it the second largest theme park in the world, behind Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

I got a bit of a late start today, arriving at the park around 11:30am. With Great Adventure closing at 6:00pm, I knew that I was going to have to work fast in order to try to ride as many of the park’s attractions as I could before the end of the day.

The first thing I noticed about Six Flags Great Adventure was the park’s impressive skyline from the parking lot. Several roller coasters, including Kingda Ka, Superman: Ultimate Flight and The Green Lantern were in full view from my parking space. It only increased my anticipation for what I was about to experience.

After approaching Six Flags America with a counter-clockwise path on Wednesday, I decided to take a similar journey through Six Flags Great Adventure. This led me from the park’s Main Street Area, past several flat rides in Adventure Alley, including a Sky Screamer, Ferris Wheel and Scrambler, into Movie Town, where I would ride my first coaster of the day.

Unfortunately, that coaster, Batman: The Ride (the first Batman: The Ride clone after the original at Six Flags Great America) was not operating today. Luckily, I was able to get my Batman coaster fix at the nearby “The Dark Knight” indoor Mack Wild Mouse. The real star of this coaster was the pre-show, featuring a news conference from Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent, which was interrupted on the big screen by the Joker, who eventually was in control of the entire pre-show room. The ride itself was a typical wild mouse, with the added effects of darkness and some characters from the Batman universe.

Like yesterday at Six Flags America, one of my favorite coasters was my second ride of the day. Maybe I’m biased towards Bolliger and Mabilliard hyper/giga coasters, but Nitro, which is celebrating its 15^th birthday this year, was an amazing ride. Sometimes the “clamshell” style restraints give me some trouble, but I fit on Nitro with no problem. As is characteristic of B&M hypercoasters, there was unbelievable airtime, and Nitro also provided a very smooth ride.

I headed back indoors for my third coaster of the day, Skull Mountain. Like The Dark Knight, Skull Mountain is a coaster in complete darkness, generally geared toward families. I sat all the way in the back, and the first drop after being pulled over the crest of the lift hill provided a great moment bit of ejector air, much more than I would expect for a ride geared towards families.

The newest coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure, The Joker, was next. The Joker was only the second S&S coaster I’ve ever ridden (Hypersonic XLC at Kings Dominion) and my first free-spinning coaster. Waiting in line and watching riders turn head-over-heels multiple times was a little nerve-wracking, but I thought to myself, “it’s not that long of a ride, it can’t be that bad.”

While relatively short (with a ride time of less than a minute), The Joker is definitely unlike any other roller coaster I’ve ever ridden. It was exciting, but going from somersault to backflip almost immediately after the initial climb had me a little “green” when I was done.

Luckily for me, there was a “cool-down” ride adjacent to The Joker in Harley Quinn Crazy Train. A smaller Zamperla family coaster formerly known as Blackbeard’s Lost Treasure Train, Harley Quinn had one of the longest coaster trains I’ve ever seen, with 20 rows. Another unique aspect of this coaster was that it navigated the nearly 1200’ of track twice before coming to a stop in the station. Sitting by myself, I was sliding around quite a bit in the seat, with some great lateral g-forces.

My next coaster was Superman: Ultimate Flight, a B&M Flying Coaster. I’ve ridden another Superman: Ultimate Flight clone at Six Flags Over Georgia, and it was the longest I have ever waited for a theme park ride (just under 2.5 hours through multiple breakdowns.) Luckily I didn’t have to wait that long this time! I prefer the B&M flyers to Vekoma Flyers, simply because the loading procedure feels easier, and climbing the lift hill in a flying position is more enjoyable than a lay-down position.

Right next to Superman: Ultimate Flight is another B&M Coaster, this one a stand-up themed after the Green Lantern. Gone are the bright purple supports and yellow track (except for the loop) that this coaster once had as “Chang” at the former Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, replaced instead with dark supports and a bright green track. Yesterday, I briefly touched on why I didn’t particularly enjoy stand-up coasters, and Green Lantern unfortunately falls into that same category. The ride experience was good, but someone needs to come up with a better way to ride stand-up coasters.

I had to double-back and reverse my counter-clockwise path to enter the next land, The Golden Kingdom, which houses two of Six Flags Great Adventure’s most iconic attractions; Kingda Ka, the tallest (456’) roller coaster in the world, and fastest (128mph) in the United States, and Zumanjaro: Drop of Doom, the world’s tallest (415’) drop ride.

Since it opened in 2005, Kingda Ka has always been a “bucket list” ride for me, mainly due to those record-breaking statistics. I was ready to cross it off of the list. Walking through the bamboo-lined queue, I was excited to experience both the speed and height of Kingda Ka, while secretly hoping for a roll-back (because who doesn’t want to have a cool story, right?).

Suddenly the techno-music that was being piped into the queue stopped, and a voice came over the speakers telling those in line that Kingda Ka was “experiencing technical difficulties,” and had to “temporarily close.” Immediately, several people jumped out of line. I didn’t, and moved slightly closer to the station. As the downtime got longer and longer, more people jumped out of line, and I got closer to the station.

Time was starting to become a factor. It was 4:00. The ride had been down for (what I’m estimating) was getting close to 45 minutes, and I still had several other coasters that I needed to ride. I was about five minutes away from jumping out of line when I saw an empty train ease out onto the launch track. It was going to happen!

The ride reopened, and I was on the second train that left the station. Kingda Ka was insanely fast and insanely tall, and an exciting experience. But, it was over too soon for me to justify waiting for it as long as I did. If it wasn’t a bucket list coaster for me, or I had ridden it before, I likely would have jumped out of line and come back later.

Unfortunately, due to time, I didn’t get a chance to ride Zumanjaro, but I will make sure to ride it the next time that I visit the park.

 

Doubling back on the paths again, I headed from The Golden Kingdom to Plaza Del Carnaval, where El Toro, Six Flags Great Adventure’s lone wooden coaster, resides. One of only two Intamin Wooden Coasters in the United States, El Toro’s 176’ drop is the tallest wooden coaster drop in the United States.

I rode El Toro in the front row, and despite having to be “stapled in” to the train, the coaster’s drops and turns had me flying out of my seat with ejector air. From start to finish, the ride didn’t let up, and it was awesome. (I even witnessed a roll back on Kingda Ka before we went down the first drop – Mission Accomplished!) I’m not sure I can call it my favorite wooden coaster ever, but it’s a very close 1-2 between El Toro, and my favorite wooden coaster, The Voyage at Holiday World.

By this time, it was after 5:00pm, and with two more roller coasters left to ride, I had to work pretty quickly if I was to finish before the park closed. I headed to the Frontier Adventures area in the back corner of the park to catch rides on the Runaway Mine Train and Bizarro.

Runaway Mine Train was a pretty standard Arrow-designed Mine Train coaster, featuring some good hills and lateral g’s, and overall a great coaster for families. It is the only coaster that was in existence when Six Flags purchased Great Adventure in 1977.

My last coaster of the day was Bizarro, a B&M Floorless Coaster. Some quick research tells me that Bizarro used to be named Medusa, and was B&M’s first floorless coaster design. In 2009, Six Flags rethemed Medusa to Bizarro, complete with a new paint job and ride elements. I enjoyed Bizarro’s ride experience, despite having no real knowledge of the DC Comics character. The one thing I didn’t understand was the ride’s placement and theme (Comic Book Villain) compared to the overall theme (Frontier/Western) of the area it was located in.

With just a few minutes to spare before 6:00pm, I headed back to the park entrance, exhausted after a marathon day.

Operationally, Six Flags Great Adventure was running very efficiently. Save for Harley Quinn, which only has one train, all of the roller coasters were operating with multiple trains, resulting in fairly low wait times across the board. The park had an impressive lineup of flat rides that I wish I had a little bit more time to experience. Also, despite some solid lunch recommendations from twitter – I didn’t get a chance to grab lunch at the park. Time was definitely a factor today.

I’m definitely looking forward to taking a trip back to Six Flags Great Adventure sometime soon. They’ve got an incredible arsenal of different roller coasters, maybe a few that crack my personal “top” lists. (But I’ll reevaluate once the “recency bias” wears off.)

Six Flags Great Adventure Coasters, Ranked

1. Nitro
2. El Toro
3. Bizarro
4. Joker
5. Superman: Ultimate Flight
6. Kingda Ka
7. Green Lantern
8. The Dark Knight
9. Skull Mountain
10. Harley Quinn Crazy Train
11. Runaway Mine Train

NR: Batman: The Ride (Closed)

NR: Road Runner Railway (Too much alliteration)

For more information about Six Flags Great Adventure, visit the park’s website: https://www.sixflags.com/greatadventure

Thanks for following along! Stay tuned as tomorrow, we take a visit to Dorney Park in Allentown, PA.

 

Tags: bizarrogreen lanternjokerkingda kamedusanew jerseynitroroad triproller coasterssix flagsSix Flags Great Adventureskull mountainsupermanthe dark knighttrip reportzumanjaro