Here’s
a quick entry for the great state of New Jersey, as we have finally made it to
Six Flags Great Adventure this summer. I
don’t believe I have been to Great Adventure since my high school days, so things
have clearly changed. I’ve tried to
explain to Dorothy how many roller coasters and thrill rides the park has
relative to just about any other theme park out there. Sure, Disney has more character to it and
depth and breadth, but it never compared to Great Adventure and that still
holds true to form.
Dorothy
and I went to Great Adventure with our friends about a month ago. The plan was to buy tickets for the day and
then look for the “twicket” offer if they still had it for a heavily discounted
second trip and that would be our season.
The goal was to get on all of the “thrill rides” and
potentially get to Fright Fest. In what
has become a staple for us, this plan was thrown a weather curveball …
Upon
entry into the park we made our way to Nitro
– a pretty good roller coast that hits speeds up to about 80mph. You can also find these speeds daily on the
Parkway and Turnpike. The best part of
this ride is that you don’t have a shoulder harness and that gets your
adrenaline going a bit. Overall, I’d
give this ride 4.5 out of 5 stars, with the added benefit of being a relatively
long ride, in terms of time on the track from beginning to end.
After
Nitro we were on our way to the Boardwalk section of the park and to
potentially go on Green Lantern and/or Superman. Unfortunately, the skies opened up in a
matter of seconds and we were left running for cover. Thankfully, we were in the right area to
upgrade our day pass to a season pass.
We figured we would come back at least twice and that would make it more
than worth it. Shortly after getting our
passes, they announced that the park’s rides were closing and we were on our
way back home.
We
made our first return to Great Adventure over the Labor Day holiday weekend and
the park wasn’t that crowded at all. We
were able to get through a number of the thrill rides. In fact, there’s only two rides left on the
list after this last trip to get on this season – “The Dark Knight Coaster” and
the park’s newest ride, the “Skyscreamer”.
Dorothy has already bowed out of the latter and I’ll be “that guy” on
line for this one. It’s a giant swing
that goes 24 stories in the air and around 40mph.
Here’s
a quick review of the roller coasters we ventured on this past weekend:
Green Lantern: My favorite superhero was
high on the wish list and we made our way over to this first. For any old timers, this is a standing roller
coaster that is similar to the old “Shockwave” coaster
that the park used to have. The ride is
a bit bumpy, which I think is a good thing and makes it more fun, but it
can/will definitely throw your head around.
The length of the ride was pretty good.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Superman: This may be my favorite
roller coaster now due to its unique means of going over the tracks … head
first! This was phenomenal, but you
might not get the same response from a lot of others. It certainly feels odd to be sitting down one
second and then rotated to face forward with your arms and legs strapped
in. You definitely get a bit of a funny
feeling going on the first upside down loop.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Kingda Ka: The tallest roller coaster
in the world (45 stories) and the fastest (128mph) in North America was up
next. We waited a decent amount of time
for this and it was well worth it. The only
problem with this ride is the brevity of it.
Of course, when you are traveling 120+mph, something has to give. Here's a YouTube video of the
entire experience. Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
El Toro: Next was El Toro, which Great
Adventures claims to have the steepest drop of any wooden roller coaster in the
US. I thought this was pretty good, but
paled in comparison to the prior rides.
The length of the ride itself was pretty good though. Rating
3.5 out of 5 stars
Bizarro: This was once called Medusa
and I never made it on that to be able to tell you what the differences
are. However, this was a pretty good
coaster as well and lasted a few minutes.
They have headsets behind the seats to talk you through what is going on
in some capacity, but that doesn’t really add anything to the ride or
experience. The fireballs that shoot out
as you are going through one of the loops were a nice twist though. Rating:
3.5 out of 5 stars
So
there you have it, a review of most of the thrill rides at Great
Adventure. I’ll add something to this
whenever we get a chance to get to the park one last time this season for the
remaining rides. If you’ve gotten to
Great Adventure, what’s your favorite ride and why? Hope this helps others!
UPDATED – 10/13/12:
Dorothy
and I returned to Great Adventure to cover off on the rides we missed and to
drive through the Safari. To keep things
consistent, here’s a quick review on each of the rides:
Batman: The Ride: This is the original Batman
roller coaster that has been in the park for some time now. I always thought this was a pretty good
roller coaster and Dorothy agreed.
Thankfully, the line for this isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be, as
we barely waited on line (it used to be 75-90 minutes no matter what day or
time you were at the park). Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
The Dark Knight
Coaster: This
shouldn’t even be listed under the “thrill rides” section of the GA web
site. This is a kid’s ride and a very
poor man’s space mountain. The ride
lasts a good amount of time, but is pretty boring in my opinion. The best part about the entire ride is the
video introduction they show before entering the room where you load into the
cars. Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
SkyScreamer: When we first got to the
park, there was no line for this and we/I passed on going on with the desire to
go over to the Batman coasters first. I
still can’t decide if this was a good or bad decision. The bad – we wound up waiting about 30-40
minutes to get on the ride. The good –
we both felt awful after touching back on the ground. I am getting too old to spin around in a
circle for 90 seconds. This is both sad
and pathetic. Beyond this, I wasn’t
really impressed with the “thrill” element of the ride either. The ride is pretty short and you aren’t going
at max speed (40 mph) for more than 15 seconds.
It’s a cool view to see the entire park, but Great Adventure’s latest
ride didn’t really impress me too much. Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
We
took a separate day trip to drive through the Safari, as it is the last year
that it will exist in this type of drive-thru format. Great Adventure is changing this into an “Off Road Adventure”
where it sounds like it will be more like a guided tour with up close and
personal views. We are not ones to sit
around for 15 minutes to stare at a particular animal, and it still took us an
hour to drive through the entire Safari.
There are a ton of different animals to
view while driving through. One “funny”
story from the drive thru is that as I was looking to drive past a few cars
that were standing still, we managed to narrowly avoid a collision with a
handful of baby Khulans that wound
up sprinting through the roadway. As we
waited for the first handful to clear the road and sprint by, another pack came
storming through. Then, several seconds
later, the last straggler wound up trying to play catch-up with his buddies.
Our
final stop in the area was actually outside of Great Adventure itself and to “Dracula’s Domain” – a haunted hayride and
maze. After going through the hayride,
Dorothy decided that was scary enough for her and there was no way she was
doing the maze, which is said to be scarier.
This is a perfect place to bring the kids to scare the “bejesus” out of
them if you want to provide a little payback for them acting up over the course
of the week. The hayride is a good 40-45
minutes long with a number of skits along the way to get your heart going. There are discount tickets on their Facebook page if
you “Like” it. Take a look at this Youtube video; creepy!
