Monday I went to Six Flags Great Adventure for the first time since Riding of The Bull last fall. Boy it was great to be back!
We got to the park around 9:20, where we were greeted to the site of nobody working the parking lot booths, so we waited about 10mins with another 100 cars or so, until the workers made their way over. Since I have a gold pass, we got to park for free, saving us $23 right off the start. At 10am they opened up the security gates. Lucky me, we chose the security gate ran by captain a-hole, who was a pissed off old man. My friend went through, and the metal detector scanned for no reason, so he walked through and it was fine. Then I went through, and the detector scanned. Well I had a belt on, but its the kind that doesn't come off your shorts. I showed him that's the only thing I had on me and he said in a pissed off voice "WHAT ARE YA HARD AT HEARING!". So I just looked at him, gave the belt a tug and said that it didn't come off. So he sighed and got the hand held scanner and patted me down, and off I went.
Now I'm a pretty care-free person when it comes to what people say, but that guy needs to chill out. What if I did have a hearing disability? That would've been pretty damn rude. But whatever, I wasn't going to let that ruin my day. At 10:30 they lifted the gates and off we went into the park.
Kingda Ka was first on the agenda (which was a decision I wasn't the biggest fan of...but that's neither here nor there) and sure enough it broke right before we went on. So we waited, and waited, as I tried to tell my friends we should come back later, until 35 mins later we left the line. So we went over to El Toro, which was a station wait. Still an amazing ride, hopefully I can get on it again soon.
We hit up Bizarro, which ran beautifully, with all the effects working great, and a smooth ride. We rode Runaway Mine Train...I'll leave it at that, before taking the Skyway to the other end of the park. Nitro had only a 15 minute wait, so we got row 5 I believe. It was the rougher train, which I felt a lot going over the first hill, but still an amazing ride. We were gonna ride Batman, but passed because of the line, so The Dark Knight was next. Waited a few minutes and got to the pre-show room. I still love that show. Once we were on the ride, I saw the beginning effects working, and thought that I'd get a good ride in, but sadly almost none of the effects after the start of the ride work.
I got lunch at Granny's (is that what it's called), and also bought a sports bottle, mine got stolen at SFNE the day I bought it a few weeks ago. The food was actually pretty good for park food. We checked sky screamer, but decided to come back later. Superman was next on the agenda, so we hopped in line to realize we had quite the wait ahead of us. About an hour and a half later, we were the next ones on...and we got jumped by exit pass riders. Then the ride broke for about 15-20mins. Finally we rode, but staying with my bad luck, I got a charlie horse going through the pretzel loop. It was strange, so I spent the rest of the ride f-bombing away the pain. Haha
We went back to Kingda Ka, and waited about 30mins. We grabbed row 2, and its still got that awesome intensity that it's been giving me since 2011. We were gonna ride El Toro next, but it was closed, so we went to Rolling Thunder. The ride was about a 40 minute wait, which I decided to do for some reason. We got the lucky "double ride" train, and to my surprise, the ride was very enjoyable. I'll be sad if it does go away after this year. We checked out the lines on a few rides, but ultimately decided on Sky Screamer. It was my first time on one, and boy it's a cool ride. Just imagining a version twice the size is jaw-dropping.
Next was Skull Mountain, we waited about 15 minutes and got the back row. Well worth it, the first drop is great for such a small ride. We continued to check lines, and we ended up getting in line for Green Lantern. The ride was in the switchbacks next to the station, but the line barely moved, due to slow one train operations. I'm sorry, but this ride needs two trains. So we left the line running short on time.
I grabbed a refill, and bought a giant pretzel (boy was it big), and we hit the road. So long Great Adventure, hopefully I'll see you soon!
Below are a few panoramas from the day..
