darkridedan

I just think the sound stage thing is hideous as opposed to a Gotham City skyline, but that's me. I never liked the Movie Town theme. I think they will finish painting it to complete the area in the future. I forgot about the removal of the Dream Street trees Tom. There were also the trees removed in the outer mall in 1992 or 1993. I asked a supervisor about Time Warner's removal of trees years later. He said guests were getting hit in the head from falling branches. That may have been the difference without Basil Hanger (thanks for the link!) Much like the flat, they could have saved the trees by trimming the branches instead of removing them altogether. But all is in the past. More trees were removed for the parade than the newest coaster! That's a good thing to me from TDK's point of view.

It IS hot. Luckily TV Land is running a marathon of the Cosby Show. If they were running M*A*S*H and The Andy Griffith Show (you know, their normal schedule) I would be staring at the wall.

I really liked the show, but we had come from that horrible cemetary show where the actors seemed to be wandering around and making it up as they went along. It was like the second half of S.U.F. I hope this year's Fright Fest is like years past, except last year.

It looks like a soundstage already but since I like the ride that's inside I don't mind. For the first time, the Iwerks building looks like an eye sore. Daved, I never thought of the '99 rides being a reason for the removal of trees but I suppose Medusa and Looney Tunes Seaport took the place of thick forestry. Chaos and Time Warp took the place of a few trees and I can only imagine how many trees were removed for Nitro. The creation of Movie Town hit me hard. I think I kept looking over and was puzzled why I could see La Pizzaria from Gingerbread Fancy. I get puzzled looks when I tell people that Fun Fair was my favorite section and Movie Town is one of my least favorites. I wonder why they wouldn't save more trees with Splashwater Falls and by placing Batman in the Garden of Marvels spot and Mach 1 in FreeFall's spot but history being what it is, knocking down more trees can only be prevented in the future. I am thankful that they haven't placed a B&M in Fantasy Forest, save for Nitro.

^ If not, were you in a Legends type show? I remember a show from around that time, but I don't remember what year it was performed. Great Adventure managers need to write the book on what works for it and how it needs to be managed and they should force Six Flags to stick with it, like Great America does. If the park is such a a cash cow for Six Flags, I will never understand why they treat the park as badly as they do. A park that has four B&Ms and four kiddie sections shouldn't be with out bumper cars! Premier really put the park in a pickle.

If I happen to be in that area of Cincinati I may give the park another try. I'm very happy that Kings Dominion is much closer and much much much much much much much better.

That area of the state sure gets its fair share of storms. RT is also a common conductor even with the Parachutes close by. I was working at the park during the storm pictured in this album http://www.greatadventurehistory.com/Forum...m&album=354 when something near the Western Fort was struct by lightning. The next lightning strike simultaneously hit RT and Viper. RT's lift motor was hit and the ride was closed for the remainder of that Saturday evening and the following day. The park was closed during the week and both RT and Viper opened that weekend for Coaster Celebration!

Very cool idea! I see Rob never got his hands on this! Anything but a drop tower! "Honey, the only thing I see is this big ferris wheel." "The only thing I see is the same thing we just saw on the ferris wheel." "Really, all I see is the same thing I just saw on the Sky Ride." Ooh, stones! The perfect place for the Wizard of Oz dark ride. Yeh! I tried to talk my sister into bringing her kids to the park. They were going to go to Seasame Place, but I told her that the park was a better deal with the under 2 free pass and a BAFF coupon which expires today. I would have gotten on this ride. I'm guessing it's no Joust-a-Bout, but it looks lie some fun. Nice update Harry!

Ah, I do rescind my answer and change it to The Great Escape. They have the Speedtrap, Pepe LePew's boats and the Bugs Bunny Barnstormer from Bugs Bunny Land. And I forgot about my one time favorite coaster, Alpine Bobsled.

Yah, I generally don't favor a park on its rides alone but when I went to GAm, I felt like I stepped back in time to the mid 1980's. It doesn't hurt that the park is kind of layed out like Disneyland! The only two current operating rides that I can think that were at SFGAdv and are now at SFGAm are Condor and Revolution. If I can take another guess, I might think the Arrow antique cars came from Great Adventure too, but I thought I read that they went to SFoG. Other than that, if I am missing something, it's probably a kiddie ride!

The rides that I have in bold print are the exact rides that were at Great Adevnture. I wouldn't doubt that Fiddler's Fling and the East River Crawler have parts from SFGAdv's rides too.

My guess would be my favorite Six Flags park, Great America. They have the HUSS Condor that used to be at SFGAdv and SFGAdv's very own Pendulum (Revolution) HUSS frissbee. They also have Chubasco Zamperla tea cups. The Orbit Schwarzkopf enterprise, Triple Play HUSS troika, Fiddler's Fling Schwarzkopf calypso, The East River Crawler Schwarzkopf monster spin, King Chaos HUSS top spin, Whirlygig Zierer waverswinger, Hometown Fun Machine Eli Bridge scrambler, a Zamperla rock n' tug and balloon flight (on a main midway too, tsk-tsk) Batman, S.U.F., TDK, Arrow log and hydraflumes, an Intamin 12-person rapids ride with the same name as SFGAdv's original name for Congo Rapids, antique cars, and to stretch, they have a b&m hyper, a wooden racer, bumper cars, a carousel, drop tower and pirate ship and they once had SFGAdv's Sarajevo Bobsled (Rolling Thunder,) a Von Roll dual Sky Ride which used the gondolas which currently run on SFGAdv's Sky Ride/Skyway,) a Schwarzkopf Bayern Kurve (Yukon Yahoo,) an Iwerks motion base simulator theater, Hopkins shoot-the-chutes, and an Arrow multi-looper (Shockwave) with the same elements as GASM, albeit with some different dimensions and design. Wow, I forgot alot of the similar rides: Haybailer (Mack Matterhorn,) Cajun Cliffhanger (Chance Rotor,) The Edge (Intamin 1st Generation Freefall,) Power Dive (Intamin Looping Starship,) and there are a ton in the kiddie sections including Scooby Doo's Mystery Machine (Zamperla Crazy Bus,) Bedrock Boulder Roller (Zamperla kiddie Ferris wheel,) Yosemite Sam's National Park Tour (Zamperla Rio Grande kiddie train ride,) Looney Tunes Lodge (SCS Interactive foam play area,) Dorothy's Rosy Tea Cups (Zamperla mini tea cup) Yummy Yummy Fruit Salad Tower Ride (Zamperla samba tower) and Dorothy's Racing to the Rainbow (Zamperla samba Balloon.) They also have the Hampton Beep Beep Buggies and Daffy's Magical Motorcade-type rides. They have the same pay attractions too: Dare Devil Dive, go carts and a rock-climbing wall

Cool idea Harry. Nice choices Dan! 3. Giant Wheel- I like the greenish-yellow color. 4. Skyride Towers- Green. Forest, hunter, olive...it doesn't matter 7. Rolling Thunder- I know it looks cooler all white by Kingda Ka, but I thought racing stripes on the catwalks would look cool. Some yellow thrown in randomly for effect would be nice. I liked the powder blue and red rails too. 8. Medusa- Whatever colors the park who wants it would paint it. I thought RMT's new colors would be a better fit. 10. Carousel Horses- The 1974 paint scheme. * Buccaneer- Same colors!

Before I looked closely I thought this picture was taken recently. What first caught my eye was the age of the people in the shot (and if these are guests and not park officials.) You don't see that many people over the age of 35 in one shot at the park anymore. With the elephants, I'm taking a guess at 1979. It was a very good year.

You got it. The first drop left me breathless. Before About to During After I'm not so sure I really think it's top ten. It's allot of fun.

The park needs to focus on "everybody," and adding too many family rides at once could be just as bad as adding yet another thrill coaster. The War on Lines was a bad idea for the park because Six Flags wouldn't need to add another family ride for years, although of course, they should have replaced some of the rides after their removal. I believe spreading the addition of new rides over a long period of time would be best. What hardware is missing from the park are a few standards like a scrambler and a soak-you-wet ride and staples like the swing ride, bumper cars, and dark rides. It would be beneficial for the park to slip in a few of these rides a.s.a.p, (as long as they can afford them.) Any other rides could be spread out through the rest of the life span of the park. If new rides are going to be treated like a prostitute on the corner, the park needs to put different girls on the corner to lure those with different tastes and do it over a period of time. Spice is the variety. But, I don't see why a park should be 'tricking' people to the park by putting all their efforts on new coasters, all the time. A park should be a welcoming experience to everybody. This park did it's best in the early '80's when attendance was above 3 million and in most of the '90's when the attendance reached 3.6 million. Penn Central and Time Warner made sure to keep the employees happy, midways clean, everything freshly painted and maintained a balance of mild and high-thrill attractions. Red Zone has been working on these first two objectives. Achieving the third and fourth have been put off and will continue to be difficult if they spend all of their revenue on new coasters (all of the time.) Parks that are the most attended are owned by Disney, Universal and Busch. They are the cleanest, the greenest, and the famly-friendliest. Great Adventure can win these objectives and win back more guests and help it's parent company. Although people on the boards may come to the park (just) for the coasters, many people come for the whole experience. The attendance wouldn't have dropped off as much as it did (3.4mill in '97/ 2.7mill in '07) after the addition of 9 new coasters in the past 10 years. The attendance wouldn't have been affected by the removal of 15 spin rides, 5 other non-coaster rides and the closure of 3 main show venues if everybody came just for the coasters. If the "new coaster every two years" approach really worked, Six Flags wouldn't be in the financial situation it is in now. This foundation was built on the sands of a small demographic, rather than the solid rock of the taste of everybody. Anotherwards, satisfying only the niche of the coaster lovers was a pipe dream in a world where everything went right. However, this world has been plagued by 9-11, problematic coasters, under performing parks and the economy in the past ten years. New coasters can be built to get people in the doors (and give them reasons to tell their friends that they had a great time.) Word-of-mouth works best. However, it can backfire. People told their friends and family about the closure and removal of many rides, the bad employees and the run down feel of the park, and people began staying away. It will take a while to filter the negative (but true) word-of-mouth to win people back. People can be lured into the park, but if they are unhappy about their experience, they don't have to come back. That is why the "Marketing runs Great Adventure" approach didn't work. Print and on-air ads have been cut in the Philly market drastically since the days of Gary Story. The park is now building on a positive guest EXPERIENCE so guests will have something positive to pass on to their friends and family. There are lots of parks that survive on word-of-mouth alone. Knoebels is a great example. How many people have ever heard of it? It's one of the busiest and one of the top award-winning family amusement parks in the country and it's located right outside of the Philly market. I've never seen a commercial for it. Six Flags and Great Adventure are trying to build a brand based on the experience of the guest, and not the hardware that may have brought a few guests in the doors. The recent-past hardware has not even brought in an increasing amount of guests year to year; They have only weeded out other demographics by only adding extreme coasters while moderate rides were removed three fold. How many people who love Batman (added in '93) don't love Medusa ('99), Nitro ('01,) Kingda Ka ('05) and El Toro ('06?) The same thrill-loving coaster teens and enthusiasts are going to come to the park because the coasters are not going anywhere. We're here and posting about the park now. It's people who are more comfortable with rides like Big Wheel, Log Flume and Sky Ride (added in '74) and Congo Rapids ('81) and all of those flat rides (added mostly in '75 and '99) that need to hear about positive experiences so that they can come have a Great Adventure. A dive coaster is a fun ride, but I think it would be best if the park and Six Flags waited until they worked on the reasons why EVERYBODY comes to the parks. I hope they wait until they can really afford to build it. They shouldn't continue to gamble their revenues that THIS coaster is the one that will bring in the masses. The best place for a dive coaster right now is Williamsburg, VA.

I like the way you ask that. ;-) Not too many people know TDK's arrival has nothing to do with Chillers departure either..leave it to an (ex) ride employee... The Dark Knight. I was lazy and stopped riding MTWE. Theming > Water for me, but it's close. Rotor or Roundup?

It's ok. It's not really in your face. This is from the fella (Michael Semtak?) who put the logo on the stickers for the park in 2000... That's DPWWKRich and CoasterSue in the Red train. Here are a few more pics: Rolling Thunder Ok, now back on topic.

If I crop it Dainan, it gets blurry. Here is how they did it old school, and the logo on the current trains to the left: Dig those comfy seats.

I second that.

That looks so cool. It looks very 'Boardwalk.' I know people from a different frame of mind than my own would love to see Rolling Thunder and The Great American Scream Machine done away with because of the pain it causes them. I find them very enjoyable and RT is a reason why I come to the park. I've worked them both and I know they are very reliable rides, unlike some of the park's newer coasters. They also have the best capacity in the park, should people rediscover them (through marketing.) I could be ok if GASM made an exit to make way for another attraction, but I think I would have to be done with the park if RT left. If anything else leaves, I hope it's not an endearing ride and for whatever reason a ride is removed in the future, I hope it gets a replacement the same season.

In '79 Rolling Thunder became the 3rd major coaster in the park and in '89 GASM was the first full circuit thrill coaster in the park's history. Today, the park has a very different ride collection and Six Flags is in a different financial situation.

A few mainstream rides like those that were built at the park in the 70's, 80's and up to (and not including) the late 90's would make me happy. When Six Flags sprinkled in kiddie and high thrill rides amongst many new mainstream rides, it made Great Adventure one of the top 5 most attended parks in the U.S. And like you said Chris, it would make the park feel complete.

I know the park doesn't need one because the park has six 54" coasters and one of them is a top-rail floorless coaster with inversions. What SFGAdv gets is altogether different. If they do build it, they could call it Insanity: Building the same coaster and expecting a different result. If they do it, what would they have to build in two more years to make you feel content?

I understand WHY they have done what they have done, but they have overthought their decisions. They missed the point. But anyway, "maybe next year. Maybe next year." Catapult is still nuts. I know people who wanted it to come here after the closure of SFAW. It has a 50'' and it's only 5 hours away. Something in me thinks it would have been a better fit at SFGAdv, but I try to ignore it! Nightwing was closed as it had been on my past 4 visits. Kontiki was open, but is still located in a corner of the park that nobody goes to. Our Matterhorn was a much better ride, but if nobody is riding it there... The rock n' tug was in a kiddie section, where it belonged. Time Warp (the inverted, inverting flying carpets,) the scrambler and Crime Wave never stopped moving. They were very popular even on a slow day.