Gr.Adv.Debate #18: Better than/not as good as

[29yrswithaGApass]

Fill in the blanks and add any comments you wish to back your reply:

Six Flags Great Adventure is better than (park name) but not as good as (park name).

[RC98]

Six Flags Great Adventure is better than Kings Island but not as good as Cedar Point (sorry!).

 

I like our park better than KI because our park has more standout coasters and has a SkyScreamer instead of a Windseeker. Also our drop tower will be bigger. I like Cedar Point since they have a smoother strata coaster with lapbars, a giga, and Maverick plus they have lots of classic flats we have lost (Matterhorn, Music Express, Calypso, Monster Spin-like ride, Enterprise, etc.). Also I like their unique front gate with the coaster running through it and the beachfront location.

[SFGadv123]

Six Flags Great Adventure is better than Busch Gardens (Virginia) but not better than Cedar Point.

 

Busch Gardens was good and has some great roller coasters, but great adventure does have more and also has better coasters than busch gardens. I would have to say Busch Gardens is a much cleaner and better looking park though.

 

Cedar Point is hands down the best amusement park I have ever been to. Whatever ride you go on, there is always a great view of the water. They have 2 coasters that are in the top 5 I have ever been on (Maverick and Millennium Force). TTD is better than KK, not trying to dis my home park but just stating what I think. The hotel on site is very convenient. and you get in the park early.

[RC98]

^ Don't worry it's not dissing our home park I agree with you. I completely agree with what you said about MF, Maverick, and TTD. Also I used the early entry when I went, and I got to re-ride MF going through the handicap access at the exit station, ride Maverick twice with almost no wait, and be one of the first on TTD for the day. One of the best spent hours I've had at a park.

[RideOfSteel]

Six Flags Great Adventure is better than Lagoon (thought I'd include a park few people on here have been to) but not as good as Knoebels.

 

Lagoon has a great lineup of coasters, but lacks a signature ride. Although, when Canibal opens in 2015 they will have their signature coaster. They also have a ton of flat rides... A top scan, S&S towers, Air race, plus all the classics. The atmosphere of the place is also great.

 

Knoebels is the perfect park, no park is better.

Knoebels has great rides, great staff, great food, a great atmosphere, a nice, scenic location... I could go on and on.

[29yrswithaGApass]

Six Flags Great Adventure is better than Cedar Point but not as good as Dollywood.

 

I feel Cedar Point has too much of an industrial feel and love the charm and mix of Dollywood (much of which I would love Great Adventure to have). However, Great Adventure is my favorite park.

[Yoshi]

Six Flags Great Adventure is better than Dorney Park but not as good as Magic Kingdom.

 

I would say 90% of the parks I have been to are not as good as Great Adventure. I prefer the ride collection at Hershey more but I can't say that Hershey is better than Great Adventure because their operations are usually horrible such as not running multiple trains when crowds warrant it, slow dispatches, a bad weather policy and I've run into more rude ride ops at Hershey than Great Adventure (it's very rare for me to run into a bad employee at Great Adventure).

 

I chose Dorney for the not as good park because although I like Talon and Steel Force, the rest of the coasters are good but nothing I feel like i need to ride multiple times each trip to the park and some operations like Wild Mouse are horrible. Also because instead of adding quality rides to the park over the recent years like Great Adventure, Cedar Fair insists on adding used rides that have had issues in the past like Stinger. Another reason is their operating calendar doesn't have nearly as many days with them opening as much as 6 weeks later than Great Adventure some seasons and having buyouts in September rather than having buyouts after the park closes for the day like Great Adventure does.

 

I still like Magic Kingdom more but I haven't been there since Fastpass+ has been introduced and since the Fastpass return times enforced so whenever I go back there, it might change and I could think they are not as good as Great Adventure depending on how good of a day or two I have there on my next trip to Disney World.

Edited March 1, 2014 by Yoshi

[fetish911]

Rideosteel I totally agree with you about Knoebels! It is the best and my favoite park hands down. The rides, the friendly staff, the amazing food that doesn't cost you an arm & leg, the locale, the fact that you don't get the feeling they are trying to take you for all you're worth $$ wise. I too could keep going!!

[The Master]

Six Flalgs Great Adventure is better than Six Flags America, but not as good as Hershey.

 

Great Adventure has a better line of of coasters, better operations, somewhat better clientele, and somewhat cleaner. Through SFA has better walkway lighting and flat rides that is sorely needed at GADV. SFA's operations are very poor, last time I was there they were only running one train on most of the coasters. It is also the only park someone tried to break into my car, but before that happened I throught the people there were rougher than GADV's clientele in my earlier trips there. Dispatches are also much slower there than GADV.

 

I think Hershey is better with having a better ride lineup and mix than GADV. Hershery also seems to have alot less breakdowns than the other local parks. I have had the opposite experience of Yoshi and ran into more rude employees at GADV than Hershey, but more so in the past than recent times (some of the worst being online posters on other forums). I agree with Yoshi that Hershey is worse about not running enough trains at times. However Hershey is alot cleaner than GADV, and the clientele at Hershey are much more well behaved. Alot less rude and pushy people there and just a more friendly atmosphere with better lighting. Hershey also is just kept up and maintained better than GADV and has better food offerings. I think if GADV could clean up and maintain itself better, and attract a far better clientele base than the rude trashy people normally there, it would be equal to Hershey. About GADV's biggest flaw is it's rude clientele who keeps getting worse as the operating season goes on.

Edited June 16, 2014 by The Master

[Coasterharrison'98]

six flags is better than kings dominion but not as good as Cedar point.

 

In my opinion kings Dominion isn't a bad park at all... It just lacks things I enjoy.

[Coaster Justin]

Six Flags Great Adventure is better than Dutch Wonderland but not as good as Six Flags Great America

 

 

 

Beside the fact that SFGAm is my home park, They are also more rounded ride and show wise and contain fewer dead ends (No offense). But to be fair, Your Superman entrance is much better than ours and Nitro is better than Raging Bull.

[Guest Moonracker7]

Six flags Great adventure is better than the other six flags parks but not as good Berto carro world(because they got chiller and a race track)

[warnerleroy]

Great adventure is better than every other sox flags park(although magic mountain comes VERY close) and all cedar fair parks(except cedar point) and animal kingdom but not as good as Busch gardens Williamsburg, universal studios orlando parks, Disneyland, magic kingdom, epcot, hollywood studios or(for a surprise) holiday world

 

I'll leave it simple, I did include the big name parks as better, partially because of attractions, but especially for Disney because of their reputation and identity. With six flags changing owners every few years leads to a very mismatched group if attractions called a park that lacks a specific identity. That's why I like time warner ownership bc they spent a lot of time and money trying to get the park "uniform". Don't agree with me on the mismatched principle, look at our park that has DC comics rides, mixed with 4 kids sections, theming in some areas barren areas in others, and dead/closed areas in others. That's why I includes holiday world in the better section. It's not great adventures fault, but it is what's holding them back

[Nitro#1]

I would say 90% of the parks I have been to are not as good as Great Adventure. I prefer the ride collection at Hershey more but I can't say that Hershey is better than Great Adventure because their operations are usually horrible such as not running multiple trains when crowds warrant it, slow dispatches, a bad weather policy and I've run into more rude ride ops at Hershey than Great Adventure (it's very rare for me to run into a bad employee at Great Adventure).

I won't be going there then. Two of my pet peeves when it comes to amusement parks are one train operations and slow dispatches. Great Adventure seems to always run all the trains unless weather or maintenance issues prevent it, or if the one train that is running is going out with empty rows. One Sunday this April, Nitro and Bizarro were running all three trains when Bizarro was a walk on with re rides possible (I rode twice without leaving my seat), and Nitro was a station wait.

 

For the same reason, I can say beyond a doubt that Great Adventure is better than Great Escape and Lake Compounce. At Great Escape, poor operations are the norm. I remember seeing a trip report somewhere that said that they thought that the Canyon Blaster Mine Train was closed when no train dispatched for 5 minutes, but then they realized that is was The Great Escape and that means one train and ridiculously slow operations. They said that a 5 train wait took 40 minutes. That is 8 minutes per cycle and about 6 minute dispatches. The only coaster that has airgates is the Comet. Canyon Blaster has magnetic gates like Dorney has, but they don't let you into the station until the train is already unloaded. Steamin Demon has no gates at all, and the same policy is true. I went to Lake Compounce last spring for my school orchestra trip, and me and my friend tried to ride the Wildcat first. The line did not look too long distance wise, but was moving at a horrible pace (worse than Superman's line). Then I realized that they were running 1 train on a day when there were about 70 busloads of school groups in, and they were understaffed, so no one could transfer the second train on. It took an hour to ride a mediocre coaster, while their best coaster (Boulderdash) had 2 trains running with a 20 minute wait. WHY COULDN'T YOU TELL US THAT. I could have easily rode that mulitple times rather than wasting my time with a one train operation. A bunch of other rides were closed too for the same reason, including 2 that I really wanted to go on.

 

Great Adventure is my favorite park, so I can't think of anything that I know is better that I have been to. I have only been to GA, Dorney, Lake Compounce, and Great Escape.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Nitro#1

[jonlee]

I took my wife to hershey twice. I want her to ride the Great Bear but 1st time was the weather and the 2nd time it broke down. It's always super crowded there and lines are way too long. You're right about the employees though. Most employees at Great Adventure are nice!

[The Master]

I took my wife to hershey twice. I want her to ride the Great Bear but 1st time was the weather and the 2nd time it broke down. It's always super crowded there and lines are way too long. You're right about the employees though. Most employees at Great Adventure are nice!

 

3 out of 4 of my trips to Hershey this year, Great Bear has been a walk on wait. Everyone goes over to Skyrush now.

[Chiller]

Six Flags Great Adventure is better than Any Cedar Fair Park but not as good as Busch Gardens Williamsburg.

[RC98]

^ Have you been to Cedar Point? Just curious since people have all sorts of opinions on that debate. I personally think the Point wins out slightly (for the beach, for more non-coaster thrills, and for Maverick and Millennium Force) but I do agree that our park is better than the other two Cedar Fair parks I've been to, Dorney and Kings Island. Dorney's just too small to compete and I feel that there are more standout coasters here than at KI.

[Password121]

Hmm....

Six Flags Great Adventure is better than Kings Dominion, but not as good as Cedar Point.

 

I have Intimidator 305 just below El Toro as my number one overall, but beyond that, Kings Dominion simply can't compete with Gadv's lineup. I prefer Batman over Volcano and Bizarro over Dominator, as well.

 

You can argue all you want about Cedar Point vs. SFGadv, but there's a reason just yesterday I booked a two day trip to Cedar Point.

It's a destination that is in better shape in all manners than Gadv. If Gadv were to get a really good Giga coaster and something to compete with Maverick, I'd reconsider it, but at this point, no park in the world tops Cedar Point for quality roller coasters, IMO.

Edited June 17, 2014 by Password121

[RC98]

^ My dream is that our park will put a Maverick-like launcher in the old Chiller spot as part of a redo of Movietown involving reopening Old Country (or at least the path). If that plus a bunch of flats and water rides were added (a better executed war on lines anyone?) we would be REALLY close to CP in terms of the ride collection IMO.

[DANofNJ]

sorry, but SFGadv has a long, long, long way to go to be compared to cedar point in my opinion.

[RC98]

^ IMO in terms of coaster collection, we're one of only a few that can truly compete with CP. We have a flyer, floorless, standup, hyper, strata, invert, and a great woodie. They have an invert, strata, wing, impulse, standup, multi-launch, a horrible woodie, a decent woodie, an old hyper, giga, and a bunch of insignificant Arrows. Other than the giga and multi launch, we match up pretty well and in some of the situations our ride is actually better (wood, standup, hyper, some would say strata). In terms of coaster collection we're not that far off.

Now talk about flat rides, shows, and overall atmosphere, yes CP is way better and that's why I rated it higher in my own "better than/lesser than" statement in the beginning of this topic. But generically saying "they have a long, long way to go" is putting the park down a bit, as the park deserves a bit more credit than it gets sometimes.

Edited June 18, 2014 by RC98

[Fgcassady]

SFGADV is better than SFMM, but worse than Cedar Point.

 

Cedar Point is the king of all, amazing rides, great collection of flat rides. Perfect atmosphere for both enthusiast and family's, great kids areas. Well themed, and great looking. SFGADV does have quite a few things better while others are exceeded by Cedar Point.

 

I think SFGADV is better than SFMM because like CS says, SFMM concentrates too much on rollercoasters, not many kids rides, nor theming. While SFGADV does have decent theming and a much better looking park, there's both pros and cons of SFGADV.

Edited December 31, 2015 by Fgcassady

[Fgcassady]

^ My dream is that our park will put a Maverick-like launcher in the old Chiller spot as part of a redo of Movietown involving reopening Old Country (or at least the path). If that plus a bunch of flats and water rides were added (a better executed war on lines anyone?) we would be REALLY close to CP in terms of the ride collection IMO.

Is there a possibility that the dueler that is highly rumored, could be multi launched, very intense, and would be a great competition with Maverick? Since RMC makes very intense coasters, and the T. rex model does have a launch, I could see this happen.

[RC98]

^ Yes, if we got the multi launch T-rex concept from the survey I think it could compete with Maverick! I remember thinking that the layout shown in the survey looked kind of like a steel version of Twisted Colossus with launches instead of lift hills.