Rides:
Kingda Ka: We ran here immediately upon entering the park and were able to get a ride in the very last row with a wait of only 20 minutes!!!! First off, i was extremely impressed with the theming around this ride. The Golden Kingdom as a section looks spectacular, but the attention to detail for the line of this ride was just as impressive. Definitely on par with Southwest Territory, if not better in terms of theming, so go Six Flags!!! The ride itself is obviously over very very fast, and fairly intimidating, but harmless. The launch was very fast, and I could definitely feel the speed towards the end of it! I liked the ride overall, it didn't seem as tall from the top as I thought, though, and it was quite shaky! Not too bad, and the line was still only 20 minutes, so we rode it a second time 3.5/5
El Toro: After two fairly quick rides on Kingda Ka, we headed over to the spanish section of the park for this bad boy of a wooden coaster!!!! Once again, another section of the park that was well themed and beautiful to the eye! After waiting a little over an hour for this one, we got on towards the back of the vehicle, which was very unique. It seemed quite longer than I was used to for a ride vehicle and the seats were quite unique, but comfortable. As for the ride, it was definitely capable of packing punches!!! Airtime was INSANE on this ride, way more than I expected, the lift hill was really speedy and the view from the top of it looking at Kingda Ka was incredible! The first drop felt just as steep as it looked and those turns at the end definitely got me confused! Overall, quite a great ride, easily in my top 5 wooden coasters, though I still like the classics like Raven at Holiday World!
4.5/5Rolling Thunder: Since it had no wait, we hit this one next, and it was quite clear after riding why it had no wait. I was incredibly disappointed with this one. The first hills seemed decent, but the second we made that side shearing turn to head back around, the ride become bumpy and boring...two B words I don't like using for coasters. Overall, especially after just getting off of El Toro, this ride was not the greatest! 2/5
Next up was lunch and some Tylennol popping, since the heat was causing a bit of a headache.
Nitro: Nitro was the boiling point for me today, but i'll start with the ride itself. Definitely exceeded Raging Bull, not quite sure if I liked it better than Apollo's Chariot. We rode towards the front of the ride and even then, it still had loads of airtime (which was impressive). I definitely almost blacked out on that helix, which means it was forceful (despite the fact that blacking out is common for me now on most rides of this size). The best part of the ride, though, for me, was that quick turn on the second hill, which definitely scared me a little, and the scenery around this thing!!!! Overall, i liked the ride a lot and would venture to say that it was the best ride in the park!
Nitro Problems!!!!! : Okay, here's where i'm going to vent about the only flaw I found with Great Adventure, the line for this ride SUCKS!!!!! Flat out, it worked horribly. For starters, the flashpass had their own claim to the second half of the vehicle, so while the ride was running 3 trains, they only loaded the first 7 rows with the regular line. On top of that, the ride ops were stacking, so the line ended up being almost two hours in length and we didn't even wait through all the switchbacks. Second off, we had a HORRIBLE problem with line jumping here and people just overall acting stupid (I hate how rude the East Coast can be sometimes). There were vending machines in line, which is a good thing, the problem is they are located in the middle of a switchback, which made it perfectly easy for a group of 9 idiots to skip an entire switchback and cut everyone, while saving them a good 20 minute wait. Upon me approaching them about this, i got two middle fingers and a load of verbal garage (along with a "stupid whity" comment). Not to worry, they were doing the ticket policy at the beginning of the line, so i took a picture of them so i could point them out at the station and get them ejected. Along the way, one of them leaves the line and walks directly under Batman to take a photo, which made me wonder why there was no fence at all keeping people from going under the ride (given the accident earlier this summer), and also just how stupid people can be. In addition, this group allowed one of their friends who was not in line, to skip through a gate left open behind the resteraunt neighboring the line and jump into the line (pissing even MORE people off). So at this point, having been outside in the heat for a long time in a slow moving line dealing with these punks, we were relieved to finally get to the front of the line near the security guard. So get this, the guy DOES NOT check the number on the tickets,nor does he keep the tickets in order to notice that they weren't in the ride order. On top of this, he lets the guy that jumped into line (obviously without a ticket) slide by anyways. So I approached him about the situation, told him the whole thing and about how mad others were about it. He asked me who it was, i showed him the photo, and he said to me "do you really want me to do something about this?" I said yes because it was a long wait and they were extremely rude, but he didn't do anything, they got on the ride, and even stayed on for re rides without getting kicked off. So to all those involved in making this experience riding Nitro so bad, I'd like to say thanks for not helping!!!!!
Anywho...moving on for one last ride, cause at this point, we were done dealing with the people and the heat.
Medusa: Last ride of the day was Medusa which turned out MUCH better than I expected. I was expecting an average to not so great ride, and ended up getting a halfway decent experience. The loops were smooth, the ride ran greatly, the ride ops kept the line moving so we only waited a half hour, and it was overall a GREAT ending to our day!!! 3/5
Overall: The park itself was beautiful back by Medusa and over by El Toro and Kingda Ka. I thought the area by Nitro and Dark Knight was lacking a little, but the rest of the park was absolutely gorgeous and easily the nicest i've seen from Six Flags. While we only got on a few rides for the day, it was definitely worth the trip and the rides we rode, for the most part, were halfway decent. With the exception of our Nitro incident, everyone else in terms of employees were excellent. The weather, however was in the high 80s with a REALLY high humidity rate, making the combo of heat and waiting deadly in terms of headaches. I definitely left the park sick, and that is why we only spent 3/4 of the day there. Which was too bad since we were hoping to see the Glow in the Dark Parade. Lastly, Superman was running only one vehicle and Great American Scream Machine got stuck three times to my knowledge. No rollbacks on Kingda Ka witnessed, and the T-Shirts for most of the rides looked really cool (I bought one for Kingda Ka). Oh, and they HATE the Dark Knight coaster out there
Ride Count:
Kingda Ka: 2
El Toro: 1
Rolling Thunder: 1
Nitro: 1
Medusa: 1
Photos:
I set the photos on public so even if you aren't my friend on facebook (although feel free to friend me if you want), you can still see the photos:
http://www.new.facebook.com/photo.php?p ... d=32814376
I also shot a video of Kingda Ka, which is also on my profile, but I think you have to friend me first, I'm not sure why.
Hope you enjoyed the long read! -Tony
. For starters, I met Chris at GAm during our class trip... I just kept in contact through the internet. We rode KK in the 2nd and 3rd rows (we had 4 people in our group). Blackbeard and Skull Mountain are both worth it if they are walk-ons. The same with Scream Machine. We saw GASM with a 30-40 min line (to the back building) and Chris FREAKED OUT. For me, the best airtime for El Toro were first drop (duh) and when you go after the turnaround and you make a left turn and go up and get yanked down. You can see it from the RT (left) line. 