Six Flags Great Adventure

I had been to Great Adventure twice before both in 2006, firstly with the club and second with a friend to ride El Toro which wasn't open on the initial trip. So this was another park where I didn't have to run around to ride everything and could take things a little easy.

We started the day with a morning ERS on Nitro. The ride is still running well with a little more roughness than I remember the last time I rode it, but still overall pleasant. We spent the majority of the ride trying to spot the best item in the workshop area under the ride. Darren won with a Bat-Boat, which initially seemed pretty unique given there isn't any bat boat rides in the park, but in hindsight I think it may have come from the lake stunt show.

From there we headed over to Kingda Ka with a baying crowd of general public that were being held back by security whilst we took the advantage to queue jump. We did actually have to sprint to the ride, all quite funny really. The majority of the group queued for the front train not realising that rides were sent out of the station in pairs. This meant myself and Richard were able to hop onto the front seat of the second ride. The ride was as excellent as I remember with popeye inducing speed and the most ridiculous height (its still the tallest in the world). We then ran over to El Toro for one of the first rides on that too, choosing the back row. A great way to start the day.

I have no idea what Jeppe and Darren are actually doing but I do know that they liked Kingda Ka and must have ridden it half a dozen times at least. Perhaps the perma-grins are a side effect of repeat riding.

Following that we mopped up the credits that we didn't attain on the last visit. Fortunately the left hand side of the racing wooden was running. It was the other side that I'd already ridden. That worked out quite nice. What ended up even better was that they then ran the second side and raced the two, something that they didn't usually do, excellent! I did notice that the yellow train needed a clean so wrote "dirty" on it. I wonder how long it'll remain there. Row 2 left-hand side if anyone else is riding it and sees it there, it was me.

Skittles are not awesome. The Grand Canyon is awesome, The Great Wall of China is awesome, perhaps the Great Barrier Reef but not a packet of chemically made sweets...end rant.

On the day we were there, a ten-pin bowling competition was taking place and it would appear if you're a professional player you have one of two photos: the arm up behind the head, and the about to line up the shot concentration shot. Both looked retarded! You're hitting skittles with a ball, not trying to destroy me with your Jedi mind tricks!

Dark Knight is another new ride for me at this park, but its just weird. A copy of the ride I'd ridden in Chicago 2 years ago. Perhaps some of the effects on the indoor ride weren't quite right, I don't know but the ride didn't particularly excite me.

It was a shame to see the old Batman and Robin rides go, especially given the poor replacement. This part of the park is now barren and we think this building now houses company meetings like some sort of Masonic secret society.

We did ride the parachute ride, and yes we did have to split the group, and yes our group did consist of just two people. Weight is an issue on this ride :) We did take comfort in knowing the rather large ride-op would never have been able to ride this ride, even if he attempted to do so on his own.

Bizarro was as weird as the ride op was fat. Originally titled "Medusa" this ride has been painted Purple and has fire, mist and water effects along its length and stoopid theming supposedly indicating a failed science experiment. The ride also has an on-ride system that does nothing but confuse the riders with the cacophony of random sound effects. I did pick up the "Game over man" from Aliens though, which made me laugh.

We caught up with a few other rides, none of which were particularly amazing.

As a new attraction, the park staff talk about their favourite sport shoes. I didn't check it out though.

I've always found Mr Six a little creepy, even more so when hey make up women to play the part.

This was not creepy but hilarious. Was this guy so hard up for work that he agreed to dress up in a pink condom?

If you can't think of a clever marketing campaign you probably work for this company.

At the end of the day we finished with a half hour of El Toro ERS. The speed of the ride at the end of the day is totally opposite to the beginning. It was absolutely flying and became a challenge, of the fun kind to remain on the train for the duration. With two trains running (one with ridiculously advertisting btw) I was able to remain in the same seat for the duration.

For those that are interested in park history, check out the main gift shop as they have a nice photo archive above your heads!

SFGAdv is still a great park but let down by a ridiculous ride operation policy. But it did give us a running joke for the rest of the trip....visual scan!

Time to go to the Jersey Shore