Six Flags Great Adventure

The day was that of Sir Christopher Columbus. It was absolutely beautiful outside for October, and since Columbus Day seems to be on on the scale of a national holiday in New York, Six Flags Great Adventure was open for business. Armed with a trusty season pass and my Canon Rebel xTI, I was off to a park I've wanted to visit for years.

Why hello there. I think I've ridden you before.

To begin, the park is absolutely massive. I don't think its quite as big as Cedar Point, but the layout really didn't seem to make much sense to me. More on that later. I started off by doing what I always do when I get to a new park, grab a map and put it in my back pocket, look at the skyline for the tallest coaster, and walk towards it. The tallest coaster was Kindga Ka, but what I found on the way to Kindga Ka was something far greater: El Toro.

 El Toro very large for a wooden coaster, and it has received rave reviews, so I was really excited to ride the coaster. I had no idea what I was in for though. Standing at over 180 feet the coaster will obviously pack a punch, but the airtime and forces delivered on this ride were un-freaking-believable. The most surprising thing? The coaster is smooth as glass. The bigger you get with wooden coasters, the more painful they become generally, El Toro is the exception to that rule. The ride really blew me away, and is easily my favorite coaster in the park, and favorite wooden coaster that I've ridden so far.

I wanted to get to Kindga Ka before the line got too long, but it was actually fairly difficult to find. Each big ride seemed to be down its own very narrow path, and many of these paths weren't connected together. Case in point: Kindga Ka is still the tallest coaster on the planet, but it was about a 5 minute wait all day while other rides were 15-20 because it is situated in the middle of nowhere and takes forever to find. Just my opinion, but this was one of the parks downfalls. As for the ride itself, after riding Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point loads of times this summer, Kindga Ka seems to be just a slightly faster version. It's thrilling, but I really only needed one ride on it to satisfy myself.

Big picture just to give you a glimpse of how ridiculously huge this coaster is.

After riding Kindga Ka I mainly just walked through the park riding each of their coasters. Again, this park was pretty massive, and took awhile just to get to each ride. I really only managed to ride most of the coasters once, although I did manage to get on El Toro 9 times before the day ended. I sorta liked it. Here are some other highlights of the park:

The park had a coaster named "Medusa" for quite awhile now, and two years ago the coaster was rethemed to "Bizarro" which is a Superman villain theme. There is onboard audio (which I didn't think made any sense to the Bizarro theme, but was nice nonetheless) cool props to ride through, and even flames shooting at the train. The coaster itself was solid, and the effects made it all the cooler. Good addition to the park.

Enjoying their ride on Bizarro I'm sure.

The other coaster that really stuck out for me was the park's Hypercoaster, "Nitro." Standing at 230 feet Nitro may not be the tallest ride in the park, but it delivers a better ride experience than Kingda Ka could ever dream of. Tons of drops, lots of airtime, and smooth as glass. Nitro is one of those coasters that people will love for a very long time. One of the headliners for the next 10 or 15 years for sure. I only got two rides because of the ride's line, but I loved both of them!

As the afternoon wore on I had finished all the coasters in the park and wanted to grab my camera to take some shots of the coasters. Six Flags has this ridiculous policy that doesn't allow any loose articles to even come into the station of any roller coaster, so I had left my camera bag in the car rather than getting a locker in the park. I spent around two hours taking pictures before dropping the bag back in the Jeep and heading back into the park to ride El Toro more. All the pictures are up on my Picasa website. The more I experiment with the camera, the better the shots become. I love photography.

As for notes of the park in general: It was a Six Flags park in New Jersey, so not only was it Six Flags hospitality in the first place, but you had to throw some Jersey attitudes in there as well to form a place that didn't really care whether or not you were having a good time. I've come to expect that from Six Flags at this point. We can't all be Dollywood. (For any of you who don't know, Dollywood is a theme park owned by Dolly Parton that employs some of the nicest people I've ever met in the theme park biz. Everyone is there to make your day better. One of the best parks out there.)

I was very happy that I was able to get the whole park done in one day, and had a pretty solid day. El Toro is now my favorite wooden coasters and number 3 on my overall top ten. Here's an updated top ten after the trips this summer/fall:

1. X2- Six Flags Magic Mountain
2. Magnum XL-200 - Cedar Point
3. El Toro- Six Flags Great Adventure
4. Bizarro - Six Flags New England
5. Maverick - Cedar Point
6. Thunderhead - Dollywood
7. Alpengeist - Busch Gardens Williamburg
8. Evel Knievel - Six Flags St. Louis
9. Millennium Force - Cedar Point
10. Beast - Kings Island

When you add four new coasters to your top 10 in one summer, you know its been a good time. Still one final trip report to come, and you've already seen a preview of the best coaster at the park. Six Flags New England. Till then.