It seems like Sam can’t go a week without replacing one of her favorite coasters these days. Last week, Hydra: The Revenge knocked Hersheypark’s Great Bear from its perch. Now this week, her first-ever visit to Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv) has El Toro toppling Lightning Racer from its former favorite standing. I guess that is what happens when you go from going Rank 4 to Rank 11 on the wingman roster. If you’re unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, the wingmen are my friends found on the Flight Crew page. Their ranks reflect how many parks we have been to together. So in Sam’s case, at the start of this site, she had been to four with me. Here, just under two months later, she’s now been to 11. Talk about a jump!
Sam and I decided to make this trip happen earlier this week and she asked if her friend, Alissa, could come along. I said sure and tried to to see if Mindy or her kids might be interested in coming. Sadly, none of them were available yesterday, so I wasn’t able to even out the riders.
We arrived at the park half an hour prior to opening. Our check-in time was for 11 a.m., so we sat in the car for 30 minutes, watching Superman: Ultimate Flight, Green Lantern, Nitro, and Kingda Ka test. Had I known how long the lines were to check in, we would have gotten out of the car and got in line right after we parked.
Of all the parks that I have visited this year, this was by far, the most crowded. Lines ran along the fences bordering Superman and Green Lantern, backing all the way up to Green Lantern itself. From there, it snaked through a few bullpens, and then through the temperature tents. This took longer than some of our rides on the day, but not all. More on that in a bit.
The Not So Dark Knight
Knowing that Sam might have balked at the idea of trying something like Superman or Green Lantern first, I took us to the right upon entering the park. We went to Dark Knight first and were in and out of the slightly themed Wild Mouse coaster in no time. The park had a few garage doors open with large fans blowing into the show room. I’m guessing this was a preventative measure against Covid-19 – keeping the air flowing inside? Seems logical to me because I have never seen this before. It sadly lit up the room, ruining some of the effects.
We Were Inverted, Classic Clone Style
The second coaster on the day was one Sam was looking forward to riding, Batman the Ride. With her immense love of Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M) coasters to this point, especially inverts, the classic Batman clone was on her bucket list. We took our seats and away we went.
Sadly, Sam found this ride to be the roughest B&M she’s experienced so far and she didn’t really care for it too much. She banged her head on the over the shoulder restraints at one point and it rattled her pretty good. I, on the other hand, didn’t and had a good ride. I think the difference is that I’ve ridden this ride countless times and know when the twists and turns are coming. Sam did not. Plus, this invert is much more whippy than her other B&M invert credits in Talon and Great Bear. Those both feature a more drawn out course overall.
Sam's Newest, & Now Favorite Hyper, Nitro
Now it was time for one of the big boys! Nitro, which buts right up next to Batman, had about a 20-25 minute wait. Thankfully we got in line when we did, however, as the line easily grew to about a 45-60 minutes not too long after we entered the queue.
Nitro is Sam’s fourth hyper coaster credit with the others, in the order in which she rode them, being: Superman: Ride of Steel (Six Flags America), Candymonium (Hersheypark), and Steel Force (Dorney Park). Now, Nitro is a favorite of mine and I wondered how Sam would rank it among her small list of hypers. I’d soon find out.
After ascending the 230 foot tall lift hill and traversing the 5,394 feet of track, we pulled back into the station and Sam told me Nitro is her favorite hyper. She even likes it better than Candymonium. I find myself agreeing, although Candymonium is indeed a smoother ride, featuring more unique elements in regards to B&M’s typical formula. Still, I have ridden Nitro so many times and have never had a bad ride. I love all the floater airtime it provides and have some sentimental feelings toward it. Plus, Candymonium doesn’t feature the Mortal Kombat song in the station!
Burger Time, Followed by Janky Arrow Mine Train Time
When we finished up on Nitro, we looked around at some of the nearby rides to find their lines had grown quite long as well. Skull Mountain and Harley Quinn Crazy Train were on the longer side too. I said we should come back to them later and focus on some of the bigger coasters. Sam and Alissa agreed, but they also wanted to take a break to eat lunch. Burgers and fries it was!
Once our bellies were full, we decided to head toward Bizarro, another B&M Sam was very much looking forward to experiencing. On the way, however, we saw that the line for Runaway Mine Train was about a 15-20 minute wait. We jumped in line and secured our jankiest credit of the day. Hey, it’s still a credit and an Arrow one at that!
From Runaway Mine Train, we made our way to Bizarro. We found a line about 45 minutes long, but we were not going to be skipping this one!
Bizarro - Sam's 2nd B&M of the Day
Since we had a bit of a wait to board Bizarro, I used the downtime in line to do some filming. I was able to get a few videos of the ride flying by on the track over the line queue. I even managed to get a few shots with the fireball effects, which were on during our visit.
After what seemed like forever, it was our turn to enter the station. We were the second to last row on the ride, although we originally would have been the front had a bunch of Flash Pass holders came up on the other side. They pushed us back a couple of times on the day, with this one and the next being the worst of the bunch.
After I stapled my own self like an idiot, the ride ops did their checks and we were on our way up the faded blue and purple structure. This ride really needs a paint job! I’m honestly thinking of doing a series on this site about rides that could use some new paint. After seeing how nice Fahrenheit at Hersheypark and Jokers Jinx at Six Flags America (SFA) look this year, track like Bizarro’s looks sad. So did Nitro’s and Batmans too. And Green Lantern’s… Can’t forget that. Hell, repaint all the coasters!
I had my typical Bizarro ride that I’m used to getting whenever I venture up to SFGAdv. Sam, whose favorite steel coaster is currently a B&M Invert, enjoyed the ride, but didn’t find it to be better than Hydra.
As we walked down the exit ramp, I shot a few more clips and then we made our way toward El Toro. First things first, however, we needed some drinks and a break in the shade. The wait for Bizarro wore us out, baking us in the sun for the majority of the queue.
After an Hour Wait, Sam Finds a New Favorite
When we were finally ready to ride El Toro, we did my favorite thing about SFGAdv – bought a mandatory ride locker. For some reason the park deems that El Toro, Kingda Ka, and Joker are the only rides where cellphones and keys will rip open zippered or buttoned pockets, endangering all the other riders. None of the other rides such as Superman, Green Lantern, Batman, or Nitro must be capable of such feats… Strange!
For real SFGAdv, cease with the money grab. If this is truly about ride safety, why isn’t it mandatory on all the rides? Things are just as likely to come out of a pocket on those rides as it is the three that you force people to get lockers for. You know, your three most popular rides? Oh… What a quinky dink!
I know it’s only a dollar for the lockers, but those dollars add up and the park is easily making some good money on this. Just make the lockers free if you’re “really” trying to keep people safe. This has always left a bad taste in my mouth. Hersheypark does it right with Candymonium and Skyrush. Moving on…
The line for El Toro was easily over an hour. Thankfully the park had the mesh coverings over the queue so we didn’t bake out in the sun again. I miss having my phone or camera in line for this ride as I could have gotten some good ride footage during the wait. Let me not go down that route again!
After a plethora of Flash Pass holders were admitted right in front of us again, we were allowed to move to the stairs to the ride station. Our seats were in the middle of the train as everyone was assigned seats, like most other rides on the day. I didn’t care at this point, I just wanted to ride my favorite wooden coaster.
El Toro was on point with its ejector airtime. I’ve come to expect nothing less. Sam and Alissa also both loved the ride, wishing we could ride again. None of us wanted to wait in that line again though. We made our way back to the lockers and took another small break to figure out what we wanted to do for the rest of our time.
Missing Footage
We had a little over an hour left, so we could either get in line for something like Superman, Kingda Ka, or Green Lantern, and be done. Or we could head back to Harley Quinn and Skull Mountain and see what kind of wait we’d face trying to secure those credits. While I let the girls decide, I wandered off to get some footage of Green Lantern and Superman. I had just struck out on Kingda Ka footage, so I didn’t want to be missing out on three of the major coasters. My issue in getting good footage of Kingda Ka came from all the plant life around the ride and its queue. It blocked the launch area and only allowed for far off views of the top hat. I said screw it and just filmed some footage of the low to the ground elements at El Toro’s finale. Thankfully for Green Lantern and Superman, I could get right under those rides with one being over a parking lot and the other, a grass plot.
The featured photo from this blog came from this last minute filming session before our final rides. That and the first image in this gallery above I shot while the girls finished up their ice cream in the midway. Even though we didn’t get to ride either of these rides, I wanted to make sure I shared them with you. I loved how they turned out.
As the girls took their last bites of ice cream, Sam said we’d go for quantity over quality and try to get Harley Quinn and Skull Mountain in before we left. Neither of them were feeling Joker either, even though the line was much smaller than it was earlier in the day when we took a lunch break. I’m sure the ice cream wouldn’t have agreed with them had we done that one either. Oh well, it’s not my favorite ride anyhow, but I did get some nice footage of that as well.
Final Credits - Quantity Over Quality
We had success getting both Harley Quinn and Skull Mountain finished before the park closed. We actually had about 20 minutes left, so while we were over by Skull Mountain, we ventured through the region trying to find a spot where we might catch some glimpses of Jersey Devil. Heading back behind some kids rides, we lucked out!
I nabbed a few shots of the, now coming for 2021, Rocky Mountain Construction (RMC) single rail coaster. There was even a bowed out piece of wood on the privacy fence that was wide enough to place my phone through to get a couple of shots. I’m not including them here as I’m planning on posting them on a separate blog with some of my thoughts. Be on the lookout for that soon.
More Merch! Pins, Shirts, & Magnets
With my curiosity now satisfied, we made our way to the gift shop up by the front of the park. Sam and I had found some merchandise we wanted to buy before leaving. They had a bunch of pins that I just had to add to my collection, as well as a Nitro and El Toro shirt. Sam also grabbed a Nitro shirt and some pins. Greg also asked me to grab him some magnets since he was unable to come with us.
And with that, our day came to a close at SFGAdv. We didn’t get in all the rides on this trip, but it was okay. This park is only 2.5 hours away, so we will be back. Obviously I’ll be back for Jersey Devil in 2021, but maybe before it opens Sam and I will go back to get in the credits she missed. Before we left, however, I drove all the way down to the far side of the parking lot as they were still sending trains on Kingda Ka. I got some good photos and video from outside the park, which made me happy after failing to do so earlier.
On the car ride home, Sam and I discussed a ton of coaster related topics. It was during these conversations that she debated whether she liked El Toro or Lightning Racer more. She never questioned which was the better ride, giving that to El Toro all the way. She, like I do with Nitro, has a bunch of fond memories on Lightning Racer and it was eating at her trying to determine which one to name as her favorite. Ultimately, she went with El Toro. I really don’t see her changing that anytime soon. Maybe if we get to Dollywood and she rides Lightning Rod. I think that has the best chance of competing for her number one woodie.
If you’re headed up to SFGAdv, in the future, just like the rest of the world seemed to be yesterday…
You can be my wingman anytime! (Top Gun, 1986)
Patrick
CREW MANIFEST
The following flight crew members attended this park, & earned the respective credits below:
Patrick
CAG
New Credit(s): n/a
Sam
Commander
New Credit(s): Dark Knight, Batman the Ride, Nitro, Runaway Mine Train, Bizarro, El Toro, Harley Quinn's Crazy Train, & Skull Mountain
