We visited Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey on June 24. It is the second largest theme park in the world, home to the legendary roller coasters Kingda Ka, El Toro and Nitro, an array of other rides plus a Safari Off Road Adventure. Here's our review of the day:
Nitro is ranked the fifth best steel roller coaster in the world and deservedly so, this brilliant 230ft tall hyper coaster reaches a top speed of 80mph and includes a signature hammerhead turn. The airtime hills are wonderful and the forested surroundings as the ride seemingly leaves the park and travels off into the distance really adds to the experience.
El Toro is one of the tallest and fastest wooden coasters in the world, and due to an innovative prefabricated track it delivers a much smoother ride than most. The fast cable lift hill leads to the steep 76° drop, the train reaches a top speed of 70mph and navigates a series of large airtime hills, twists and turns.
We always enjoy a floorless coaster when riding in the front and Bizarro was no exception. The ride packs 7 inversions into its course and the trains pass through and around several themed features.
Kingda Ka began operating around midday and was our next ride. It's slightly taller and faster than Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point, making it the tallest roller coaster in the world and the second fastest, but it's very shakey in places so less enjoyable to ride. The train also seemed to decelerate slightly before the top hat. Despite having a station able to load and unload four trains at once, only one bay was in use, dramatically increasing queue times.
We finally found a standup coaster that we like, GREEN LANTERN gives a thrilling but smooth ride. It's quite long with plenty of inversions and doesn't let up until the end.
It was nice to see some indoor rides in the mix too, with the fun Skull Mountain coaster and Houdini's Great Escape
The new 4D free fly coaster THE JOKER was proving popular with visitors, drawing a long line all day. After reaching the top of a 120ft lift hill riders are flipped over, forwards and backwards, around six times during the ride.
We enjoyed the Safari Off Road Adventure, a jeep ride though 350 acres of enclosures with 80 species. Highlights included the lions, tigers and bears as well as elephants, rhino, giraffe, zebra and buffalo.
The park has some of the same rides as Six Flags Great America including inverted coaster BATMAN The Ride, flying coaster SUPERMAN Ultimate Flight and THE DARK KNIGHT Coaster. Other notable rides include the Zumanjaro: Drop of Doom 415ft drop ride and SkyScreamer 242ft swing ride.
It's worth mentioning that the park had the worst ride operations of every park on the tour. It allowed line jumping, whole trains only for Flash Pass riders, empty seats on most trains, lots of breakdowns all day on many of the rides and a couple never opened. Some of the rides looked faded, rusty or dirty, which gave an overall impression of the park being a bit tired.
Despite those issues, Six Flags Great Adventure has a brilliant lineup of attractions and is still a must-visit for coaster fans.
