Six Flags Great Adventure

Visited: November 10, 2016

Attending: Brian and Doug

Great Adventure was open for just a couple of weekdays in early November that year. I’m told it coincided with the local school district’s fall break, so the park would have enough staff to open. It was a “bring a friend” day, and I felt bad that the June trip hadn’t gone well, so Doug and I went by ourselves for a day. We were both self-employed at that point, and could arrange it. The park was very nearly empty, especially right at opening, which made for pretty good riding. Because I’d promised, we did Kingda Ka first, before I could change my mind, and because the lines were so short, we nearly got a walk-on. I still think that my previous fear of Ka was justified, because it’s more than twice as tall as anything I’d ever ridden to that point, but Doug’s assessment from June is correct...there’s really not much to it. It goes up, it comes down. After the launch, there’s not a whole lot of intensity to be had. If you look around from the top, that’s scary, but the drop itself isn’t, because of the 270-degree twist. A straight-down drop would be much more effective, in my opinion. The second hill is pretty much a waste of time, as there’s no air going over it, and the brakes kick in on the way down, ruining any possible fun. Doug and I agreed that it’s a coaster that you ride just to say you did. We rode it a second time, though, right away, following the logic that we were unlikely to ever encounter Kingda Ka with such a short line again, and we were rewarded with another walk-on.

The rest of that day we spent as proper enthusiasts, trying to get every credit in the park. Because of the time of year, the “Frontier” part of the park was closed, which meant Bizarro/Medusa and the Mine Train weren’t running, but all the other coasters were. We rode Skull Mountain, which was fun for me because normally I’m the largest person riding in my group, but Doug is bigger than I am, so the restraints were quite loose on me, resulting in some unexpected airtime moments. We also did Dark Knight, and confirmed that Doug really doesn’t enjoy Wild Mouse models. We did Joker, which was new that year, so we still had to wait quite a while in line, even given the small crowds that day. It barely flipped at all, and we didn’t really care for it. We rode El Toro in the pitch blackness, even darker than usual since Frontierland had no lights on, and that was amazing. We finished out the day riding Nitro four times in a row in the dark, trying out the front, back, and different sides. That was my first experience marathoning a coaster, and I felt like I really got to know how to ride it. After that, I decided that I could declare that I could ride anything the coaster world had to throw at me. I’d ridden the tallest coaster on Earth, and marathoned a B&M hyper. If I have to point to a day when I officially became an enthusiast, that would be it.