Six Flags Great Adventure

Visited: September 30, 2021

Attending: Brian and Doug

It’s a little strange that I spent months not going to parks, and then I went to two in one week. But the SFNE trip could only happen while we were on vacation, and Doug wanted to go to the last SFGA “Power Hour” in September, which is on a Thursday, so here we are. The weather was a touch cool, as it got dark early, but on the whole a nice evening. Surprisingly, the lines were short -- everything was a station wait, or near enough. Unfortunately, El Toro wasn’t running (because of the damage done earlier in the year), and neither was Kingda Ka (don’t know why), but we still had a fun time.

Jersey Devil

This was our primary goal for the evening, the RMC single-rail that had been open since June, but I hadn’t made it out there to ride it. I’d been avoiding reviews so I could form my own decision, but I still managed to get the impression that it wasn’t as well-liked as the other, smaller Raptor models. The lines were quite short, so we got to ride fairly quickly, opting for the back two cars. The single-rail seating is kind of strange, as your feet straddle the rail, protected by the car, but it still feels odd. Great Adventure was quite serious about having empty pockets, and I got ejected once for having my keys on me, so I popped them in a locker with everything else. The experience was “fine,” for the most part. It had some good speed, a couple of whippy transitions, but not Intamin-style, and the stall is impressively long. If it had been the first RMC I’d ever ridden, I probably would have been quite impressed. But I’ve ridden some of the best RMC conversions out there, and my expectations were higher. It was still good, to be sure, and we got a half-dozen rides, alternating front and back. I’m not sure if the front was better from a perspective of forces, but being the first person on a one-seat-wide train is a very unusual experience. The sun went down while we were riding, so depending on how you look at it, we either got day and night rides, or “dusk” and “darker dusk” rides, whichever.

Nitro

Doug and I both love Nitro, and we were nearby, so we took a few rounds on that next. The experience was better than I’d had the previous year, but pretty much what we expected. Nitro is a lot of fun, but we’re very familiar with it by this time. Still, night rides on Nitro are pretty cool.

Bizarro

Since El Toro wasn’t open, we wandered over to that side of the park to do Bizarro. As we anticipated, it didn’t have much of a line, because nobody can ever find the thing. Unlike my trip the previous year, the flamethrowers didn’t seem to be operating, which is a bit of a bummer. We took a back-row ride, which is always decent fun. It may not be the most exciting B&M, but it’s still good.

Superman: Ultimate Flight

Having hit up most of what we wanted to ride, we visited Superman, because we both like a flying coaster. We waited for the back row as usual, and the ride performed as I expected. Unfortunately, now that I’ve ridden the other flyers in the US, I have to conclude that this iteration is the least of them, but it’s a narrow margin.

Green Lantern

We rode this because it’s next to Superman, and we normally feel obligated to. Sometimes I really don’t like Green Lantern, but this time it seemed OK. I managed to ride defensively, so I avoided any headbanging. Doug seemed to have a poorer opinion, saying, “We’ve done that. Now let us never speak of it again.”