East Coast Trip 2021 - Six Flags Great Adventure

East Coast Trip 2021 Lake Compounce Six Flags New England New York City American Dream Coney Island Six Flags Great Adventure Casino Pier & Playland's Castaway Cove Dorney Park Cedar Point Kings Island Columbus Zoo & Waldameer Kennywood

Idlewild & Lakemont Park Hersheypark Knoebels

Well, New York City was fun. But it's time to go. The trip goes on. And as you can tell by the toll road, we are back in New Jersey.

Yeah. You know this is why we're dealing with this state.

The waterpark does look cool. And we can get in for free. But....not today.

This has always been in my Top 3 Six Flags parks. So I'm happy to be back here. Especially since my last visit was a decade ago.

Hmm. I wonder who that water belongs to?

With New Jersey being the garden state, they better have a shrubbery version of their logo. It's practically mandated here.

All right. There's a ton of things needed to do. So let's get started.

It may not be the reason we came back, but it is low capacity and a new credit for us. So let's just knock it out right now.

Good news? This is the best Free-Spin that isn't Arashi. Bad news? That doesn't mean anything and is still so much worse than Arashi. But....I still had fun.

Hey Six Flags! If you increase the flipping to the same levels as Arashi, then you could skyrocket this ride to be the 2nd best at the park (and your collection is already really impressive).

That was fun, but let's get to one of the far better coasters in the park, Nitro.

I know since my last visit, I've ridden many more B&M Hyper Coasters. But this is still one of the better ones.

Still has some really strong floater air.

Ass goes out of seat. Ass falls back into seat.

*Sigh* Unfortunately, Jersey Devil is being extremely tempermental. And as such, is now currently closed. Ugh. The problems a ride will have during its first week of being open (Can't say I'm surprised).

Hmm. Let's see how this thing runs normally and not during a special lights-on ride.

The very few special effects this ride had are completely gone. Now, it's just a heavily trimmed Wild Mouse in a box. Big dissapointment. Six Flags definately failed on this one.

Oh come on! It's mid June! Nearly EXACTLY half a year away from Christmas and equally as far away from both last Christmas and next Christmas! Now is NOT the time! Get that sh*t down!

Anyone still sad about missing Rolling Thunder? A: You really didn't miss much. That ride sucked. And that's without comparing it to its next door neighbor, El Toro. B: You can still sit in the cars for this car promotion.

Speaking of indoor coasters completely stuck inside boxes.

This didn't seem nearly as weird and WTFish as when we first rode it. Maybe riding the outdoor version just jaded us. But....at least we had a little fun on this ride.

I know there's still a big new coaster we haven't gotten on yet (It's down right now anyways). But f*ck it! Enough is enough! Time to get back on my favorite coaster of all time!

While this didn't seem *quite* as insane and rapey as the first time I rode it, it still was mean, brutal, aggressive, willing to kick your ass, and eject you. That Rolling Thunder Hill is still.....*drool* SO F*CKING GOOD!!! Even with all the great and crazy new coasters I've ridden since then, that is STILL the strongest moment of airtime I've encountered on any ride. I still consider it to be one of my favorite coasters of all time, and I'm just gonna keep calling it my favorite (the more coasters you ride, the harder it gets to rank them because of just how many great coasters I love so much #FirstWorldProblems).

The trend of this trip stopping at nearly all of the best coasters in America continues.

Hey everyone! Let's all take a special trip SOLELY for one of the lamest Six Flags parks! Seriously, I know that Comet is an awesome ride and all. But....we're at the park with El Toro.

Oh no! Not Skyscreamer being closed! That's the best ride at the park! ='(

While it may have lost the inital WOW factor, these still are a lot of fun and something I HIGHLY recommend if you haven't been to European Theme Parks.

*gasp* Jersey Devil opened up! Quick! Get in line before it breaks yet again!

OK. Time for an Incrediblecoasters Rant. The Zipper-Intolerance Six Flags Great Adventure has is THE WORST!!! Almost as bad as the insanity of Thunder Dolphin's zipper-intolerance at Tokyo Dome City (at least they don't freak out about your watch here). It's about the same as what I read about the bullsh*t they do at Universal Orlando. Except for as bad as that is, AT LEAST THE LOCKERS ARE FREE!!! *Sigh* The ONLY reason I'm not screaming at Six Flags is because.....this actually isn't their fault. Amazingly, Zipper-Intolerance is actually baked into the law in New Jersey. The law legally requires El Toro, Jersey Devil, Joker, Kingda Ka, and Zumanjaro to ALL be Zipper Intolerant. But not only does that just mean empty your pockets in the station like normal Zipper-Intolerance (which is the case at the Seaside Parks). Here, it also applies to the lines as well! I know they made this the law because they're concerned about loose articles. HEY NEW JERSEY LAWMAKERS!!! THINGS DO NOT FLY OUT OF ZIPPERED POCKETS!!! IT'S IMPOSSIBLE FOR THEM TO FAIL!!! DO I HAVE TO GO DOWN TO THE STATE CAPITOL IN TRENTON AND DEMONSTRATE HOW ZIPPERS WORK!!? I know New Jersey has some of the strongest theme park regulations not only in America, but possibly the world. This may sound crazy coming from me since 99.9% of the time, I scream about this and call for the opposite. But in this one specific and very narrow instance about theme parks, DEREGULATE THEM NEW JERSEY (At least enough to be on par with other states)!!!! Though seriously Six Flags! You really should just have cubbies in the station at all those rides (or at least have the method that Steel Vengeance has. More details on that coming soon). Cause this makes photography at Six Flags Great Adventure a real pain in the ass and blocks so many good shots you could get in line.

So Jersey Devil is another RMC Raptor and the first one that isn't yet another Railblazer clone.

Now I will admit this. Railblazer is unquestionably, the superior version. But this ride is still fun.

Honestly, something seemed off about Jersey Devil. It just seemed kind of sluggish. Even compared to its clone, Wonder Woman @ SFMM, this just seemed weaker and inferior for some unknown reason (Oops. Spoiler Alert).

For instance, the airtime here is good. But it's not as strong as on El Toro. This may sound like not a big deal since....it's competing against El Toro. But....even Nitro seems to have it beat in the airtime department.

Hey. At least it still beats Joker and New Texas Giant.

But putting my dissapointment aside (Full review of it can be found here), this still is a very fun coaster and a great fit for Six Flags Great Adventure. I'm very happy they got this ride.

Thank you New Jersey for doing the right thing. Now just get more states to follow suit.

On our way out of the park, they were handing out free samples of these hairless kiwis by Zespri. Big fan of these. Not only because kiwi is delicous, but....not having to peel off the skin makes them so much easier to eat (I know you CAN eat the skin of regualr hairy kiwis. But....I just can not tolerate the texture). Hope to see these in grocery stores near me soon.

So instead of just doing a regular day at Six Flags Great Adventure, we wound up splitting our day into two half-days. Why? Because all the Seaside Parks are only open in the evenings, making doing both of them in a day nearly impossible. So we split our SFGAdv day up in order to hit both Casino Pier (our destination for tonight) and Playland's Castaway Cove. So....we're breaking the linear nature of our trip updates by having both Seaside parks be in their own update and same with both halves of our SFGADV day. All our Casino Pier fun will be in the Seaside Parks Update coming soon.

I missed you too Six Flags Great Adventure. I'm ready for another fun half-day at the park.

All right. Time to do the stuff we missed yesterday. First up, Kingda Ka.

Now Kingda Ka is a really fun ride that I had a blast on. However, there was a little incident. Apparently, my hair got tangled in the restraints since....I guess it just blew too crazily and got tangled while traveling at 128 mph. It caused a little mini-scene in the station where for a split 30 seconds, I was stuck and couldn't get out. I was afraid that they'd have to cut my hair to get me out (I do NOT like my hair short and would've been really pissed if that happened). However, with some care, I managed to untangle it and get out without having the next riders wait too much. Sorry about that other people next in line. Might have to put my hair in a pony tail next time on Kingda Ka (Also, sorry about using an unused photo from my 2011 visit. I did not do a good job with photography on this trip).

Oh yeah. And then there's Zumanjaro. The drop tower that stole the record away from Six Flags Great Adventure. It uses the exact same technology as Lex Luthor and expected it to be approximately the same. But while the view was really good (you apparently can see both NYC and Philadelphia from up here. But I didn't notice either of them). But....the drop just seemed weird. Like.....it didn't seem to have that freefall feeling. I didn't even realize we were falling for the first part of the drop. Really wish I got more than one ride on it so I could really get a good feel for the ride and see if doing it in the proper position greatly boosts it in the same way it does on Lex Luthor. Oh well. I'll be sure to ride it again next time, even if I was not impressed this time.

Oh look. Another B&M we need to hit up.

Now I'm not a huge fan of this ride (still better than Superman: Ultimate Flight). This ride is fun, but it's got nothing on Riddlers Revenge and Georgia Scorcher.

However, I have to still call this coaster underrrated simply due to just how much hate this ride seems to have gotten. People have been calling it one of the worst coasters on Earth and comparing it to Gouderix!? ARE YOU F*CKING NUTS!!? This CURBSTOMPS Gouderix. I wasn't sure if it really had gotten worse and I was looking at it through rose-tinted glasses. But....no. It's really not that bad! Get over yourselves other enthusiasts!

Hmm. I don't remember this ride.

Oh wait. It's just Blackbeard's Treasure Train with a new theme.

Hey Scott & Steve. You may not have been able to get the kiddy kiddy credit since it's being relocated and rethemed to match Jersey Devil, but at least you can whore this less embarassing kiddy coaster.

*gasp* Could it be true!? Could Six Flags Great Adventure have had a secret hidden DejaVu clone that I somehow never knew about from my last visit or my constant research on the park!?

*Sigh* Sadly, nope. Here, DejaVu is just a scrambler. Ahh, that's not nearly as fun as a Giant Inverted Boomerang. =(

Yeah. These are the types of lines I like to see on this trip. =)

It may not be El Toro, but it's still a really good ride and definately worth checking out if you're at Six Flags Great Adventure.

Is it crazy that since everything reopened in California, that I actually managed to get on SFGADV's Batman sooner than the one back home at SFMM?

Meh. This seemed to be one of the weaker Batmans. Didn't seem nearly as strong this time.

But regardless, this is still a really fun ride that I'm happy to have a clone of at my home park.

Honestly, I think this might be my 2nd favorite cloned coaster, just behind all the Railblazer clones (Haven't ridden a clone of that yet, but I think I can safely make that decleration given how much I liked Railblazer).

I enjoy Johnny Rockets a lot. But there has never been one inside Six Flags as good as the actual resteraunt. The menu is always watered down so much. Give us the same options as you can find in the resteraunts.

Hello random flat ride we did not ride.

Ah crap. I forgot about this ride.

Come on Kevin. It's time to hop back on Superman: Ultimate Flight. Your favorite B&M of all time (Oops. Never mind. Forgot about Vortex @ Carowinds. That truly is their best coaster).

Please just take me back to Universal Studios Japan for Flying Dinosaur. That is just....so much better.

Well, at least the pretzal loop is still fun. Even if it is signaficantly weaker than Tatsu's pretzal loop.

Hey. Still got one more fun thing than so many other coasters you've ridden. So stop bitching about it.

Honestly, if it wasn't for the pretzal loop, I would just flat-out declare this to be a family coaster. It's the only part of the ride that is remotely intense. Everything else is just Jaguar-style coasting in the flying position.

Oops. Forgot about the inline twist. Meh, it's not that intense. Still would fit on a family coaster lol.

In the past, this is one of those rides I would've ignored. However, now that Huss Top Spins are offically an engangered species, I had to stop and ride one of the few ones still left. It ran a relatively tame program, but it was still good to be riding one of these after so many have gone the way of the dodo.

While we didn't bother to ride it this time, I'm still glad that they still have the parachutes despite them being relatively tame.

Dude! Screw everything else at this park! I gotta have more El Toro!

OK. I have to rant about all the problems El Toro has had since our trip ended (We had SUCH GOOD TIMING on this trip). So two days after this trip ended and I was back at work, El Toro suffered from an accident. Nobody was injured, but something happened with the train and New Jersey closed the ride for the rest of the 2021 season. I think nothing about it other than breathing a HUGE sigh of relief that this happened AFTER our trip. It opened up in 2022 (Sorry about this update and all the updates being so late). But then on August 25, 2022, El Toro had yet ANOTHER accident. It was something about the structure, it gave the ride a big JOLT of roughness that apparently injured some guests. Nothing serious or life-threatening, but still. And I am just FUMING over this. I haven't been THIS angry at something roller coaster or theme park related since Universal decided to remove Dueling Dragons (Still pissed they did that) to appease J.K Rowling (who has since proven herself to be a HORRIBLE person). You had your best ride closed for half of 2021, and you failed to catch THIS!!? You spent SO LITTLE on maintaining one of the BEST roller coasters in the world that you allowed this to happen!? Blood Boiling. I mean, it's bad enough to let ANY coaster get to this point where there's safety concerns! But to neglect one of the BEST COASTERS ON THE PLANET THIS MUCH IS BEYOND INFURIATING!!! Now because of this, you have the Demolish-Happy enthusiasts who'll ALWAYS eagerly announce that ANY coaster with ANY problem is closing (Remember when they announced Mr. Freeze was closing because of the Six Flags teaser about them turning it back forewards? Remember when they announced that Lightning Rod was gonna close due to the problems it faced?) and they honestly are one of the most infuriating types of coaster enthusiast to deal with. They began circulating El Toro closing and you even began seeing people just doubt El Toro's safety. Which.....GOD DAMN IT!!! YOU REALLY FUCKED THIS UP SIX FLAGS GREAT ADVENTURE (I don't use censors for the strongest bits of anger)!!! The one peice of good news is that Six Flags basically confirmed that they will fix El Toro and that it's not going away, which....GOOD!!! DO NOT DEMOLISH ONE OF THE BEST COASTERS ON THE PLANET YOU IDIOTS!!! DO NOT HALF-ASS THIS SIX FLAGS!!! Fire Selim A Bassoul as CEO who has proven to be DISASTEROUS for the company ASAP (even when you exclude the El Toro incident, he's been terrible) as well as ANYONE involved in half-assing El Toro's fixing in 2021. Get someone in there will really treat the ride well and FIX IT!!! Spend a good amount of money to fix this! Postpone any sort of new coasters! A big shiny new coaster for SFMM, or any other Six Flags park can wait (at least they're not building anything in 2023 that isn't yet another postponed coaster. Never thought I'd be happy about the lack of new coasters). Retrack it and give it the same amount of care that Heide Park gave Collosus when they rebuilt the ride to get that ride up to code! Do the same thing to El Toro! Do NOT squander one of the best coasters in the world!

I normally don't care about on-ride photos, but dude! Put the onride photo right in the middle of the Rolling Thunder hill. That's gotta produce some really funny faces.

Oh yeah. Have to stop and do this.

Fun ride, but with so many of the effects not working anymore (The soundtrack for this was fun. 🎵The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round🎵), yeah. It's best to retire the theme like they did at Six Flags New England (And they did in 2022, bringing Medusa back).

Please have this policy for ALL your coasters! Zippered Pockets really do work!

Yeah. This thing still has a brutal moment of ejector air. But it's still one of the weaker mine trains (Well, at least it has something).

Can you please tell me who that is Six Flags Great Adventure?

Hey everyone! Only 420 miles to La Ronde! Let's extend the trip up to there! It is one of our favorite parks after all!

Casino Pier & Playland's Castaway Cove

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