RCCGB FORUM

coastergraham

We left Heathrow at 10am in the height of luxury in the British Airways Club World section of the plane, if you ever get the chance to do it then it is a must. You get access to the lounges at the airport, a seat that turns into a bed and food served on a plate with posh cutlery while you are on the plane.

After 7 hours on the plane and what seemed like even longer queueing at Newark to get through immigration then get a hire car we were off on the road for the short trip to Great Adventure.

We arrived in the park at 5pm, so that meant we had the last 5 hours in the park.

The first thing we noticed when we arrived at GA was the price to park the car - a mind numbing $15!!!

GA is fairly clean and tidy park and pretty well presented. To just get in the park though presents a challenge as they have more metal detectors to go through and security than your average airport. It does make you wonder just what type of person that the park can attract. But at least the people who were in the park while we were there were pretty normal.

Sat 16th ride count - 5pm to 10pm

El Toro - 6
Great American scream machine - 2
Batman - 5
Dark Knight - 1
Rolling Thunder - 1

TOTAL RIDES = 15

Sunday 17th Ride Count - 10.30am to 8pm

Nitro - 9
Batman - 3
Skull Mountain - 1
Superman - 2
Rolling Thunder - 1
Mine Train - 1
El Toro - 5

TOTAL RIDES = 22

HIGHLIGHTS

- El Toro, see review below
- A park that takes designated smoking areas seriously, I cant remember seeing on person daring to smoke outside of them.
- Pretty light crowds on both days
- Flashpass gold we had on Sunday, it works superb and without it Sunday would have been a disaster, see Lowlights down below.

LOWLIGHTS

- Kingda Ka shut and by all accounts still closed as well due to a major problem, we were gutted not to have the chance to compare to TTD.
- Prices on park, $15 to park the car then equally as much a rip off for food and drink in the park.
- Ride capacity was poor on some rides and ride staff seemed a bit slow on others. Some were good, some were not that good. Just no consistency.
- The amount of ride downtime was a joke, I looked on my flashpass gold at one point to see which ride to reserve next and over half of the available rides were shut at the time!!! But for the Flashpass it would have been a really awful day.

RIDE REVIEW

- El Toro, WOW is the best way to sum this ride up. A stunning ride with great speed, insane airtime and great twists. It deserves all the plaudits it gets. The only two things slightly against it are that the lapbars really dig in and you get bad leg bruising off them over the airtime hills. But other than that it is stunning. 10/10

- Nitro, B&M hypercoaster that delivers some decent airtime and good forces. Not the best hypercoaster ever but not the worst either. 8/10

- Batman, A punchy B&M inverted coaster that is good fun to ride. 7/10

- Great American Scream Machine - This old Arrow multilooper will make you scream in pain. 4/10

- Superman, B&M flying coaster that does not offer much really, even the pretzel loop turned out to be a let down. Still a better ride that Air at Alton Towers though. 6/10

- Dark Knight, you go through a long pre show just to ride a bog standard steel wild mouse!! 5/10
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coastergraham · Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 2:48 pm Post subject:

Great Adventure from parking lot

Park entrance

Nitro

Bringing another train on track

Batman

El Toro

El Toro, Rolling Thunder and Kingda Ka

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frosty · Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 2:53 pm Post subject:

Nice to see those rides again, especially Kinda with the magnificient El Toro! What a lovely pair Very Happy

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Steve
Member of 'non rollback' Stratacoaster club 06/08.

coastergraham · Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 3:23 pm Post subject:

coaster-andy · Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 4:04 pm Post subject:

From what I have read over the internet Kingda Ka was struck by lightning which in turn shot the motor or some other huge part which was not a easy change like a cable.

That said I will second that Top Thrill is better than Kingda Ka but El Toro was just insane wooden coaster.
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Memeber of the 08 Top Thrill Rollback Club + Member of the "First to be denied SAW by Technical Failure" club.

A member of 2009 charity rider 100 times on Megefobia

ccp · Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 4:10 pm Post subject:

frosty · Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:22 pm Post subject:

ccp · Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 5:55 pm Post subject:

[quote="frosty"]

coastergraham · Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 9:36 am Post subject:

If any UK park gets an El Toro or Voyage type ride I will be there most weekends.

If they get a wicked twister type ride as well I would be tempted to give up work and almost live at that park Laughing

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coaster-andy · Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 3:19 pm Post subject:

Wicked Twister would be a great replacement for Revolution at Blackpool. Small foot print limited space needed perfect.
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Memeber of the 08 Top Thrill Rollback Club + Member of the "First to be denied SAW by Technical Failure" club.

A member of 2009 charity rider 100 times on Megefobia