Date:8/6/2021-8/9/2021
Destination: Eastern Pennsylvania; New Jersey
Goal: Dorney Park, Hersheypark, SFGAdv
Distance: 580 Miles
Means of Travel: Driving
Potential Credits: 3
(DISCLAIMER: This is some of the most negative you will ever see me in a trip report, and I wish it didn't have to be this way, but the day we had here was unacceptable. I go to these parks to have fun, I write the reports to both tell about my day and make people laugh, and I wish I could be doing that with this but I'm not. It sucked about Jersey Devil, we went in with the mindset of making the best of it and having a fun day, but with how blatantly awful things were today it simply was not possible. Even my worst Six Flags experiences didn't touch this, and Great Adventure is a park where I've had zero problems in the past, so that's partially why it shocked me so much that they could dish out this kind of service and see nothing wrong with it. I would still read the trip report, there's positivity at the end with our Chocolatier day and return trip home, but please know I might sound like a Karen but I promise I'm not.)
Day 3
We got up at a fairly reasonable hour to get on the road to Six Flags Great Adventure, 2 hours away from our Lancaster hotel.
I took the wheel on the way over and only goofed once myself, missing the exit, but Jersey drivers are nuts! I had people cutting me off and failing to yield for two fucking hours. Trenton was awful to drive in, and to top it all off, there was this huge obnoxious "TRENTON MAKES THE WORLD TAKES" sign on a bridge. Welcome to Jersey! Fortunately we made it there in one piece, little did we know what we had just gotten ourselves into...
It all started when Leilani dropped her phone and cracked the screen in the parking lot on the way in...
...then Six Flags is staying classy with these signs that totally worked.
(They didn't, I was smelling weed around the park all day LOL)
After getting in, we got in line to get our Flash Passes. Jersey Devil and El Toro, as we had accepted, were down for the day and we would not be riding them, so we elected to use them on the rides we wanted. Joker was first up, yeah it's a clone but I love it, but Ben and Drew get motion sick on them so they took the forward facing side leaving Leilani and I to get the good side!
The frustration for the day began when I went to go lock our shit up...and was met with this. I was waiting in line for a good twenty minutes before Ben came to check on me to make sure I didn't get eaten or something. Got no issue with locker policies, but two kiosks and these two little locker banks simply doesn't work for a park the size of Great Adventure. So this was annoying.
Fortunately, Joker delivered as always. These are gimmicky and all but they sure as hell are fun, and I much prefer them to a boomerang. We got on something and I had fun on it, that's a victory right!?
Then we got thirsty...
Ben needed a new bottle and mine had melted in the car and needed replaced, so we went to go get that replaced. Well we ask, and turns out there's "no membership services building at this park," so they sent us to some ice cream place. Ice cream place is out of bottles, so they sent us to the funnel cake building. It's crowded as hell in there, it's dirty, literally every surface was sticky with some substance or another. So Ben goes to buy another, I go to get mine replaced, and for some reason the top of my old one doesn't want to thread with the bottom of my new one. I ask if I can just get a new top with it, thinking they might just not be compatible together, and they tell me they are. So here I am, in a crowd, trying to focus on screwing the top on without spilling pop everywhere, it doesn't want to go, I'm getting frustrated and distracted. Ben asks if he can try, he forces them together, gets it, and we walk away.
And once we're out of there, Ben informs me that the employees were laughing at and making fun of me while I was struggling to put the top on. I was disgusted.
Houdini was our next ride of choice, something Ben and I love but Drew and Leilani have not ridden before. I love that Six Flags actually succeeded in making something remotely Disney-like, I'd love to see more of these at other parks. The illusion is so simple but it works so well, I never got why there's only four of these in the world. Drew figured it out pretty quickly that we weren't actually upside-down, but I don't think he picked up on the gondola moving independently right away. But it's a super cool ride, I always wish Disney would build one themed to Guardians of the Galaxy set to Dancin' On The Ceiling.
Moving on, we went to Golden Kingdom next for Kingda Ka. Last time I rode this I fucking hated it, it rattled like a bitch and karate chopped my rotator cuff with those restraints on the way up the top hat. However, feelings on the actual ride aside, this coaster is iconic, it's the stuff of legends, and riding it as a coaster enthusiast is a special experience for that reason alone, even if it pulverizes your brain into mush. Ops on it were pretty good as well, much better than I remembered.
OH MY GOD THAT KICKS ASS!!!! I completely take back a lot of the negative things I said about this coaster, not all of them but a lot of them. I actually really enjoyed myself up front and the rattle, while still there, was no worse than Dragster's by any means. The extra ten or so miles per hour does make a difference here, as I was struggling to keep my eyes open. The whole ride looked almost strobed for me, as my eyelids fluttered involuntarily to protect my eyes from the extreme winds, something that's never happened on Dragster. Is Dragster still better? Absolutely. But is Ka a fair second and not a bad wannabe now? Also absolutely. It's redeemed itself in my book.
After getting off, lunch was next. We mobile ordered at Best of the West and got these super good pork bacon kebabs with a sweet chili sauce, served with Six Flags fries and cornbread that was actually pretty damn good. Pro tip: dip the cornbread in the sauce if you order this if you go. Though after reading this trip report, I doubt you'll be going.
Drew wanted to not yack all over the place and Ben hates drop towers, but before I came out here I had been telling myself I should try Zumanjaro since I'm warming up to them, and Leilani volunteered herself to do it with me. I was hanging on for dear life on the way up, freaking out and demanding to know why the hell I had agreed to do something so fucking stupid, but once we got far off the ground I actually started to calm down. It lifts you up pretty fast, doesn't hold you too long, the Kings Dominion-esque foresty view with the park is beautiful, and the drop, while quick, is NUTS. You expect it to end after a certain point but like with Ka, the wind resistance just gets greater and greater, like it almost feels like you're about to reverse direction and blast off like a rocket by the time it hits the brakes. Tons of fun, but not scary at all. Zumanjaro's great but it's not the tiger people make it out to be, it's a kitty. Like that Kinectimals video but in reverse. And I'm so, SO glad I did it.
Looking to get back into credits next, we did Runaway Mine Train. I hated it last time, I hated it again, I warned the others and they were still shook by how fucking bad it was. Even for an early Arrow this is god awful, we were literally shouting "NO! NO! NO!" as the train would approach every malformed, cadywonked corner on this piece of junk. Love Arrow Mine trains, but as in Thunderation and Adventure Express, not this!
We made ourselves victims of Beezarro next, no pictures of the ride so here's something related. There were bees EVERYWHERE, and nothing seemed to be done to keep them out of the station, which probably attracted them because of the sticky pop that gets spilled all over the park that nobody cleans up. Ops on this were atrocious, they were farting around to the point that it took almost half an hour to get through a three train wait, and the coaster isn't much to write home about either. Glad we did it, but the experience as a whole stung a bit. Please don't hate me for that pun.
Nitro was next, another coaster I haven't cared for in the past, not for being rough like Ka but just for missing every single airtime moment in the layout. The station was super chaotic, no station grouper or anything, and this became a problem. We enter our row, and out of nowhere comes this ADA travel party of two that we were not informed would be taking our row in any way. We did a confusion for a bit before realizing we needed to let them ride and got back on the platform, but as we were getting back on, they almost shut the gate on Drew, separating him from us and forcing him to ride with another party. There was no ops-guest communication and it honestly felt like a safety hazard in a situation where heavy machinery was involved. You don't shut a station gate on a lifelong friend of mine without me getting pissed, just a rule of mine.
Next up we went to go take our loss with Jersey Devil and stare in at it closed. Boo hoo.
There's this little sign before the plaza that was pretty cool.
As we know, the week before this trip, Stunt Pilot threw a wheel bracket, shutting down both second generation single rail coasters, and Jersey Devil was fucking hosed. The four trains could be seen in the maintenance bay and the coaster itself was quiet. That's what you get for trying to summon Satan, I suppose...
I got some photos and honestly, this stung that we couldn't ride it because it's a damn sexy coaster. Those large swooping elements combined with narrow ribbon-like Raptor track makes for some great visual impact. That windcatcher tower at the near end of the layout looks amazing, it's the part of this ride I anticipate most I think. I'm coming back for you someday, I promise!
Drew wanted to go try the wings from the Jersey Devil BBQ place and they gave him shit trying to use his member discount on food, so Ben had to go back him up, and claimed they were super super rude to him. I chilled on the Jersey Devil plaza and got photos and chatted with Leilani for a bit until they got back.
After all that we went to Skull Mountain, which was down earlier and still partially blocked off by a trashcan with a sign bolted to it of all things. Fortunately it was up and we rode it, and I liked it a lot as usual! This is a great little coaster, definitely a much-needed sleeper hit when the two best things in the park are down.
We went to grab food at Johnny Rocket's after and ate it at Granny's Kitchen or whatever it's called, now this is burgers and chicken strips so it should be impossible to fuck up right? Wrong! I bit into this...thing. Not sure if it's bone or fossilized breading or what, but it sure as hell wasn't chicken and I could have easily broken a tooth on it. It took a ton of force to crack by hand just to see what was inside, and it looked porous so either bone or breading would be a good guess. Sad thing is, the food might have been the best thing about this day.
Oh, and Ben got ranch dressing on his hand and I was legally obligated to make this.
No longer wanting anything to do with Six Flags, we went to grab merch and head out. The merch ladies at the coaster merch store were super nice, but I had learned that someone had threatened one of them earlier. Stay classy Six Flags! So we headed out, and as my survey said, the only thing excellent about that day was leaving the damn place. Over ten years doing coasters and this is the worst day I've ever had at a park, even worse than time spent at properties that are far inferior. I mean, I had more fun at fucking Camden Park than I did today! And what bothers me is that I know it doesn't have to be like this, I've been to Six Flags on busy days and had days much easier than today was. Come on, I left them a brutally honest but well-written and polite survey, now it's on them to take it seriously and fix it. You can do it, Great Adventure, I know you can be the great park I had a hell of a time at in 2016/2017!
Ben drove home as him and Drew continued to loudly spout off, debate, and do everything they can do with each other that they can't do with me. Both of them about killed each other debating single rider lines as Leilani and I quietly planned a CP trip. We got back to the hotel, I ran across the parking lot and back for some reason, while I'm sprinting my legs off I see Drew in his horse stance doing karate in a parking space, and I know that Six Flags has officially ruined this travel party. I got inside, realized I had brought a six pack of Shock Top and only drank two, and I knew what I had to do next: I drank the remaining four and apparently acted like a fucking goofy idiot all night. Meanwhile, Drew and Ben got into a tug of war over one of their bed sheets because our mom friend left us for ten minutes to take a shower. And then we all passed out, wanting to imagine we were somewhere other than Six Flags Great Adventure that day. And I had the mutilated bodies dream falling asleep again.
We slept in a bit the next day and made sure to be at Hershey practically at opening for Chocolatier, so we could get a table and get the hell out and on the road ASAP. While parking, I slipped out of the car and grabbed it for us, we were in!
NSFW WARNING: FOOD PORNO AHEAD
Chocolatier's cocktail menu was to DIE for! I had a Reese's Old Fashioned while Drew and Leilani were good noodles and sipped on mocktails. We all sipped around (don't worry, all of us are vaxxed) and they were all pretty damn good!
Bottoms up! Not usually an Old Fashioned guy but this was damn good!
Our Ferris Wheel came...oh my god this was so good! Their chicken fingers were good as always, but my personal favorite was probably the barbecue wing I had tossed in their chocolate barbecue sauce.
The universal choice at the table was the chocolate barbecue bacon burger, but I was a deviant as usual and got the chocolate barbecue flatbread, and it was amazing! This might be up there with Montgomery Inn back home for best barbecue sauce I've ever had, there's clearly chocolate in it and they go ham on the brown sugar and molasses to really bring out a sticky, sweet feel with this sauce. I loved it!
Because we hadn't yet eaten ourselves into a food coma...dessert! I got this super good Reese's cake (if you haven't figured out yet I really really really like Reese's) and HOLY HELL it was to die for! Chocolate and peanut butter is way too good to be legal but I love everything about it, I was even able to take home leftovers!
And then we got on the road and made a fairly boring drive home. Ben took the wheel first, then I switched and finished the way to Leilani's, then Ben switched back. We drove through Ben's hometown to get Taco Bell and then finished the drive back to my place, rolling in around 11 at night. Drew drove his car home and Ben plopped on my couch for the night, ready to catch his flight the next day, that would totally make it where he needed to go and get him out of Dayton in a timely manner.
"How was the trip?" You usually get asked this question, and usually you just say "it was great," but this time, I had to really stop and think. Did it go the way we planned? Fuck no it didn't! El Toro, Jersey Devil, and Skyrush were all closed, Six Flags treated us like prisoners of war, broken hotel A/C, I mentally snapped and broke down laughing at Hershey for no fuckin reason, shit happened and it happened hard. However, did I have fun? Absolutely, and there's not a crew in the world with which I would have rather gone on this insane adventure. Ben's the man with the plan that carried this trip even despite the constant turbulence thrown at us, Leilani's an awesome patient mom friend that's not afraid to have a hell of a time, Drew is the best puking coaster ninja ever and I was so appreciative of his willingness to work with my social differences on this trip (seriously, we've become such better friends because of it), and me, well I'm just me but maybe that's good enough, I don't know. This was the best squad ever to travel with and I can't wait to go on adventures with these goobers in the future.
