Date:9/10/2021-9/12/2021
Destination: New Jersey
Goal: Six Flags Great Adventure
Distance: 580 Miles
Means of Travel: Flying
Potential Credits: 1
Previously on...Coastervivor! Jarrett's alliance of Drew, Ben, and Leilani plotted to make a move on Jersey Devil, but immediately before their plan was to go into motion, disaster struck. Jersey Devil's ride or die, Stunt Pilot, dropped a wheel, and both coasters got shut down just days before their trip was to leave. But Jarrett was proactive, and messaged his other ally, John, about maybe coming back to Jersey when it's fixed should it not be ready on this trip. But despite a crazy ass road trip, delicious Smorgasbord, great ERT on Candymonium, and Jarrett's newly acquired love for Kingda Ka, none of the god tier coasters in the region, being El Toro, Skyrush, or Jersey Devil, were open on this trip, and Jarrett was sent home Jersey Devil-less. And to add insult to injury, the day at Six Flags was miserable, complete with poor communication and awful treatment from employees. Now with the souvenirs in hand and the coaster operational once more, it's time to head back, and Jarrett wants revenge. 1 RMC is up for grabs at Great Adventure, who will Six Flags piss off...TONIGHT!?!?!?
After the absolute disaster of a day at Great Adventure last time, it's time to do what Einstein said not to, do the same thing and expect different results. But we weren't doing the same thing, as Jersey Devil Coaster, the whole reason that trip last month happened in the first place, had been fixed and running like a good noodle since it went back up. So my buddy John that I had talked to, who I met as a coaster buddy but also shares an interest in Survivor with me, was my partner in crime to show me around his home park and get me on this brand spankin' new RMC. Well, not brand spankin' new maybe, it was announced in 2019 and stood there half built during a global pandemic, but it's recently opened in a rough season, give it a break it's trying!
Day 0
I got off work, ran home, hopped into my airplane clothes, and my mom picked me up to go. On the way to the airport, I saw that my DAY-DTW flight where I was to connect to Newark was filling up (I fly standby, super high risk but high reward, I love it), so literally as I got to the airport I switched it to getting to Philadelphia connecting in ATL, felt bad making John go out of his way but he knew that's how it was.
I got to my DAY gate, made sure I knew where everything was, but when I went to go ask the gate agent if all was good...the hand sanitizer splooged all over my shirt, and my social anxiety ass apologized for it. Some gunk had accumulated in the nozzle, causing it to spray 90 degrees out and it squirted all over me. I was also told you could find video of this exact scenario playing out on Pornhub if you look. So after, I took what shred of dignity I had and went to grab some chicken strips before getting on my flight.
Flight to ATL wasn't bad, had a bit of a long connection, so with my time out of the way, John and I tried to figure something out. I found an affordable hotel near the park, but when I booked it and called to confirm, they refused to check us in after 11. I thought it was understood that it canceled the room, but when I canceled the booking online, I couldn't get a refund because the money didn't go to the hotel it went to Hotels.com, leaving me down like $100, and I was PISSED. I asked Ben to help me out and he found me a hotel near PHL, and we decided to just have John snag me in the morning and let me stay there. I hopped on my night flight to PHL, and sulked about it a bit.
Oh, and insult to injury, I was at one of the worst airports ever. I HATE PHL, it looks like a prison, people are rude, I went once in 2013 and that still wasn't a long enough break from this shithole.
Not a bad place to spend the night! And look what they had in the lobby! I showered and blacked the fuck out, having been up for 18 hours at that point with a long day ahead of me.
Day 1
I got up at a reasonable time, got dressed, and packed my room up. John was a trooper and got up early so he could come get me.
Sometimes when I get somewhere at night, I like waking up and seeing the beautiful part of the world I've traveled to. This was not one of those times.
My outfit today was inspired by my favorite ride system, of which I would be adding one more today. Railblazer hat, Wonder Woman shirt, and it's not in the photo but my pass was on the Jersey Devil lanyard I got last time.
I headed downstairs, John snagged me, and we got ready to go! He snagged me, we drove to Great Adventure, and catching up, I learned something that shocked me: even though he was local, John had not ridden it either. New credit for both of us!
Runnin' with the Devil by Van Halen was our music of choice for driving up to the park, for obvious reasons. We parked in the same preferred lot where our day started with a busted phone last time, got a laugh out of the same "no cannabis tolerated" sign, security grilled me about my camera to ensure I didn't have a tripod or bean bag or anything, and we were in! And to top it all off, we saw a Jersey Devil train test from the parking lot!
I kind of recognized Cedar Point last weekend as my last thing of the summer season, and this as my first thing of the fall season. Water's colored blood orange, it's definitely fall! First time ever at a Six Flags Fright Fest, and while the actual event wasn't the best, I'm gonna be honest some of the decorations they had were cool.
Obviously, there's no question where we headed first: it was straight to the Pine Barrens for our first ever ride on Jersey Devil! A thread asking if the Raptor ride system was dead two days before this was announced, a global pandemic, and a failed previous attempt to get on this coaster have all lead up to this. And two years later, the wait is finally over.
Great Adventure forced us to put our phones and shit away before getting into a long line that stretched across the Jersey Devil plaza. It looked like it wouldn't even fill up the first switchback of queue, but they didn't even use it. The line was just for the greeter to interrogate you on whether or not you have a phone, and then you get let in the queue. And to add extra security, you can hear the station intercom booming across the plaza, with some ride op yelling at you that it's a single file coaster that doesn't allow loose articles of any kind. Once you're in, it dumps you into the first switchback, and everyone climbs under because there's no reason they can't just open it up so you don't have to walk all the way through it to get to the station. So we do that, get up to the station, and take rows 3 and 4.
That first ride on a coaster sometimes blows you away, sometimes you don't quite drink the Kool-Aid right away, and this time, it was more me spitting the Kool-Aid out. That first ride on Jersey Devil...was a snoozer. Don't get me wrong, the raptor system is still super cool, the inversions were awesome, but when I was waiting for that super aggressive RMC airtime they're known for, it was absent. Like, it missed every airtime moment, just as bad as New Texas Giant's second half. I had been told in the Great Adventure group on Facebook that those morning rides you get are lackluster compared to later in the day, so we decided to get back in line and try for a better seat after letting it cut its teeth a bit.
This is when my Great Adventure curse took effect. Next ride John and I were lined up with him in the very back of one train and me in the very front of the following train, absolutely perfect! Well, we get on, I'm in the front, and they kick us off the train. Jersey Devil's down, and from the ride ops talking, it sounded like one of the restraints wouldn't give the go signal when it was down. Maintenance came up and transferred the offending train off, and loaded us back into another train. So here I am, ready to go, now loaded into the back, and this girl ask the maintenance guy on the platform to set her phone and sunglasses down. He shrugs and sets them on the little footlocker thing they have in the station (which is not for loose articles) and the ride op stops operations to kick her off...after maintenance already agreed to help her out. Now, I've been hit by a phone before and it sucks, and I totally agree they shouldn't be brought on rides unsecured, but I kind of feel like both parties sucked here. She had been told several times at that point that phones can't be brought in line and did it anyway, so that was dumb. However, the maintenance guy already helped her and eliminated the problem. A much simpler way to do this would be to have simply sent the train and stopped her on the way off and told her not to do it again. It ate up everyone's time when she brought it on, and the policy ate up more to stop the train and get her off. Once he agreed to move her phone, that ride op kind of went back on the park's word as well. It was just a mess, and one that could be prevented if they only did the cabinet that Wonder Woman has. Or if, ya know, people weren't too stupid to be trusted to zip their damn phones up.
After walking away from that shitshow, Nitro was right there so we did that. And of course, it goes down and they have to transfer a train off the second my cursed ass steps on the platform. But we got on in the back and like last time, Nitro delivered! Maybe that day wasn't just a fluke and this coaster is on the upswing, I was getting good floater over all the hills and even greyed out in the helix.
Jersey Devil's line was still fairly short, so we hopped back on, this time in the back. And man oh man, is it better once you ride in the back after it's gotten a few laps in! I was actually getting tossed around a fair bit, the drop felt just like Wicked Cyclone's in the back, dive loop felt like Wonder Woman's, the hill was just like Storm Chaser's and the hop off the windcatcher was straight off of Cheetah Hunt's. It still died after the midcourse but the two rolling elements were pretty cool as well. I was warming up to this and it was warming up to me, maybe it wouldn't end the day as the biggest disappointment of 2021!
I went and snagged my camera to shoot Jersey Devil, and to my sadness, the sun was behind the coaster, on the side of the windcatcher. This made for some pretty bad lighting for me, as you typically want the sun pointed at the focal point not pointing towards you, but I did what I could with it and hoped it would move somewhere better later on.
John and I were hungry after that, so we got Chop Six. Had no issues using the meal plan or getting John my passholder discount and the rice, Thai chicken, and orange chicken I had was pretty damn good, albeit a bit spicy. We then hit Skull Mountain, needing a good post-coaster food to digest something like that.
Oh yeah. Our locker for Skull Mountain was the one with the number in fucking Sharpie. Stay classy, Six Flags!
Lockers were a fucking theme today. Half the time I tried to end my rental, I would go move my locker to a new location only for it to yell at me that I hadn't ended my previous rental, even after John saw me press the big red "END RENTAL" button several times, both with the locker open and closed.
Justice League had no wait so we did that, and to my surprise I beat John in score! This one is fairly good, I think it's the same generation as the Great America one. And the perfect metaphor for Six Flags in that they're capable of doing amazing things, such as this super cool dark ride with great theming, but sometimes choose to go the easy way out and do cardboard cutouts instead. We want more of this Six Flags.
Afterwards, we swung by the souvenir shop on the main midway to snag some JDC stuff, and the lady there had no idea to do package pickup for my $200 model coaster train that I got for $100, and while she was fiddling with it, knocked over a container of lip balm and a container of Jersey Devil pins. John and I were good sports and helped her pick them up, sure it was annoying she didn't know how to do it but she was nice about it and figured it out so I took no issue with it.
Alright, enough window shopping, time to bust out the big guns! Really big guns! Like, tallest coaster in the world big guns! That's right, it's Kingda Ka time! Once one of my least favorite Intamins, this thing surprised the hell out of me a month ago with how much smoother it was, so I'm a Kingda Ka fanboy, but a much newer one than most coaster enthusiasts that really like this coaster.
Last time Drew and I rode in the second row while Ben and Leilani took the front, but this time it was just two of us, so John and I waited for the front. I felt like I was wasting time a bit, but the crew had the throughput of the meat grinder in that Pink Floyd music video, so it wasn't terribly hateful. In line there was a girl that pointed to Steel Vengeance on John's shirt, the name of the coaster clearly visible, and asked him, "IS THAT A WOOD COASTER?" so that was a laugh as well.
Every enthusiast deserves a front row ride on Kingda Ka, it is so much smoother than Dragster and the speed and wind you get up here are downright unreal. No rattle, no karate chopping my shoulder on the way up, just a good, smooth, fast ride to the top and back down, blazing along at speeds that don't feel right for a coaster. It's insane, I'm so glad I got the t-shirt last time! And dare I say, better than Dragster?
And right next to Ka, we have our next ride, mounted to the coaster: Zumanjaro! First rode this last time and loved it, and I was so excited to be back here to ride this great drop tower once more. Not usually into huge drop towers, but the view from this one is incredible, and like the ride it's mounted to, the powerful wind resistance you get on the way down is amazing. I loved it just as much as the first time, as terrifying as it is with just that wide horse collar and no vest while you're up that high on the swaying tower. In line I ended up doing my part and killing two spotted lantern flies in line as well!
Speaking of bugs, Bizarro was next, which was kind of a boring ride as usual, plus we had an obnoxiously long time stacked. One thing I noted on the scathing survey I filled out last time was that they were doing paperwork on Bizarro's platform when there was a train ready to roll, and they did that again this time. Also, the ride op barely checked my restraint so there's that.
We wanted to ride Wonder Woman, but the line was insane, so we looked around after locking our shit up and found Cyborg, which is another flat I'd wanted to ride, despite hearing nothing but bad things about it. And honestly, it's a cool ride. You're up there getting dumped into your restraint in every way possible, but the sad part is the ride cycle is so damn short you get no time to enjoy it. If anyone did that stupid thing you had to do in Midwestern sex ed where you open the Hershey Kiss and bite the tip off but don't eat it and it's annoying and somehow that teaches you about sex, this is the flat ride version of that.
As you might notice, my pictures were a bit shit last time, so we went back to shoot Jersey Devil and ride it again.
JDC had a bit of a line this time, only it was in the queue and not out in the sun, so that was nice. We got to actually take it in and look at the theming in line, which features two nice big woodsy shade structures and placards telling the story of the Jersey Devil creature.
Okay, once you get on this coaster in the afternoon it's a whole different animal. Like, it maintains momentum a lot better. My theory is that with the raptor system there's less weight in a train than in a traditional coaster and therefore less momentum, and the rate of momentum loss is about the same but the amount in play is lessened on this. However, it kept Newton's friend inertia the whole time, and absolutely flew through the layout! Kick of airtime over the drop, flipping into the dive loop, and over the airtime hill as we experienced this morning, but you also get it majorly diving out of the windcatcher, through the zero-G, and over those final hills at the very end! Later in the day it hits every airtime moment plus the rolling ones and it's absolutely amazing.
So let's break Jersey Devil down, after all that. You enter the station, you're loaded single file, and wait for them to put your restraint down. Once that's done, you're dispatched onto a fairly loud lift, get to the top, and get thrown over the drop with a ton of gusto, and catch major airtime on the way down. Rising into the dive loop, RMC basically built this element with the entry of a wave turn that flips into a dive loop at the top, and you basically get dumped as it rolls the way Velocicoaster does. Coming out of this, there's a standard camelback hill that dishes out plenty of good old-fashioned boots on the ground ejector, not unlike the one on Storm Chaser. And up next, you go through a stall, not quite as huge or terrifying as Goliath's, but again with the Velocicoaster comparisons, the snaps in and out of this stall appear to have offset heartlining that flings you out as it rolls, leaving you ejected, upside-down, and floating in zero-G after getting tossed into your restraint, and it's a super freaky sensation. Out of this you charge up into the windcatcher, which has great air in the front, flip around a quick little turn, and then dive out, which provides great air in the back! Out of this you go into the zero-G roll, which doesn't really start to twist until after the curvature of the hill starts to apex, dishing out some good airtime as you enter and exit the fast-paced inversion. Out of this, you rise into the MCBR, which cuts some momentum, and then drops you into an overbank like Railblazer's. What comes next is the most picky part of the ride, sometimes you'll get good air, sometimes you won't, but it's two off-axis airtime hills, a bunny hop, and a hop into the brakes.
I stuck around to get pictures a bit despite the crap lighting, and honestly I was disappointed with the photos I got. Maybe I'm just super hard on myself as a photographer anymore, but they just aren't as good as the Wicked Twister ones I got a week ago. I blame the lighting 100% but still, it's disheartening ya know? At least I like the zero-G one of the dude having fun!
Nitro had a manageable wait, so we went and did that next. Man oh man is this a beautiful sunset ride! John was itching to get me on it at just the right time, and I was not disappointed. The view of the sun setting behind the trees and water as you float over those hills is incredible, and sealed the deal that I like Nitro now. Not quite as insane as Candymonium Mako or Raging Bull but still pretty damn good.
And getting off this...Jersey Devil has a short wait so we go do that one more time! This time I got the front...and damn it's good up there too! A bit smoother than in the back, but in the front you also have the advantage of seeing only that narrow ribbon of track supporting you as you rip and twist around that layout. And at the end, the bunny hops back to the station are just as powerful as the airtime early in the ride. And with the sun as low in the sky as it was, we basically got a night ride. A fully warmed up Jersey Devil ride on a cool early fall evening with a hint of smoke in the air is as good as it gets at Great Adventure, kids. This coaster is the total package, it's got pacing, it's got old school RMC airtime mixed with new school Velocicoaster twisting airtime and it combines the two masterfully. The one thing it really lacks, however, is RMC's trademark smoothness. You can feel it pass over the track joints in a few spots and the transitions can be a bit rattly, but it's far from painful. Fantastic coaster, and a welcome addition to my top ten!
We went to go ride Kingda Ka at night with my Diamond Elite line skippies, but it was down. Boo hoo. We wanted to ride Houdini but it had quite the wait from the Fright Fest crowd. But John's parents had New Jersey pizza calling our names at his place and I needed to be up early, so we decided to call it a night and head out through their front entrance, now lit up for Halloween and home to a few scare actors.
Once we got back to John's place, his parents were awesome and had good New Jersey pizzaria style pizza waiting for us, huge slices and all, and it was damn good! We stayed up and watched The Wire for a bit, which was kind of a crazy show despite not being intended as a comedy, but I got a good laugh out of several moments. From there, I sort of passed out, knowing we needed to be at EWR super super early tomorrow to catch my flight out.
Day 2
Fuck my life. I HATE waking up that early, but it had to be done. And even earlier, it had to be done to #RMCorWreck John's downstairs toilet after yesterday's Chop Six didn't age well. So John gets up and I throw on my clothes and we head to the airport to get me into the predawn darkness sky. On the way into the airport, we did get to see the Tribute in Light on the NYC skyline, though, so that was cool. Couldn't get a good picture, though.
EWR, the most pristine temple of aviation on the planet, is an airport I've never heard a single positive thing about. EVERYBODY seems to hate it. However, I personally saw nothing wrong with it. John said it was because I was there early when it wasn't packed, Ben said it was because I wasn't using the big hubby part of the airport, but I've definitely seen much worse than what I was treated to. Our terminal even had beach furniture to look like the Jersey Shore, so that was cute. I get there, do the typical standby panic attack, I get assigned my seat, and get on that damn plane!
I had what I thought was this revolutionary idea to pull my mask up over my eyes as well as my mouth and nose to try and use it as an eye mask and sleep, but my overactive brain still couldn't sleep on the plane even with this. Ugh!
I had a tight ass 52-minute connection in ATL, so I really had to powerwalk it on my tired, 3 hours of couch sleep legs through a mega-airport like Atlanta, it was absolutely miserable, but I made it to my gate with time and space on the plane to spare. I was going home!
The flight attendant on the DAY flight was super cool, and when he saw I was excited to be given my beloved Biscoffs, he slipped me extra on his way back. We were thousands of feet off the ground and all but he still managed to go above and beyond, this right here is customer service!
I landed safely in DAY, snagged my bag, and headed out to grab my Uber home after a super easy morning flight.
My last visit here pissed me the fuck off. It didn't piss me off because Great Adventure is a bad park, though. It pissed me off because I knew it wasn't. And today, I was shown the Great Adventure I know and love, and one that's come a bit since I last saw it in 2017. They've got two new flat rides in Wonder Woman and Cyborg, and of course, Jersey Devil. This is a park with four great headliner coasters in Nitro's floater, Kingda Ka's speed, El Toro's ejector, and Jersey Devil's violence and aggression. They also have a decent supporting lineup, with an okay B&M floorless, Joker Clone, and fun indoor family coaster. They've got a good flat collection with Zumanjaro, Cyborg, and Wonder Woman, and their two thematic rides deliver a good 1-2 punch in that territory. It's also not a terrible park to look at, with sections that are both typical American amusement park as well as themed and immersive. Not gonna lie, this park is stacked, and when a park with Great Adventure's coaster collection is run right, that's something special. And that's what I got today, even without El Toro. This definitely shot up a fair bit in my Six Flags rankings, and is deserving of a newer, more positive survey regarding park experience. Maybe we caught it on a bad day last time, maybe they listened to my survey and improved, not sure what happened but I know one thing: I had a good time riding Jersey Devil Coaster at Six Flags Great Adventure. And that was a huge goal for my 2021 season. After a month of unfinished business here, I finally have closure!
