Six Flags Great Adventure, summer 2006

I haven't written a trip report in a long time.  Just how long was made clear to me when I went on my first coaster trip of the 2007 season last weekend (to Busch Gardens Williamsburg and Paramount's Kings Dominion) while still only having chronicled about half of last summer's adventures (for past reports, see my namespace).  I'm going to try to ramp it up, staring with my much-delayed account of my trip to Six Flags Great Adventure last June.

Roller coaster enthusiasts have had a love-hate relationship with the Six Flags chain for a long time.  On the one hand, of all park chains, Six Flags probably focuses most on pure thrill rides, which we of course eat up.  On the other hand, as is true in so many areas of commerce a corporate giant like Six Flags can drive out local proprietors.  The big chain competes strongly with smaller parks with longer histories, and nostalgically minded enthusiasts can resent that.  The phenomenon reached a peak in the late '90's, when the Six Flags chain underwent a massive period of expansion.  Behind the scenes, it was a more complex situation, as Six Flags themselves had been bought from Time-Warner by a smaller company, but the basic idea held--a large chain expanded even further, outcompeting parks that had fewer resources.  Some parks would just close their doors, while others would sell out to Six Flags.  The newly-acquired parks were remade in Six Flags' own image, which often meant removing things that had once made them unique.  The amusement industry homogenized, at the expense of a lot of history.  Six Flags is by no means solely at fault for the phenomenon.  Other chains were in the act too, and even now that Six Flags is a weaker player than it was back then, small parks continue to close.  But in the minds of many, Six Flags was the epitome of everything that was wrong with the amusement industry, but offered many temptations to keep us coming back to them.

This aggressive expansion went along with aggressive purchases of new rides, which has also had its good and bad aspects.  Of course it's hard for a coaster enthusiast to complain about new coasters being built, but it has come at a cost.  By burning so much money on new coaster development, Six Flags then had less money to spend in other less sexy but equally important aspects of their business, such as general park appearance.  The high-octane rides tended to draw a crowd of teenagers and fewer families, sometimes entailing unruly crowds.  All in all, when you went to a Six Flags park, you could expect to be thrilled, but often at the price of a lot of frustration.

Though enthusiasts might be better able to articulate some of these complaints, I think the general public has also caught on to these problems too.  Though many would be drawn by whatever the latest ride was, they often would leave after an unsatisfactory day, not willing to return.  Forced to continue to invest in very expensive rides to keep the patrons coming back year after year, Six Flags' debt eventually caught up with them.  The original architects of the chain's growth strategy eventually hit a dead end.  They had to unload some of their parks, including their European properties.  Just last year they sold Astroworld in Houston.  The park was torn down, to the shock of many.

Not long afterwards, Six Flags experienced a management shakeup.  Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder made a successful bid to take over the chain.  Right away the new management tried to institute changes to reverse the decline of Six Flags' fortunes.  I have agreed with some of the changes, and disagreed with others, but on the whole have thought a fresh approach is definitely needed.  The old team had failed to deliver a wholly satisfactory park experience; I was eager to see what the new team could do.

The opportunity for me to get my first glimpse at how things were going for Six Flags came in mid-June of 2006.  Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, one of the chain's premier parks, was sponsoring an enthusiast event called Coaster Celebration.  The event had a good reputation from past years, and 2006's incarnation had an additional attraction--the park was introducing a very intriguing new coaster called El Toro.  Even had there been no event, I would undoubtedly have tried to get to Great Adventure to ride it sometime this year, but the event made a visit a foregone conclusion.  Since it had been many years since I'd last been to the park anyway, I was very interested in returning to catch up on some of the other new rides that had been installed since then.

The only thing that held us back from immediately registering for the event was that there was some question about whether El Toro would be ready on time.  Construction delays had pushed its opening back to near the registration deadline.  Fortunately we got word that was indeed going to be open by the time of the event, so we sent in our registration.  A new headache followed, as the event packets we were to receive in the mail were only sent days before the event, delivered by overnight Federal Express.  We'd combined our registration with our friend Tim's, and it was fortunate that he was able to get the tickets in time, but he had to make a special trip to pick them up at the FedEx office.  I'm sure this must have inconvenienced some people even more.  Some enthusiasts make an event such as this part of a larger trip, and it's quite likely that some would have had to leave before they had a chance to receive their packets.

Great Adventure is about 6 hours from me, just within the limit of what makes for a relatively tolerable driving weekend (if you can stomach the gas prices).  Just a couple of hours longer each way makes for a difficult trip for a single weekend, but 6 hours is not bad--drive out most of the way Friday after work, spend the day at the park Saturday, and drive back Sunday, even having a chance to sleep in Sunday morning.

This was good because due to our being admitted before the park's usual opening time for the event, we'd have to get up very early on Saturday.  When we got to the parking lot, we found that some of the attendants didn't know that event attendees had pre-paid parking.  (Ordinarily parking costs a steep $15.  Our discount prepayment was $6, which would have been a typical parking fee just about 5 years ago.)  We did eventually get in, but this was symptomatic of the disorganization that would plague the event throughout the day.

The last time I visited Great Adventure was 1999.  The skyline has changed drastically since then, a tribute to how many rides they've added.  The dominant coaster used to be a steel coaster called the Great American Scream Machine.  It was briefly the tallest coaster in the world in 1989, but it is now overshadowed by many of the other attractions.  In particular, 2005's Kingda Ka, the current world record holder, is more than twice as high.

2006 was the 45th anniversary of the Six Flags chain, and they did not let us forget it.  As we walked toward the park entrance, we saw a big banner announcing the anniversary and even a topiary bush clipped to form a 45.  Later we'd be wished "happy anniversary" by almost every ride operator.  It's an odd thing to celebrate--45 isn't the roundest of numbers, and the anniversary applies to the chain rather than to the park, but I think Six Flags is desperate to find something around which they can build customer goodwill.

As we looked at the schedule we found more confusion.  It was the third different version we'd seen--there had been two previously released schedules on the Web site.  We took advantage of one change, that Kingda Ka was going to run for us that morning.  We knew it was destined for an hours-long wait later in the day, if it even ran at all--it is a notoriously unreliable ride.  In fact its capriciousness bit us at first, when we first walked over we found that it wouldn't be opening for half an hour yet.

In the meantime we went to find other coasters to pass the time before it opened.  The next most desirable open coaster was called Medusa, but on the way we encountered the Runaway Train just opening, so we decided to get a quick ride on it.  I think it may have been the very first ride anybody got on anything that day.

Mine trains are a staple of amusement parks, featuring a mild experience focused more on twists and turns than drops.  Great Adventure's is relatively tall as such rides go--I actually felt a bit vulnerable as I looked over the side of the lift hill--but it still doesn't really have a very big drop.  Instead it opens with a downward helix.  Following a series of more turns, the track passes low over a small lake for a nice scenic touch.  The overall ride was a bit jostling, but not too bad; sometimes older mine rides can ride surprisingly rough for their small size.

After this quick ride we continued to our original destination of Medusa, which had been Great Adventure's new ride the last time I visited.  It represents one of the many variations on riding positions that have been introduced in recent years, the "floorless" coaster.  A standard looping coaster layout (in fact, almost identical to the layouts for less exotic coasters by the same manufacturer) is combined with the ride's big gimmick, the train and station configuration.  After riders have boarded, the floor underneath the train retracts, leaving riders with nothing beneath their feet.  Unless you're in the very front this actually doesn't make too much of a difference to the ride experience, but from that seat it leads to quite a vulnerable feeling.  We took our first ride there, then took another in the back.  It's a good and fun ride.  Besides the thrills themselves, one of the highlights is the view of the monkeys in the neighboring safari park.  I found the front seat to have a wobbling motion, as if the wheel were slightly oblong, but it was not painful, just odd.

Hearing that Kingda Ka was finally about to open for us, we went over to get in line.  When Kingda Ka was built they added a whole new park section around it, named the Golden Kingdom.  We got a chance to view it as we walked through on the way to the ride.  Landscaped elaborately with a lot of bamboo throughout, its two general themes are tigers and Asia.  Some of the paths we walked along were reminiscent of some of the better zoos I've been to.

Even then Kingda Ka hadn't started, but it was only a few minutes before they finally got it running.  I'm not sure how many trains it is configured to run.  The loading station has two sides, with each side having two loading areas, for a total of at least four trains that could be run.  However one side of the station was closed off, and so they only were running two.  I believe Six Flags has had considerable difficulty in getting the ride operating reliably and are doing the best they can, but the lowered capacity leads to extremely long lines--on the order of hours.  Our two rides within about half an hour made us very happy.

Even with our relatively short wait, we were given a numbered ticket at the ride entrance.  The purpose of these tickets is to prevent line jumping--it makes it obvious if a person is ahead of their rightful place in line.  It's a good idea that I wish was used more often, since line cutting is endemic in certain parks.

We took our rides in the back seat and the second.  Even with reduced lines I wasn't willing to wait for the very front.  The park doesn't allow any loose items whatsoever on the ride, not even sunglasses without a strap.  I dislike such policies.  I know my glasses are secure enough to stay on and they protect my eyes from the wind, which is very fierce on a 100+ mph ride.  The park also went overboard with the restraints.  They come over the shoulder even though the coaster doesn't go upside down (and it's arguable if such restraints are necessary even then).  Such restraints are sometimes unpleasantly close to the ears, but fortunately these were not and I had no trouble with them.

Kingda Ka's first gimmick is that unlike ordinary coasters, it does not climb a hill slowly.  Instead the train is accelerated rapidly to its top speed.  We were sent out of the station slowly at first, sliding down to the launch area.  Each ride there was a long wait before we then were launched to top speed.  When I was sitting near the front, I saw the launch mechanism approaching us, which built up my sense of anticipation greatly.

My only basis for comparison to Kingda Ka is the very similar Top Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point.  In fact, Kingda Ka was the coaster that broke Dragster's height and speed records.  Top Thrill Dragster's launch feels very powerful and fast.  Though Kingda Ka is faster, it didn't feel so to me.  The launch seemed to come in about three or four distinct stages, each successively faster, but it never seemed to build up to the same intense speed as Dragster.  Perhaps this is because it has a strange shaking feeling, absent on Dragster.  The shaking was particularly pronounced in back.  Though not violent, it was slightly uncomfortable and just didn't feel right.

After the launch comes the coaster's second trick.  It climbs along a vertical stretch of track to a height of 450 feet before going over a sharp hilltop, then back down another vertical drop.  The vertical climb seemed to take a very long time--even on such a fast ride it just takes time to reach a height of 450 feet.  It's so high that my ears even popped.  There is some force cresting the hill, which I found to be better in the second seat.  The track twists three quarters of the way around on the way down, looking like you're falling through a whirlpool.  After the big drop is a followup hill (absent on Dragster) but though it's high, it's very shallow and braked on the downside so it doesn't have too much force.

The entire ride, fast launch, two hills, and a brake, is very short.  It's over almost before you know it.  It didn't quite thrill me the way my first Dragster rides did.  Two rides were quite enough.  In any case we had plenty of other things we wanted to do that day.

It was nearly time for the park to open, so we headed over toward El Toro to try to get an early place in line.  By that point in the season the park had only managed to get one train running.  Early reports had been that dispatches were very infrequent, leading to hours-long lines.  Naturally we wanted to be ready to get a ride as soon as possible rather than have to wait in the hot sun later in the day.  Nevertheless it took them some time after the park had officially opened to the public before they were able to get the ride running, but eventually we were up in the station.

The loading was as slow as reported.  At best they had five minutes between dispatches.  Their boarding procedure was at fault.  When riders first boarded they were specifically asked not to lower their lap bars.  Instead they were to buckle a belt, which the operators had to come around and check.  Only then were the lap bars lowered, by the operators themselves.  There were sensors to insure that the bars were down far enough.  If they were not, the operator at the console would announce that a car had to be rechecked.  The sensors didn't indicate which seat in the car was at fault, so the ops had to push all of them down until the car was cleared.  The required lap bar position was also very low.  It was not entirely comfortable for me, and I'm sure it could have been outright painful for a big person.  All the delays were frustrating to those of us waiting in line, though I'm sure the operators didn't care for them either.

The ride begins with a very fast climb up the lift hill.  It's so fast that it's over almost over before you have time to think of it; no slow buildup of anticipation here!  The turn leading into the first drop is also very fast, because the train has been given so much momentum from the outset.  The drop is very steep and generates a tremendous extended floating feeling.

Following this was what I found to be the biggest highlight of the ride, two sharply profiled hills that the train flies over, providing an extremely powerful sense of uplift.  Such a combination of strong, extended upward force is extremely rare for any coaster.  In fact, the only other coasters I know of operating today that have the same combination are made by the same manufacturer--both in Europe--and I think El Toro may be more powerful than either of them.  There are rumors of historical coasters that may have had such strong, extended force, but they have either been torn down or modified to remove the forces.  This part of El Toro is an experience that exists nowhere else in America.

The track turns around with a swooping drop, them makes a run back through the structure that is fast but not particularly forceful.  To this point in the ride, El Toro has kept the same layout as one of its European cousins, Colossos in Germany.  Colossos follows this a helix, followed by some short hills, but El Toro takes a completely different approach.  Being familiar with Colossos' layout I was eager to see whether the changes could offer something better.  The first big difference was a sharp hill used to pass over the park's other wood coaster, Rolling Thunder.  If anything it's more forceful than the two big hills, almost pitching riders forward as well as pushing them upwards, but it's shorter in duration than the prior hills.  Then comes a low series of back and forth turns.  Being so low, they're taken at fast speed.  I liked them, but wasn't quite blown away by them, at least not at that point in the day.

By the time we got off the ride it was already after 11.  In that hour the line had grown to fill the entire queue.  At the rates they were dispatching trains, the wait by that point must have been hours long.  There was very loud music playing the queue; it couldn't have been a pleasant wait.

Since we were in the area, we decided to ride the park's other wooden coaster, the much more traditional Rolling Thunder.  It's a twin-track wooden racing coaster with the additional twist that the two tracks run in parallel but have different hills.  Unfortunately only one side was running that day.  Like on El Toro, the loading was very slow, but due less to the procedures used than the employees just moving in slow motion.

The ride itself was not very thrilling.  It was very slow, and squealing as it went around the turns.  That's always a bad sound to hear on a coaster, indicative of poor maintenance.  Some local fans say this ride was very good when it first opened, in the late 70's, but I've never had a particularly good ride on it.  But every coaster has its fans, in this case a kid riding with his dad behind us.  Also in Rolling Thunder's favor, at least it looks better than the last time I saw it.  Then the paint was peeling; since it has gotten a nice white paint job.

It was time to eat next.  While we'd been waiting in line for El Toro we'd been enticed by the smells from a nearby taqueria.  We decided to give them a try for lunch.  As with many things that day, it was a mixed experience.  The service was slow but when we got the food it was quite good.  The people behind us must have waited even longer as the line grew considerably behind us.  I appreciated that they had Dos Equis beer, but it came at a steep price of $6.99 for a small glass (later I'd get an iced tea for the also-inflated price of $3).  I enjoyed the patio (and would probably have liked night ambiance, with strings of colored lights) but the condiments they laid out were totally inappropriate.  There was plenty of catsup but no hot sauce.  Fortunately I usually have a spare packet or two in my waist pack, a strange habit that paid off in this case.

After lunch it was time to explore other areas of the park.  I think the first section we visited was meant to be themed as an Air Force base, but the most vivid image I have is of a vast field of sky-blue painted pavement.  It was quite ugly, a drastic contrast to the lush sections of the park we'd just been in.  Throughout the day I noticed that parts of Great Adventure were really lovely--elsewhere I saw a koi pond in a small Japanese themed area--while others just looked trashy and had no appeal at all to me.

The coaster in this area was named Superman, but the line was clearly very long so we skipped it in the hope that it would die down later in the day.  Instead we went to the parachute drop ride.  At one time such rides were an icon in all Six Flags parks, but no longer.  When the chain expanded it didn't install these rides in their newer parks, instead choosing to remove some of the older ones.  The ride's relative rarity alone made me want to get on it.  Riders just sit on a beneath a parachute-like canopy in open seats with little restraint, get lifted up to a pretty considerable height, then dropped back down.  The drop is quite gentle, so the main thrill comes from the sheer height and sense of vulnerability.  I also did get a slightly light feeling in my stomach as we dropped.

The parachute drop was run by one of the better operators we encountered that day.  He ran the ride efficiently, while having to deal with a balky and archaic control system that required him to rub a magnet against the side of the control box with each dispatch.  He also had to put up with some unruly guests.  One little kid seemed to want to run right into the ride area while it was running; it seemed his parents didn't do a very good job of keeping him under control.  When we left the ride, the operator even wished us a happy 45th anniversary!  Later on, Janna would start wishing operators a happy anniversary before they could do so for us.

 I'm not as intimately familiar with Great Adventure's layout as I am with many other parks.  I think of it as a big T.  The vertical line is the entrance.  All of the rides we'd been on so far were on one end of the horizontal line.  We next headed past the entrance to the third wing of the park, which we hadn't seen yet.  Along the way we saw some of the non-ride type of attractions--referred to as "streetmosphere"--the park is trying to develop, such as the comic book characters Robin and Green Lantern riding along the midway in little scooters. Further along in an isolated little area of the park, we saw an autograph signing by some members of the New York Mets.  Later we'd see the costumed characters in a big parade, along with floats, cheerleaders, and even a woman holding a snake.  We'd also see the sidewalk artist who's made his name by creating three-dimensional chalk art on sidewalks.  I appreciate that management has been trying to make the park better balanced by focusing on non-ride forms of entertainment and marketing.  However, it is only part of the eventual solution to Six Flags' problems.  I like seeing activities on the midways--most of my favorite parks do this well--but it didn't significantly affect my overall experience that day.

More important was something I'd see posted on the wall of a ride station later in the day--the company's mission statement, which mentioned that employees were to provide a safe and clean environment, be helpful, and greet every guest with a friendly smile.  Good in theory, but all the employees have to follow through with it.  I didn't see anything that day that would indicate anybody was being less than safe, but the employees were not always as friendly or helpful as they could have been.  Most importantly perhaps, many did not work as quickly as they should have, whether operating the rides or serving me food.  Perhaps Six Flags needs some motivational training for its employees; that might go a long way to improving the park experience.

Returning to our tour of Great Adventure's coasters, almost any park has one that it's a little embarrassing for an adult to ride, but as enthusiasts we usually ride them anyway.  For Great Adventure this coaster was Blackbeard's Lost Treasure Train, a typical version of a "family coaster", with a low course focusing more on twists than drops.  The train is very long, which also tends to make it drag over the hills.  As a production model coaster its layout is seen at other parks, but Great Adventure's is at least on an attractive plot, with gravel and plants to enhance the visual effect of the low-to-the-ground turns.

Skull Mountain was a step up in the thrill department, but still relatively mild by coaster standards.  It is a small enclosed coaster, so most of the thrills come from the sheer darkness.  The building's façade is pretty elaborate, with a big skull and waterfall, but if looked at from the wrong angle it just looks like a warehouse.  For me Skull Mountain's best feature is a surprisingly potent first drop, at least in the back seat.  The rest of the ride is mostly turning track.  The darkness does ramp up the thrill level a bit, but I suspect that the screaming sounds I heard throughout the ride were actually simulated.  They certainly stopped abruptly at the end of the ride.

Next we came to Nitro, one of my most anticipated coasters of the entire trip.  Nitro is what is known as a hypercoaster, a steel ride with no inversions, built instead around sheer height, hills, and speed.  It is very much a steel rendition of a classic wood coaster, except that it is 200-some feet tall.  Nitro's layout is what is known as an "L-shaped out and back".  Specifically, it goes over its drop, turns 90 degrees left on the next hill (which consequently has a nice twist to it) goes over some followup hills, then returns along essentially the same route.  As high as it is, it's hard to see from inside the park.  It goes a long distance from the midways and is obscured by trees.
 

Nitro has a reputation as being one of the best of its class, so I had high expectations, perhaps too high.  In the end I rank it up with Apollo's Chariot at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, which I've written about previously.  That's hardly a bad thing--Apollo's Chariot is one of my favorites--but I had expected more.  Nitro does provide all the thrills that come from high drops, lot of feeling of floating out of your seat, and a few interesting turns.  But fun experience though it was, it didn't quite thrill me like I expected it to.

We had one more "embarrassing" coaster to get to, Road Runner Express.  This tiny coaster was in a kids' section of the park.  We weren't even sure if we would be allowed to ride it, but we were.  We got it over with as quickly as possible.  Sometimes I wonder about these kiddie coasters.  They can be surprisingly rough.  This one was actually more violent than Nitro's ultra-smooth ride.

As we were returning to the main part of the park to do some more grownup-oriented things, an odd thing happened that demonstrates the good and bad of the Six Flags chain.  A group of employees, seeing our name badges for the event, very enthusiastically asked us how our day was going.  We spent a few minutes in a nice conversation.  I was glad to see employees acting enthusiastic and proud about their park, something I had not been seeing so often in Six Flags parks over the past few years.  But then one asked us if he knew what was going to happen that night.  We were flabbergasted that an employee would have to ask guests about how the event was going to be conducted.  Nor could we answer because we still didn't understand the confusing schedule.

Coasters were not the only rides we tried that day.  Another of Great Adventure's rides is a heavily themed attraction called Houdini.  It's actually a throwback--though updated with modern technology--to a very old style of ride called the "haunted swing".  We began by standing in a room for a little show.  This was very hard to hear because so many people were chattering instead of watching.  Next we were sent into a long room with benches along the sides.  The benches swung back and forth mildly, then seemingly more and more until it looks like you're upside down.  Of course, it's all an illusion caused by the building turning around the riders.  If anybody gets too scared, it would be easy enough to simply close one's eyes to make the illusion vanish entirely.  Houdini is a pretty effective version of this type of ride, but I found it almost impossible to follow the story because I couldn't hear the ride audio above the other riders.  At least the air conditioning in the building was very refreshing on a very hot day.

There was a meal on the event schedule, but we still had a little more time to pass before then, while the lines were beginning to get too long to wait in.  Janna and I decided to take in a show instead.  The one we settled on was an alligator show, located at one far end of the park.  On the way we encountered an interesting display; a pavilion with a bunch of massage chairs.  For each dollar you could get 2 minutes of automated massage.  We thought this was worth trying, so we spent $1 and each took about a minute.  It wasn't great, but I could see spending $5 for 10 minutes if my back or feet were aching some day.

The alligator show was held in one of the less attractive parts of the park.  The unattractiveness was probably deliberate; it was near the Batman ride, and the amphitheater was themed as a rusting chemical plant.  Nonetheless I preferred the more groomed areas of the park.  We were too tired to really attend much to the show; more than anything else it was a chance for us to sit down out of the sun for a while.  However I was fascinated at how the gator wrangler was able to predict very precisely what his animals would do.  By using his knowledge he could do almost anything with the gator he wanted to short of actually touching its mouth.  If he were to do that it would have bit down on him!

There was still some time before our picnic but we were too tired and hot to do anything more than sit outside the grove until they let us in.  Getting into the picnic area quickly allowed us to reserve a shady table for ourselves at least.  The grove never got too crowded.  Attendance for the event was very light overall, all the better for us to get more rides!

The food was served buffet-style, as is typical for such events.  It wasn't particularly memorable.  Throughout dinner they had a microphone constantly talking--announcing raffles, giving away buttons, even holding a dance contest to give away some prizes.  But they never told us what we really wanted to know:  the specifics of the evening's ride session.  We left the picnic area still unenlightened.

Whatever the particulars of the ride session would be, we knew it wouldn't begin until the park closed, a few hours away.  There were still a few coasters we hadn't ridden yet, so we planned on trying to take advantage of this time to complete our inventory.  However only I was really interested in the first, Great American Scream Machine (often referred to as GASM).  GASM is of late 1980's vintage, when a company called Arrow Dynamics was building steel rides that did little more than loop many times.  At the time, this was very popular, but the style had worn thin since then.  Also, technology and construction techniques had improved over the 1990's (mostly as a result of competitors to Arrow entering the market).  Compared to newer vintage rides, GASM had a reputation of being rough and dated.

In spite of this I wanted to give it a ride if I could.  When I'm on a coaster trip, I like to ride every coaster available, even those I find less enjoyable.  The others went to their cars, giving me my chance to fit a quick ride in.  Janna, against her better judgment joined me.  We were pleased to see a nearly empty station; at least we wouldn't have to wait too long to get our ride.  Perhaps the ride's reputation for roughness has also taken hold on the public.  To our surprise it really wasn't that bad after all.  It was a little rough, but my head didn't bang around as it has on similar rides.  That being said, I don't care much for coasters that only loop, and would not have wanted to wait too much longer for it.

Speaking of waiting, after getting back together we went back to Superman to see if its line had died down.  It looked only a little shorter than before, but we all agreed to wait it out anyway.  In the end it probably took us about an hour, which included a couple of breakdowns.  The problem is simply the ride system; it's a relatively new style of ride known as a "flying coaster".  On such a coaster, the riders are suspended face down (hence the connection with Superman).  It's an interesting concept, but leads to a cumbersome boarding procedure and sometimes balky equipment.  I also find the ride experience itself to be a mixed bag.  At its best it can feel like you're swooping around, much as if you were flying.  The ride system is unique in that there's no well-defined "upside down" either.  At times you can be face down, but you can also be on your back and not feel like you've really been inverted.  Paradoxically this can be somewhat disorienting when you switch between positions (as happens twice on Superman).  However, when the forces get too strong, you can be pushed into your chest or onto your back (depending on which way is up), a sensation I find uncomfortable.  In short, Superman is an intriguing style of ride but I prefer standard coasters.

The lights were beginning to come on in the park by this time.  I have to admit that they made some of the "less attractive" parts of the park look better, particularly the games area.  However we were not interested in playing any games.  Instead, we wanted to finish our coaster agenda for the day by riding Batman:  The Ride.  This is a very popular variety of coaster generically known as "inverted".  The train rides beneath instead of above the track, but is rigidly attached so that it can do loops and other such maneuvers (the previous beneath-the-track coasters had swinging trains that could not go upside down).  The very first inverted coaster was introduced in 1991 near Chicago and was branded as a Batman ride.  Since then, Six Flags had created clones of that ride in many of their parks.  Great Adventure's was one of these.

Batman: The Ride is not to be confused with another ride in the same area of the park called Batman and Robin:  The Chiller.  Six Flags has used the Batman franchise very heavily in the past and current management seems inclined to do so in the future, but I know of no other park that has two Batman-themed coasters.  It's academic, because Chiller was closed, as it had been all year.  (This year it will apparently open, but with some modifications.)  Over the years it's proven to be a very unreliable ride.  In their quest to install the most technologically advanced coasters, Six Flags has not always made the wisest decisions about what to buy.  Chiller is not the only coaster in the chain that is plagued by downtime.

As for the other Batman ride, it didn't appear to be running when we first approached the queue but started up soon afterwards.  The line didn't appear to be unbearably long at first, but soon we noticed it was crawling.  Though Batman supports two trains on the track at once, only one seemed to be running.  Later we saw that they did appear to be running two, but so inefficiently that they might as well have only been using one.  We would have opportunities to ride during our late night ride session, so we decided to bail for the moment and head to Nitro instead.

After that ride we saw that Batman's operations seemed to have become much more efficient, and the line had died down.  It was just about time for the park to close anyway.  We had guessed correctly that they'd just keep the rides in the area open for us to kick off our riding session.  We went back to Batman, and had no trouble at all getting several rides in a row, with the operators working at peak efficiency.  It was as though when the park closed down to the regular guests the employees suddenly became enthusiastic and efficient about their jobs.

We wound up getting five rides in a row on Batman, then a few more on the nearby Nitro, ending the night on that side of the park with a front seat ride.  Some thrill was added during a couple of rides when the park let off fireworks while we were on Batman.  Both rides are very impressive and enjoyable in different ways.  Batman is short and intense, with a lot of maneuvers taken at a rapid-fire pace.  Even to this day after having had many rides on it and its brethren, I can lose track of where I am on the ride and be caught by surprise by a sudden inversion. Nitro has more sweeping drawn-out elements.  I'd say it's less intense than Batman, but it makes up for this with many long drops, a lot of floating sensations, and a setting far from the park out in the woods.  The front seat also offers the extra sensation of a strong wind in the face.  For me as a coaster enthusiast, one of the best aspects of both Batman and Nitro is their rerideability.  Had we had more time to spend, I would gladly have at least doubled my ride count on each, but we wanted to go back to El Toro to try to get as many night rides on it as we could.

By this time it was 11 PM, but there were still general public in the main entry plaza of the park.  I'm glad that we had yet more time left before we'd have to leave, because it meant that the parking lot must have still been a mess to get out of.  On the other hand, when we got over to El Toro, we found it still running for the public.  Because of its slow operation they had to spend an hour and a half clearing out the last of the line.  Finally it was time to get our rides.

We managed to get three rides in this stint, and they were at least as impressive as our morning ride had been.  We didn't try for the very front seat; even with only a couple hundred enthusiasts present it would have just taken to long to get that ride.  The closest we got to the front was the third seat, but it was impressive nonetheless.

I was very glad to get a chance to get several more rides, something that I would not have been able to do if I hadn't signed up for the special event.  In fact, the difference beween the event part of the day and the regular park hours was very stark.  We were able to get many rides on the park's premier coasters outside normal park hours.  Had we not had that opportunity I doubt we could have even ridden everything once.  As it was, I ended the day on a high note, with a lot of quality rides in a short amount of time, but had I just been there as a regular park guest, I would have been very dissatisfied with my experience.

In short, Six Flags is still a very mixed experience.  They have some great attractions, but the entire package still needs some work.  "Streetmosphere" or other attractions are all well and good, but the most important thing they could do would be to find ways of handling the crowds more efficiently.  Not everybody can come to a special coaster enthusiast event.  They too should have a chance at the kind of day we had.