Well, we made it to day 14! The final full day of our USA trip, and the last one I’ll be writing about (unless anyone really wants to read about me lying in bed until midday, a broken mess, and sitting in JFK for 6 hours of course!)
From Hersheypark, it was a mere two hour drive to Six Flags Great Adventure, our final park of the trip. When we originally sat down and planned this road trip, Great Adventure was set to be the first stop on the journey, but the opening of Pantheon upgraded Busch Gardens Williamsburg to a must-do stop, and so we flipped the entire itinerary to fit it in. In hindsight, this order felt much more fitting. How better to end the biggest rollercoaster trip of my life than with the biggest rollercoaster in the world? The tallest to be precise. Because, like so many around the world, that is what this park was to me: Kingda Ka and friends. Of course, there’s also El Toro, a legendary coaster in its own right, but only one of these rides has captured my imagination since childhood. Scrolling through Coasterforce in my early teens, I’d found Kingda Ka. The tallest rollercoaster on earth. There and then, I decided that one day I would ride that thing. One day. The fact that I cried at the idea of riding anything taller than The Dragon? Irrelevant. I was going to ride Kingda Ka. So the day had finally come, and as we pulled into the vast, empty parking lot, it became oh so apparent that we were, in fact, going to ride Kingda Ka. You see, I was surprised to discover that you can’t actually see any of the skyline on the approach to this park. I was sure we’d be able to see something. But as we passed through endless forestry, it became clear that we wouldn’t get a chance. So boy, does it hit you as you pull in to that lot! That skyline is insane. There are simply so many coasters, and they’re all so big. I thought I’d have gotten used to that by this point, but nope. It still took my breath away every time.
Of course, on entering the park, there was only one place we’d be heading first. Golden Kingdom was calling us. I’d been pretty chill throughout the trip. My fear of rollercoasters had all but melted away by this point, but there were exceptions. One, really. Though, to be completely honest, my fear mostly stemmed from everything I’d previously heard about the ride experience itself. Speed? Height? Both fine. Being catapulted up to 456ft at crazy speeds whilst being violently shaken? Not so much. So it was fortunate that we were able to walk straight through the queue line and on to a train waiting for riders. There was no time to ponder what was happening, just get straight on that train and strap in. To minimise the rattle as much as possible, we grabbed a row as close to the front as we could (row 3) and hoped for the best. Maybe it was because of this that I didn’t really notice it? Or maybe it was that I was just focused on other things. Like, yano, accelerating to 128 miles per hour. Either way, rattle-wise, I was completely fine – yay! As for that launch? It’s surprisingly gentle, gradually building in speed as the train races toward the incline – Stealth is far more intense, in my opinion! However, the views from the top – albeit brief – were spectacular, and the drop really did feel like it went on forever. After 18 years as the world’s tallest coaster, Kingda still offers a fantastic experience, just not one that would even remotely trouble my rankings. The only real negative for me was the brake run. We learned the hard way that the trains can not be sent until they reach a certain number of riders. As the park was dead, this meant quite a long time sitting on the exposed, unbearably hot brake run, waiting for the next train to fill. Horrendous.
Just a short walk away from Kingda Ka, down richly planted pathways that even featured wildlife exhibits – Golden Kingdom is land that far exceeds anything else I’ve seen in a Six Flags park – sits El Toro, the most intimidating wooden coaster I’ve ever approached. Whilst many of the other titans of the wooden coaster world keep a large proportion of their layout hidden from guests, shrouded in mystery, El Toro keeps no secrets. There’s absolutely no missing the ridiculous scale and angle of the first drop and subsequent airtime hill. Looking at the layout, my biggest fear was getting violently hammered into my seat in that sharp dip, a fear that doubled when I saw the trains! When boarding Toro’s train, I was horrified to find that the whole thing was solid plastic, with a few barely-padded patches. Seats like that on a wooden coaster seemed to me a one-way ticket to chiropractor city. As we approached the first drop, I did everything I could to prepare my body for a whole world of pain. Pain which just… didn’t materialise. This thing is smooth. So smooth that even with those seats, I was completely fine. Being able to take drops of that scale, with such ridiculous, ridiculous airtime, and come out pain-free firmly places El Toro as my favourite wooden coaster. Objectively, The Voyage is better. Whilst the first half of El Toro is spectacular, it does begin to lose steam in the second half, whereas The Voyage feels like it could have kept going for another 10 minutes. It simply never slows down. But its lengthy, rattley run-time meant that by the end, I was broken. I only wish I could have re-ridden El Toro, but it broke down early in the day and never returned to operation. Always, always ride your most anticipated rides first!
For the last of the must-do coasters, it was time for a hike to the complete opposite end of the park for a meeting with the Jersey Devil. (In one of the few major spites of the trip, Nitro was down all day, so for my own wellbeing I choose to pretend it does not exist.) Jersey Devil is an RMC Raptor single-rail coaster. At the time of riding, it was also the tallest, longest, and fastest single-rail coaster, though those records all now belong to Wonder Woman Flight of Courage at Six Flags Magic Mountain. As only one of five currently operating Raptor tracks, this was one of my most anticipated rides of the trip. For good reason, too, Jersey Devil features three of my favourite coaster elements: a zero-g stall, a zero-g roll, and a dive loop. Each of these felt even wilder than normal, sitting on a silly little seat on your own with your legs at a weird angle at either side. At one point in the ride, I actually lost control of my legs, and they slid out each side, which made me feel ridiculously vulnerable, which only made the experience more fun. On the whole, I loved this. The unique riding position made the whole thing feel like an out-of-control go-kart. The only gripe I have with it is that my ride was rattley, really rattely, although none of my friends had this issue. It was substantial enough, however, that I didn’t end up re-riding, as in the oppressive heat, it was too much for me. One of my friends did notice that the unused seats appeared to bounce around on the track a little, so maybe my seat/section of the train wasn’t weighed down enough to prevent this from occurring? Does anyone know if that’s a thing? I’d love to know for sure!
With no crowds to speak of, we’d barely even been in the park for an hour by this point, but the heat had already gotten to the point of being unbearable. I think I may well have said this in every post, but this really was the worst day of the trip for heat. Perhaps it was the cumulative effect of the preceding fortnight, but we were all completely and utterly overwhelmed. To the point where we all agreed to split up and simply get everything we each wanted to do done as quickly as possible so we could bail. So off I went on my own to explore the remaining supporting attractions of Six Flags Great Adventure!
Outside of the headliners, the park is home to a diverse host of supporting coasters – the park houses 14 rollercoasters in total including two indoor coasters, a 4D free spin and a B&M flying coaster as well as a stand-up. Continuing with my plan of being as sensible as possible, the last three, Superman Ultimate Flight, Joker, and Green Lantern, were all solid skips for me. I did strongly consider Superman, but on hearing how intense its pretzel loop was, I decided this was not the time for it.
After loving the compact intensity of Batman: The Ride over at Six Flags St Louis, I was excited to get on another one of the omnipresent B&M clones, but I’m sad to say I was left heartbroken when it ended up being the roughest ride I’ve ever had on a B&M invert. The train was moving in a similar way to the two SLCs I’ve done (Kumali and Mayan, AKA the nice ones), where it felt like it was constantly catching up with itself and rattling as it did so. Again, others in my group had perfectly smooth rides, so perhaps it was just a dodgy train. But this was the first B&M invert ever to give me a headache! Boooooooooo.
Directly opposite was The Dark Knight, another Batman themed ride, this time an indoor rollercoaster. I knew nothing at all about this attraction going in, and at first, I was absolutely horrified to see what I was in for. A wild mouse in the dark, with no opportunity to brace yourself, sound like the worst coaster on earth, to be honest. Thankfully, this was a very forgiving coaster, taking all of its hairpins slow enough so as not to generate any horrific laterals and all the while travelling past some very nice theming elements. I really enjoyed it!
Just around the corner from the two Batman coasters are a collection of other DC themed attractions, including the incredible Justice League: Battle for Metropolis. As this is another attraction cloned throughout the Six Flags chain, we had already ridden – and fallen in love with – the St Louis version, but despite being a clone this ride still offered a unique experience. This version had extensive smoke effects that weren’t present in the other, but unfortunately lacked some of the previously present background music – I assume this was a glitch. Again, this was an utterly fantastic attraction and one that can truly stand its own against any other modern dark ride. If we got a clone of this in the UK, it would easily become one of the greatest rides in the country. It also has incredible air conditioning!
With the right-hand side of the park almost ticked off, there was just one coaster remaining in this half. A coaster with one of the most impressive facades I’ve seen in a regional theme park. I am, of course, talking about Skull Mountain. For a full rundown of this ridiculous attraction, I can not recommend my friends Matt and Bobby and their podcast Matt and Bobby Went to a Theme Park, where they discuss this beauty at length. And it’s a ride worthy of discussion because this might just be the greatest catfish in the theme park world. Greeted by an enormous, imposing rockwork skull, complete with waterfall, it seems as though a highly themed experience is guaranteed. Surely one of the most impressive theming structures in the park must be home to something excellent? There’s nothing to suggest this isn’t the case as you pass through the cave-like queue line and arrive in a mysterious, lantern-lit station. Then it all goes wrong. As soon as the train leaves the station and turns into the show building, you’re greeted by the entire layout of the Intamin family coaster before you, with not a single theming element in sight. Despite being inside an enormous black box, light is allowed to enter, and thus, you can see everything, or should I say, the nothingness of this ride. After all the build-up, it’s just a forgettable family coaster in a light-leaking empty box.
The final major coaster of the day for me was Medusa. On the long, long trek over to the remote corner of the park housing this coaster, I also stopped in at the Runaway Mine Train and Harley Quinn Crazy Train. I’ve got a soft spot for Zierer Tivolis, so Harley Quinn was pretty enjoyable, and my train was full of families having a great time, which made for a fun ride. Runaway Mine Train was yet another fairly unremarkable Arrow mine train, but oh my, does it have stunning views. Positioned next to the park’s central lake, this ride offered some incredible views out over what is undoubtedly the most scenic area of the park.
So it was a meandering walk down to Medusa. It needed to be. This ride is so isolated in the park, down such a lengthy dead end with nowhere nearby to duck in for some air conditioning. It really was quite horrendous trying to get there in the intense heat. But get there we did! When it comes to my prior knowledge of this ride, well, I knew it was called Bizarro for a while? That’s about it. I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this! But I’ve decided that this forceful joy of a coaster definitely deserves some recognition. Throughout its intense layout, the coaster features several special effects, including smoke, fire, and water spray. With no real theme to speak of, the effects do give a bit of a ‘randomly placing every effect available on the Planet Coaster menu’ vibe, but they make for a really cool and unique experience! How many B&M floorless coasters have smoke and pyro and a portion of the ride where you ride blind?! I have the water jets to thank for the last part, with a jet hitting me directly in the eyes toward the end of the ride. With the solid over-the-shoulder restraints, it was physically impossible for me to wipe my eyes, so I was simply blind for the rest of the layout. Fun!
I wrapped up my day with the park’s other dark ride: Houdini’s Great Escape. I’d heard good things about the theming on this Vekoma Madhouse, and given the quality of their other headline dark ride, I was anxious to see what they’d achieved here. I’m happy to say it lived up to the hype! From the moment you approach this attraction, it feels like it’s going to be a good one. The facade is beautiful. (Though we’ve heard that story before, Skull Mountain!) But when you step into the pre-show, it becomes clear that this is not a repeat of that experience. The pre-show for this attraction really is spectacular. With an immaculately themed room, multiple fun physical effects, and atmospheric lighting and sound, this is the perfect intro to a mad house. The attraction focuses on the titular Harry Houdini and a séance which aims to bring his spirit back to his former workshop to greet us lucky guests. Whilst it’s a suitably macabre plot and gets points for having relatively local – the park is located around 80 miles from Houdini’s grave – significance, I found it a little bit uncomfortable. Houdini was a real person, after all. Having voice actors claim to be his spirit communicating from beyond the grave felt a bit… off to me. Is that overly sensitive of me? Probably. The ride experience itself is classic madhouse, with all the dramatic music and lighting that you’d wish for, complete with narration from ‘Houdini himself’, of course! Despite slight misgivings over the theme, in my madhouse rankings, Houdini comes second only to Hex. It really is that good.
Usually, around this point, I’d throw in some discussion of the food and beverage options at the park, but I’m afraid to say I have nothing. It was so unbearably hot that I couldn’t stand to eat a single thing for the entire time we were in the park. Okay, that’s a lie. Lunch was a pot of mint Oreo flavour Dippin’ Dots, which were sublime but at which point I was so overwhelmed and broken by the heat that I ended up eating stood in the corner of the air conditioned gift shop (with the permission of a kind staff member!)
On the topic of merch, Six Flags really fall down here. I have a t-shirt from every park we visited throughout this trip with the exception of Six Flags St Louis. Six Flags Great Adventure had nothing better than St Louis, but I really wanted something from here so plumped for a bright purple shirt with the park’s name on it. It’s rough fabric, and the print is cheap, but it’ll do. Of course, I really wanted a Kingda Ka or El Toro shirt but hell will freeze over before I buy a shirt covered in stats and declaring my bravery in surviving the ride, which was sadly the only option.
Overall, I really enjoyed this park. Though areas felt tired and cheaply themed – not that that’s a problem, this chain isn’t aiming for thematic greatness, and that’s fine – the Frontier section was delightful. With an enormous fortress – complete with cannons – housing the skyride station, a working waterwheel attached to the log flume, and finally the enormous lake with that iconic view looking out over the water toward El Toro and Kingda Ka, this was just a really lovely place to be – the flocks of geese though so too! Golden Kingdom, too, was delightful, with lush landscaping and quality signage making for a land that would happily belong at any good quality theme park. I’m sure other areas of the park would have been pleasant, too, if not for the opressive heat that made lurking in an area lacking in shade all but impossible. My only real gripe with Six Flags Great Adventure is the layout. For almost every major attraction in the park, you will need to walk down a (sometimes lengthy) dead end. On a normal day, this would be irritating just because of the additional strain on both your time and your feet, but in the heat, it was close to unbearable. The most egregious for this was Medusa, whose station lurked at the end of a long path, lined only with closed food outlets. At least most others had somewhere you could duck in for an essential moment of air conditioning en route. All in all however, this is undoubtedly a park I would make a beeline to return to if ever I should find myself in New York City again, and made for a very satisfying end to an incredible trip.
So there we have it, all of my incredible 2022 USA road trip. For those who’ve been reading along, thank you! Thank you so much for joining me as I’ve reminisced over what was the greatest theme park trip of my life. If you’re thinking of doing a trip like this yourself, all I can say is do not hesitate. Open Excel, open Google Maps, and get planning because it will not disappoint you. (And feel free to get in touch and I’ll try to help as much as possible!) I wish I could have included every weird stop on the way, every interaction with an overly-enthusaistic motel receptionist, every gas station (miss you Sheetz!), but I promise the full experience is so much more than a blog can describe. Of course, the most important thing is who you travel with, so thank you once again to my incredible travel companions. James, Bobby, Kellie, I couldn’t have spent two exhausting, draining, ridiculous weeks with better people, and I am so grateful for you. Even if I came out of the trip knowing far more about wrestling than I ever wanted to.
Speak again soon,
Claire
x
coasterclaire.co.uk 