Back to Great Adventure

At the start of the trip we only got to look at El Toro when we visited Great Adventure as it was undergoing testing and whilst making our way around the U.S. the ride was finally opened to the public to rave reviews, some of which said that it was better than The Voyage. As I'd been heading back to New York, had some slack in the itinerary and Keith didn't mind the additional driving we were able to head back there and get to experience the ride for ourselves.

I'm not normally a fan of opening weeks for new rides for two reasons: the ridiculously long queues as everyone rushes to be one of the first to ride and the second the risk of the ride breaking down. Well we had the queues, thats for certain but fortunately the ride was running.

...and running very well by the look of things. People were going mental on it with loads of cheering and screaming.

Rather disappointingly the ride had been positioned in the park in such a way that it was the second drop that you queued past, the first drop was inaccessible in the same way that the Kingda Ka tower was. This meant that the majority of photos being taken by the public were here and not at its best bit.

A lot of work had gone into the design to make the experience as smooth as possible and it wouldn't be long til I got to find out if that was true. Well, that was up until the point it broke down. Great!!!

So whilst the ride wasn't running we had to stand out in the sun going nowhere, fortunately we had bottles of water to keep us cool. However definitely not so cool was this annoying DJ guy that was there to entertain the people. He seemed to enjoy playing music at the wrong speed, singing over the top of the music he was playing and telling us about how he loved his job. He was definitely losing his audience at one point telling us that even though it was hot and you weren't going anywhere to enjoy ourselves. Grrrrr!!!!

Eventually the ride did get up and running again and after two and half hours of waiting it was time to make our way into the station.

For some reason the queue was stopped short of the building and you were allowed in in small groups. Maybe they were afraid someone might defy gravity and fall up the stairs leading into the station.

Another sign of Six Flags incompetence. They'd put a bin across the queue line that most people took to be a barrier, so you had a large number of people queueing for the front of the train and less at the back. As it turned out we were able to get advantage of this to get the back seat on the train. Keith also noticed that they were playing the safety message from Kingda Ka that told you to keep your head back. The only problem with this was that the El Toro headrests didn't exist.

It was also rather odd that they were only running a single train even though the second was clearly visible. When we asked the ops why they had done this we were told it was because it hadn't been tested yet. So if they're running a single train all day when are they going to get to test this one?

At least from the station you can get a half decent picture of the first drop. So how does it ride? It is amazingly smooth, fast, steep, full of airtime and exciting - everything it strived to be. There are no kinks on the track, no rough spots, it does everything extremely well but it lacks one thing, a challenge. Its so easy to ride that I came off thinking "good but not great".

It wasn't like I had overcome anything in riding it, much like Goliath at Six Flags Over Georgia. Having said that its still way up my "list-I-don't keep" of wooden coasters. Is it as good as The Voyage? Not in my opinion, that ride really fired up my adrenaline levels, this didn't.

Whilst I was here I also took the opportunity to ride those rides that were closed the last time I was here. Rolling Thunder was only running one side, so they still weren't doing things right, which was a shame as it was quite a fun ride partly due to this woman screaming her nut off in front of me.

The mine train was also OK but did get close to the trees and branches in a few places, partly exciting but also dangerous.

I also managed to ride the kiddy coaster that I had missed the last time I was here. I also saw a rather amusing example of park rule enforcement as the five year old kid in front of me was denied entry to the ride because he wasn't wearing a t-shirt, a rule I thought was there for adults, not kids.

I am definitely glad I came back to this park as El Toro is a superb coaster, the first of its kind in the U.S. We have Balder in Sweden, a smaller version of the same ride technology, but this ride takes that to a different level!

With all the parks out of the way it was time for some sightseeing in New York.