I got to the park right as the gates opened. Surprisingly the crowd was very light for what would be an 80 degree day. The group I was with and I headed right over to Safari Off Road Adventure. The safari is a favorite of mine and I was pretty anxious to see how the animals were. Last time I was on the safari was back in the fall. Many of the babies have grown significantly. The baby giraffes are huge now, which is to be expected I suppose. Even at Camp Adventura, the halfway point of the safari, the babies have grown.
As someone who has frequented the safari over the past few years it was great to see these animals growing up. The bear cubs that were born in 2017 are basically teenagers now, and the lion and tiger cub combo have gotten so big, but not too big as they are still housed together. One would think as the tiger gets bigger they'll be separated. The only letdown on this round on the safari was that the America section of all places was pretty empty. Normally there are a bunch of elk and bison around, but outside of just a couple elk, the area was mostly vacant for some reason. The safari overall is in great shape as is Camp Adventura. Six Flags is doing a lot now with education in this area which is great. Both tour guides we had were very good and had good information about both the animals and conservation. If you have never experience the safari at Six Flags Great Adventure, I highly recommend it.
Hey this is a Disney blog, so lets throw this out there. The safari at Six Flags is quite different than the one in Disney's Animal Kingdom. That said it is difficult for me to say as to which one I like more. While Animal Kingdom certainly has the more natural appearing safari, Six Flags I believe has more species of animal within the safari. I also feel that the safari at Six Flags is a bit more educational and the stop at Camp Adventura allows for guests to actually feed the giraffes for $7. It's a pretty awesome experience if I do say so myself. As far as the habitats go, Six Flags does the best with what the climate of New Jersey allows them to do. In Animal Kingdom the African section has actual African trees and what not. Honestly they'd never survive the winters here so it's understandable that Six Flags cannot match Disney's safari when it comes to recreating a completely natural habitat for some of the animals. I'll go more into the differences of these safari's at a later time, but I just wanted to touch on that here real quick.
After the safari we met up with some more people and headed towards Superman Ultimate Flight. Some of the group went on. I'm not sure, but it seems like Six Flags may have done some repaving of the area just past the boardwalk. The ground seemed a lot darker than I remember. I could be wrong on that though. Many of the games in the boardwalk area are still the same as they've been for the past few years. An exception to this is there is now a game where you see how long you can hang from a pull-up bar. Seems kinda strange, but there were quite a few people looking to give it a shot. The old fish n chips stand by Superman is no more. Replacing it is a new chicken stand which had a decent variety of chicken based meals. I'll have to try some of them out and report back on them at some point. Some of them looked pretty good. After Superman we headed back over to discount Frontierland.... I mean Frontier Adventures.... and hit the next ride, Runaway Mine Train.
This is one of the oldest rides in the park. It shows that in both appearance and roughness. While the ride is great for kids, it can be a bit painful for adults. Unfortunately I was seated in a wheel seat which means less leg room. About halfway through the ride I got a wicked cramp in my leg which made the final hills of the ride even more painful than usual. That last hill is still a doozy and basically tries to eject you out of the ride. Still the ride is a classic and there was no wait at all for it.
I had planned on going on Bizarro on this trip, but the group went to it right after Runaway Train and my leg was still killing me so I sat out. Next time... I do have to say though I was happy to see many of the effects on Bizarro working. Last season the fire effect seemed to never be going off while I was there, but today the flames were blazing and the mist effects and other ride effects all seemed to be going as well. Perhaps they've got it all running in preparation for the ride's "20th|" anniversary. I put that in quotes because the ride spent the first ten years as Medusa. When it transformed into Bizarro there were also sound effects from the speakers of Bizarro screwing with the ride during the chain lift. I doubt those have been fixed, but when the ride first was re-themed, it was a pretty cool effect. From Bizarro, we made our way to Justice League Battle for Metropolis.
Justice League Battle for Metropolis is the closest thing you will get to a Disney or Universal level ride as far as themeing goes. The ride is a 3-D shooter similar to the likes of Universal's Men in Black. Within the ride are a few really good looking animatronics, fire, fog, and a bunch of other effects that make the ride stand out from the rest. All the while you'll stop at screens to try and stop both Lex Luther and Joker from capturing the Justice League. At the end of the ride your scores are posted and the ride displays where your score falls in all time. On this run I ended up with around 295,000 points. It put in the top 1%, but far from my high score of over 342,000. After Justice League it was time for lunch, but not before seeing something awesome.
Debuting this season is Wonder Woman Lasso of Truth. This is the world's tallest pendulum ride. It reaches speeds of around 70 miles per hour and gets riders nearly 150 feet in the air. The ride was not open, but it was testing and it really way quite the sight to see. The ride sits where Stuntman's Free Fall stood from 1983 to 2006. It is great to see another ride in that spot and really rounds out a now reinvigorated area of the park. It was only three years ago that the area of the park from where Free Fall and Batman and Robin: The Chiller was still closed off to the public. Since Holiday in the park of 2016 reopened a path and theater that had been closed off to the public (not counting groups), the area has undergone a really awesome transformation. Since 2017, Justice League Battle for Metropolis, Cyborg Cyber Spin, and now Wonder Woman Lasso of Truth, along with two food stands have all breathed new life into what was a abandoned section of the park. I'll have more blogs on that later though.
From there we got some lunch at Macho Nacho Express in Movie Town. Last season, this stand only sold loaded nachos. This season it is back to offering the same menu as Macho Nacho on the other side of the park. For the past two seasons Macho Nacho has been my favorite food stand in the park. My first rice bowl of the year was the biggest disappointment in my four trips so far this season. Most of the rice was rock hard. The beef was changed this year from a nice seasoned beef into something that looked more like Taco Bell with sauce. The beef had a bit of a kick to it which was fine, but the rice really ruined it. The cheese, lettuce, and salsa were still yummy, but I rice being literally uneatable was horrible. I'll give them another try, but I'll probably just go to the one by El Toro.
After lunch we went on Batman. I don't understand why so many people say that the ride is really rough. I've been on it a couple times now and both times I found it quite enjoyable. It's intense for sure, but I never found my head getting slammed around or anything like that. I really don't find it anymore intense that Rock 'N' Roller Coaster Featuring Aerosmith at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Batman was the last ride I rode for the day, but the group continued on to ride Nitro and El Toro. As some of the group was on El Toro my phone lit up with a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. We made our way out and as we neared the car the rain came. Talk about perfect timing.
The rain arrived right around 4:00pm. We had been in the park since 10:30am. The crowd in a word was dead. The longest amount of time anyone waited was about 10 minutes. The rides that the group went on were Safari Off Road Adventure, Superman Ultimate Flight, Runaway Mine Train, Bizarro, Justice League Battle for Metropolis, Batman, Buccaneer, Nitro, and El Toro. The high point of the day was the quiet crowd level. The low point was definitely Macho Nacho Express. In reality you cannot ask for a better day in this park. From the morning Safari to watching friends enjoy themselves on El Toro at the end of the day it really was just a great day. Sure we hit some hail on the way home, but it was worth it. As always, thank you for reading! The next blog will be a return to Disney stuff with August being just two months away, there is a certain event I'd like to talk about!
