Trying to dust this thing off again. It's been two years since I've blogged at all, but I've come to miss it, so that being said I want to try to get more into it again. I'm going to be largely covering my home park, Six Flags Great Adventure and Hurricane Harbor, but I'll also keep tabs on what's going on in the Disney Parks should I find anything I want to throw my feelings out on. I don't know how active this blog will be, but as I said before, I have missed it, so I'd like to think I'll be fairly active again. So without going into a super long story about what's been going on the last two years, let's take a look at my thoughts on opening weekend at Six Flags Great Adventure 2023!
I'm going to divide this blog up into The Good and The Bad. Keep in mind that these are my thoughts so I may see something as good that you may not, so if you do have a different opinion I would love to hear it in the comments. This season should be an interesting one to say the least. Last year the CEO brought in a swath of changes that were met with well.... Lets just say a less than favorable response from the public. Attendance at the parks took a major hit across the board and Six Flags responded with a just a mess of different passes, way to pay for passes, and passes with nearly identical names that do different things. With a new season getting started and a lot of uncertainty still surrounding the future a very much so not ready to roll Six Flags Great Adventure Opened.
The Good
Just because a park is not ready to roll doesn't mean all is bad. In fact a big part of why the park isn't quite ready to be running at 100% is something I've been harping on for years. Maintenance. In addition to El Toro's ongoing refurbishment it does appear that Runaway Train and the Saw Mill Log Flume are also undergoing some maintenance. Keep in mind that those are two of the oldest rides in the park so it's always good to hear work is being done on them. Both rides are probably opening over Memorial Day Weekend. Speaking of maintenance. Yum Yum Cafe debuted it's new menu and new internal look. The new layout I think looks much better than the old and it really is amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do for a place.
Now for the food. The good news is I can say that it is an improvement over the old menu. The standard chicken tenders and burgers are there, but there are now a couple different options with the burger. They have a double cheeseburger now as well as bacon burgers. I went a bit of a healthier option but had a bit of the burger and it actually had a taste which is a massive change from previous seasons at Yum Yum Cafe. I'd say it was about the quality of a McDonalds burger. Still nothing special, but it's Six Flags, so the bar is not exactly high in the food quality department. My chicken Caesar wrap on the other hand was a refreshing flash back. Back in I'd say 2016 or so, there were several places in the park where you could get a chicken Caesar wrap and it was pretty good quality. I'm not sure if this wrap will be elsewhere this year, but the lettuce on the wrap was fresh and the parmesan was not the usual out of the bag shredded cheese. It appeared to be parmesan cheese crumbles. They tasked pretty good to me. I'll be visiting Yum Yum Cafe again should I decide to eat in the park. Good in a pinch, but more on the food situation later.
Justice League Battle for Metropolis for whatever reason still has not been calibrated correctly in the absence of the 3-D glasses, but the first screen has been changed! Harley Quinn now appears on the ride on the first screen. The rest of the ride was the same, but that was a neat surprise addition. It was in pretty good working order too with just two effects not working (the mist screen which works like 30% of the time since the ride opened and the fire effect which didn't work most of last season). Fix the calibration or bring back the 3-D glasses and I think the ride would be fantastic.
The Dark Knight was a completely different experience. The preshow is back! Well it's kind of back. It now runs as the doors are open, so you can watch it if you want to, but they have not gone back to locking you in the room and trying to scare you by banging something against a garbage can. Still neat to see it running again after it was turned off during the pandemic era. As we boarded the ride attendant asked if we were afraid of the dark and laughed. I've ridden this ride a ton of times. It's not that dark in there. Well.... This time it was pitch black. Minus the very first trick turn sign not a single light or set piece was on. It was honestly a pretty cool experience. Even knowing the track so well I was caught off guard with a couple of the sudden drops. I honestly won't complain if it stays that dark. It was a pretty cool experience.
Along with maintenance I've been saying for a long time that some landscaping love would go a long way. Well, Great Adventure is starting to work on that. There are already a few newly landscaped areas and many areas of the park have nice fresh mulch where there probably hasn't been any in years. Some of it is kind of confusing at the moment like the picture below, but it's a start and I will take that! They also have a walk through garden in the works near Cyborg Cyber Spin (yup it's still there) which will look very nice once it's in bloom.
While Nitro was not open, the new train and one of the newly painted trains are visible. This just further confirms that the ride is going to be getting either just a new paint job or a retheme/name. The trains were not on the track, but from what I can see, the new blue color looks very nice, but will probably look a bit odd on the currently rusted purple/yellow track the ride has now. Also, Zumanjaro Drop of Doom was open! I haven't seen that running since before Fright Fest and King Da Ka appeared to have it's usual early season difficulties in staying open.
The Bad
On the flip side of The Dark Knight, Skull Mountain is looking really rough. There is a lot of light coming through at this point and when you are near the top of the lift hill you can see just a ton of siding falling apart on the upper right porting of the structure. The music and flashing lights remain off as well. The Dark Knight seems to have replaced Skull Mountain as the dark ride. The ride itself was fine, but the structure it's in is in desperate need of some love.
The prices of food are a bit much at this point. I've eaten my fair amount of theme park food over the years and I completely understand that it's going to be expensive, but $16 for a slice of pizza seems a bit much. One of the burgers at Yum Yum Cafe was approaching $20. Again, I understand it's a theme park, but there is one problem that may be unique to Great Adventure. That is it's next door neighbor Adventure Crossing. Yes the megaplex continues to grow and expand. There is a bunch of food already there at standard food prices making it real hard for me to justify spending the money in the park. I suppose if someone is going to the park for a whole day it is what it is, but personally I would rather grab Taco Bell, Popeye's, and soon Carvel than a quesadilla, chicken strip, or ice cream at the park for twice the price. Again, that's more of a me thing, and yes I realize Six Flags probably doesn't care cause if they sell one order of chicken strips they've nearly made up the cost of the bag.
In a bizarre move, the fountain is not running. Now work with me on this cause this has potential to be hilarious and awesome. There is currently a gigantic rubber duckie statue in the middle of the fountain and a bunch of rubber ducks just floating around. Problem with this is the fountain isn't running at all so the ducks all just end up where the wind blows. Would be awesome of there was some kind of current or even if the water was running as the big duck appears to have a fountain in it's mouth. We shall see if this changes, but not having the fountain outside of Holiday in the Park seems like an odd choice and the duck reminds me of Sesame Street. Just bizarre in it's current form, but long live the ducks!
Overall I had a nice time at opening day 2023. The whole park is not open yet and will not be until sometime this summer when El Toro reopens. It will be great to have the whole place up and running again. Next week is supposed to be Scream Break, which is a super mini Fright Fest featuring two terror trails, select rides, and ghouls wandering the boardwalk area. I do want to point out the boardwalk has not been decorated for Fright Fest for the past few years.... Anyway... Sadly after we left Six Flags Great Adventure would come under a Tornado Warning. They would not open on Sunday due to damage in and around the park. I've heard rumblings that the confirmed tornado did in fact go through a part of the park, but so far the park nor the National Weather Service have confirmed that, but it does sound like there was at least some damage. I'm planning on going back this week (park is supposed to open Wednesday for Spring Break) so I guess I'll see what happened at that time. If it's anything noteworthy I'll be sure to discuss it. The 2023 season has kicked off in one of the most unexpected ways, but the park is mostly open for the year and I couldn't be happier to once again have somewhere to go, hang out, and most importantly, have fun!
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