Theme Park of the Week: Six Flags Great Adventure

SFGADV is a perfect example of a park that has no reason to not be really good - but sadly it sucks because Six Flags gonna Six Flags. Beautiful setting, world class ride collection (not just coasters they actually have a lot of kids rides and a decent dark ride), nice and spread out, world class safari attraction (which was the best attraction in the park but is sadly now an upcharge again). And not only that but they have the largest and wealthiest local market of anywhere in the USA.

But sadly the park is so poorly maintained, advertisements everywhere, and a ridiculous cash grab loose item locker policy that includes getting interrogated like a criminal. I actually have dozens of photo's from GADV over the years of things that look so ridiculously bad I felt compelled to take pictures of them, I have a whole vault of ghetto Great Adventure pictures. Even with their amazing ride collection I don't have any desire to go back.

Having grown up near the Great America park in Gurnee, there are only a couple of other Six Flags parks I wish to see. I'll finally be hitting up Magic Mountain for the first time this May. Some day, I need to get out to Great Adventure as well since that's also considered one of the top tier parks.

Any change Great America gets a look? I know, rougher than others but having the original Batman ride (about to celebrate its 30th anniversary) and Great American Eagle should be notable.

This is my home park so I'm glad to see it featured, Robert. The ride collection is indeed excellent and I would suggest riding El Toro in row 17, Jersey Devil in row 12. That's not to say that there aren't negative aspects of visiting the park. I agree that charging for ride lockers is an outrage. At Universal I had to put my gear in a locker in order to ride Incredible Hulk but didn't have to pay for it. (I did, however, have to pay for a locker to ride Steel Vengeance, before pouches for loose articles were added.) The team members at ride entrances tend to be like the military police but to be fair, I should point out that this park attracts a totally different demographic than, for instance, the Florida parks. And that is primarily for two reasons: 1) location; and 2) underpricing. I paid about $87 for a season pass with parking and partial meal plan. At that price, it's almost inevitable that park guests will see a rougher crowd. On the positive side, there are numerous team members who have been extremely helpful. The ride ops do an outstanding job, putting a lot of enthusiasm into their work. At many parks I've visited the ride ops tend to be silent so it's refreshing to hear "Enjoy your ride on El Toro, ole!" or "Get twisted!" (referring to the 7 inversions on Medusa). Except for instances of overcrowding, I really enjoy visiting this park.

"At that price, it's almost inevitable that park guests will see a rougher crowd"

why is that?

Although I don't doubt that they have their issues I personally have never witnessed issues with the clientele at Great Adventure, my gripes with the park have nothing to do with that. Also I don't think having a rough clientele is a valid excuse for a park being a dump. SFGAm was my home park growing up and it definitely has had a rough clientele, and I have seen many issues over the years there because I was there so often, but it was unquestionably a much nicer park than SFGAdv (I don't know how it is anymore haven't been there in a long time but based off more recent experiences at Great Adventure i'm sure Great America is still better).

@Jacob Sundstrom, when you keep the prices that low you are appealing to the lowest common denominator. On the whole the guests at this park are pretty well behaved but I have witnessed numerous instances of line jumping and no-one does anything about it.