There’s so much I want the park to accomplish and add in the next decade, but I also don’t want them to repeat the mistakes of the past. Great Adventure, since opening day, has been a park that continued to grow too rapidly in terms of scale, attendance, and ride count for its own good, and for at least the past 15 years has finally had that catch up with it.
A second War on Lines sounds great in theory and like it would be exactly what the park needs, but an investment package that massive (or even half as large) is not only completely unheard of today, but had both immediate and lasting effects on the park (which is also larger than it was back then). In the immediate aftermath, staffing was a shitshow and the new for ‘99 rides cycled between which ones were actually operating. Today, we have the issue that the rides remaining from WoL have all aged at the same rate, and if my count is right only 8 of the 27 rides remain, 1 of them being the go karts which seem destined for closure sooner rather than later, and 4 of them being kiddie rides. The only remaining ones with any widescale appeal are Medusa, Houdini, and HQ. The investments need to come quickly, but spaced out rather than dropped all at once.
Nobody, including the park, believes that the Mack spinner is going to change things overnight. As much heavy lifting as Great American Scream Machine did in repairing the park’s image after the 80s being full of stabbings, shootings, deaths on Lightnin’ Loops and Rolling Thunder, and of course the Haunted Castle fire, it wasn’t an instant cure, not to mention the fact that it came 5 years after the fire. It was repeated investment that targeted all demographics and reinvigorated trust in the park, a far more difficult feat than it will be this time.
The park is currently only one coaster short of the most it ever had at a single time. As much as I want them to drop ridiculous amounts of money on several more, that’s not realistic nor is it what the park needs after the strata spinner. One more major coaster would be great, but a focus on theming and flats is truly what they need and that’s not just a result of the 2024 removals. Since the turn of the century, barring kiddie rides, they’ve added 9 flats and removed a staggering 23, 3 of which were part of the 9 added. Maybe it’s because I’ve paid such close attention to Great Adventure for so long, but I can’t think of another park that’s removed nearly 3x as many flats as they’ve added in that same timeframe.
Is this a brutal time for the park? Yes, absolutely, and I’m not denying that. I will, however, place the blame for that on legacy SF, not SFEC. That said, I remain positive about this park because I truly do love it more than any other park despite being over 700 miles away now, and want nothing more than for it to succeed. I don’t want it to be what it once was, I want it to be better. I don’t exactly foresee it hitting 4m guests in a single season again (at least not any time soon), but that has more to do with the industry and economy being unrecognizable compared to when it achieved that.
