Main Street Pub update 2: the hand battered fish.
Holy smokes.
Holy smokes.
State of the Park
- Thread starter GASM
- Start date
Fuck that looks good. Can’t remember the last time I said anything remotely that positive about Great Adventure’s food, but I also haven’t been since Yum Yum and Granny’s got overhauled.
Happy to say it tastes just as good as it looks! It was excellent. Even if I didn't have a meal plan, I'd get it again.
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Colin mentions a pretty decent amount of improvements here that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere. They’re really going all in on fixing the small things in the park, which have really added up over the years and become my biggest issue with it.
First visit of the season today for my wife and I. Got there at 2:30. Medusa, Batman and Flash were down; Medusa was back up the hour before close. Lines were no big deal everywhere but El Toro because they were only running one train; wait was about an hour. Interestingly saw some ride personnel with GAdv nametags but Dorney Park clothing.
Some notes:
- Just about every building got painted in the off-season. And just about every sign was new or re-painted. Even some facades got work, like Yum Yum Cafe and Granny's. Nice to see everything looking clean and bright.
- The El Toro re-tracking is a game-changer. It hasn't felt this smooth since it was new. Can't imagine how awesome it'll be when the other two-thirds of the re-tracking are done next winter. I rode in row 17 and it was butter.
- Also looks like a new train for El Toro, at least the one they had running today. If not, they replaced every inch of the cars except for maybe the car frame. New screws, new waist restraints that don't dig into you when you hit those negative g's, new seatbelts, new wheels. Just awesome.
- Nitro had the B train go down while we were waiting in line. Generally across all the thrill rides they seemed to be having a lot of issues with the lock sensors for the restraints, including Wonder Woman. So we got to ride the D train, which being newer was a big improvement over the older trains.
- The fish at the new Main Street Pub is really good like others were saying. They'll just have to work to maintain consistency because the waffle fries they served with it were room temp and chewy. Good flavor and probably good if hot and fresh.
- Saw a lot of markings on the ground under the lift hill of Batman, crossing over the Nitro path. I know what they're marking, but why is an interesting question.
- Somebody needs to be fired for the speakers in the waiting queue for Wonder Woman today. They were so loud we and anyone within ten feet of the speakers at either end of the covering had their fingers in their ears. It was painful. All treble, no bass.
View attachment wwss.mp4
Some notes:
- Just about every building got painted in the off-season. And just about every sign was new or re-painted. Even some facades got work, like Yum Yum Cafe and Granny's. Nice to see everything looking clean and bright.
- The El Toro re-tracking is a game-changer. It hasn't felt this smooth since it was new. Can't imagine how awesome it'll be when the other two-thirds of the re-tracking are done next winter. I rode in row 17 and it was butter.
- Also looks like a new train for El Toro, at least the one they had running today. If not, they replaced every inch of the cars except for maybe the car frame. New screws, new waist restraints that don't dig into you when you hit those negative g's, new seatbelts, new wheels. Just awesome.
- Nitro had the B train go down while we were waiting in line. Generally across all the thrill rides they seemed to be having a lot of issues with the lock sensors for the restraints, including Wonder Woman. So we got to ride the D train, which being newer was a big improvement over the older trains.
- The fish at the new Main Street Pub is really good like others were saying. They'll just have to work to maintain consistency because the waffle fries they served with it were room temp and chewy. Good flavor and probably good if hot and fresh.
- Saw a lot of markings on the ground under the lift hill of Batman, crossing over the Nitro path. I know what they're marking, but why is an interesting question.
- Somebody needs to be fired for the speakers in the waiting queue for Wonder Woman today. They were so loud we and anyone within ten feet of the speakers at either end of the covering had their fingers in their ears. It was painful. All treble, no bass.
View attachment wwss.mp4
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Really great stuff between the retracking and new train. I intentionally chose a wheel seat yesterday (row 16) after doing my best to avoid those last year, and it was fantastic. Nowhere near the jolt it had previously.
Thanks for the picture! It was darker at the time, but I didn't see anything of those markers on Friday.
All of the small theming updates on Main Street, all of the new signage, all of the paint, all of these little details seeing love, effort, and attention for the first time in ages is so exciting! As someone who has lived through a park transition like this before, up-close at Kings Dominion, it's these tiny tweaks and additions that snowball year after year until suddenly, without you having hardly noticed, the park is a legit super nice, pleasant, charming place to be. SFGAdv definitely isn't a home park for me, but I'm so emotionally invested in its rejuvenation. Seeing so many of the same signs I witnessed at KD like a decade+ ago appearing now in that video from Coliwood is absolutely riveting.
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Great Adventure hasn’t been my home park in nearly 3 years and I’m still more invested in it than any other park. Everything I’ve seen has made it clear that it’s not the park I knew for most of my life, and for the most part, that’s absolutely a good thing.
The park has this Harley Quinn Spinsanity sign from Six Flags America in the parking lot. They could replace the spinsanity section of the sign for a small upgrade to Harley Quinn Crazy Train.
My suggestion is to buy a Tilt-a-Whirl themed to Harley Quinn (like SFOG has), and use the sign there. Maybe put it next to TDK (in the large pavement area) and lightly-retheme TDK to Joker, opening up an opportunity for both the Zierer and 4D Free Spin coasters to get a new name/theme better reflecting the waterfront location or Pirate themes of the wider area?
Far-fetched I know, but if you want to keep all the DC stuff together (including de-themeing Superman), it could work.
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I'm all for a tilt-a-whirl, but the rest is unlikely when there's already a Joker/HQ pairing live at the park. I don't see a Waterfront retheming in the near future.
Was at the park today for a little over an hour. I think things are going in the right direction, but there’s a very long way to go before the park starts thinking about competing with Hershey.
Cracked pavement everywhere, an abundance of areas that clearly haven’t gotten any love for a long time, etc
I know the park is working hard, and I’m certainly going to give them a chance, but I hope they really go hard these next 10 years
Cracked pavement everywhere, an abundance of areas that clearly haven’t gotten any love for a long time, etc
I know the park is working hard, and I’m certainly going to give them a chance, but I hope they really go hard these next 10 years
It took several years to turn around Carowinds and Kings Dominion, which were both neglected in different ways by Paramount Parks. Look at these parks now in terms of upkeep, quality, and investment... if it's anything like these parks Great Adventure will be in a good spot but you need to give it several years. It is a business with a balance sheet after all, and they can only do so much each year.
Six Flags is bringing back park presidents (news article) to parks, including Great Adventure. Some parks have announcements already, do we have any indication of who SFGAdv's president will be?
Carowinds vice president and park manager when they unveiled Fury 325. Something to keep in mind.
Thanks for posting. That's great to hear.
Not what I'm seeing. El Toro is a long line, so is Wonder Woman and Jersey Devil and Flash.