Pre-Season Park Tour!

[jglonek]

We were invited to the park today to do a pre-season construction tour of the Green Lantern and the new Safari Discoveries center. We just wanted to thank Angel and the rest of her crew, Doc Rives and Trainer Dave, and park president John Fitzgerald for being there today to talk to us!





All of our photos from the tour are posted on our Facebook page!


Now onto what we learned!

- Green Lantern will be open to season passholders on May 19-21st, and open to the public on May 25th!
- Green Lantern will be running all three trains as much as possible
- The yellow track on the Green Lantern does refer to the villain Parallax. It is part of a story that will play out on the queue and the ride. We were led to believe there will be some surprises in store for us when the ride opens.
- Ka will be running three trains on one side of the station. This will improve capacity by 10%!
- ErUPtion is gone, but will be replaced by a Slingshot in May
- The Spongebob theatre is now being used as a maintenance shed. For now at least.
- The cable cars have been repainted to match the new sponsor, Mars candy!

- Safari Discoveries is pretty much all of what's in the Golden Kingdom now. The tortoise area will (temporarily at least) house llamas and zebras. The shops have changed names to match the safari.
- The Temple of the Tiger stage stadium area will be open from 10:30-6 for people to sit and relax, talk to educators, see small animals, and watch the sea lions, who are now inhabiting the tiger stage
- You will be able to walk around the old tiger exhibit, which has been turned into an area to see over 20 different species of animals, from pythons to pigs, to bears, birds, and much more. There is even an aviary!
- All the play structures and rides in the Golden Kingdom are gone (I believe. We didn't walk over that way to be 100% sure).
- The tigers from Temple of the Tiger are in the safari, and you can see them if you purchase the new $24.99 Close Encounters safari tour. It sounds pretty neat, and I think I might try it out.

From our talk with John Fitzgerald:
- There will be no new flat rides this year. They are coming next season.
- Old Country will not be re-opened until the empty flat pads around the park are filled up.
- He seemed surprised when asked if Green Lantern would have a single rider line. After everyone said "yes" to "is that something we should look into?" hopefully he will think about it!
- There is a plan in the budget to repave/re-line the parking lot and safari lanes in the future
- They will think about a new season pass entrance
- I didn't quite catch this part, but I believe there will be places to store souvenir mugs on the coasters now?
- They want to bring some old nostalgia back to the park (one such example would be rebuilding the teepee)
- They want to find a way to bring more people to the safari, and bring everyone closer to the animals. Safari Discoveries is the start, but there are thoughts of stops in the safari where people could get out and go on walkways to see the animals, or maybe even a kite flyer leaving from Golden Kingdom to cruise over the animals.
- There is a possibility that all three parks (GA, HH, WS) will come under one "Great Adventure" banner and admission fee (in both tickets and season passes) in the future. Which would be a great idea!
- It's possible that in the future the parks will be more de-centralized from corporate and have more freedom to do things.
- They would love to have an on-site hotel, but there are issues with advertising when it comes to the other Six Flags parks in the area that are of concern. It was mentioned if a chain would like to partner with them and build a hotel, they would be all for it.
- There was talk about a possible RV-park, maybe log cabins on property. Nothing really concrete, sounded like a possible thought. And they would want to check with local RV campgrounds to make sure they don't step on any toes.
- The tigers are no longer in the Golden Kingdom doing shows due to safety concerns.


That's about all I can remember. We will be back in the park Saturday for opening day!

Some more photos:

[B-mac]

Good to hear this, would've been much better to hear it in person...

[Ogolo]

Sorry got stuck in the court house until 3:30.
At least the weather cleared up for you guys.

- Ka will be running three trains on one side of the station. This will improve capacity by 10%!

And take 50% crew to operate!
Now if they could just unload the trains before entering the station...
I don't know if I buy that 10% increase but it is interesting.
You think they would have simulated throughput before constructing the switching track.
Did they say where the 4th train is?

[overlord]

They are going to need to be hauling butt on loading and such

[jglonek]

The fourth train is going to be used as a spare. They said they want one on hand in case any of the others break down or need maintenance.

They did mention they have been wanting to do this or awhile and had Intamin out to reprogram the ride.

Also the second station will be used If there are any issues with the first one.

On another note, they mentioned that lightbulbs going out cause the ride to stop operating thanks to the computer system

[jglonek]

I do have more to post. Driving home now! There are a few photos on our Facebook already

[tsim86]

Green Lantern Season pass preview...NICE! I love when they do that.

[PcMan]

they also mentioned KINGDA KAs past delays was from the two switch tracks and the time they take to move and acknowledge they are in the locked position
so it looks like KA will be loading like Dragster

I think its a good thing trying to increas output
the less moving parts the better

[Edwardo]

They would love to have an on-site hotel, but there are issues with advertising when it comes to the other Six Flags parks in the area that are of concern.

Any idea what they meant by that?  I don't have the context of the conversation, but I'd love to hear more.

Also, why did they remove rides and play areas from the Golden Kingdom?  It was such a nice area, I'd have definitely have left play structures for kids.

[coastersue]

- Safari Discoveries is pretty much all of what's in the Golden Kingdom now. The tortoise area will (temporarily at least) house llamas and zebras. The shops have changed names to match the safari.

Not happy about this since seeing the tortoises was one of our favorite things to do at the park.  Did they happen to say what was happening with the tortoises?

[coastermom]

The 25 buck safari tour is in addition to the price to enter the safari or is it part of the season pass or safari price ? An extra 25 bucks per person is not going to want to make anyone go into the safari unless this is a small private tour that has some kind of benifits that others are not getting ... especially a family of 5 or people that only go once in a while as a treat .

I am disapointed if the play area is gone it was a great area for kids I wonder if the water play area is also gone ??

I guess we will see ....

[jglonek]

I'm not sure why the play areas were removed. I have a feeling they have a multi-year plan to redo the Golden Kingdom, starting with the Temple of the Tiger area. But that's just my thoughts. I'm almost positive Splashwater and the rest of the structures are gone. We didn't actually walk by there yesterday, and no one thought to ask about it during the tour. Sorry!

The Close Encounters tour is $25 I believe, on top of Great Adventure park admission.

The hotel.. the concern is that since there's a Six Flags in MD, and a Six Flags in NY, they can't advertise there for SFGA. So therefore if they built a hotel, which requires advertising to get people to stay in, they could only advertise in NJ/PA. Do I think that's plenty/more than enough advertising? Yeah. But I guess Six Flags doesn't.

Edit: I just checked over on Great Adventure History's update from the tour yesterday and they said: "Elsewhere in the Golden Kingdom, Balin's Jungleland has been completely removed (except for Splash Water Oasis) and walled off. "

[B-mac]

I really hope Great Adventure can successfully "re-do" what they're working on. Seems like this year is the anti-50th anniversary (I know the real park is only 35). Hope next year isn't as much of a house cleaning effort and more of a restocking effort.

[nitrorox1414]

Something about having two green coaster right next to eachother... I dont really like it.

[B-mac]

King's Dominion has two red ones next to each other, and they both give every different rides. They were even made by different companies in different times in both parks. A lot of people felt the same way (even I did) when they built Toro next to RT, and everyone's used to it now.

[Millennium Force 44]

that's great to hear what they are doing with KA. The whole duel loading station is pointless, at least for a ride with such simple restraints and loading/unloading. It is silly that they are just seeing this now, like Ken said, and did not foresee the uselessness when planning the ride. Glad to hear that they are doing something about it!

[AV Matt]

Rolling Thunder is next to a brown Intamin steelie.

I always wondered why they didn't copy Dragster's setup. Ka has twice as many load stations yet runs less trains.

[jglonek]

I should mention that the park is worried the general public will not understand why they are only using one station. They are going so far as to make signs to put outside of Ka. But they want the enthusiasts' help to spread the word that this will improve the ride!

[B-mac]

Station remodeling in 2012, maybe?

[Steve]

The 25 buck safari tour is in addition to the price to enter the safari or is it part of the season pass or safari price ? An extra 25 bucks per person is not going to want to make anyone go into the safari unless this is a small private tour that has some kind of benifits that others are not getting ... especially a family of 5 or people that only go once in a while as a treat .

I am disapointed if the play area is gone it was a great area for kids I wonder if the water play area is also gone ??

I guess we will see ....

Maybe this will clear it up.

On top of the normal Safari tours that are run out of the park, they added 2 more tours but are called "close encounters". Instead of the 45 minute tour, this tour will run roughly an hour and a half and will stop at the giraffes section and the tiger section, letting everyone on the bus actually get off and get up close with the animals. Its new this year so I would say try it out and spread the word.

[Railer]

Now one thing I was wondering is with the "Golden Kingdom" closed, do you have to go thru the Boardwalk to get to "El Toro" and that side of the park?

[rjholla2003]

It's not closed. The only part of the GK that's blocked off is where the play structures were.

[Blackhand1001]

Rolling Thunder is next to a brown Intamin steelie.

I always wondered why they didn't copy Dragster's setup. Ka has twice as many load stations yet runs less trains.

Dragsters setup wasn't perfect either. It turns out intamins grouping two trains together on both rides actually hurt capacity since only one can launch at a time leaving the front train having to wait for the back train to load before dispatching. This new arrangement will allow for more nitro like operation. Send a train out load the next one as soon as its ready dispatch. No waiting for the other train to come back. This should also reduce the number of computer errors as the new system is quite a bit simpler than the old one.

[Ogolo]

Now they just need that "Behind the Coasters" tour.

[WadeJ]

RJ, at least as of Tuesday, you couldn't walk through there. I also asked Doc if there would be humans on the human side (since we were standing behind the tiger glass) and he said no, that will be blocked off. So it appears the only way to SplashWater and Ka is through Boardwalk unless they change their mind.