Great Adventure

Saturday I went with a bunch of my coworkers and some random people my coworkers know, to Great Adventure. I was driving, but everyone was late getting to my place, so we left about half an hour late. We made good time, but still arrived about 20 minutes after the first group. Didn’t matter much since the park didn’t open until about a minute after we got there anyway.

The place was empty. We thought it was just because it was early, but it stayed empty the whole day. The forecast said there would be scattered thunderstorms. It rained for about half an hour, but that was it. It was awesome.

We rode The Great American Scream Machine first. This is when I learned I was stupid and should have left my backpack in the car. $1 to rent a locker for 2 hours. Later I opted for the full day one at $11. This was after paying $15 for parking and having to leave all my food and my water bottle in the car because they force you to buy their crappy, overpriced food and water. Grrr. $10 for a fast food burger and fries? Really??

Second was Superman. I had to go to the bathroom at this point, but I figured I could hold it for the 30 seconds it takes to go through the ride. … yeah

For those unfamiliar with the ride, it tips you over so you’re lying on your stomach into the restraints as if you were flying. There is nothing underneath you. They start the ride and we’re going up, we’re going up, it’s going up very slowly, but it’s going up. People start making comments on the slow climb. We’re a few feet from the top and the ride stops. Crap. We’re hanging there, and we’re hanging there. We start chatting about what we do for a living. I yell at myself for not going to the bathroom before going on the ride.

After about five minutes or so a guy comes climbing up the emergency exit next to us. He says they’re working on getting the ride started, this is common, we should panic, yada yada. He then tells us that park policy states that if they can’t get the ride started in 15 minutes, they’ll unload us from this position. And that’s about when everyone starts to freak out. He says, no, really, I know is sounds impossible, but we’ll talk to through it. I really have no freaking clue how the hell they would have gotten us off that thing if that were the case. Thankfully, another five minutes later the ride starts moving again. The rest of the ride was pretty great.

We went on almost everything before lunch and hit all the major rides well before we left. I went on everything except Kinda Ka. I don’t like the feeling of vertical drops. I’m sure I could have handled it, after all, it’s only a couple seconds long, but I was kinda all rollercoastered out at that point. My stomach and my head were yelling at me and I just didn’t think I would have had fun, so I opted out with another member of our group. I did go on Nitro, we I had previously missed out on seven years ago. That was a lot more fun than I thought it would be.

The new Dark Knight coaster was super lame. Bizarro was better without the soundtrack as Medusa. We saw the tiger show and some of the Fright Fest stuff.

We decided to have dinner outside the park, for half the price, and then we went home. We were at the park from about 10:30 to 9:00 I think. By the pain in my feet, I’d say I definitely got my 10000 steps in and then some. I wouldn’t know though since I took my pedometer off for the first ride. I would have lost it at some point I’m sure.

It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I figured an hour in it would start with the lightning and they would close all the rides, but nope! Didn’t happen until right before we left. Turns out it was the perfect day to go. Superman was a good bonding experience and the rain wasn’t bad. Good times :)