Roller Coasters!

I'm a huge roller coaster fan, and recently a good friend and I ventured over to Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ to ride as many of them as we could. It was a semi hot-and-humid Monday and there weren't many people there. Weekday theme park visits are always better than weekend visits. Anyway, without further ado, here are my official reviews of the roller coasters we went on:

• Kingda Ka: This is a VERY tall coaster, and very fast. So fast in fact, that it's over before you know it. Now this is definitely a ride to go on at least once, but honestly if the wait is over 30-45 minutes, your time is better spent in other lines. Thankfully our wait was within this time limit. I waited for three hours once for this one, only to watch the ride be closed due to thunder storms when I was 5 minutes away from getting on it. The coaster shoots you up very fast and pauses for a tiny bit at the top, from where you can see miles around you. The ride down isn't as scary as you'd think because the tracks are sort of twisted, and you don't see as much. You also don't get a weightless feeling when going down. All in all, going up is better than coming down on this one.

• El Toro: This is one crazy wooden coaster. I'm not a fan of Rolling Thunder, another wooden coaster in the park, because it just shakes the whole time and I get thrown around way too much (bruises anyone?). This coaster surprised me with its awesomeness. It's a relatively long ride, and there are some very high points. There are a lot of parts when you're going under wooden beams at a high speed and just feel like you have to duck! Very much a scary ride the whole way. This one was my favorite that day, and was worth the 30 or so minute wait.

• Bizarro: This ride replaced Medusa, which was a fun short/medium length ride. It's pretty much the same. There is some fire spewing on the sides and some mist and scary spikes.

• The Dark Knight: This one's an indoor coaster, like the Skull Mountain (which is really no fun). It has a better "intro" while you wait in line - going along with the whole Joker taking over town theme from the movie. The ride itself is only okay though. Such are the afflictions of many indoor roller coasters. There were barely any other cool themed things inside the ride (unlike rides like Spiderman in Universal, which ROCKS). Also way too many sharp turns (I got thrown around a lot in this one!). If the wait's long, it's not worth it.

• Batman: This ride is another mediocre ride, in my opinion, but I still always go on it. It's fun, like Bizarro, but there's really nothing special about it.

• Nitro: This ride has to have the best first drop of any roller coaster that I can remember (and there are plenty that I don't). After a very slow ascent, you plummet down at incredible speed, feeling weightless as your insides get squeezed into places where they shouldn't be. Thankfully this lasts JUST the right amount of time without overwhelming you. From there it's a nice long ride, with all the usual thrills. There are some "rolling hills" around the end which are very fun, as you can throw your hands up in the air as you get thrown up out of your seat a bit. Overall, this is my favorite roller coaster at Six Flags, and is very beautiful in the dark.

• Runaway Mine Train: Meh.. just another short and not very eventful ride. The wait was about 2 minutes though (I wonder why), so we just went on it.

Rides that we didn't go on that day were Superman, Great American Scream Machine, and Rolling Thunder (out of the main roller coasters). I've been on all those before, and they're fine, but there just wasn't enough time for everything. Also, riding lots of thrill rides one after the other takes a lot out of you (that and the heat and standing/walking a lot). I'm not a roller coaster snob, but I do judge them, and I hope this little review helps anyone deciding on which ones to go on while in Great Adventure.