Our Great Adventure!

I promised you a rundown of my birthday trip to Six Flags Great Adventure and here it is...

The Good:

I still love the coasters! It had been probably six years since I had been on a roller coaster, what with having babies and nursing them and then just letting time slip away. Also, spending a day at an amusment park riding the biggest and fastest roller coaster doesn't always translate into a family activity when your kids are little. I was nervous that I couldn't handle it! But I could and had so much fun screaming and laughing and sometimes holding on for dear life.

The lines weren't that bad at all. We would pass markers that said 2 hr wait and end up at the ride in 30 minutes. I am so thankful for that, because I really struggle with waiting in lines like that. The longest line we waited in was maybe 45 minutes which is not bad at all, especially since we got in it at the 90 minute wait mark. I seriously timed it to make sure because I had a certain spot we had to get to in a certain time and if we didn't we were leaving.

The weather was perfect, it was sunny and hot and then the clouds would move in and it was breezy and cool - alternating like that all day.

I got to ride my favorite coaster Nitro. We got in line and after a few minutes it stopped running due to technical difficulties. It's so hard to decide whether or not to stay or go in that situation because they aren't able to give you any time table (more on that later) on when it's going to work again and usually a bunch of people end up leaving and you're wondering if you're wasting your time staying. Thankfully for this ride it was worth it because from the time we got in line to the time we got to ride it was 30 minutes total - including the delay. In fact after riding it once, we got to back to the start and there was no line. I was all ready to go from another spin, but....

The Bad

While I can still stomach the coasters, we discovered that Matt no longer can. It's ironic that the coaster that I love the most (Nitro) is the one that really did him in. He quickly declined my request to go again, and we decided to go on another one. I think it all caught up to him on that one and we had to take a nice long break on a bench while he sat as still as possible and tried to settle his stomach. Poor guy, he was sweating and shakey, not the most fun way to spend the day. He felt so bad and didn't want to ruin the day for me. He did pull through in the end and decide at the last minute (he waited in line with me and was going to just not get on) to ride Bizarro and didn't feel too bad afterwards (this was after a loooonnnng break from rides.)

Kingdaka is the fastest roller coaster in the US and also has the highest drop. It's so high that the Statue of Liberty could fit under the main arch. You are basically launched up one side and come spinnning straight down the other. You can see it looming over the park when you come in (see previous picture) and it just looks terrifying. We decided to go directly there because we figured the line would be the longest and it would be the one we'd be most likely to chicken out of. The line moved so quickly - from the start of the line to the gate it was 15 minutes total (what a dork am I that I actually know all this!). We watched the people in front of us shoot off and waited for the gait to open for our turn. My adrenaline was seriously pumping and I would count the seconds it took for the car to fall. But...you could see this coming, right?....A voice over the loud speaker. Kingdaka is experiencing technical difficulties, we don't know when it will be ready to run again. A few people leave. We wait. We wait some more. More people leave. We keep hoping that it's going to be fixed soon. No such luck, they finally announce that it will be a lengthy delay and we head out of there. It was closed all day. I kept looking over from wherever we were in the park to see if it was running and it wasn't until we were just getting in the car to go home that I finally saw a car going over the big arch. Darn.

Last night we caught a documentary on thrill seekers and it went through various amusement parks and the crazy stuff they offer. Seriously, some of the free fall and bungee stuff was almost hard to watch. But then they say "We've saved the best for last...Six Flags Great Adventure's Kingdaka!". Matt and I both cracked up - of course, we were seconds away from riding the craziest roller coaster in the country and we missed out on it. I am hoping to make a return trip with friends at some point, but I think that was Matt's last chance at it!

The Ugly!

The prices!!! If it's not enough that it costs an arm and a leg just for a day pass to the park (we got great discounted tickets though), you pay at the very least $15 for parking, $1 for a locker outside of each rollercoaster because you can't take any loose items with you (I would stuff my sunglasses down my shorts!) and the cost of food is just unreal. To top it off Six Flags Theme Parks (all of them) just declared bancruptcy. I can't being to imagine how they are possibly losing money.

Finally, the worst part of what was a great birthday occurred on the final ride, Bizarro. I kept my cell phone with me and just put it into a zipper pocket on my capris (wow, zipper pocket, I really sound like a dork). Somehow just before I got on I just have put it in the wrong pocket and it flew out on the one of the many drops, loops or spins. So less than six months after dropping my Palm Centro into the toilet, I lose my next phone on a roller coaster! The bummer is that I lost my SIM card as well so I have to recollect all the numbers and info I had stored in my phone over the years. So if you haven't heard from me - that's why!

Overall I had such a fun birthday. I really enjoyed spending the day with Matt doing something that was out of the ordinary for us. I am definitely thankful for Renee and Kerin who watched the kids (I came to get the girls from Renee's and they had decorated and made me cards and cupcakes - so sweet and special!)! Thank you all for the birthday wishes!