It was time for another trip to Great Adventure. With overcast weather, we decided it would be the perfect day to go and skip the lines. Up first was Skull Mountain, of course, for its amazingly awesome morning rides. After my last Nitro experience, I was reluctant to try again, but we went for it. It was almost a walk on for second row, and of course we happened to get the C Train. Learning from our first experience, we waited for the next train. This time, I got a much better ride that was almost completely rattle-free. The ride provides some great floater over the top of every hill. The best air time is definitely found in the last few bunny hops on the return to the station. Its a fun ride, but nothing to shout about. Its fun, but doesn't have the amount of intensity and air time I usually look for. After a nice ride on Nitro, we took the Skyride to El Toro, which had a fairly short line. Since none of us had ever tried it towards the back, we went for the back, which had a short wait anyway. The Ride was awesome and this particular ride became tied with my favorite coaster ride of all time, but it would not stay that way for long as I would walk away with a different particular ride on El Toro as my favorite. El Toro is really the kind of ride I look for. It has fantastic air time on the drop and over every hill, the turns are amazing, and the whole thing is incredibly smooth for a wood coaster. After checking the lines for Kingda Ka and Zumanjaro (which were manageable, but still decently long), we decided to have lunch. After lunch, it began to drizzle. We headed over to the Runaway Mine Train, which was open again, and had a fantastic ride. Many people complain about this coaster being too rough, but if you sit in the middle of the train, I think its fine. This ride never fails to deliver for me. It is always fun and has some surprising pops of air in the end. The roughness almost makes it more fun and gives an certain kind of "out-of-control" feeling you don't get on modern coasters.
After a good ride on the mine train, it started to rain harder. My brother and I decided to sneak off to Bizarro for a couple rides. As usual, it was a walk on. This ride, in my honest opinion, is the second best coaster in the park. It has perfect inversions that either offer a great amount of intensity, or provide some awesome hang time. It has three pretty strong airtime moments as well. In the rain, this coaster really takes off. I personally think this coaster is one of the most underrated in the world. When we came back into the station and saw that the third row line (our row) had people waiting, we walked to the back of the train to search for an empty row, which we found. Two consecutive rides in the rain really made this ride stand out as the second best coaster in the park to me. Its a fun, thrilling intense ride that is arguably the smoothest in the park. Check it out if you ever visit the park, you'll definitely want to ride it more than once. The rain started to die down a bit as we went to the line for El Toro, which was only twenty minutes long. It was barely raining when we got into the station, but when we took our seat towards the back and headed out, it was raining hard. What followed was easily the best coaster ride I've ever had in my life. The already insane airtime and speed of El Toro was enhanced by the rain and it felt like someone was repeatedly throwing gravel in your face for the entire ride. The whole ride was beyond explanation and I don't think any coaster I ride from this point on could top El Toro in the rain. When our ride op asked us how the ride was, everyone in our train started going crazy with whistling, cheering, and applause. The people in line looked at us like we were absolutely insane, but they had no idea what was about to happen to them. When overhearing several other people from our train talking about the ride, I found out that I wasn't the only one to have this particular ride as my favorite coaster ride of all time. We decided to end it on a high note and left the park in order to get home in time for a special event. It was a great overall visit and whenever rain is in the forecast, you'll find me at Six Flags.
Coaster Count
Skull Mountain: 1
Nitro: 1
El Toro: 2
Runaway Mine Train