Dad and I hope that you enjoyed reading part 1 of our review of Six Flags Great Adventure, our favourite theme park in the world, where we gave you some general tips about the park and shared our favourite roller coasters in the park
In this part, we’ll talk about some of the more family friendly rides and other attractions. The first topic is queueing. As with any theme park, it’s key to arrive early as often, in the first one or two hours, the park is relatively empty and you can get onto a lot of rides. If you’re here in the summer and staying close to the park, I would advise coming back in the evening when the park has emptied a lot of families with kids. Another trick is to eat at lunchtime when other people are in restaurants
Despite coming to the park during weekends in the summer, dad and I haven’t usually found the queues too long. Otherwise, the Six Flags Flash Pass may be what you need though the prices are rather steep. Another pain with the Flash Pass is that you can only collect it once you’re inside the park with everybody else – ie standing in the long queue to get into the park at the start of the day and while people rush off to get onto rides, you have to go to the Flash Pass office to collect the Flash Pass machine. The queues do move slowly at the Flash Pass office as well. It acts by creating a virtual avatar to stand in line for a ride while you stand in queue for another ride. You can only hold a place at one ride at a time. The machine beeps when you get to the front of the virtual queue at your chosen ride – when you get to that ride, you show the Flash Pass to the attendant and join the queue near the front of that ride. There are 3 levels of Flash Pass with steeply rising prices. The basic pass takes the same amount of time as someone at the ride, the next level reduces the time by 50% and the highest level reduces the time by 90%
The park is themed into several lands though not to the level of Disney or Universal. You will see Looney Tunes characters wandering the park and they do stop for photo ops
There are free concerts running through the year and it’s a nice way to put your feet up if you fancy a rest
Theme park food is never going to be gourmet and dad usually eats fried chicken for lunch at Granny’s Country Chicken
Dad’s 2 favourites rides at the park, Nitro and El Toro are at opposite ends of the park and we therefore usually take the Skyway cable car to travel between the 2 parts of the park quickly. There’s a great view of the park from the cable car
Other than a mad go at the Fender Bender dodgems, dad has the occasional ride on the water rides – Congo Rapids and the Saw Mill Log Flume – if it’s a hot day
However, the best family friendly experience is the Safari Off Road Adventure. The queues can get really long, so get there early. As I mentioned in part 1 of our review, there used to be a safari park here at Great Adventure. You used to be able to drive through the park in your car but it’s now been incorporated into the theme park. You are driven through the park in large open sided lorries with a guide. The park is home to 1200 animals from 6 continents, including elephants, rhinos, tigers, giraffes and lions. You’ll make an optional stop at Camp Aventura, where you can learn more about the animals. You can take a zipline and feed giraffes for an extra fee
Dad and I love Six Flags Great Adventure. We return annually, mainly to ride the awesome Nitro and El Toro but the park has a great variety of other fun things to do
1 Six Flags Blvd., Jackson, New Jersey 08527
Teddy Rambles 