Crapstravaganza Week 21: Six Flags Great Adventure 1999-2008

Next week marks the end of the theme park off season for many US locales and with that a new an exciting season awaits; for theme parks and this website alike! So with theme parks opening, carnivals comeing to town and the influx of trip reports on the horizon, I think it’s time to put a close to the Crapstravaganza. I actually went through most of the maps and brochures that I have  these past 20 weeks; only a few remain and most are recently acquired maps. Anyway, for the final week I’ll showcase the remaining Six Flags Great Adventure maps that I have, comparing them year by year…

As always, the map images are pretty big. I made them all under 400k but some of them are really wide. You might want to right click and choose “open in new tab/window.” That way they won’t pop up in the image frame which makes it tough to navigate around large images.

First we have SFGAdv in 1999, back when Medusa was their newest attraction. Some might be asking “what the hell is Medusa?” Well, that was Bizarro’s original name when it debuted in 1999. It was only in 2009 when the ride was revamped with the new super-villain theme and got the added effects like the flamethrowers and auger prop.

Medusa was one of 25 new rides in 1999 as part of their “war on lines” promotion. The kicker is that most of these added rides were removed and by 2009 the park was practically devoid of family and thrill non-coaster rides. The park did start adding more non-coaster rides soon after and as of 2018, the park has a pretty good lineup of family and thrill flat rides.

And heres the map! Great Adventure was pretty different in 1999; aside from many of the bigger coasters not being built yet, the park also had a myriad of flatrides. Some things to notice are:

• Coasters not present as of 1999 include: Kingda Ka, El Toro, Nitro, Superman: Ultimate Flight, and The Dark Knight, among others.
• Viper (#78 on the map) and Batman & Robin: the Chiller (#41) were both still standing in 1999. Chiller was only 3 years old at the time with 2 years of operation under its belt. Viper had been cracking heads for 4 years prior to this season.
• Bugs Bunny Land (the yellow section), GAdv’s original kids section, was still operating. This area is now part of Golden Kingdom.
• Looney Toons Seaport (upper right), another kids section, opened in 1999. This section replaced Adventure Rivers and the Riptide log flume (50) and Congo Rapids (46) were absorbed into the new section. Riptide eventually closed in 2006 and Congo Rapids is still kicking.

Next we jump to 2004. The cover of this map shows Nitro, a B&M hypercoaster built in 2001. Daffy Duck looks like he’s about to jump in front of the train; he obviously can’t stand being a Looney Tunes bit character.

Hmm, there’s some noticeable differences here…let’s inspect:

• Nitro (63) and Superman: Ultimate Flight (91) now graze the park.
• Flatride additions include Eruption (55), an upcharge Slingshot type attraction with seats that can tip forwards and backwards.
• Flatride removals include:
  • Centrifuge G Force (a Scrambler)
  • Pendulum (Huss Frisbee)
  • Jumpin’ Jack Flash (Huss Jump)
  • Spinnaker (a Polyp ride)
  • Pirate’s Flight (modified Balloon Race type ride)
  • Time Warp (Chance Inverter)
  • El Sombrero (Mack Hully Gully)
  • Evolution (Nauta Bussink Evolution) even though its existence wasn’t noted on the previous map.
• Riptide was removed at the end of 2006 and replaced with absolutely nothing.
• The Batman side of Chiller (59) apparently navigates a hairpin turn just after the 70mph launch.
• Batman the Ride (62) is now yellow with dark blue supports, true to real life.

In 2007 the map changed to a horizontal layout. The front displays El Toro, the Six Flags 45 Year logo, and Bugs Bunny running from something off image.

This map looks a lot more sparse than the previous two; they apparently clear cut most of the trees from the park since 2004.

• Kingda Ka (pretty hard to miss on the left), and El Toro (the wooden coaster just above KK) have finally been built in 2005 and 2006 respectively.
• the lone flatride addition is Tango, which is that unmarked doodad next to El Toro. Six Flags didn’t even care to denote flatrides on this map…shows how much they cared about them!
• Flatride removals include: Spinmeister (a vintage Schwarzkopf Enterprise) and Chaos (one of those Chance spinning rides.)
• Space Shuttle, right in front of Great American Scream Machine (bottom right of Kingda Ka) is depicted looking less like an Intamin Space Shuttle ride and more like a Chance Space Shuttle ride!
• Bugs Bunny Land was removed during Kingda Ka construction to make room for Golden Kingdom, which consists of a large kiddie ride area, a theater, and of course…Kingda Ka.
• Bugs Bunny National Park, yet another kiddie area, was built to the right of the Log Flume in the upper right of the map. This area used to be part of the Lakefront and had a little theater and McDonalds if I remember correctly.

Finally, here’s the cover for the 2008 map complete with crazy Asian man saying “more flags, more fun.” I never really got why they used an Asian guy who spoke in a somewhat ‘Engrish’ manner in the commercial. Eh, whatever…

One year later, but there’s a few marked changes on this map.

• Chiller? Gone! Batman & Robin: the Chiller was removed and The Dark Knight took its place. Dark Knight is a Mack made Wild Mouse themed to Batman: Dark Knight.
• Old Country? Gonzo! On the map, Old Country (which was just below the Fantasy Forest icon) simply vanished and left behind a neat little meadow with some trees. In actuality the section was simply closed off and somewhat hidden from view. The two rides that remained in the area were left to rot.
• Along with Chiller, Movietown Water Effect, a small splash boat ride, got the axe to make room for Dark Knight.
• Flatride removals include: Space Shuttle, Musik Express, and Autobahn.

Looks like that wraps it up for multi-week Crapstravaganza series! Throughout the season I’ll probably have more park map/brochure write ups from time to time, so there might be more to come. But for now…let’s all get ready for the theme park season to begin!