This is one of those fairs that I always seem to forget about until one of my friends, who lives maybe two block away, tips me off about it; he in turn usually forgets about it until the air by his place is permeated with the scent of sausage. Him, another guy and I decided to head over on Saturday night, but not before we had a couple of brewskis (how else were we going to stand the masses of annoying teens?) Upon arriving I was surprised to see some new rides this year with Majestic Midways running the midway; the fair had:
Sky Diver
Wipeout
Ring of Fire
Sizzler
Scooter
Cuckoo Haus
Monkey Mayhem
A bunch of kiddie rides
A vast selection of foodstuffs
Carnival games
This carnival was automatically awesome for the fact that it had a Sky Diver; I haven’t seen one of those rides in literally ten years. It looked pretty good too with LED lighting as opposed to the old school florescent lighting. Wipeout was another ride I hadn’t seen in a while…at least a traveling model. It too looked very nice with multicolored turbo lighting and these single light strobes under the wheel that gave off a sparkling-like appearance. Ring of Fire was also nice to see after encountering a plethora of newer Larson Fireball’s this season; the ride also had LEDs, that’s new. Cuckoo Haus was another neat addition; not only is it a decent fun house, but its artwork perpetuates nearly every (pic) German stereotype (pic) there is. It even has Kaiser Wilhelm II holding a beer and frankfurter (pic), how about that!
We basically did a once over of the fair and left for a nearby bar. I then came back the next day for a bit just to get some more photos and video.
While the fair in the Meadowlands may be called ‘State Fair Meadowlands‘ there’s only one true state fair of New Jersey and that’s the New Jersey State Fair and Sussex County Farm & Horse Show at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta, NJ. The fair goes for just under two weeks each August and features just about everything you could hope to find at a state fair; from spinning rides to prize zucchini.
Three others and myself arrived at the fair at about 10:30am. The rides, brought by Reithoffer Shows, didn’t open until 12pm so we walked around the fairgrounds instead. The fair had:
Wild Claw (KMG Fireball)
Oh the irony
Zipper
Power Surge
Super Himalaya
Fireball (Larson)
Orbiter
Sizzler
Tidal Wave (Chance Thunderbolt)
Avalanche (Wisdom)
Starship 2000
Century Wheel
Haunted Mansion
Pharaoh’s Fury
Cuckoo Haus
Tornado
Giant Slide
A couple of funhouses
A myriad of kiddie rides
A massive amount of greasy treats
Vendors, vendors everywhere
Various shows and attractions
Horse Show
Livestock
Rasta sheep?
There really was a lot to do and see at this fair. We did a walk through of the animal stables first which had cows, goats, alpacas, and pigs. Another building housed all of the smaller animals such as rabbits, roosters, guinea pigs and a lot of others. Of course some of the cages had blue ribbons, trophies and whatnot…actually most if not all did; guess lots of pity awards were going out!
We headed back to the rides and hopped on Orbiter first. Being it was a POP wristband day (actually everyday was) the ride cycle lasted for maybe a minute. Next we walked over to Wild Claw which was looking great compared to the year prior. The cycle itself was kind of different with the boom lightly swinging back and forth for a bit with the claw spinning rapidly before slowing the claw down and giving the ride a few good swings.
Next up was Avalanche, an old school Wisdom Moby Dick type ride. Interestingly enough this ride ran on a fairly long cycle, which was great since I apparently get nauseous on these types of rides now. By the end I was happy to get off the ride and decided to take a break from the rides for a bit. One of the guys in our group went on Fireball next, the only one not fazed by Avalanche. I was solicited to get on the ride by the Fireball ride op; I said no because I’d get sick and his response was “I got some Mexicans to clean it up, get on!” I lol’d.
Afterwards we ate and milled around for a bit more, checking out the car show, flower and vegetable exhibits and a glass blowing exhibit/vendor before heading back to the midway which was now getting more crowded. Tidal Wave was the first thing we stumbled across so we took a spin. Tidal Wave is a nicely themed Chance Thunderbolt but, much like every other T-bolt I’ve been on, it’s rough as hell. Even those old Herschel Flying Bobs are smoother; what’s up with that? The ride did go pretty fast in reverse I’ll say that, of course I almost got bounced into the lap of my riding partner in the process.
Power Surge was right next door so one of the guys and I took a ride. This particular Power Surge does not have a rotating center boom and hasn’t had that feature for many years now. I guess it’s just not worth getting fixed since it’ll still draw in riders even without the third rotation. At the end of the cycle the car in front of us braked in a half upsidedown position as the ride lowered to the platform. That’s always funny, especially when it happens to someone else.
Century Wheel was next which actually had a bit of a line. At night this ride has a very nice LED light show with a variety of different sequences. Next stop was Super Himalaya, a very nice Bertazzon model Himalaya ride. This actually gave a pretty long ride which really was great (as opposed to Avalanche’s long ride.) Like Tidal Wave, this ride also went much faster backwards than forwards. I was on the inside so I tried my best to hold onto the bar like some cliffhanger for the sake of my cousin who was being pretty well squashed into the side of the car despite my best efforts.
Six Flags Great Adventure’s Facebook page has been alluding to recently that the park will be getting a little something something for the 2012 season. One photo post showed an e-mail saying that the Fantasy Forest section would see significant changes. I immediately feared that it would be transformed into Superhero Forest or something of the sorts, because you know, it’s Six Flags.
Fortunately the real additions are actually something palatable; Sky Screamer, a 150 240 foot Funtime Star Flyer ride, will be the main addition to the park’s Fantasy Forest section including three other rides: Bumper Cars, a “music themed scrambler,” and a flying elephants ride.
Hurricane Harbor will also be getting an upgrade with drop boxes added to The Falls speed slides along with the addition of Bonsai Pipeline, one of those new school looping waterslides (as opposed to the dangerous old school Action Park version!)
Moving retrograde from the last trip report, on the night of August 17th I decided to head down to Seaside Heights, NJ to see what was going on. I hadn’t been to Seaside at night in years and for somewhat good reason; after all it’s not called ‘Sleazeside’ for no reason. The drive was maybe 15 minutes from Brick, NJ. Upon arriving I found a meter spot towards the south end of the boardwalk and fed it a fistful of quarters (one quarter gets you 10 minutes, one minute over gets you $45…and I’m sure the meter maids were out in full force that night.)
In almost comical fashion, less than 2 minutes after leaving the car I overheard two spiky hair guido guys conversing about how someone had “came at them” in a club. Oh boy, here we go. The boardwalk was pretty crowded, probably because of the fireworks being held that night, which I had no clue about until after arriving.
I stopped at Funtown Pier first being the nearest pier to where I parked. The pier featured two new rides this season, the Moser manufactured Typhoon and a Huss Top Spin 2. Top Spin, which was unfortunately down that night, looked eerily similar to the Top Spin that used to reside at Astroland in Coney Island. If it is, then they really did a number on the backflash as it was simply painted white; I can only hope they have something nice planned for that because it would be a shame to just leave it blank.
Typhoon, on the other hand, was running and looking great as well. If I go to Seaside again I’ll have to take a spin on it despite my rapidly decreasing tolerance for pendulum style rides. Both rides are kind of a shot in the arm for Funtown Pier as it’s kind of regarded as ‘that pier with all the older rides with a massive drop tower plopped in the middle.’ Although their Wisdom made Arctic Circle is pretty cool; you really don’t see those around too often. Hopefully Funtown will continue to add quality rides to their collection (*cough*hussbreakdance*cough*) and give the other pier a run for their money.
I made my way up the boardwalk to Casino Pier, the second amusement pier in Seaside. I honestly have to give them credit, they really have a great selection of rides with a lot of attention paid to flash and lighting. Their Huss Enterprise is probably the nicest I’ve seen around despite not having the backflash installed. Interesting aside, this is actually the same Enterprise that used to be at Astroland prior to its replacement by Top Spin 2. Interestingly the ride also has an air horn which seemed to only be used in order to scare people away from the railing in front of the ride while it was in motion; really, if that’s a problem, why not just move the railing forward?
Casino Pier also has a Bertazzon Musik Express that looks like it came straight from the European funfair circuit. The ride has a loud sound system, strobes, siren, fog, nice flash, nice cars and even a freaking bubble machine! On top of that it was also run fast forwards and backwards. If the line wasn’t so God awful that night I would have totally shelled out whatever they were asking to take a spin on it. The flashiness of it lessens the agony of the fact that an awesome and horribly fast Reverchon Himalaya model stood in its place for years prior to its replacement.
Along with those two rides the pier also has a Zamperla Disk-O, and indoor Scrambler called Centrifuge, two roller coasters (a Wild Mouse and a Miller coaster named Star Jet that replaced a Schwarzkopf Jet Star many years back) and a highly regarded dark ride called Stillwalk Manor among a mound of other rides. Casino Pier seems to be where it’s at for major rides in Seaside, but to be fair the pier is also owned by Jenkinsons who have quite a few ventures around the shore area and probably have a lot of money to pump into the place.
The fireworks started at 9:30pm and lasted maybe 10 minutes. They didn’t seem like they were pro-grade display fireworks, more like a bunch of consumer firework cakes daisy chained together. Nonetheless it had a lot of action and did end with a bunch of legit sounding salutes. Afterwards I slowly made my way back to the car through the throngs of people and managed to leave just before the meter expired.
Finally, here’s a video, because everyone loves videos.
I had been staying at my families ‘shore house’ down in Brick, NJ for the week of the 14th. On Tuesday my family and I went down to Wildwood for the day and the next night I headed to Seaside Heights for a bit (both of which will get the trip report treatment soon.) Thursday was being reserved Six Flags, at least the latter portion of the day was; I didn’t really want to get there before 4pm as I had heard that lines die down a bit after 5pm. There was a threat of storms, but I pressed on.
I arrived at Six Flags at around 5pm with a light rain falling which had stopped by the time I parked. My first order of business at the park was to ride Green Lantern as this was only my second visit to the park and the coaster was not yet open as of my first visit. The ride had three trains running and the line was one switchback long which probably wasn’t bad at all for the coaster. I, however, jumped into the single rider line (the only coaster in the park that has one) and waited about 10-12 minutes before nabbing a second row spot. I’m not complaining!
As for the ride itself, Green Lantern isn’t as bad as some people had made it out to be. It didn’t seem uncomfortable at all even with the standing configuration and bike seat style seating (can you even call it seating?) The ride WAS a little rough though, maybe about as rattly as Batman: the Ride or Hydra at Dorney Park, not nearly enough to ruin the ride however. I also seemed to get jostled around a bit more on this coaster than other B&Ms, probably due to the higher center of gravity; I found myself grasping for my glasses at a few points in fear of them flying off.
Bizarro’s loop
Next I walked over to Kingda Ka, saw a half full switchback, shrugged, went over to El Toro, again saw a half full switchback, shrugged, then finally walked over to Bizarro and saw a stairway wait. Now that’s what I’m talking about! The wait ended up being like 10 minutes for the back row, no thanks to a screw up by a ride op telling me and some other guy to not board the train (reserving the row for fast pass users I guess) only to see the row go potentially unused while the riders slipped into another row. A couple of kids behind us ended up taking the spots which I should have done myself once I saw what was up. The ride itself was fine as always, certainly one of the nicer loopers around.
I was going to board the Sky Ride next, which had opened sometime between me entering the park and my arrival at the entrance, but didn’t for some reason. I instead walked through the Lakefront area to see what was going on (not much) and watched Tornado for a second before I saw something strange…there were now no cars on the Sky Ride. I walked a little further and saw the ride ops putting cars into the storage area and then noticed this. Hmm, that’s some mammatus clouds poking down – a type of cloud typically seen in nasty storms. I walked down the path a bit more towards Nitro and eventually saw this. Oh boy.
Nasty clouds behind the Boardwalk and newly added Slingshot.
In light of the imminent storm I took a spin on Skull Mountain which had like no line at all. Upon exiting it was not more than a few minutes before they started to close down all rides that were not indoors. I decided to grab something to eat at the Character Cafe in hopes that the rides would open after the storm and allow for completely uninterrupted ride time. A chicken fingers platter and soda came out to $16 bucks…guess they made about $15 profit.
The storm must have passed to the north as I didn’t see any rain at all while eating. Afterwards I headed through the now ghost town of a park to El Toro which was closed (along with everything else) but had a small gathering of people in front of the entrance. I still had half a soda left so I leaned on a railing and watched the lightning from the storm as it moved away.
Carousel shot for a change
After waiting for a bit I happened to look west only to see another storm in the distance; okay, it could just be far away. After a waiting a bit more I again looked west and saw that said storm was now much closer. I then realized that the outdoor rides were not going to open again that night and decided to just head out. By the time I got to my car, the storm was basically set to slam into the park and was spitting out lightning bolts all over the place. In the end I outran the storm on I-195 and didn’t see a drop of rain from it.
Well…it was an interesting visit.
Finally here’s a video of some lightning from the SF parking lot, cause why not.
This is one of those fairs that I always seem to forget about until one of my friends, who lives maybe two block away, tips me off about it; he in turn usually forgets about it until the air by his place is permeated with the scent of sausage. Him, another guy and I decided to head over on Saturday night, but not before we had a couple of brewskis (how else were we going to stand the masses of annoying teens?) Upon arriving I was surprised to see some new rides this year with Majestic Midways running the midway; the fair had:
This carnival was automatically awesome for the fact that it had a Sky Diver; I haven’t seen one of those rides in literally ten years. It looked pretty good too with LED lighting as opposed to the old school florescent lighting. Wipeout was another ride I hadn’t seen in a while…at least a traveling model. It too looked very nice with multicolored turbo lighting and these single light strobes under the wheel that gave off a sparkling-like appearance. Ring of Fire was also nice to see after encountering a plethora of newer Larson Fireball’s this season; the ride also had LEDs, that’s new. Cuckoo Haus was another neat addition; not only is it a decent fun house, but its artwork perpetuates nearly every (pic) German stereotype (pic) there is. It even has Kaiser Wilhelm II holding a beer and frankfurter (pic), how about that!
