My Bachelor Party weekend was a great success... Friday evening, we drove down to New Jersey in the Nana Van.
yeah. we's got swagger
The trip was scheduled to take around 6 hours. We were able to make it in just under 8. We're overachievers.
Friend Kevin was able to use his frequent traveler points to book us our hotel rooms fo' free.
We purchased our park passes 3 days in advance which was a huge cost savings and we used my mother's Mobile Speedpass to cover our gas so, in all, this was a very cheap weekend.
Mike brought a bunch of snacks for the drive down, some of which were Gluten Free which was important because both Rob and I require it.
When we checked in to our hotel, they had two rooms ready for us which seemed perfect for 5 travelers. That is, of course, until we opened the doors to our rooms and saw that each room had one (1), singular, solo, Queen Size bed in it.
5 Guys; 2 Beds.
This sounds like the name of a gay porn, doesn't it?
Luckily, Kevin brought his air mattress so Rob slept on that while Kevin and Mike spooned in the bed in one room. Adam slept on the floor and I slept on the bed in the other.
I suppose it wasn't so bad.
Saturday, we went to the park!
6 Flags Great Adventure was amazing! There were so many roller coasters and a couple of them were even record-holders! The biggest event was, of course, Kingda Ka - The tallest roller coaster in the world.
I'll get to that in a minute...
The first thing we did upon entering the park is we immediately headed to Guest Relations to inquire about their "Equality Pass" which is designed to help guests with disabilities avoid maneuvering through queue lines. The system works similar to Disney's "Fast Pass" with a few minor differences.
- The pass is good for 4 people (Yourself plus 3 others)
There were 5 of us in total but Rob is a disabled veteran so he was able to get his own pass.
- The pass isn't designed to save you any time. It is purely designed to allow you to skip the physical queue.
When you get to a ride, the attendant will check the current wait time and write down a return time on your pass. I.E. if the current wait for a ride is 40 minutes and you show up at 3:00pm, the attendant will write down 3:40 on your pass and you can show up to ride at that time.
This is the way it is designed to work. Our experience, however, was a little different. Largely due to the weather forecast being "Severe Rain" up until that morning, the park was pretty empty so wait times were around 20 minutes for everything.
yeah. the park was pretty empty
The only ride to really have a significant wait was the Safari (which is quite good and I highly recommend checking out if you're ever in the area!)
I would have honestly preferred the rain to the intense heat we ended up getting! Holy shit was it hot that day!
98 degrees and near 100% humidity
With the wait times being so low, we only had to wait about 10 minutes to get on any ride with our passes...
Be forewarned: the pass is not good for Kingda Ka because their queues are ADA Accessible. Luckily, we only waited about 30 minutes to get on that one.
All in all, the pass is designed more for people with wheelchairs than for those with MS. It was helpful to be able to escape to an air conditioned building and have a cup of water while we waited for our rides rather than being out in the sunlight. I must say, since the passes didn't cover Kingda Ka, if the wait had been over an hour like it normally is, we probably wouldn't have been able to ride it. My vision was getting blurry and my feet were getting tingly by the end of the day. If we weren't able to escape to cooler climates while "waiting" for our rides, things could have gotten much worse.
All-in-all, a great park with great accommodations for people with disabilities. Knowing what I know now, on a busier day, I might mention that - ADA Approved or not - People with MS should be able to bypass the queue line for rides which normally aren't included on the Equality Pass.
Hope this helped answer your questions!
Nick
Nick
