Less than a week after getting home from my week long trip with Jen, Sam and I decided to go chasing a brand new credit much closer to home. That credit would be Flash Vertical Velocity at Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv). With a thunderstorm coming through the region, however, we weren’t even sure if we’d make it to the park. I’ve seen SFGAdv close several times, even on days where the storms passed through early on and left the region. Because of this, we decided to start our day at the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, N.J. instead. If the storm passed and the park was open, we’d go. If not, we’d still have some fun checking out the fish.
Spoiler: The storm did pass and the park stayed open. This meant shorter lines at the park, which turned out to be a blessing after seeing some of the early lines Flash has had this early on with its limited capacity.
Not a Fan of This Park in Recent Years
It had been a while since my last visit to SFGAdv. I last visited with my friend Karah on October 9, 2023. Thankfully Kingda Ka and Green Lantern were running that day and unknown to me at the time, they’d be my final rides on those coasters. I still think the park/chain handled that horrendously by not making some kind of announcement to get in last rides. Although neither of those coasters were my favorites, I probably would have ventured up there one last time for them. Oh well…
Aside from those ride removals this park hasn’t had the best track record during my visits the last few years. Between ride closures, slow operations (except on Nitro, which always seems amazing), and negative interactions with some staff members, I haven’t been in the biggest rush to visit as often as I usually do. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way either. Hopefully the park’s future is moving in the right direction though. Time will tell.
Flash Vertical Velocity
We ended up getting two rides on Flash. We waited about 15-20 minutes for each ride. And before I get into the ride experience, I just want to ask, who came up with the queue layout and small items locker placement? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re providing free lockers if they’re forcing people to use them. But do they ever plan to fill that massive, mostly empty bullpen area after the lockers? There wouldn’t be enough lockers for everyone in line if so. How does that even get by planners? We only passed through the building, lining up at the base of the station steps both times. That made sense though due to the small amount of lockers available. They can’t fill the building. So I ask, why build that bullpen building to begin with if you can’t put people in it? Seems like a waste of money and poor planning to me.
As for the ride, man this thing is super smooth. It is easily the smoothest coaster at the park and the trains are so comfortable. If this is what Vekoma is making these days, I’d love to see some more coasters of this thrill level and beyond built in the United States. And the lighting and sound effects were awesome. Well, if they work. The were only working for one ride.
Easily my favorite moments on this coaster are the hangtime moments. Going through them both forward and backward means you get to do them multiple times. The launches are pretty weak though, which begs another question: Why name this after the Flash? While it is a launch, you don’t really feel speed on this. Since it’s Six Flags, I’m sure they just wanted to reuse the Flash Vertical Velocity name yet again.
All in all, this is a good ride, but one I think will draw some horrible wait times for a bit. I’ll surely ride this again, but I can’t see myself waiting for it if I see a line built up prior to the locker bay.
Nitro
What can I really say about Nitro at this point that I haven’t said in countless other trip reports for SFGAdv? It runs very consistently and it still needs a new paint job. Hopefully the park can get on that soon if it’s trying to rehab its image and make updates to the park. And if the ride entrance is anything to go by, perhaps a blue and silver color scheme is incoming?
Runaway Mine Train
Aside from Thunderation at Silver Dollar City, this coaster is one of the more thrilling Arrow Mine Trains I’ve experienced. I don’t always get to ride it, but we decided to jump on it this visit.
Aside from also needing some new paint, this ride gave its usual fun ride with airtime pops and the right amount of jank to make us laugh. It’s nice to see the park still has this ride as I’m sure many locals remember riding it as a kid like I did with my Aunt Cheryl when we visited for my first time back in the 80’s.
Final Ride Counts
Flash Vertical Velocity (2)
Lil Devil Coaster (1: Sam)
Medusa (1)
Nitro (1)
Runaway Mine Train (1)
In No Rush to Return
With everything I said above and now having the Flash credit secured, I can’t say I have any plans to rush back to this park. Jen still needs to visit and I wish I had gotten her here before Kingda Ka met its demise. Oh well. I can’t change that now. Maybe next year I’ll run Jen up to get some credits. Hopefully they don’t decide to delete some other coasters this upcoming off season.
Six Flags Great Adventure Photo Gallery - July 14, 2025
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CREW MANIFEST
The following flight crew members attended this park, & earned the respective credits below:
Patrick
CAG
New Credit(s): Flash Vertical Velocity
Sam
Admiral
New Credit(s): Flash Vertical Velocity, Lil Devil Coaster