I spent a day at Six Flags socially distant, and I felt pretty safe

As the roller coaster made its 230-foot climb on Friday afternoon, I not only felt excited and a little nervous. I felt lonely.

This was Nitro, one of the Six Flags Great Adventure roller coasters. He is 19 years old and is still among the park’s most popular attractions, and he had waited an hour to ride it. However, the rows on my forehead and back, as well as the seats next to me, were empty. So I don’t know if anyone heard me scream when we reached 80 mph, and not just because he was wearing a mask.

Welcome to Six Flags socially distanced.

New Jersey’s largest theme park opened its doors on Friday, three months after normal due to the coronavirus pandemic, with countless safety precautions. And while those new protocols made for a slightly slower experience at times, it felt just as safe as a massive outdoor theme park during a global pandemic.

Roller coasters are not the only partially filled area. The park’s total capacity currently has a 25% limit: each guest must make a reservation to obtain entry and time slots are assigned to manage the number of people arriving at any given time. That percentage is likely to rise to 50% eventually, but Six Flags wanted the first few weeks to be slow: Friday was a day before for members, season pass holders, and the media, while Saturday is the day of opening for the general public.

Thrill seekers walk through a tent on their way to the park where their temperature is taken without even having to move calmly. Six Flags staff members watch a monitor to see a green box appear on anyone with a normal temperature, while a red box indicates a possible fever.

The guests then move to a contactless security check-in tent that also allows them to continue walking while they (and their suitcases) are searched. It was so fast that the security guards had to tell people to keep moving. This is the kind of technology that we could have used even before COVID arrived. We hope it will be implemented at sporting events and concerts across the country.

Hand sanitizer stations dot the park, giving guests the opportunity to clean their hands throughout the day. There’s even a “clean team” of staff members dedicated to disinfecting the park, patrolling the grounds to keep things as clean as possible.

But what seemed safest about the park was the presence of masks. They are required at all times while on the ground, yes, even on walks, with signs reminding guests to wear masks. Don’t you have one? A staff member will remind you. I saw hundreds of people on Friday and I don’t think a single one was without a mask, and only a handful of people had their masks in the wrong positions.

I was expecting limited capacity to mean limited lines, but that’s not the case. The social distancing measures enacted for the queues include markers every six feet to show people where to stand, as well as skipped rows, and people seemed to be following the rules! That means that the lines may appear longer than they really are. But limited capacity for roller coasters also means the line is moving slower than normal.

Great Adventure goes to the extreme of spraying cars intermittently and running them on the track completely devoid of bikers to disinfect them. Super-Man: Ultimate Flight seemed to be running just one car while waiting in line, and things were so slow that I finally gave up and went on another trip. But if that is the price of security, I am willing to pay it.

There are no meals inside the park, but there are picnic tables available to sit on, with reminders of social distance.

Food lines were also long (unsurprisingly), but Six Flags has entered mobile orders through the park app. It didn’t go well: the app said my order was still “getting ready” 10 minutes after it said it would be ready. When I walked in to check it out, a staff member quickly prepared my order and apologized. Slightly annoying, but throw it until the first day in the system. Even better than waiting in a long line.

For the most part, people seemed to be following the guidelines. While there were plenty of people in the park, it never felt too crowded or claustrophobic like some of the outdoor bar scenes 25 miles east of Belmar. The sprawling Great Adventure campus is large and spaced enough to feel safe.

I was skeptical that Great Adventure could accomplish this, and it remains to be seen how this will work when capacity limits are increased. But the distances the park will travel in the name of safety are impressive, and I never felt unsafe. Fortunately, the most terrifying experience of the day was Nitro’s crash.

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Jeremy Schneider can be contacted at [email protected]. Tell us your coronavirus story or send a tip here.