Six Flags Great Adventure Starts 45th Anniversary Season

Jackson, NJ — Six Flags Great Adventure and Wild Safari, the world's largest regional theme park, opens the gates today to kick off the 45th anniversary season. The 2006 season promises to be exciting with the addition of new rides, shows, animals and new programs to enhance guest service.

This weekend, parents and young children can explore Bugs Bunny National Park, an all-new, wilderness-themed children's area. Located on Six Flags Great Adventure's Great Lake, this new kids' area, featuring Bugs Bunny and his Looney Tunes pals, joins Looney Tunes Seaport and Balin's Jungleland as the park's third section devoted to the youngest thrill seekers. Families can enjoy the great outdoors with six rides, an interactive water play feature, Bugs Bunny Wilderness Theater with a high-spirited show for kids, plus Looney Tunes Camp Kitchen with lots of kid-friendly treats, and daily character visits between 11:00 am and 1:00 pm.

Guests visiting Six Flags should also expect to experience the changes in guest service this season. Six Flags is putting emphasis on delivering world-class service in 2006.

"To deliver the best guest experience of any park anywhere, we must provide outstanding service in a safe, clean, family-friendly atmosphere," said Six Flags Great Adventure Vice President and General Manager Ron Sevart. "For example, we've instituted a non-smoking policy across all Six Flags parks to make walking through the park with your family a much more pleasant experience, and we have instituted universal training for our team members to ensure friendly, helpful and efficient service."

Other guest service initiatives include raising the curtain on a major entertainment program that offers parades, fireworks, exciting stage shows, strolling street performers, "Brunch with Bugs" beginning April 8, and more lovable, huggable characters throughout the park.

In addition, DC Comics' Justice League characters Wonder Women, Aquaman, Green Lantern and The Flash join Batman and Robin, as they greet guests throughout the park's midways this weekend.

Opening later this spring is the park's new enormous, wooden roller coaster, El Toro. This new ride incorporates some of the most daring features of some of the world's best wooden roller coasters with the speed of a steel coaster. Its unique engineering features a hybrid design that marries the fast charging drops of a classic "out-and-back" track with the highly banked turns of a beastly twister. El Toro also delivers nine "airtime" opportunities, giving riders the highly sought thrill-ride sensation of weightlessness.

At 188 feet tall, reaching 70 mph, El Toro ranks among the tallest and fastest wooden roller coasters in the world. Its 4,400 feet of mountainous track includes records for second tallest, fastest and longest drop of all wooden coasters in America and features the world's steepest drop on a wooden roller coaster, 76 white-knuckled degrees.

El Toro anchors a newly themed area, Plaza del Carnaval, that evokes the sights and sounds of coastal Mexico. Plaza del Carnaval also features a new Mexican restaurant, La Cocina, new marketplace-style shopping at El Mercado and a new rocking, spinning family ride, Tango. El Toro and Plaza del Carnaval are slated to open later this spring.

On the heels of a winter filled with births, Six Flags Wild Safari enters spring with a variety of exotic baby animals on display throughout its 350 acres. Three African lion sisters, one endangered addax calf (African antelope), a fuzzy Bison calf and three romping Black bear cubs kick- off the spring season that's sure to welcome the birth of giraffes, yak, eland and more.

Six Flags Great Adventure and Wild Safari's 2006 season runs weekends through May 7, then daily May 11 through Sept. 4 (parks closed to the public June 10). For more information, visit sixflags.com.