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Six Flags Great Adventure

Plaza del Carnaval

The Spanish-carnival section that holds El Toro — the reason coaster travelers fly into Newark.

  • Attractions2
  • Places to eat0
  • HeadlinerEl Toro

Plaza del Carnaval wraps the park's crown jewel. El Toro's wooden structure rises out of the section's carnival theming, and its queue is the pilgrimage route: enthusiasts from three continents plan trips around this ride.

The section also holds the classic family flats. The contrast is the charm — a world-class woodie looming over a midway of teacups.

This is where the rope-drop race ends. Everything else at the park can wait.

Do not miss

  • El Toro, a perennial world-top-ten woodie
  • The steep first drop visible from the whole section
  • Classic midway flats alongside

Plaza del Carnaval tips

  • Rope-drop here, full stop. El Toro's queue at open is the park's most valuable fifteen minutes.
  • Re-ride in the last hour — the woodie after dark is a different ride.

Attractions in Plaza del Carnaval

El Toro

48"122cm

Roller coaster · 1½ min · Line-skip

One of the best wooden coasters on earth — a 76-degree drop and the most violent ejector airtime of any woodie built in this century.

El Toro opened in 2006 on the footprint of the park's old Roar woodie and immediately redefined what a wooden coaster could be. Built with Intamin's prefabricated track — engineered beams rather than hand-stacked lumber — it runs glass-smooth where traditional woodies rattle, and its layout spends that smoothness on aggression: a 181-foot, 76-degree first drop and a sequence of hills designed to throw the rider out of the seat.

Tips for El Toro
  • Rope-drop it and re-ride before the queue matures — the first hour is the whole day's leverage.
  • Back car for maximum ejector; front car for the drop view. Both are correct answers.
  • Keep the lap bar where the ride hosts set it — riding it lower does not prevent airtime, it just bruises.
  • The final hour of operation is the second golden window; the woodie after dark is the park's best experience.

Full guide to El Toro →

Jersey Devil Coaster

48"122cm

Roller coaster · 1½ min · Line-skip

The single-rail coaster — one rider per car on an I-beam track, solo through inversions with nothing around you.

Jersey Devil is a Rocky Mountain Construction single-rail coaster: riders straddle the rail in individual cars, and the layout — a steep drop, inversions, and low-slung swoops — is experienced alone. The 2021 opening made it the park's first new major coaster in years and the region's first of the type.

Tips for Jersey Devil Coaster
  • Ride early afternoon when El Toro's overflow crowd is elsewhere.
  • Solo means solo — brief your teens before they ride alone if that is new for them.
  • The stall inversion is the signature; hold the harness loose and enjoy the hang.

Nearby

Six Flags Great Adventure map See where this land sits All attractions Every ride in Six Flags Great Adventure Main Street The front gate and promenade, facing the open ground where the Kingda Ka tower stood until 2025. Lakefront The big-coaster section along the lake, where Nitro's 215-foot drop anchors the park's steel lineup.