On our annual NJ summer visit 4 years ago, we took the kids to Six Flag Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ. One of the boys’ favorite parts was the safari. When I was growing up, the safari was a drive thru, and my main memory of it was the baboons jumping on the hood of the car and playing with the windshield wipers. This was highly entertaining for the kids in the car; not so much for my father. But when we went 4 years ago, the safari had been transformed into a “ride”, similar to Disney’s Kilimanjaro Safari. You boarded a vehicle with a driver who taught you all about the animals while driving through the safari. Great Adventure was unique though in that it actually had a stopping point mid-way where you got out and were able to get see some animals up close and feed the giraffes. You could spend as much time there as you wanted and then hop on the next departing vehicle to finish the driving tour. It was a really unique set up and we all loved it.
But with amusement parks closed across the country due to Covid-19, Great Adventure got creative by going back to its roots. Unable to open the main park, they re-opened their safari as a stand-alone drive thru attraction. I thought it was a brilliant way to open up, get some of their staff working again, and offer a fun, covid-safe outing for families.
We bought our tickets ahead of time online, and they were not cheap. At $20 per person (not per car!), it was an expensive outing but we thought it was well worth it. Entry is by reservation only and you buy tickets for a specific date and time. The staff wore masks and scanned your tickets through the closed window of your car, so there was literally no contact with anyone outside of your car.
The safari is broken up into gated sections representing the different continents. Over 1,200 animals live in the 11 different habitats, including (but not limited to) those listed below.
- The Americas – bison, elk, llama
- Afrikka – elephant, zebra, rhinoceros, ostrich
- Wild Plains – peacock, gazelle, oryx
- Serengeti Grassland – blackbuck, addax, gnu
- Kingsland – lions!
- Black Bear Ridge – black bears
- Terra Ursus – brown bears
- Conservation Area – natural area for native NJ species
- Didgeridoo Pass – kangaroo, emu, black swan
- Tigris Asiana – tigers
- Baboon Village – baboons
The safari had a great audio tour that you could listen along to on your mobile device. There were some signs throughout the safari, but without the audio tour, we would not have known what we were looking at most of the time. It was really educational and interesting and a great way to guide people through. The speed limit was 5 mph but many people stopped and watched the animals for extended periods. The road was two lanes so there was never any concern about holding up a line of cars since they could just go around you.
I was the driver and my youngest son was the primary photographer. A 10 year old taking pictures with an iPhone from a moving car through closed windows does not make for National Geographic quality photos, but I’m including a bunch here so you get a sense of what the experience was like.
In The Americas, the Roosevelt Elk were the first and most plentiful animals we saw. There were herds of them walking around, and some cooling down in the water. We also saw Bison, Rhea, Fallow Deer, and Llama.
In Afrikka, the zebras were the main attraction. There were tons of them roaming freely and they even caused a few traffic jams as they wandered aimlessly across the street. There were quite a few baby and young zebras and even a tiny baby ostrich! We also saw elephants, white rhinos, and Asian Water Buffalo.
The giraffes wandering roadside were the coolest part of the Wild Plains section. There were also lots of different types of cattle, antelopes, and other deer-like animals. This section blended into The Serengeti, where we saw other African migratory animals including the Addax, White Tailed Gnu, and Aoudad.
The only place where we experienced a “traffic jam” was in Kingsland, home of the lions. Because they are predatory animals, the lions are kept in caged enclosures so they cannot come right up next to your car. This meant that cars frequently stopped and waited next to the cage to get a better look. We waited in line for a bit and got some decent views of them before pulling around. Little did we (or anyone else apparently) know but there was another enclosure up ahead with an even better viewing position.
The next two lands were both bear habitats – first the American Black Bear and then the European Brown Bear. One fact that was mentioned in the audio tour that I remembered from our in-person tour 4 years ago was that the brown bears could get from one side of the street to the other through an underground tunnel. I thought that was a clever way to allow visitors to see them closer up while still giving them a large habitat that they could safely roam.
We passed through the Conservation Area, which is supposed to be a habitat for native NJ species, without seeing a single bird or animal. It’s a neat concept to leave part of the safari untouched, but I’m not sure it worked out in practice.
Didgeridoo Pass was a relatively small section where we saw primarily kangaroos. Before we knew it we were entering Tigris Asiana, home to both Bengal Tigers and Siberian Tigers. We were so excited to get a glimpse of a Siberian tiger cub playing around. Like a typical kid, it jumped around and on its parents who, like typical overtired parents, tried hard to ignore his antics and sleep.
The final section was the Baboon Village. It cracked me up that one of the FAQs on the website is “Will baboons jump on the cars like in the old days?” because that is exactly what I remember from my childhood (aka “the old days”). Clearly these troublemakers had a reputation! (And the answer is no, a fence was installed in 2003.) They were still fun to see and the safari tried to give them some substitute entertainment with some old roller coaster pieces. It was a really cool idea, although they seemed to use it more for lounging than for playing.
It took us close to an hour and a half to drive through the safari and we all loved it. I was really pleasantly surprised by the whole experience. Even as the driver I was able to thoroughly enjoy the safari and, more importantly, I was still able share in the boys’ excitement at what they were seeing too. It was such a slow, go-at-your-pace experience that we could take our time, watch things for as long as we wanted, and marvel in the different animals together. The safari was laid out really well and there was a great variety (and quantity) of animals. It felt like we saw something new every few feet. It was exciting and fun and it was a really neat experience to see all of this from the comfort of our own car. I highly recommend doing the drive thru safari (but maybe only once given the super high price tag!).
