A visit to Six Flags / Great America

Last Monday (a week ago), we joined Scott and grandsons Blaise and Thatcher at Six Flags / Great America in Gurnee, Illinois. Carl and Sue had first gone 6 weeks after it opened in 1976, and had visited a few times since then, the last time around 2000. He remembered having seen a number of shows at the park when it was first opened, but now it is almost all rides, games of chance, and food booths.

Obligatory selfie at the entrance!

I figured we'd better start on a ride that I knew I could stomach! Amazingly, they have seatbelts on the carousel horses (from the pipe you are required to put a belt around your body).

I had read about some different roller coasters online, and the review indicated that The Dark Knight might be okay for less adventurous souls... unfortunately, the review did not mention that it isn't great for older people with stiff necks and backs! Lots of tight, quick turns in a dark environment so not easy to brace yourself for them!

When we finished at The Dark Knight, Scott and the boys were in line waiting for the Superman roller coaster. Although the app had indicated it only had a 20 minute wait (which was the case for The Dark Knight, too), they had already been in line for 40 minutes and still had a ways to go. Grandson Thatcher didn't want to ride on that coaster anyway, so he made his way out and joined us.

We did the "balloons" ride -- Thatcher had one side of the basket of the balloon to himself!

After hearing that we found The Dark Knight a bit challenging, Thatcher recommended that we go on The Little Dipper.

It turns out that The Little Dipper had previously been in Kiddieland Amusement Park in Melrose Park and that Carl rode it when he was a boy growing up.

Note that they indicate that the description indicates it as "Moderate", and "A family coaster with gentle drops and quick turns".

I had not noticed the description on The Dark Knight, so I cannot compare, but I did notice a bullet similar to second bullet here was also on The Dark Knight, indicating the number and composition requirements of the rider's extremities. I don't recall ever seeing anything like that on an amusement park ride before!

We were ready to make our ride! 

And we enjoyed it with minimal additional neck or back pain!

Thatcher recommended the swings, so we went on them -- easy on old joints!

Scott's family has season passes, so they have visited the park multiple times this summer -- but this ride had never been open when they had visited. We started to get in line, but then texted Scott, and they were almost done at the Superman ride (almost a 2 hour (!!!) wait!), so we waited to get into line until Scott and Blaise were able to join us.

On the ride -- before leaving the boarding area...

Before getting wet!

Uh, oh... it looks like we're going into rapids!

Whoops, got a little wet there!

Getting wet was a large part of the fun -- at one point, Scott got totally blasted by a stream of water shot from the side of the path of the ride -- it was pretty warm, so getting wet was okay and, to some extent, enjoyable!

Scott and the boys left to get in line for some other roller coasters -- while we tried a couple of tamer rides...

... including the railroad that went around the whole park.

We finished up the day by having dinner at Giordano's, not too far from the park.

We were rather shocked by the costs for Six Flags -- parking was $35/car, and the entry fee varies by the demand each day, but the day we went would have been a total of $130 for both of us. Thankfully, Scott had guest passes that we could use, and we could use one of the boy's season pass to get free parking -- total savings of $165!!! While we enjoyed it, we would not have gone if the cost was going to be $165. We could see why getting season passes are worth it -- if you go twice or more, the season pass is less than the daily rate + parking. If you know someone who has season passes, even if they have already used their free guest passes (we think that each season pass gets one free guest pass per season), season pass holders can purchase additional guest passes at $25 each in the app -- so that is a much better deal than paying the daily entry fee.