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| Pepe Le Pew and Taz |
Disclosure: My family received two complimentary tickets to come visit the park. All opinions in this post are 100% mine.
If you follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, you would have seen that my family took a road trip to Six Flags Great America outside of Chicago this past week. We love to go to amusement parks, so when they asked if we would like to come visit, it was hard to say no. Since we live about 5 hours away, we decided to stay overnight. We chose a hotel that we found on the Six Flags Great America Website. We decided on the Motel 6, because it was just a few miles from the park, and children 17 and under stay for free so it was in our budget.
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| Columbia Carousel |
When you enter the park, one of the very first things that you see is the double decker Columbia Carousel. We had never been on a double decker carousel before, so we had to give it a try.
Kyle had other plans. He wanted to go straight to the coasters, which is why he is glaring at me in this picture. He is sitting on one of the benches provided for riders who can not or do not want to ride on a horse. While we were on the carousel, we saw Taz and Pepe LePew were posing for pictures nearby. As soon as we got off the ride, we went down and got in line. My kids thought I was a bit crazy, but I really wanted to meet Taz. He is always so much fun. When none of my kids would pose with us (what is it with teenagers anyway!) Taz got Kara to be in the picture.
Very close to the carousel was Sky Trek Tower. It gives you a 360 degree view of the entire park, Hurricane Harbor, and the surrounding area. We liked that we could see all of the coasters, even though we did not know which one was which quite yet.
Six Flags is divided into 9 different sections. We left Carousel Plaza, and went over to Hometown Square. First up was the Whizzer, which is considered a family coaster because smaller children can ride with their parents. We did enjoy this ride, but my son was not thrilled to find out he would have to be buckled in with his older sister since two people sit together in the same seat. They decided to go on the ride separately. At the end of the ride we got quite a scare, our bags with all of our belongings were gone! What we did not realize was when Kristina got off the ride in the train before us, she picked up our bags. Since she did not bring of her own, I was not expecting her to do that. Whew, crisis averted!
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| Chicken Dinner at Aunt Martha's Boarding House |
When we got off the Whizzer, we were all getting hungry. The night before we searched the website, and put Aunt Martha's Boarding House on a list of places we might like to eat. When we realized it was right by the Whizzer, we decided to go in for lunch. The cost of the meals at most of the Six Flags restaurants are in the $10-$12 range. If we lived closer and went more than once or twice a year, we would definitely get the meal plan. You pay once for the pass, and then you get a lunch and a dinner with every visit. Since we did not have one, we had to pay cash. The cost of a cup of pop is steep unless you have a refillable cup. (another thing we would get if we lived closer) They did have a special on water bottles, which is better for you anyway. You get a lot of food in the chicken dinner at Aunt Martha's. It was enough to fill all of us up. (even Kyle, who got some extra chicken from his sisters) If you have younger kids, or are a light eater, this would be a great meal to share with someone.
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| Buccaneer Bay |
Next up was the Buccaneer Bay. You travel around the bay in moving boats with water cannons. You can shoot water at other boats, and people who are standing in certain areas on the shore. While that might sound like fun, they can also shoot water right back at you. We did get a little wet on this ride, but it was a nice warm sunny day so it felt good.
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| Southwest Territory |
We went over to the Southwest Territory where both the Viper, and Raging Bull were located. Both had wait times of about an hour. Kyle did not want to wait that long, so the kids went on some of the other rides.
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| Ricochet |
The chose to go on the River Rocker, and the Ricochet. I decided to sit both of those out, because I am not too fond of spinning and rocking so soon after lunch. This allowed me to get some really fun pictures, so it all worked out. The wait on the coasters was still long, so we caught the Gunfight at the Six Flags Corral show and head over to the County Fair.
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| X Flight test harness |
The County Fair is home to the X Flight, Demon and American Eagle. This is about as close as we could get to getting Kara on the X Flight. It is a winged coaster,that has five inversions and a barrel roll. Kyle was a bit nervous about the ride too, so we head over to the American Eagle. (I somehow missed getting a picture of this ride) It is a wooden racing coaster which we are used to riding at Cedar Point. This ride was a lot of fun! We all loved it. Kara, being on the thin side though, was whipped around a little bit more than the rest of us. When she got off the ride, she said she had a headache but soldiered on. We got on the Scenic Railway and rode it all around the park, to give her time to rest a bit.
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| Scooby Doo |
In the Yukon Territory, we rode the Logger's Run. It is a log ride where at the end you go down a big hill, and get wet. We lucked out again, and only got moderately wet. I wanted to go meet Scooby Doo who was greeting guests, but this time none of my kids would go with me. I had to settle for just taking his picture.
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| Kyle and the Batmobile |
While the girls were on the Whirligig in Yankee Harbor, Kyle was checking out the Batmobile. We were thisclose to getting on the Batman, but Kara's headache was getting worse, and Kyle refused to wait for the projected time of an hour.
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| The Batman Ride |
We might not have been able to ride the Batman, but I did get a great picture. In Mardi Gras, we rode the Ragin Cagin, and the Big Easy Balloons. Looking back on it, it was not the best choice for Kara to ride the Ragin Cagin, which is a coaster that spins you 360 degrees and has hairpin turns. It was probably my least favorite ride of the day, because I am NOT a fan of spinning rides, but I took one for the kids.
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| Superman Ultimate Flight |
We only had one more section of the park to see, which was Orleans Place. We had been looking forward to riding the Superman Ultimate Flight ride, but at that time the wait was 75 minutes, and Kara still had her headache. The Superman coaster turns in such a way that you feel like you are flying. We then went over to the Dark Knight, which was less intense and a shorter ride. When you are in line for the Dark Knight, you really feel like you are in Gotham City. When we got off the ride, Kara's head was still hurting. Since we wanted to stay until closing to see the igNight show, we decided we would go to the First Aid Station to see if they could help with Kara's headache. They were super nice, and very helpful. They did have some children's aspirin to give her, and also a nice place to rest and drink some water. After about 15 minutes, we decided it would help to go get something to eat.
Kara was not really feeling up to eating a full meal, and the rest of us were not super hungry. We found a funnel cake stand near where the igNight show was to take place, so we shared a couple of Funnel Cake Sundaes. Yum!
The igNight-Grand Finale show was incredible! We all loved it. It had great music, dancing, singing, lasers and pyrotechnics. What is not to love! They made it so easy to sing and dance along. We were all very glad to that we stayed to see it. We knew it would be our only chance since it's limited engagement ends this weekend. The quality of our video is not good enough to share in this post, but you can see more about this show on the park website, and on Youtube.
Overall, we had a great time even though we did not get to ride some of the bigger coasters, and Kara did not feel well part of the day. This just gives us something to look forward to the next time we go!
