Sfga

[Frito]

What are your thoughts on Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, IL. Does it have the problems that most other Six Flags parks have, or is this one maintained pretty well? I'm looking at taking a group of high school aged kids to this park on our yearly trip, but I won't if the park staff are as unattentive as they were at SFA.

[Harpo]

I didn't get to Great America last year, because I just didn't feel it was worth my time. I have been to that park quite a few times, including twice (two consecutive days) in 2003. It has many of the same problems as the other Six Flags parks -- not as bad as some SF parks, worse than some others.

On my last visit to Indiana Beach, I encountered some folks from the Chicago area who told me that Great America was quite a bit closer for them, but they preferred making the extra drive to Indiana Beach because they simply felt that IB was more fun.

I hope that info is helpful!

[raptorrvnge4928]

Hello Frito,
I by no means have the same theme park experience as Harpo, but I would have to agree with him on his opinion of Gr. Am. in IL. I went there last year, on a weekend trip to Chicago, and by all means, it was a pretty fun trip overall. But I would have to say, SFGA has some problems with efficiency, more than problems of unattentiveness in the area of safety. The most popular rides, such as S:UF would not send out trains to full capacity when they had waits of well over an hour. Other rides failed to have more than one train running when they had very long lines. And the most disappointing thing was that I had been twice since they had debuted Deja vu', but had still been unable to ride this particular ride. From heresay, I hear you can go to Six Flags at any given time, and not be there when all rides were in working condition. If you would like to know about particular instances I am talking about, just pm me here and I would be happy to tell you about them,(No offense, I dont want to start the classic 'SFGA is a good theme park' flame war) but I will say that none of them had anything to do with the idea of safety, just merely customer relations, moreso. It is not a bad park--it could be much better. But then we all have our opinions of theme parks.

The rides were pretty good, and I hear they have a new waterpark coming this year. If these are kids who you will allow to run around on their own, only to meet back with you at a later time for lunch, or perhaps when you leave, by all means, this might be a good park for them to hang out in for the day...

I hope this helped.

[Frito]

Thanks for your posts. I think we're going to shoot for Holiday World on July 2.