Theme Park Discussion / Six Flags Great America Review 2013

So, i visited Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois over the weekend and thought i would do a little review of its current coaster lineup, seeing as i never have before.

First off, fantastic day to go, looked rainy all day but never did, thus cool temperatures and almost no lines on a Saturday! Double Woot Woot

Coasters (In order ridden) RCDB Page

X-Flight
-A great ride, a lot of glorious speed and what not, though i generally spent most of the time thinking how it will pale in comparison to Gatekeeper (which i will be riding in 3 weeks). Great first drop, a lot of interaction for a Six Flags coaster. Like most coasters at this park, however, it really lacks any relation to the area around it or the landscape.

American Eagle
-I love this woodie. Just an old traditional racer, but with a shit ton of air-time. Its getting rough in its age, especially the really long giant double helix, but a better ride this time then in the past

V2
-I'm continually surprised by how much i like this coaster. Simple, repetitive, yet a lot of fun for something so small. I think this coaster is a perfect description of this park's rides: Compact but thrilling

Batman BACKWARDS!!!!!
-Yup, they switched around the trains for the first half of this season. Was is better? I'd say both yes and no. On one hand it was so intense and fun to ride something i know so well backwards and feel like its a completely different coaster. On the other hand, Batman usually gives me a slight headache, backwards it almost made me sick. Its maybe twice as intense a ride going backwards, which is why we didn't ride it twice. And from a more aesthetic point of view, part of my love for Batman is seeing how beautifully compact and smooth the layout is, which was hard to appreciate going backwards. My overall thoughts were A fun experience, but i prefer it going forward.

Superman
-I'm not a super fan of Superman, except for that loop. Overall i feel its not tall enough to be impressive in that aspect, yet not long enough or inventive enough with flying elements to be a clever layout. The only feature that really keeps me riding it over and over is that inverted loop. That loop is crazy good crazy intense, and its worth the wait just to ride that thing alone.

Viper BACKWARDS
-So, they also reversed the cars on their older traditional woodie, and in this case i thought it really improved the ride. In Batman the backwards cars just made you unprepared for getting thrown around, but with Viper you were unprepared for a ton of small airtime hills. The result was that you couldn't prepare for anything and thus the drops were so much more exciting cause they are unexpected. As well, going down the first drop was fantastic looking back up the hill. Just felt like you were falling and it made the drop look even more steep.

Raging Bull
-My favorite coaster in the park, and with good reason. I love hypercoasters, and this one manages to be fast, provide a ton of airtime, and just be so smooth. The first drop is always fantastic, especially if you hold your feet up cause you fly out of your seat. The final helix and turns are great cause it just lets you have all the speed without any hills and shit. Great ride

Demon
-i try to avoid this coaster, but my friends like it cause they like loops over drops. Its old but unlike gloriously rough woodies, its just a really rough corkscrew and bangs my head around for 2 boring loops and 2 boring corkscrews. It Was Pain

Whizzer
-maybe the only coaster in the park to actually use its terrain, its pretty old and rough, but its also adorable and fun just cause its the only coaster you get to fly through trees and such. Though, it broke down while we were there. Essentially it go stuck on the ending brake run and wouldn't move up into the station. The workers who were like our age wanted to just push it into the station, but protocol dictated that they had to wait for an older man with a massive mustache to come push it. I felt like i was in RCT, waiting for the mechanic to respond to call and head toward the whizzer. He just gave it a big push, and then everything worked. Apparently, RCT mechanics hitting the track with a hammer is not to far off....

Spacely's Sprocket Rockets
-operator gave us weird looks the whole time. Ride says adults must be accompanied by an adult. We be rebels living on the edge!

Littler Dipper
-I literally freaked out the whole time cause this coaster has a curved station. My friends didn't understand why i was so excited, so i had to explain how rare they are. Time well Spent

So, overall a pretty good day. We rode everything except Ragin' Cajun', which is pretty sickening and had a weirdly long line. We also rode the Bumper Cars about 20 times. Car 24 for the win, its way faster than the others and such a smooth little lady. If you ever visit, just remember car number 24!

SFGAmerica is a good little park. A ton of really fun rides all packed together, nothing you can't find anywhere else, but always a good time.

FK

Great Read! I love GAM. One of the few parks I've been to, and one of the best SF parks as well. (though the best parts are remnants of the Marriott Days IMO)

V2 was a lot of fun when I was there to. Any park park that is tight on room but can spare a big long stretch should have one of these. Giant shuttle coasters are usually pretty great (Impulse/Mr. Freeze/GIB's)

Superman is still my only B&M Flyer and I liked it. Pretty dull though. X-Flight certainly looks better.

I may do one of these for some local parks.

Apparently, RCT mechanics hitting the track with a hammer is not to far off....


I literally freaked out the whole time cause this coaster has a curved station. My friends didn't understand why i was so excited, so i had to explain how rare they are. Time well Spent

<3

This was a fun read, especially since I'm going there, along with Cedar Point for the first time this summer. Now I know a little bit of what to expect.

Yeah, would like to get to this park eventually.

On the topic of impulse coasters, I have to agree that they are great rides with a small footprint, Possessed at my park is always a fun ride, and even more fun to operate (messing with the guests in any situation is fun, especially when they're about to be launched)

I've ridden two fliers, one B&M (SUF at SFGAdv) and Firehawk at KI. I have to say, Firehawk was a much more entertaining ride, probably one of the few Vekomas worth riding.

On Demon, I got to ride Viper at Darien Lake, probably similar on how jolty and rough it is.

For Whizzer, that's honestly pretty close to what our maintenance team does. During power outages, maintenance has been known to push Possessed's train back into the station on a few occasions

Definitely a good review, keep doing this because we enjoy reading them (so we don't make the mistake of waiting forever for boring rides