For my last ever RA fun day work took us to Six Flags Great America located at 1 Great America Parkway, Gurnee, IL. Great America first opened in 1976 and is open from 10:30am until 10pm. Six Flags is a chain of them parks throughout the US, it has thrill rides and a water park. I’m a little iffy with roller-coasters, some of them I love and will keep riding depending on the length of the line, others I grit my teeth and hold on for dear life. When the bus dropped us off we broke into groups and the group I ended up in when straight for the higher roller coasters, one of my coworkers and I didn’t end up enjoying it as much as the others and eventually broke off our group. Before I left everyone asked if I liked roller-coasters and told me that if I didn’t that there really wasn’t a point in going but after that one roller coaster my friend and I found plenty to do.
The park is broken up into different sections; Carousel Plaza, Yankee Harbor, County Fair,Southwest Territory, Orleans Palace, Mardi Gras, Yukon Territory, Hometown Square and Hurricane Harbor. We went on a lot of rides and both my friend and I tried new things. Just the two of us got soaked and lost on the Buccaneer Battle. I thought it would be a fun little boat ride, but it was a water gun battle, riders aboard the ship vs passerby and with the two of us versus many many passerby who were determined to soak us through we pretty much (I) road through the rest of the ride head down and shrieking and blindly trying to shoot water. (Note, it was cold and we were soaked and by the end tried to sit in the sun till we warmed up and dried off). We spun in the Chubasco (a spinning tea cup ride) and the East River Crawler (and up and down and all around octopus ride) and we finished with a ride on the Columbia Carousel. The Columbia Carousel can be viewed from the main entrance and is a beautiful two story carousel with 106 different options to ride. It was introduced the the park in 1976, the year it opened. The top level has moving horses that go up and down and allow riders a beautiful view of the park, the wait for the upper level can be a bit longer than the lower level. The lower level is filled with more exotic animals and magical creatures that don’t move. It was a nice way to end the day. If it hadn’t been so cold we would have gone on more of the water rides. But since we spent most of the day soaked and shivering we couldn’t bring ourselves toward any of the water rides.
We also stopped by in the kids section and got a photo with a Scooby Doo statue and enjoyed some of the DC superhero things about.
Six Flags tends to have a lot of deals, I know there is one with coca cola where you get a discount for bringing in a coke can. They also have fright fest where the park during the day is filled with family friendly thrills and at night turns creepy. At night the park is filled with at least 200 zombies and other ghostly visitors.
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