bigjohnson51 Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 I am going to visit Six Flags Great America on June 29th which is a Monday. I am wondering if I should purchase a Flash Pass for the six of us. This will cost $87 if I purchase them online. I am wondering if any regulars know how the crowds are on a day like this and if a Flash Pass would be necessary? I'm not sure about the prices for them at the park but the website says they are a bit more. Does anyone know how much "a bit" is? Is this something I should decide when we arrive? The group I am going with tends to "burn out" sometimes at amusement parks so it would be nice to have some information because I am a bit up in the air on what I should do. Thank you for the help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterfan99 Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 ^ The 89 price might be for only the regular one, not the gold. I know the gold one is around 100 for just 2 people and they do tend to go early. For crowds, they are already getting thick right now but not awful. When I went last summer in middle August, the crowds were big but manageable. Hitting the rides that tend to load slow (Superman, Ragin Cajun, V2) is a big key to doing all the coasters in a day with no flash pass or the regular. If you just want to do coasters, you might be able to do them all in a day if you are there open-close and pick a good strategy. I will be hitting the park many times between when you go and now, so I'll try my best to let you know on crowds as it gets closer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigjohnson51 Posted June 18, 2009 Author Share Posted June 18, 2009 Yeah there is no way I would be able to afford the Gold Pass for six people! But thank you for the advice on what to hit early. Keep in touch on the crowds if you remember! Hope it's not too crowded due to it being the Monday before the 4th... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamendan Posted June 30, 2009 Share Posted June 30, 2009 Hi - Planning a trip myself and wondering how your June 29 trip went. Do you think it would be worth it to buy the Flash Pass? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigjohnson51 Posted July 2, 2009 Author Share Posted July 2, 2009 My trip on June 29th was a pretty good one! We got to the park about 5 minutes early. It was about 10 minutes later than I wanted but it turned out to be ok. We decided that we were not going to get a flash pass for the 6 of us since looking at the crowds it didn't seem necessary. We waited about 10-15 minutes for Superman once the ride opened about 5 minutes late. I took monsterfan99's advise and hit Ragin' Cajun and Vertical Velocity early and that worked out really nice. Then we moved through the park pretty quickly with waits not being too long on Batman or Iron Wolf. We hit a little bit of a wait on American Eagle and we only rode one side. It was then about 1:00 and we ate lunch. After this time the lines got pretty hefty but it wasn't too bad considering we only had 5 more rides to hit including Dark Knight that we skipped over at the beginning of the day. Viper was about 30-45 minutes but was worth the wait. Raging Bull was worth the wait but neared an hour so we had no re-rides. Demon had about a 30 minute wait which wasn't worth it but we had the time. Whizzer was at about 20. It was close to 5:00 so we had time for a 45 minute wait for Dark Knight. I can't decide if I should have hit this earlier or not but it worked out. We hit the log flume and were done with the park around 7:00. So for my experience I am glad I did not get a flash pass because we got through the day fine. But if it were much more of a crowd it would have been nice. My group was tired by the end of the day even though I would have liked to re-ride Raging Bull, Viper, and Superman. Now keep in mind that we got through the day at 7 without riding really any flats. If you are going with a smaller group it might be worth buying the flash pass depending on the day you will be going. Like I said it would be helpful for re-rides and getting through the day quicker. But if you ride Ragin Cajun hit it early! That thing is not worth waiting in line for! Hitting it second after Superman may be the way to go. Vertical Velocity also for some reason didn't seem to have too bad of a wait when I was there but might as well hit it early while you are there. Well I've ran out of stuff to talk about. When will you be going? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monsterfan99 Posted July 3, 2009 Share Posted July 3, 2009 Glad to hear you enjoyed your trip. Some points to what you mentioned - Ragin Cajun line is getting insane at this point afternoon until near close. Last night, when the parking lot was half to 3/4full, the line was well over an hour. Even the single rider line was taking 30 minutes. At close, it is still 15-30 minutes. Hit the ride early. - Dark Knight has been walk on near close every night this year. However, if you want to watch the pre-show, they turn it off an hour-half hour before close. - V2 and Batman both tend to be walk-on near close as well. V2 is getting near 90-120 minutes in the afternoon. - Hit Superman FIRST!!!! Even at close the ride has a 30-45 minute wait at best. Last night at around 7 pm, the line was 2 plus hours and completely filled the que. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted July 5, 2009 Share Posted July 5, 2009 Hi - Planning a trip myself and wondering how your June 29 trip went. Do you think it would be worth it to buy the Flash Pass? Here are my thoughts on the whole "Flash Pass" virtual queue thing in general. Now everyone has completely different takes on this, so please read my thoughts for what they are worth. If you read the trip report above you'll see that while they did get on most rides in a fairly decent amount of time they did wait about 3 hours for three rides (an average of 1 hour each). Now, I'm not sure what the rest of their waits were because it wasn't mentioned, but my overall opinion on waiting in general is this... "Why wait in a line when you don't have to?" It's one thing if you live near the park and you can go back at any time, but if you're coming in from out of town, and are already spending money on the trip, what's another $40ish per person that will allow you to get in MORE rides during your trip. When we did Gold Flash Pass at Great America in 2007 I don't think we waited more than 5 or 10 minutes on our Flash Pass for ANY ride. While it does sound like bigjohnson had a good visit to the park, use his trip report as a gauge for your visit. Would you rather get a Gold Flash Pass and perhaps be able to get some re-rides on Raging Bull or maybe do some flats or do you not mind spending an hour in line for three coasters? It all depends on how much your time is worth. I remember going to Islands of Adventure with a group of people once and we all bough the Express Passes except for one person. This person didn't feel it was worth it because the park wasn't that busy. And while, it wasn't THAT busy, the lines were about 20 - 25 minutes per ride, but our Express Passes got us on each ride IMMEDIATLEY! I think we used our passes for 8 rides which saved us over 2 hours that day. That extra 2 hours allowed us to have a nice sit down meal, we did one or two more rides that we may not have done otherwise, and we took our day at a much more leisurely pace than we would have without them. Remember, that even 20 minutes lines add up! If you can shave 15 minutes off a 20 minute line with a virtual queue device, and you can do that 8 or 10 times during your day, that's a LOT of time you've just saved! But is it worth the money? That's what you need to decide. I personally say "ABSOLUTELY YES!!!" but others may not feel the same way. Hope this gives you some information to think about. --Robb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantaeus Posted July 5, 2009 Share Posted July 5, 2009 I have to agree with Robb. Back in June, a friend and I drove 6-7 hours to Great Adventure from Rochester. This also happened to be opening day for Bizarro. The park was pretty well mobbed, mainly from bus groups. We purchased the regular Flash Pass, and it was worth every cent. For the first 2 hours, it seemed to be in Gold mode, as all of our waits were less than 15 minutes, allowing us to bypass a 1.5 hour wait for El Toro, a 1 hour wait for Bizarro, and 1.25 hour wait for Superman, each multiple times. After that, the times started to increase, but with that extra time we ate, went to the arcade, rode some flats and hit a few other coasters with smaller lines. Without it, we would have spent half our day waiting for 3 rides, making the 13 hour round trip drive not worth it. The only gripe I have is that I think our bot could shut down Nitro. Each time we reserved, it went down for a decent amount of time, and we never got to ride. Upon making a new reservation for something else, it would start back up. When by yourself or with one other person, I feel the price is a bit steep. we had purchased discount entry passes (ours were $25), so it was a bit easier to swallow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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