This Six Flags is like any other you would visit in another state. It offers the same rides and amenities with incredible service. It will take you some time to journey there if you are near Chicago city limits, but once you're there you have the theme park, the Gurnee Mall, and neighboring outlets to get involved with. ...read more

Remember when Great America was owned by Marriott's? It was a true Diseny-like experience with clean restrooms, friendly employees, great foods, good shows and a wonderful park. Six Flags has let the park go downhill . Great American is now very second rate. You will see a lot of peeling paint and dirty facilities. The whole place looks worn out and need of repair. The employees are a bit rude and very poorly trained. No one seems to know what is going on or how to handle food properly. Admission price is high. Food and merchandise prices are sky high. Parking is $15.00! A 20-oz soda is $3.50! Popcorn is $8.00! "Homemade" fudge is made from mix ("just add water") . Best bet: Avoid any food outlet operated by Six Flags - the pizza is especially bad. Burgers are mystery meat. Look for the brands like Papa Johns, Panda Express or Johnny Rockets for places that are cleaner and have better value. Call ahead - most of the time the kid's areas are not even operating.. When they boast of 35 children's attractions, they include a slide and swing set. Note: If the day's attendance is low, shops, restaurants and rides will begin to close. Staff will say they are having "electrical problems". Live shows are dull and uninspired...music is on tape. Some of the shows are just videos of the Country Music Awards. The parade is just a waste of time. Perhaps Six Flags could clean the costumes and repaint the floats. once in a while. Another tip: Avoid the early season in April and May - employees are completely untrained - and end of season (October) - no one cares anymore. So go with low expectations....and lots of cash. ...read more

My boyfriend and I went to Great America for Fright Fest on Saturday, 10/20/2007 from 4PM to 10PM. At 5PM and 6:30PM, we walked around the entire park looking for the shortest food line and found that they were all extremely long. We figured the lines must move reasonably fast even though they were long. Several food stands and restaurants were completely closed, despite it being one of the busiest days of the year for the park. We figured the folks behind the counter must be doing the best they could to keep the line moving, so we waited patiently.. For OVER AN HOUR EACH TIME! When we got to the front of the line, we saw that they were completely and totally taking their sweet time, despite a LONG line of hungry, overcharged, tired people waiting in line. I'm fine with waiting a while if the folks behind the counter are doing the best they can, but they were reeeeeeeally taking their time and moving verrrrrrrrry slowly. No sense of urgency whatsoever. None. And the few managers we saw were clearly not telling their employees to pick up the pace. When we were hungry the second time, we thought we got lucky finding a food booth out of the way by the kids land and there was just one lonely nearly elderly woman behind the counter. However, it turned out the line was on the other side of the stand with about 40 people waiting in it. Why would they have ONE person (moving slowly, might I add) working a LARGE food booth? I think that management really just does not care. If they did, they would at least have managers advising employees to move a little quicker. Granted, it was an extremely crowded day, but it looked like they anticipated an extremely slow day, not even an average day. Whoever's job it is to manage these things is either surfing the web all day instead of planning or they are doing it on purpose for some reason, like to keep the lines for rides a little shorter because people are waiting hours just for a water or some food! NOT cool! ...read more