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Six Flags Great America! - 7/16/26

Time for another big trip report post, and I've got a lot to talk about with this one!

This was my second time ever visiting the park after my first visit in 2024, and overall, I had a good time! My primary goal was to ride all the coasters I'd missed the first time I came to the park, and for the most part, I was able to achieve that! Of the park's 16 coasters, I rode 12 of them! I'll detail my experience with each of them as this post goes on but for the most part, everything I rode was solid! Most of the new credits I got were for coasters that I'd either ridden clones of at other parks, or other coasters that were very similar in style so I knew what to expect for most of them going in. It was still nice to get (near) credit completion for the park though hehe :3

But talking about my day in a bit more detail before getting into the coasters themselves, one of the things I was most excited about for my day was the fact that I was able to go with one of my best friends! As part of my larger long weekend in Chicago, I got to go to the park with @pacsbs! Due to some unforeseen circumstances, we had to split up pretty early in our day and Scrap had to sit out almost all the coasters so I went about the park alone </3 That was definitely a bummer not being able to ride most of the rides together, but getting to be at the park together at all really genuinely makes up for it. Being able to share something that is so special to me with one of my best friends, even in a limited fashion, really meant the world to me <33 Plus, Scrap and I agreed that we'd do a revenge tour of either here or Cedar Point in the future to make up for it, so I've got that to look forward to >:3

But with just being on my own for most of the day, I decided to make sure I would be able to ride everything I wanted to get on. The park was pretty busy since we were there on a Saturday (we'd initially planned on going on the prior Thursday but the air quality was so bad that we bumped it to Saturday), plus we had to leave by like 5 or so to get back down to Chicago for the Flickerstick concert we were going to, so time was kinda limited. So I did something I'd (for the most part) never done before, and that was get a Fast Lane skip-the-line pass. I'd used single shot Fast Lanes to skip one or two lines at Kings Island earlier this year, but never gotten the highest tier to use all day. It was expensive but it definitely was the right move, since I was able to get on everything I wanted to with minimal wait. I don't think it's something I'll do often, but in this circumstance, it really worked out.

Like with my Kings Island post from a few months back, each of my new credits will get dedicated Tac Talks Coasters posts going more in-depth with my thoughts on them, probably over the course of this coming week! I'll give my general thoughts on them here though along with more in-depth thoughts on the re-rides I got on things that already got TTC posts :3

On to the coasters! These will be covered in the order I rode them during the day, then I'll have my ranking for all the park's coasters at the end ^^

Whizzer - 1 ride - Coaster Credit 192!

One of the three coasters I was most excited to ride! Whizzer was down all day during my first visit, so I missed out then on riding this classic coaster that opened with the park back in 1976. But it was the first ride we went for during our visit! I'd never done a ride in this specific style before, so I was interested in seeing how it would feel! The closest comparisons I would give for Whizzer would be like, riding a Schwarzkopf coaster like SooperDooperLooper at Hersheypark, but in the bobsled style seats of a ride like Reptilian at Kings Dominion lol. I'd never done a ride with an electrically powered spiral lift hill either, so that was rlly neat too! I sat in the back car of the train by myself, so I had a lot of room there and I got thrown around more than I had expected to, but in a fun way lol. Whizzer isn't overly intense by any means. It straddles the line between family and thrill coaster very well. But even with that, I thought it had a very nice sense of speed, some surprising lateral forces and I really liked its setting among the trees in the middle of the park. Whizzer wasn't the most mind blowing thing in the world, but it didn't have to be! Like I said, it's a classic, and now that it's the last of its kind, I'm sure Great America will do everything in their power to keep it around as long as they can.

X-Flight - 1 ride

I'd ridden X-Flight during my first visit to the park in 2024, but I had only gotten one ride, so I was interested in taking another lap on it! I sat on the left side of the train towards the back of the train, so I was able to get some good whip and pull through the elements on this one. The vest restraints weren't the most comfortable of course but that's a problem that X-Flight is well known for so I knew about it from my last ride lol. I do think X-Flight has a very solid layout for it's size. For something that's only 130 feet tall and 3,000 feet long, they really do pack in a lot of solid elements here. The thing I think X-Flight does best though are the near-miss elements, with three of them here. One is a fast swoop through a hangar door, and the last two are back to back as you slowly twist through an airport control tower and then through an A-frame support. Great stuff. I'd still put it as my second favorite wing coaster, behind GateKeeper but ahead of Wild Eagle.

American Eagle - 2 rides (one on each side) - Coaster Credit 193!

One of the other coasters I was most excited to get a ride on! Since my 2024 visit was early in the season, American Eagle was still having trackwork done on it and wasn't open when I went. But this time it was, and what was even better: for the park's 50th anniversary this year, it was racing for the first time in almost 10 years! American Eagle, much like Whizzer, is widely regarded as a classic amongst Great America regulars, so like I said, I was super hyped to try it out. The biggest point of hesitancy I had going on was how rough the ride would be. I've heard that this one can be like, really bad, especially in that huge helix turnaround at the far end of the ride. But I was very glad to see that I didn't think it was really that rough at all! It wasn't glass smooth of course, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I was worried it would be. My first ride earlier in the day was on the blue side, and the red side hadn't opened yet so I didn't get a full race (although they did dispatch the empty red train alongside us so it wasn't nothing haha). A sign at the ride's entrance said that it would just be blue side operating all day, but when I checked back later, red side was open too! So I snagged a ride on that side too and got a full race! I'll go more in depth with my thoughts on the ride experience in my upcoming dedicated post talking about the ride, but in general, I found it to be the best of the big wooden racing coasters I've done! Better than the ones at Kings Dominion, Carowinds and Kings Island!

Wrath of Rakshasa - 2 rides - Coaster Credit 194!

The last of the three coasters I was most excited to try out was Great America's newest coaster! This dive coaster just opened last year and looked like a really interesting ride! First and foremost, this ride is absolutely gorgeous. I love the colors of the blue track and tan supports, and this ride just has a presence to it. It's huge, placed smack in the middle of the park, and has pathways going basically all over underneath it, so you can get all kinds of wild viewpoints of this ride from really anywhere you stand near it. It reminds me a lot of Valravn at Cedar Point in that way. I thought it had a really great layout too. The fact that the park and B&M were able to cram this many back to back elements into such a small footprint really is impressive. The pacing is fantastic, it feels like the ride never lets up or slows down between any of its elements, and each one flows basically seamlessly into the next. This is absolutely an inversion focused ride, with five of them packed in, and all of them are great. Like American Eagle, my main concern going in was how it was gonna ride in terms of smoothness. A lot of new B&M coasters that have opened in the last couple of years have had issues with roughness, and although I'd been avoiding reviews of Rakshasa before riding it, talk of it not being the smoothest ride did slip through the cracks here and there. But again, I'm pleased to state that I didn't find it to be that bad in that regard. It's not perfect, some of the profiling of the turns and stuff definitely sort of throw you around in a way that older B&Ms don't usually do, but I wasn't nearly bad enough to ruin the ride for me. The one asterisk to that being on the two rides I got, they were both in the front row, and I've heard that the back row is far and away the roughest on the train, so had I gotten put back there, I might've come away with a different opinion. But since I got some solid rides on this, I really liked it! Putting it behind the bigger dives I've done with Valravn and SheiKra, but ahead of Iron Menace.

Superman - Ultimate Flight - 1 ride - Coaster Credit 195!

The first of several coasters I'll be talking about here that are clones of rides I've done at other parks lol, the recaps for these are gonna be much shorter than the ones above lmao. I've done Superman at Great Adventure a few times so I knew what to expect going in for this one haha. It's always cool to be able to get on a flying coaster, since there aren't that many of them in the US. I always enjoy the layouts of the Superman flyers, even though there's not a ton to them. The highlight easily is that pretzel loop. You pull some great forces through that element, but it did get a little shaky at that point too. I'm not sure at the moment whether I put this one above Great Adventure's Superman or not, since this one did run a little shakier I think, but I thought it's setting was better with more trees around it compared to the one at Great Adventure that's just out in a grass covered section of the parking lot lol.

Joker - 1 ride - Coaster Credit 196!

In comparison to basically everything else I rode during this visit, I was not particularly eager to ride Joker lmao. After the rather uncomfortable ride I had on SF New England's Joker last year, that reminded me that these S&S 4D Free Spins are just really not my type of ride. The flipping on its own isn't really the problem, it's the quick changes in direction from flipping forwards to flipping backwards and getting your weight thrown into your restraints. It's just not a comfortable sensation. Thankfully, this one wasn't as bad as the one at New England, and regardless of where you ride one, at least they're not very long, so if you're not getting a good ride, you don't have to put up with it for too long. Since I got a marginally better ride on this one, I put it as my second favorite of the four Free Spins I've done, above the ones at New England and Fiesta Texas, but below Great Adventure's. These rides are generally a one and done for me.

Batman The Ride - 1 ride - Coaster Credit 197!

Another ride that I've done a clone of at Great Adventure, but this was the original Batman clone! Actually, the first Invert ever! It was definitely ambitious for its time, and props to Great America for running with B&M from the beginning. They'd gotten B&M's first ever coaster, a standup with Iron Wolf in 1990, then they got the first Invert here with Batman two years later, one of B&M's first Hypers with Raging Bull in 1999, and one of their first Wing coasters with X-Flight in 2012. Plus Rakshasa as another B&M last year haha. But back to Batman, it's clear why there are so many clones of this layout all over, it really is a little powerhouse of a ride. Small but compact and VERY forceful. Those corkscrews especially really feel like they'll rip your feet off from the positive and lateral forces. I thought this one, similar to Superman, was slightly more shaky than the one at Great Adventure, but that would make sense since it's a year or so older, and that still didn't detract from the ride too much.

Flash: Vertical Velocity - 1 ride - Coaster Credit 198!

Despite sharing a name with a coaster at Great Adventure, the clone of this one that I've done is not there, but is rather Possessed at Dorney Park lol. Yeah, these Intamin Impulse coasters are nothing too crazy. Going forwards and backwards on a U-shaped track up a twisted spike in the front and a vertical spike in the back. Kinda similar to Joker, these kinds of rides are ones that I've always sort of found to be just kinda whatever. They don't really do a whole lot for me, both figuratively and literally lol. I mean they're still fun to ride for sure, but I wouldn't wait more than like 2 or 3 cycles for them. Compared to Possessed, I thought the launch wasn't as punchy here. I feel like Possessed takes off quicker as the launch kicks in, whereas Flash felt slightly more gradual. I did like Flash's location though, positioned right above the water so you could see it looking down from the vertical back spike. I thought that was a nice detail.

Little Dipper - 1 ride - Coaster Credit 199!

The last of my new credits I picked up on this visit! Little Dipper is another classic, and fairly historic, little wooden coaster. It opened back in 1950 at Kiddieland in Melrose Park, Illinois, just outside of Chicago, but Great America saved it after Kiddieland closed in 2009, reopening here in 2010! It's exceedingly rare to see a wooden coaster, even a small one like this, get relocated in this day and age, but it's awesome that Great America committed to saving it! Being such a small ride, of course it was very tame but I thought it was cute :3 I thought it was a bit tamer than like, the Woodstock Express junior wooden coasters at Kings Island, Kings Dominion and Carowinds for example, so I'd rank it below those, but that doesn't mean it's a bad ride by any means! I thought it ran well and seemed like a great ride for younger kids to start out on!

Goliath - 1 ride

Even though Little Dipper was the last new credit I picked up, I still got some re-rides on coasters I'd done before haha. Now going from a very small wooden coaster to one of the largest wooden coasters in the world! Goliath is awesome, it's my second favorite ride in the park. Not the longest in the world for sure, but it's rapid fire all the way through with some awesome elements. That first drop, the tallest and steepest on any wooden coaster, is fantastic. You get some awesome ejector air going down that thing. Both inversions on this ride are also wild. The dive loop because it's just an element you don't expect to see on a wooden coaster, and flipping through and diving down through that wooden structure is really a surreal visual. Then that massive zero-g stall under the lift hill is amazing too. You hang there for such a long time, getting perfect weightlessness all the way through. Not to be forgotten though is the one other really banger moment of airtime in the middle of the ride, between the turnaround after the first drop and the dive loop. RMC knows how to do ejector airtime and they nail it with this one. Really glad I was able to get back on this one, such an awesome ride.

Viper - 1 ride

Even though I had ridden Viper last time, I really wanted to get another lap in this time because I felt like I didn't get a good feel for it last time. I'd heard from a lot of people that Viper is an underrated wooden coaster, that it has some surprisingly good airtime and often gets overlooked. But I'll come out and say it, I was underwhelmed with Viper last time I rode it and that kinda held true this time too </3 It was still solid for what it was, don't get me wrong I did enjoy my ride on it, it just didn't really surprise me with anything. More than airtime, I feel like Viper excelled in terms of lateral forces. A lot of the turns on the ride weren't heavily banked, meaning you got forced to the side pretty strongly and I thought that was fun haha. And like American Eagle and Little Dipper, I thought Viper was running very well too. I didn't have any kind of a noticeable roughness problem at all with it. Clearly Great America takes very good care of all their woodies haha. So in the end, Viper remains a ride that falls into the category of "I'll happily ride it any time I come to the park, but I don't need to take more than one lap on it per visit", which I think is fair.

Maxx Force - 2 rides

To cap off my day, I used my two line skips for back to back rides on what I think is Great America's best coaster! You guys know me, I'm a sucker for anything with a launch, especially a powerful launch. And with Maxx Force having the fastest accelerating launch in the country, going from 0 to 78 mph in just 1.8 seconds, Maxx Force does not mess around in the power department lol. Like Goliath, Maxx Force is a very short ride, which is easily it's biggest drawback. But I can look past a short ride duration if it packs in some awesome stuff, and along with that launch, Maxx Force flings you through five inversions in a very short amount of time. My favorite of them is the high speed heartline roll in the middle of the ride. You just get whipped through that thing so fast, it's awesome. I'm really glad I was able to get on Maxx Force at all, since literally as I was walking up to it, it went down for some kind of problem and everyone got kicked out of line. Since my day was coming to a close, I was really hoping it would reopen quickly. Thankfully it was only down for about 15 minutes and I was able to get my rides in! This thing is such a rush, I love it lol

So that's concludes my thoughts on everything I rode at Great America! There were a couple coasters I rode last time that I passed on riding again, those being Demon and Dark Knight. Neither of those rides were that great and I didn't mind skipping them. You may notice two other coasters that I didn't ride, those being Raging Bull and Sprocket Rockets. Unlike Demon and Dark Knight, I did want to ride Raging Bull again. Similar to Viper, I was kind of underwhelmed by it on my first ride and wanted to give it another shake. But unfortunately, similar to Maxx Force, I'd saved it for towards the end of my day and it went down </3 It didn't reopen in time before I had to leave, so I wasn't able to do it, which was definitely a bummer. Sprocket Rockets on the other hand, despite never having ridden that one before, I specifically passed on grabbing that credit. As stated above, Little Dipper is credit number 199 for me, and I have big plans for that milestone in a couple weeks, so I didn't want to throw those plans off hehe. I'm sure I'll be back to Great America in the future, so I can grab the Sprocket Rockets credit then ^^

The last thing I'll do in this post is rank all the park's coasters that I've ridden! (So everything other than Sprocket Rockets lol). This will be a relatively tentative ranking, since a lot of the rides with clones I talked about could shift around a fair bit. But based on how I'm feeling about them now, here's how they rank up!

Maxx Force

Goliath

Wrath of Rakshasa

X-Flight

Raging Bull

Superman - Ultimate Flight

Batman the Ride

Viper

American Eagle

Whizzer

Flash: Vertical Velocity

Joker

Demon

Dark Knight

Little Dipper

Thanks for checking out my Great America trip report and reading til the end if you did! To hear my more in-depth thoughts about the new credits I picked up, keep an eye out for their dedicated Tac Talks Coasters posts, coming (hopefully relatively) soon!

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