Day 11

Day 11 was Chicago day starting with a little sightseeing before heading out to a small Santa-themed park for breakfast and then hitting Six Flags Great America, our only visit to a Six Flags park on this trip, which is very unusual for a US tour.

A rather nice poster in the hotel and a hint at what was to come.

We begun the day with the sightseeing and agreed Cloud Gate would be worthwhile. This is a reflective bean-shaped sculpture designed by Anish Kapoort, a Brit who also designed the Orbit tower at the Olympic village in Stratford. I thought this was incredible and I'm not sure why other cities don't get their own Cloud Gate. 

It's worth mentioning that directly under the bean it all gets a bit weird. I wonder if Anish knew this before it was constructed.

Next to that is Crown Fountain, a reflecting pool with LED-lit animated faces at each end that occasionally spit water into the pool. Another cool piece.

Park one was Santa's village, a park that tries to be Christmas every day. We got there as it opened and were welcomed in by Santa.

They did have an iced North Pole and no, I did not try sticking my tongue to this one like I did at a similar park a few years ago.

The park was well themed, with a small selection of Wintery buildings

The park has two rollercoasters, located at the rear of the park and both were cookie cut rides we'd encountered many times during this hobby: the wacky worm and the zyklon. The latter did seem to come with additional straps secured into the harness which was a bit odd.

So, which arse has been throwing rocks at ducks? Sheesh!

The park was well maintained and probably the cleanest park of the trip.

As well as the rides there are some animal enclosures

The goat was very keen to say "hi".

I'd never seen a 4-horned goat before. It must have come up against some hard challenges to evolve to need 2 additional ones.

A random assortment of beasts.

and that was Santa's Village. A nice little stop more suited for younger kids but we enjoyed it. From here it was time to head out to Six Flags.

We hadn't really done a big big park since Cedars so it was good to get to one again. I've been here before but there were still 5 rides for me to visit. One that had been closed on that occasion, one that was elsewhere but had found a new home here, and three brand new ones. 

On getting into the park we headed directly to Goliath, our final Rocky Mountain Coaster and one that was built from scratch.

This was a really really good ride. A little short but exhilarating from start to finish without any excessive forces that its big brother in Cedar Point had.

Goliath is such a good ride

The second new ride was X-Flight, another winged coaster.

Like Gatekeeper, the best elements are the flies through the structures.

This was such a good ride, and probably my favourite of all of these that I've ridden.

Typical Six Flags to have a sign that exists for legal reasons but doesn't actually make sense. There is no car on X-Flight and you're deliberately riding in a manner where your arms and legs are exposed.

The Justice League dark ride was much the same as in other Six Flags parks with the same animtronics, dimly lit video screens and ridiculously long, mostly hidden queue line. But we had shade.

The relocated ride was the small wooden coaster "Little Dipper" which used to reside at Kiddieland close to the park. When that park closed, Six Flags did the noble, and admittedly surprising, act in giving this a new home. They do need to update their information boards though; they were very out-of-date.

This park has another impulse shuttle and I didn't bother riding it. I did it last time I was here. 

The coaster I missed this time around was one half of the wooden racing coaster, American Eagle. I only managed to get the red side on my last trip. So despite opening late, it was comforting to see they were running both sides, but they weren't racing them, typical Six Flags.

A couple of panos of each coaster.

The final new coaster for me here was Joker, one of those stupid looking 4D coasters where the cars spin around the side of the track. I had a run in with some queue-jumping kids here who wanted to meet their friends; they never got past :)

The park's parade. I doubt we'll never see a better parade than the one in China where we joined in in our mobility scooters.

The Pictorium show area has been closed to make way for their next new ride. At the time of riding nothing is known.

Raging Bull needs a paint job, but is still running well.

Viper was ok.

The park has retro fitted VR onto their drop tower and you needed to book a slot in advance to enjoy the experience. I couldn't be bothered. 

One of the few dance show things that the park was running.

Whizzer was the final Schwarzkopf coaster of the trip. Sadly hidden amongst the trees it's a tricky one to photograph but the ride was holding up really really well. 

Some shots from the observation tower. It needs its windows cleaned.

In a refreshing change of weather, we had a small downpour which brought the temperature down. Fortunately it wasn't heavy enough to close the rides.

I'd like a coaster similar to this in the UK please!

Spacely Sprockets is one of their kid friendly coasters. I didn't ride it.

The best theming in the park.

These were in a gift shop and have nothing to do with the rides in the park. I think the park saw an opportunity to target nerds and steampunk fans who have lots of cash. 

Another dance show. This one went on for quite a while.

The blue line was a great way of getting people fit with a set distance around the park. Nobody was running however. The park is big though even if you don't follow the line, and I easily got my steps today.

Six Flags seem happy to market these as roller coasters even though no-one else does and that includes the ride makers.

and that was Six Flags. It was an OK day although I did get a little bit bored. There's plenty to ride and I did the ones I wanted to, the new and the ones I liked, but I didn't feel like queuing for the sake of saying I rode something this year. I think I got around the park 4 or possibly 5 times and I didn't want to be spending money unnecessarily. Tricks like not including drinks in their meals was a trigger to me snapping at a member of staff. Another restaurant had vomit on the floor with staff reluctant to clean it up. A manager was visible but berating her staff instead of running the restaurant...and as we were waiting for one of the group to get to the meeting point we were seeing a customer ripping into a member of staff only walking off when police arrived. It's just another Six Flags day. They do have good rides, but they drop the ball with customer service too much for my liking, and they're falling into the Disney trap of trying to upsell too much. A downside to a corporate park unfortunately. 

We finished out night at a really cool Pinball/Arcade hall called Logan Arcade, located in the city suburbs. They had a great selection of games both old and new. 

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