But of course - there was a catch. We had to go to the park before April 29th to turn in our online purchase of tickets into our actual season passes to get the free parking.
Aunt Betty is in visiting, so off we went. The weather was chilly, but not terrible. We were comfortable all day in long sleeve shirts and jeans. The sun was shining, and it seemed like the cool weather would keep a large amount of people away from the park.
Not.so.
Apparently I was not the only one who thought the free parking was a sweet enough deal to drive the 1 1/2 hour trek to Six Flags on a cold day in April. Me and probably 100,000 people thought so too.
I have never seen the park so packed. Plus, on top of that, there was some enormous cheerleading competition going on, so the park was full of girls with extremely large bows and too much makeup in the park.
We are used to just kind of hopping from ride to ride - at least for the little kids. But today, the park was so crowded, that we found ourselves spending most of our time in line waiting to ride the one minute long rides.
The kids had a great time. Six Flags has changed a lot from last year.
Pros:
This deal with the Season Pass. Awesome. We love going, and we live pretty close, so to get the Season Pass for such a low price, it was great.
Friendly staff. I have never been to an amusement park where the workers actually act like they LIKE their jobs. They are all very pleasant. Okay - they aren't Disney World, but who is.
Large amount of kiddie rides - there are two areas in the park that have about 10-11 kiddie rides each. Plus, now that my youngest are 45 inches, there are things in the regular park they can ride as well. So there are a lot of things for us to do there.
Shows - this park has some pretty great shows.
Rides - in general, this park makes Arlington VERY happy. She can ride everything except maybe a handful of rides now at almost 50 inches. So she has a blast.
There is a water park included in the cost and it is pretty big. They have expanded it this year and have included more areas for little kids, which is great.
Cons:
If you don't have free parking, look out. Parking cost $20!! What.the.heck. It isn't even that expensive in Disney World. And I am pretty sure that is a $5 increase at least from last year's parking cost. There is no free parking near the park, but there is a $5 lot at a business down the street. It isn't a far walk, and probably worth it.
The cost of food is outrageous. Mat got a small slice of pizza and a side of fries (no drink) for one of our kids yesterday and it cost $9. And the drinks- if you get a souviener cup (which you can fill the rest of the day for free) it is $15. Holy moly.
They have taken out a lot of the brand names around the park. The Thomas the Train section of the park - that was well loved by the kids - is completely gone. That was one whole kiddie land they took out with about 6 rides. They didn't replace it with any new kiddie rides, but expanded their water park instead. That didn't help us much yesterday. They used to have one section of the park after the "Wiggles" but they changed the names of all those rides as well. Rides are the same, but no longer "branded".
Arlington was reduced to tears when she found out the pizza is no longer from Papa Johns. They took that out too. She is so funny, but she loves the garlic dipping sauce. The pizza is not generic, but yet.....$9/slice.
So there you have it. It was interesting to see how much they have changed things in just one year. Some for the better, some for the worse. I think the price hikes in parking and food will turn a lot of people off.
No comments:
Post a Comment