Six Flags Great America

Visited: October 26, 2025

Attending: Just Brian

My company had an off-site meeting in Chicago during the last week of October, so I decided to go out a couple of days early and hit up Great America. Even though the Halloween season is typically busy, I didn't want to pass on the opportunity. Once I arrived, it became clear that Sunday would be a lovely fall day, and the park would be absolutely slammed. Against my better judgement, I decided to purchase a flash pass, or I'd have no hope of getting on the new 2025 ride that was my main goal. Once I’d made that decision, I figured “go big or go home” and bought the Platinum variety. I’ve made mention in the past of how having a season pass changes your behavior. Well, having a skip-the-line that works on just about everything, all the time, changes it even more. No strategizing, no prioritizing, just ride whatever you want whenever you want. And because it’s the future now, instead of being a dongle or a wristwatch, it’s a phone app. Pick a ride, get a QR code, and then get in line whenever. I had a bit of trouble finding a couple of the Flash pass entrances, but other than that, it was smooth.

Since I was staying at a nearby hotel, I easily arrived by 10:30 for an 11:00 opening. Unfortunately, I was initially turned away at the gate when they didn't acknowledge my pass. As best I can tell, my 2026 pass isn't properly active yet because I haven't been to Great Adventure. Customer service hooked me up, though, and I got inside pretty quick.

X-flight

Wrath of Rakshasa was my highest priority, but the flash pass app was reporting it as closed. That wasn’t quite true; it was open to standby riders, who spilled way down the midway, but the express lane was closed. Probably a good idea, really.

X-flight is right nearby, so I popped that up on my app and zipped right in. It turns out that the express line joins the main one before reaching the platform, so I was able to queue for the front row without any guilt. I'm really glad I did too, because I think wing coasters are much more fun from the front. X-flight is small compared to the other wings, but I think that works to its advantage. It’s compact, much in the same way Batman is compact, and if near misses are your thing on wing coasters (which they are, for me), X-flight has plenty of them, nice and tight. I’m not fooled by the effects anymore, but the keyhole and subsequent elements are a lot of fun from the front. I also made sure to have a good look around, and I think X-flight may have the best view from the lift of any coaster in the park.

Raging Bull

Raging Bull isn’t your typical B&M hyper, but hypers are still my favorite kind of coaster, so that balances. Raging Bull had also been closed for a while, and I assumed it wouldn’t re-open this year, but it did. So I thought I should repay its kindness by re-riding it. Gotta say, the new paint job looks really snazzy. The colors are the same, but the orange and purple are vibrant. As for the ride itself, I waited a bit to get the back row, outside seat, and was rewarded appropriately. I somehow forgot about the B&M pre-drop, but the back seat nearly leaps off the main drop because of it. And far from turning into an i305-type twister, there’s still a couple good moments of airtime in there. I’m still going to prefer nice sustained airtime in a hyper, but Raging Bull is fun from time to time because it’s different.

American Eagle

American Eagle, for some reason, isn’t covered by the Flash pass. Maybe there’s nowhere to put the lane, with the queue being mostly made of bridges. Anyway, I didn’t know at first if it was going to be running, but the app said it was, if opening late. Without the pass, I figured I should grab that early, plus there are always rumors that this ride will be shut down or RMC’d or something, so I wanted to make sure I rode it. They were only running one train, the red side, so technically I got another credit if I counted them that way, which I don’t. Fortunately, the wait was barely anything. As with the two Racer coasters, I found the straightaway part to be fairly pleasant, with a little bit of air courtesy of the ride ops not stapling me (the ops had a light touch on the restraints all day, which I appreciated). The massive helix remains a bit tough to take, but I knew it was coming this time. I wished for some air on the return trip, but didn’t get it. And there’s a second helix near the end that I completely forgot about. As a ride, it was fine, nothing too special, but I’m glad to revisit it.

Goliath

I was trying not to get too far away from Rakshasa, but Goliath is an RMC, and it called to me. I snagged the very back row, which I don’t think I’ve done before. I also tried to concentrate a bit on the elements other than the stall. The first turnaround really isn’t anything special by RMC standards, although it looks impressive. But the second one, the underflip into a dive turn, that’s pretty special. It’s got more hang time to it than I remembered, and I chanced to look up (relative to me, anyway) into that huge lattice of wood as the dive was happening; that was pretty special. And of course the stall rules, but that means the ride is over. It’s a shame to call any RMC “lesser,” but this one is just great, not mind-blowing.

Wrath of Rakshasa

My patience was rewarded (as much as patience means anything when you’ve got a Flash pass) and Rakshasa opened for flash-passing just after noon. One thing I have to say about this ride is that it’s visually impressive. The deep blue of the track is such a contrast to everything around it, and it’s right in the middle, so it feels like you can see it from anywhere. I noticed that when you’re near X-Flight’s entrance, you can see five different coasters at once, and Rakshasa is huge and blue and anchors the middle nicely.

After surrendering my phone to the traveling loose items bin (still cool, if over-engineered), I ended up in row 1, on the far right seat. I don’t know why I always get an end seat on dive coasters, but I do. Which meant I was about as far over the drop as one can get. The hang didn’t bother me; in fact, I was slightly disappointed that the view isn’t all that great. But I suppose I should’ve expected that when you’re in the middle of the view.

I got a bit of air on the drop, despite the vest restraint, so that made me happy. I didn’t count the rest of the inversions, but they seemed to consist mostly of rolls, which I liked, being on the outside. It’s also tightly wound around itself, which is impressive when you’re riding and from the pathways. Unfortunately, the reports of a B&M rattle on this brand-new coaster are accurate. It wasn’t horrible, just a shimmy that really shouldn’t be there on a brand-new ride. I suspect if I’d been in the middle of the row, I wouldn’t have been able to detect it.

In short, my expectations for this one new credit weren’t all that high, and they were mostly met. I wasn’t too upset that my Flash pass was limited to a single go-round.

Demon

I rode Demon because it was right there, and because last time I’d been amused by just how hard it was trying. I don’t know if any of the queue got removed during Rakshasa’s construction, but Demon now seems a bit overshadowed and not as cute as I’d found it previously. In fact, I found it to be a bog-standard Arrow, with nasty restraints, a couple of dull loops, and two corkscrews that seem to be barely off the ground. I was also subjected to a bunch of teenagers in the car behind over-acting and shrieking in a highly annoying manner, so I was happy to get off.

Viper

I had a nice quesadilla for lunch over in the Southwest section, right by Viper’s entrance, so I felt like I owed it a ride. The previous time I rode this was unpleasant, so I was looking for redemption. I made sure not to get a wheel seat, and I went for the next-to-last car rather than the very last, both of which may have helped. As a result, I found it to be just OK. Too much time is spent on unenjoyable turns, and the drops aren’t really that impressive. Any hopes I had for airtime were unfulfilled, even with a loose restraint. Not exactly a redemption ride, but I’ll move it up from “bad” to “not bad,” so that’s something.

Maxx Force

It was getting toward mid-afternoon now, the crowds were getting even denser, and I was starting to think I’d hit the last few big rides and then bail. So Maxx Force was next. The standby line was nuts, but Flash pass wasn’t too bad. I went for a middle car because I honestly don’t care on this ride, and was joined by a woman enthusiast of about my own age, who seemed to be having a very fun day, so that was a bright spot. I was slightly distracted when the launch hit, and it hit hard, which I know it does, but wow. The next thing I knew, we were zipping through the roll and it’s done. I still maintain that it’s an excellent half of a ride, and I don’t think I’m ever going to change my opinion.

After that, I decided it was time for Batman and Superman, although I wasn’t feeling too motivated, as they’re both clones I’ve ridden many times before. I noticed that Batman’s queue was stuffed, all the way back into the “Gotham park” area, something I hadn’t seen in many years. The flash pass queue joined up with the main one just before the steam tunnel, which skips a lot of the line, but still leaves the entire building portion of the queue. As I was standing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for the line to move – it didn’t – I recalled multiple times waiting in the corrugated steel corridor sweating to death (which wouldn’t have happened today, since it was fairly temperate) and the times I got stuck with a group of screaming middle-schoolers echoing down that steam pipe (which there was also no sign of today), and I felt a powerful urge to bail, so I did. And snagged my hoodie on a fence on the way out, tearing it, to my annoyance. And although I probably could have recovered the afternoon from that point, the crowds were so crowded that I just decided to call it a day. Not my favorite trip to Great America, and not my cheapest either, with the cost of the Flash pass, but I rode a lot more with it than I would have without, so I think that was worth it.