As someone who has only been to Six Flags Great Adventure, I was wondering which Six Flags parks insiders would say are worth visiting. I know Magic Mountain is definitely a major attraction, but was wondering about your opinions on the others.
Thanks!
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Great America deserves mention just for "Batman the Ride" which, 26 years later, is still the first and one of the best of its kind. Plus, rest of the park not bad with good layout and balance in rides.
I'd agree mostly with what AJ said. Great Adventure and Great America are Six Flags' treasures with Magic Mountain being their prized possession. I'll try not to rehash what he said but I'd actually put Discovery Kingdom a bit higher on the list because of it's combination of a park and a zoo. If I remember correctly, you dont have to pay to go on a safari to see the animals because theres exhibits in the park.
Here's my list from best to worst-
Magic Mountain
Great America
Great Adventure
Fiesta Texas (when the rides are actually open, please tell me someone knows what summer I'm referring to)
Over Texas
New England
Discovery Kingdom
Over Georgia
St. Louis (if you're in MO then just try to go to Silver Dollar City, it's a 3 hour drive but a much better experience)
(Then all the bottom tier parks AJ mentioned are very much the same. Just small parks meant more for the locals in the area that you spend three hours at)
La Ronde (to be fair I went for a couple hours during Fright Fest so it was crowded and kinda raining but oh my goodness, SF needs to sell this park or seriously do something to it because it was horrible).
SFGAm has always been my favorite SF park but i'll admit I am biased as it was my home park growing up and I spent way more time there than i'd be comfortable admitting.
My observation of Six Flags is that its been impossible to keep a consistent ranking because they are wildly inconsistent from season to season with sometimes the experience drastically changing even in the same season. Some days they are great and some days they are terrible, and its been like that ever since Premier Parks bought them out and ran them into the ground 20 years ago.
I've been to all of them (many of which many times) and Great Adventure and Magic Mountain have always been two of my least favorite SF parks. Although they have the biggest coaster collections, for big corporate parks in the two biggest markets, they have always both been unacceptably trashy. Overall I think any SF park can be a "fine" experience if its not busy and you go in knowing what to expect. But going to a SF park when its busy and you are stuck waiting in line, having time to actually look at things, experience the excessive amount of breakdowns due to lack of maintenance, etc none of them are good experiences. The last year I went to Six Flags parks was in 2018 and though I only went to four that year I hated every single one of them so much that I never went back to another SF park so I can't really say how they are now.
Also I have to agree with the poster above LaRonde is one of the worst theme parks in the world.
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Having visited all of the Six Flags parks except Six Flags Mexico, here's how they stack up for me...
The three top tier Six Flags parks are Great Adventure, Great America, and Magic Mountain. Each of these has different strengths and weaknesses, but all are worth traveling for if you're a fan of thrill rides. Magic Mountain's coaster lineup can't be beat, but they're a bit lacking for other attractions. Great Adventure has some of the most unique rides in the chain, but also a number of cloned attractions. Great America has the best balance of the three, but is lacking a true one-of-a-kind coaster (though a couple are still top tier rides).
The second tier parks are Fiesta Texas, New England, Over Georgia, and Over Texas. These are parks that I wouldn't travel from a long distance to visit, but would definitely make a detour if I was going to be in the region anyway. Each one has at least one top tier coaster, and they've all got enough to fill a full day. The main thing that sets these apart from the top tier parks is that they tend to have more cloned attractions, making them less interesting to visit for a seasoned traveler.
The third tier is Discovery Kingdom and St. Louis. I enjoy both of these parks, but they don't really have anything to make them stand out compared to other parks in the chain or even other regional parks. If you happen to be in the area and have some free time, they're fun places to spend a half day or so. However, I wouldn't detour to these parks, particularly if there are other noteworthy parks out there you haven't visited.
The bottom tier contains the rest: America, Darien Lake, Frontier City, Great Escape, and La Ronde. While not bad parks (except maybe La Ronde, but that's a topic for a different discussion), none of these left me with a desire to return, and if you're not a credit counter these probably aren't worth stopping by unless you're in the immediate vicinity. All offer a limited number of quality attractions, and none are really large enough to fill a full day.
Overall, I'd say a majority of the Six Flags parks are enjoyable places to visit, but only about half are worth going out of your way for unless you're just trying to get to them all.