Season passes!

When I was growing up my mom tried to include at least one amusement park and one industrial tour in each of our family vacations. Obviously some vacations, such as in Florida, included more than one day at an amusement park. Circus World was one of our favorites in Florida. My first memory of being at a Six Flags was when we were living in Texas, and some of my earliest memories of being at an amusement park are from when we were at West View Park in Pittsburgh. I remember being on the Dips roller coaster as a young child. The height restrictions were definitely MUCH looser in the 70's! Most of our family vacations have included at least one amusement park and sometimes multiple parks such as our trip to San Diego in 2018. Last year we went to far fewer amusement parks than usual. We didn't visit any on our vacation although we certainly could have gone to Busch Gardens or Kings Dominion when we were in Virginia, and due to plans being cancelled due to rain, we spent very little time at our local park (Knoebels). We really only had one full day at an amusement park in 2019 - our day at DelGrosso's to celebrate Oliver's 7th birthday.

When I was making our vacation plans for this summer, I had included an industrial tour (Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory), but I hadn't included any amusement parks. I thought we would go to Knoebels twice (May 3 and June 10) and DelGrosso's once. I was contemplating going to HersheyPark, as we haven't been there in a few years. This week one of the picture books I read the kids was about Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss). They mentioned a sculpture garden in Springfield, MA, and I knew we were already planning to visit the Springfield Armory in August. Doing more research I discovered we can get into the four Springfield Museums for free with our ASTC membership - art museum, science museum, Dr. Seuss museum, etc. Since Paul won't be joining us when we go to Chicago in April or Long Island in July, he had asked me to lengthen the August vacation a little bit since that's the only vacation he'll have this year. I originally had planned a 6 day trip to Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, etc. I had already added more national parks in VT, NH, and NY on our way back home so with the addition of the Springfield museums I added one day to the trip. When I was reading about Springfield, I noticed there was a Six Flags park near there. This got me thinking that I should look into a season pass for Six Flags. I have purchased memberships to museums before, but I've never purchased one for an amusement park before because the our local amusement park, Knoebels, doesn't sell them. All the other amusement parks we've visited in PA do have season passes (DelGrosso's, Sesame Place, Dorney Park, HersheyPark, Dutch Wonderland, and Idlewild), but they all seemed to be too far from us for us to make multiple visits a year. We've been to the Six Flags parks in Maryland and New Jersey, but we went when we had a free pass for the kids through their reading program. I knew that a season pass to Six Flags cost less than going there twice, but since we just bought a total of 1-2 tickets per year (one the years Paul didn't go and two when he did), it never made sense before to go that route.

As I was on the website I noticed that you can purchase either a season pass or a membership. I went the membership route because #1 the membership also includes the Hurricane Harbor water parks (which the season passes do not) and #2 I was certain the membership would enable you to have free parking at all of the parks whereas it seemed that possibly the season pass option would only give us free parking at the park which was our "home" park. It will cost us $30/month for 9 months, and that will enable all five of us to visit any Six Flags amusement park for free this year (with free parking). I deleted the trip to Knoebels from the calendar for June 10 (a BOGO day), and we'll pass on going to DelGrosso's or any other amusement park this summer with the exception of going to Knoebels on May 3 (when we can go for free). The parks that are the closest to us are Six Flags Great Adventure in NJ, Six Flags Darien Lake in NY, and Six Flags America in MD. The ones in NY and NJ are 3 hours from our house and the one in MD is 3.5 hours away without traffic. There is another one in New York, but I don't think we'll make it to the Six Flags that is in the Lake George area as we were just in that area in September, and it's farther from our house. We've never been to the Hurricane Harbor in NJ, but I believe we will go there this summer when we visit Six Flags Great Adventure. The other one we might visit this year is Six Flags Great America in Chicago if Wendy's family also has season passes or a membership, if that park is open during their spring break. If we make it to Great America in April then we likely will visit eight different Six Flags parks this year: one in NY, two in MA, one in Quebec, two in NJ, one in IL, and one in MD, which would mean it would cost us each $6.75 per park. I imagine we will probably go to the one in Maryland more than once since Yvonne's family goes there many times in the summer as it's very close to their house. I have the option to cancel the membership at the end of a year (3 months are free). Compared to Disney, it's a bargain to be sure! It costs about $600 for us to spend ONE day at Disney compared to $270 to spend as many days as we want at Six Flags parks over the course of several months.