Not so Great America

Back in the year of our nation's bicentennial, my family traveled several hours to a new and exciting attraction, the area's first amusement park, Marriott's Great America. To a kid who had never seen anything for rides and shows except the local carnival and a school field trip to a play, this was heady stuff. It was amazing. Everything was shiny and new and red, white and blue. We rode every ride possible in one day, despite the long lines. After all, adult admission had cost $6.95, so my parents wanted to make sure we got our money's worth. I still remember that we got red, white and blue frisbees to take home.

After that, I visited Great America occasionally, maybe two or three more times. Then, back in 1985 or so, I made my last excursion to Great America. I was with my college boyfriend and he compared every ride to King's Island Amusement Park in Ohio, which was the park he'd enjoyed in childhood. I had never been to Great America without my parents before, so we had a wonderful time, despite some budgetary restrictions. And then I didn't go back to Great America for 23 years.

I'm not really sure why. In the meantime, I visited Epcot in Florida for the first time (and then again), but amusement parks kind of took a back seat entertainment-wise. And then enough time passed that I had kids of my own. So my family visited all of the Orlando parks earlier this year and I finally made it to DisneyWorld for the first time. And that was shiny and sparkling and looking like new, very impressive, truly.

Then we had an opportunity to go to Great America. The girls were out of this world excited. After all, they know we're not going back to Disney anytime soon. We walked into the park and immediately headed for the double decker carousel that's the symbol of the park. All four of us climbed to the top level and Julia selected a beautiful white horse with a very elaborate mane and tail for her ride. I lifted her on and then took a step back and I noticed something disconcerting. The side of her horse, right where a little girl might pretend to stroke her steed's neck, was smeary with what looked like black grease.

I looked around a little more and felt nothing but dismay. The ride itself wasn't clean. And the railings definitely needed paint. And it was obvious that no one had swept bits of greenery off the indoor-outdoor carpet in a very long time (it's an outdoor carousel). I know, I know. I shouldn't expect this park to rise to Disney standards. Disney leads the world in that kind of thing. And it's the very end of the season for Great America. They'll be closed for the winter in another month and I'm sure they'll take the time to make everything shiny and sparkly before they reopen next summer. But it was definitely a let down. And it was like that everywhere, everywhere in the park.

The girls didn't notice. And the rides themselves were wonderful. There were still some things in exactly the same locations as I remembered, but there were lots of new things too. Greg got to fly on the Superman coaster, which he repeatedly said was all he cared about. The food was pretty gross, and about as expensive as you'd expect. The weather was wonderful and because it was a closed event, the lines were wonderfully short. And overall, we had a great, fabulous time.

But will we be back? I think overall I'd rather save my pennies for Disney.