California’s Great America: To Season Pass or Not?

California’s Great America: To Season Pass or Not?

What good is an amusement theme park if you don’t love it to come back again and again? Many parks offer season passes for multiple returns, yet, the prices can be unattractive. We have assessed our 2022 season theme park habits and came up with a recommendation.

We decided to buy one season pass to California’s Great America as an experiment. This experiment had a financial toll because it is not a cheap pass, nor is the admission cheap, but we weighed the value this park had to us, and if it was worth going to multiple times. The park is a 1-hour drive from us, so time and gas are also considered. 

We chose Great America for these reasons:
1) It is the closest theme park
2) No bridge tolls required us to access it
3) It is wholesome (deemed safe for our family)

We love that Great America’s theme is centered on pro-American values. When we found out that the park will close in a decade’s time, we considered how we wanted to support this place of entertainment and if it was worth taking our kids more than once in a season. Growing up in San Francisco, we as teenagers, had to be driven by our parents, our school or our friends’ parents to partake in Great America. So it’s not quite the easiest place to be accessing for kids.  

So here’s our take.

With our one season pass, we went 4 times throughout the year. The season pass has benefits such as unlimited visits for the season pass holder, parking, 10% discounts for food and merchandise, and bring-a-friend ticket prices. We compared the financials of having to go one time, or several times. This will determine if we want to do this again before the park closes.

Option 1:
Visit just one time in the year
Day pass: $60
Number of tickets: 4
Parking: $25
Total cost for one day: $265
Other costs: food and snacks ($150), merchandise ($50), arcades ($20)


Option 2:
Visit atleast twice, with one season pass and bring-a-friend tickets
Season pass: $99
Bring-A-Friend pass: $40
Number of tickets: 3
Parking: included
Total cost for first visit: $219 (includes 1 season pass holder and the 3 bring-a-friend tickets)
Cost for subsequent visits: $40x3 tickets each time = $120
Other costs: food and snacks ($150), merchandise ($50), arcades ($20). Food and merchandise are subject to 10% discount with the season pass.


Option 3:
Visit atleast twice, with multiple season passes
Season pass: $99
Number of tickets/passes: 4
Parking: included
Total cost for first visit: $406
Cost for subsequent visits: $0
Other costs: Other costs: food and snacks ($150), merchandise ($50), arcades ($20). Food and merchandise are subject to 10% discount with the season pass.


Depending on how often you do plan and commit to go, a season pass does hold value. We find that we would need to go atleast 4 times if we had 4 individual season passes. We did go 4 times, with just 1 season pass and paying the bring-a-friend price for everyone else’s tickets for each visit. The bring-a-friend price of $40 would have to be used 3 times or more to make a season pass worth buying. However, on visit #4, it felt stretched for us to keep coming back.  

Honestly, 4 times is a lot and we probably wouldn’t really be going this many times. We would stick to Option 2 because of our circumstance living one hour away. But if we did live closer, we would think Option 3 is worth it.