6 Ways to Save Money at Six Flags

My family loves loves loves Six Flags. But it can get pretty darn expensive fairly quickly. So how can the family enjoy the thrills without walloping your wallet?

There are some tricks that can make your visits more economical.

We regularly visit Six Flags Great America, so we’re always looking for the best deals we can get to maximize our fun while minimizing the cost.

Please note each individual Six Flags theme park may have its own deals, so please be sure to double check that the pricing and benefits apply to your local Six Flags.

Read on for six ways to save money at Six Flags!

6 Ways to Save Money at Six Flags | Mommy Evolution

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6 Ways to Save Money at Six Flags

1. Buy the season pass

If you buy season passes for the entire family, you can get them for as little as $66.99.

Get the Regular Season Pass and it pays for itself in just two visits. (Online tickets start at $46.99 each.)

Plus, we get access (and early admission) to Hurricane Harbor without having to pay extra. Score!

Along with the season pass, you get unlimited admission to any other Six Flags theme park.

So when we go visit the Adirondacks, we can pop in to Six Flags Great Escape without having to pay for additional tickets!

2. Splurge for the gold season pass

Buy purchasing the gold season pass, we can add unlimited parking to all of the passes.

At just $20 more per person per pass, I was able to ensure no matter who is going to the park, they won’t have to pay for parking.

This year, Six Flags Great America is charging $25 for parking per visit. The savings add up quickly!

3. Skip the games

I know, games are fun, right? My boys would absolutely agree. But they can kill your budget.

And honestly, the park makes money even if you win because the toys probably cost less than it cost for you to play in the first place.

To satiate my boys’ appetite for games, we pick one day in the season for them to play whatever games they choose.

It doesn’t matter if it’s in the arcade or for prizes.

We set a specific budget, and when the money’s gone, it’s gone.

4. Buy the refillable sports bottle

If you are going to be visiting Six Flags on a regular basis, you’re going to want to buy the refillable sports bottle.

If you buy one, you can get it for $14.99. On the first day, you get unlimited refills for free.

After that, you can refill your cup for $0.99.

With my family of four, we bring one cup to help manage how much soda the kids drink.

However, I do see families walking around with multiple sports bottles.

And if you buy multiples bottles, you get a discount.

5. Get the meal plan

At my local Six Flags Great America, the Dining Pass costs $79.99 per person.

For the past several years, we have bought two meal plans.

This year we spent $160 on the meal plan.

We then split the two meals between the four of us.

This helps keep the junk food and portions in check.

An average meal at Six Flags Great American costs between $12-15 each.

If we buy two dinners, it would cost us $30.

If we are at the park long enough for both lunch and dinner, meals would cost us $60. See where I’m going with this?

Again, the savings can add up quickly. If we visit the park for just three full days, we’re already saving money on the meals.

You should be aware that the lunch credit is valid from 11:30 am to 3:30 pm.

The dinner credit is valid from 4:30-7:30 pm, or park close, whichever is earlier.

So you can’t double down and use your lunch and dinner credits all at once.

If you don’t enter the park until after 3:30 pm, you will only receive the dinner credit.

Also, each Six Flags season dining pass is only valid at the park it was purchased for.

So when we go visit Six Flags Great Escape, we have to buy our own meals there.

6. Use the park to the fullest.

We buy the season passes so we can go for a couple of hours and not feel bad if we’re ready to leave.

This has given us the freedom to really use the park to the fullest.

Plus, while others may spend money on a family date night or outing, we use the park.

For example, last weekend we arrived at opening time and spent the day at Hurricane Harbor.

The boys had an absolute blast in the wave pool and on Skull Island.

The next time we go, we may choose to walk the perimeter and take in the smaller rides you may ordinarily skip.

Another day we’ll spend in the “kid section.”

While on another day we’ll arrive for dinner and the nighttime parade.

WHAT ARE YOUR TRICKS FOR SAVING MONEY AT SIX FLAGS OR YOUR LOCAL AMUSEMENT PARK?

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21 Comments

  1. Wow. That is really awesome that you have a Six Flags to go there. The one here in SoCal is too far away from us – plus it’s sort of become “ghetto-ish” since my high school days. We don’t really go there anymore.

    But all of your suggestions I can apply towards Disneyland! We used to be annual pass holders there, but not this year. A bit tight on the budget and we’ve moved farther away. We used to live just 10 minutes away and we loved going there whenever we want, even for just a couple hours in the morning. It was really fun!

  2. Those are fantastic tips!!! I’m guilty of breaking the games rule, and regretting it every time. Thanks for the reminder.

  3. I am not a fan of Great America, but my girls have got free tickets with the school reading program. My husband will take them there tomorrow while I take the youngest two kids to a small park that is much cheaper. So my husband will just pay for the park and parking. You can still leave the park and go to your car to eat a picnic lunch, right? That is what we were planning to do. And can they take disposable water bottles into the park? I’ll have to go look at the website!

    1. You can go eat in the parking lot and return. We do see some families doing that. As far as disposable water bottles… I really don’t know. I haven’t noticed anyone carrying them when they’re there… but that doesn’t mean they don’t bring them with them.

  4. All of these can be applied to Busch Gardens/Adventure Island as well. I have never been to Six Flags (although hubby promised to take me once we move back to USA) but we did pretty much all of that every time we went to Busch Gardens. I am sad that they don’t have something like this in Croatia.

  5. We did this same thing when we went to McDs too. Remember that even though you can’t bring a cooler inside, you can take it and leave it in the car. Just get a stamp and you have in and out privileges. Packing your own lunch can save you tons of money. I bought the parking pass a few years ago when I had season passes. We went a ton that year. Luckily, there was a McD’s in walking distance, we walked there for a very late lunch.

    Save the fill up bottles from year to year too, they will still refill them.

  6. I work at a Six Flags and I would like to add some tips:
    Look to see if you can upgrade your dining pass to national so you can use it at all parks!
    If you have little ones, bring your own stroller. That way you can use it all day without interruptions!
    Look to see if you can buy wristbands for another day for only 4.99 all day refills.
    Ask you security if you can bring water bottles (usually 1 per person) so you have some of your own water.

    1. You can get a national dinning pass?? We keep saying they should make one. I don’t think it’s an option when we get ours.

      1. The dining pass isn’t optional. The parking and admission pass is, however, for many of the parks.

        1. When I googled it I saw that in Texas you can get a national dinning pass or a regular dining pass. It would be great if they put that in all the parks. We are closest to Six Flags New England but also go to The Great Escape in NY and plan to go to NJ. It would be nice if we could use our pass at those parks too. It’s so much easier and cheaper for my family of 5 to already have it paid for.

          We also love the refillable sports bottles. We can buy a wrist band each time and get refills all day. I only buy 1 wrist band to use between us all.

  7. We only bought one gold and the rest regular since I’m really the only one who brings them. I’m not too concerned if he isn’t as I would hope the other family thought the same. We didn’t see any other real benefit to getting gold so we saved that extra money too!

    1. Good to know! Considering my husband and I might take the boys, we decided to get the parking pass across the board. That way, it wouldn’t matter who was headed off the night. And trust me, we’ve been glad to have parking passes for both of us 🙂

      1. We get our parking passes early in the season and get the free parking on one of our passes. We put it on one of the kids because it’s rare we go without the kids. It saves us the extra $ on the gold pass.

  8. Good tips! We have Six Flags Discovery Kingdom just 30 minutes away and never go because it’s so expensive! I’d love to be able to go more often and will use these tips to do it!

    1. We use a chunk of our “summer budget” for Six Flags and use it the fullest! Hope this tips get you out there 🙂

  9. You can also use the promo code “COKE”

  10. The cheapest form of Six Flags fun is definatly NOT the season pass. What you want is the membership. We are a family of 5 and we subscribed for 5 gold memberships along with 3 gold dinning memberships. The first payment was of $210 ($100 which will be refunded at the time of our 12th month loyalty. Our monthly payment is $75. That is $6.45 per person and $13.99 per dinning subscription. When you total up the 12 month subscription it comes out to about the same cost but Pro’s include the $100 refund, and the very low monthly installments which we pay for a family of 5. A single day pass with parking for 1 cost more than that! Also with the gold dinning membership you get the blue season bottle which has unlimited FREE refills. With our 3 memberships we received 3 bottles FREE of charge. Again the gold dinning membership is $13.99 a blue bottle alone is $23! We have had visited SixFlags America about 3 times since we subscribed and the very low price has far exceeded the amount of benefits we have received. Plus not to mention if you buy the season pass say in June- you’re paying for 6-7months and come the next year you have to pay again- with the membership you pay per month so by next year we would have only paid about half the cost of a season pass and we still continue on with the same membership for an additional 6 months! Season passes expire at the end of the season- memberships DO NOT expire so as long as it’s open you can pop in for thrills or even just for meals all year long!

  11. ValenciaGirl says:

    Just bought a 2017 Gold Season Pass (includes 2016) for $40 through my company. Since we bought 4, we got parking pass for free. Seems like a good deal.

    1. That’s a great deal! We already bought out 2017 passes and added the Gold Dining Package. It’ll easily pay for itself.

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