Negative-G - Six Flags Great America 2024

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The Demon Roller Coaster at Six Flags Great America, Gurnee, Illinois

While I'm not happy to see some of The Demon's theming removed at least this classic Arrow Dynamics designed coaster is still here with us.

While The Demon certainly shows it's age I do hope it has a long future at Six Flags Great American because even though it is dwarfed by rides like Maxx Force, Raging Bull, or X-Flight it is cool to be able to ride what was the peak of coaster design work of the 1970's and be able to see how far steel coaster design and construction has progressed.

Six Flags Great America, Gurnee, Illinois

As you can see by the big fence that Buccaneer Battle is no more. This plot of land hasn't seen a successful ride since Six Flags Great America removed the Sky Whirl at the end of the 2000 season. From 2001 to 2007 Deja Vu giant inverted boomerang coaster; with it's overcomplicated ride system that kept the ride down sat on this location until it was removed in 2007. Buccaneer Battle, which replaced Deja Vu, was a "Splash Battle" type ride by Mack Rides. While the 12 year old in me absolutely loves the idea of a water ride where those riding and those watching are armed to the teeth with water cannons with the goal of soaking the daylights out of each other, they don't seem to do we well when added to a theme park. Rides like this don't seem to be much of a draw. Now if you added one to a water park, especially if it was intertwined with other attractions like a lazy river or with walkways all around the ride I could see swimsuit clad guests having a ton of fun on or off of these attractions.

A little note at the end of the 2024 season Six Flags Great America announced that the Wrath of Rakshasa dive coaster is going to open on this site for the 2025 season. I'm a little curious how it is going to be themed into the County Fair section of Great America. Maybe they will have it themed to a county fair sideshow. We shall see in 2025.

The X-Flight Roller Coaster at Six Flags Great America, Gurnee, Illinois

Moving on down the midway X-Flight is our next stop.

X-Flight, like the rest of the "wing coasters" that were designed by Bolliger & Mabillard are wickedly fun with no track above or below the riders. Being out there, especially on one of the outside seats just has an incredible feeling of freedom as you soar your way through the course of the ride.