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On Saturday we took a relatively impromptu trip to Six Flags Great Adventure, which I was a bit nervous about. I'm not a crowd person. I don't like being in large groups of people, which is the main reason I dislike shopping at Christmastime (thank goodness for Amazon.com), commuting, airplanes, etc. It's not that I don't like people, I just like them one at a time, not all at once.

However much I dislike crowds and lines, I do love roller coasters. So that kind of balances out. The best times at amusement parks are always when it's not crowded though, and being a summer weekend, you can understand my concern.

So, I did a little research. Online, I found a lot of recommendations for using the Flash Pass at Six Flags, especially when things are busy. The Flash Pass is an electronic device you rent from the park that allows you to schedule ride times for the most popular rides (with the longest lines), and then skip most of the line, usually by travelling up the exit of the ride to a point near the front of the line where you merge into the cue for the ride. This sounded like a good idea, though it is pretty expensive.

However, as a large group of us (7) were going, I proposed this to people as everyone chipping in to buy a 2-person Flash Pass that we would all share and take turns. That way people could spend some of the time going on more rides then they would normally be able to go on, while also taking turns entertaining/going on rides with the kids. Plus it made it a lot more economically viable.

The Flash Pass worked even better than I hoped it would. Carma was the most reluctant about it (mostly because of the cost), but she even admitted to me it was a great thing. The math bears it out after the fact too.

The four adults who shared the pass most averaged 13.5 rides for the day, which is probably at least double what a full day with no pass would have yielded.

Another way to look at it is in time saved. The Flash pass was used to board 21 total rides during the day (2 people each time). While the time saved varies for each ride depending on the line length, it is probably a conservative estimate to say that an average of an hour was saved each time. But the pass was used most often on rides with lines that typically have more than an hour (sometimes two-hour) waits. Instead, the most we'd wait was 25 minutes or so.

The device was also handy as it alerted you when certain rides would open, close, or have technical difficulties. Nice information to know so you can change plans on the fly if needed.

One unanticipated result though, is it kind of felt like...I don't know. Privileged. Elitist. Where the Flash entrance merges with the regular line on some rides, there is a ride attendant. This attendant then stops the progress of the regular line (putting up a small chain), then scans your party in and let you pass. Then the regular line is allowed to resume. I felt kind of bad. But only a little, and it didn't last very long.

Anyway, not to sound like an advertisement, but it really helped us all enjoy our day at the park a lot more. That made it totally worth it. In the long run however, we may be in trouble. Carma likens it to flying first class. Once you've done it, you never want to go back to coach. I understand, and agree completely. We may never go to an amusement park again.

(Not surprisingly, Thurman was able to ride the most rides that day, a total of 20 including a couple of the bigger coasters. Though, most of the rides he went on had really short wait times.)