Great America

More Than Just A Great Amusement Park

Aside from being the movie capital of the country, California has also started building a reputation for having several themed amusement parks that are based from movies that these studios produce. With the establishment of several movie studios in the state, it was then to be expected that movie-themed amusement parks pop up alongside the studios that were constructed in the state.

Paramount Pictures is not the movie studio to fall from the trend. With the company’s desire to take a piece out of the amusement park business, it has then acquired an amusement park aptly named Great America under its belt.

Great America CA Information

Great America is located in San Jose, a suburb of Santa Clara, California and is one of the two major amusement parks found in the city. Originally named Marriott Great America, the amusement park was supposed to be a sister establishment to one of the amusement parks with the same name located in Chicago. After several years of disappointing operation and ticket sales, the original proprietors of the park then decided to fold up and sell the amusement park to Paramount Pictures.

With the company’s acquisition of the theme park Great America from the hotel operator Marriott Corporation, it was not long after that this popular amusement park became home to beloved characters such as Spongebob Squarepants, The Rugrats, The Wild Thronberry’s, several popular Nickelodeon creatures and critters as well as different characters from the Paramount produced motion pictures.

Offering not just a select few rides and attractions, Great America has a vast array of rides and thrills for families and individuals of different ages. Their rides can be classified into Family Rides and For the Kids categories.

However, this does not mean that only families and kids can enjoy a day inside Great America. Aside from boosting an extensive collection of amusement park rides, Great America also has several live shows in which every individual can surely enjoy.

One of these live shows is called “School of Rock Live in Concert” – a rock musical revue based from the hit comedy with the same title. The show promised exhilarating stage dives and ear-splitting twenty-minute guitar solos that will surely rid the square and bring out the rock star in you.

Aside from being an amusement park, the water park called Boomerang Bay surely separates Great America from all the amusement parks in California.

With not just one but five water slides such as the Didgeridoo Falls (a water slide that is wide enough to carry four persons at a time), DownUnder Thuder (a tube that lets two persons slide to an almost 90-degree vertically inclined wall before splashing into the water), Jackaroo Landing (a collection of several interconnecting slides and bridges), The Ripsnot Ridge (a 30-foot tall water slide that can send the rider cascading through rapid waters), Tasmanian Typhoon (a misty water slide that twists and turns into several series and bends) and the Screamin’ Wombat (a three-story high winding water slide) anyone can surely choose the water thrill ride that is right for them.

Great America’s Boomerang Bay also boasts of a heated lagoon that carries up to 150,000 gallons of water called Boomerang Lagoon, a long river man-made river called Castaway Creek and the DASANI Cabana Village which offers exclusive cabanas for anyone who wants a private getaway of their own inside the park.

If you think all these attractions and exhilarating vacation escapes takes hours to reach then wait until you hear how easily one can get to Great America. With the park’s claim as not just being North America’s most thrilling but also the most accessible park, they sure uphold to this statement by offering several options for anyone to get to the park through public transportation.

Visitors from different countries and states should fret not. Even if the park may not have a hotel inside its premises, information regarding accommodations for out of town visitors is also made available by visiting the park’s website.

Great America surely upholds to its name by not just being one of the many movie-themed amusement park in the state. With the various activities and attractions found inside the park and its accessibility to the public, the word great is surely an understatement for describing the time anyone would be spending inside the park.