California’s Great America
San Jose / Santa Clara, CA
Six Flags Entertainment
The 2027 Season Will Likely be The LAST for California's Great America
See our WinterFest 2017 Report Here
 Park News - (7/22/2025) A quick update about the Psycho Mouse issue at California’s Great America only being run with one car on the course at a time. From what I’m hearing from other reports, the Mad Mouse clones running at Michigan's Adventure and Valleyfair are indeed said to be running the same way, or at least they started to in recent weeks.
A video link was sent in to Screamscape showing off that the Valleyfair Mad Mouse was NOT running this way when the footage was shot in June.
As for why the coasters are running five cars, stacking up four in the brakes at a time… there actually is a reason for that as well. You would think it would make more sense to cut the number cars back to 2 or 3 since they are only running one at a time, but apparently this is not possible. According to a reader who claims that they were a Ride Op on Valleyfair’s Mad Mouse many years ago, the ride’s programing from Arrow required that to operate the attraction, there had to be a car parked in each of the four station spots at all times. If you didn’t have a mouse in each of these sensored locations, the ride computer would not allow the Ops to advance a mouse into the pre-lift zone if there was not another mouse waiting in the final brake run, ready to advance into the 4th station spot as a replacement. The theory was that this was a “safety feature” to prevent any gaps between the individual cars while in the station track area, so that guests (or clumsy ride ops) could not accidentally fall between the cars.
The unfortunate side effect of this was that if the attraction had too many cars down for maintenance reasons, the Mad Mouse simply could not be opened for operations unless it had at least five functioning cars. While it would seem a bit strange if all three versions of the coaster in the chain right now were down to their minimum of 5 operational cars at the same time, it is theoretically possible, especially if there is some kind of backorder on parts. One other theory suggests that if a possible bug was found in the programming software that might prevent the zoning system from working correctly, either Six Flags or Arrow could technically order all of the rides to run only one car at a time until the error is found and fixed.
(7/20/2025) A quick question for anyone who may have visited California’s Great America lately. A reader reported back after a visit this past week about witnessing very strange operations on the park’s Arrow Mad Mouse, known here as Psycho Mouse. Like all Wild Mouse style coasters, these were designed to run multiple individual cars around the track at once, however upon our reader’s visit Psycho Mouse’s operations were a bit maddening.
With five cars on the track at once, the ops crew was only allowing a single car onto the run at any given time, choosing the stack the rest of the cars on the brake run, and not dispatching the next mouse until the previous one hit the final brake run. Obviously the line to ride was very long and slow moving, and guests actually sat much longer in the brakes trapped under the hot sun at the end of their ride than time spent running the rails. Upon asking someone what in the world was going on, they were told that the chain was running all of the Arrow Mad Mouse that way currently.
With only 4 ever built in the world, and only three in operation anymore, the only other two Mad Mouse coasters also exist at Six Flags (formerly Cedar Fair) parks: Mad Mouse at Michigan’s Adventure and Mad Mouse at Valleyfair. Has anyone been to either parks this summer who can confirm if this ridiculous operation change is taking place on those rides as well? Or is this just something odd happening to the California version of the ride?
(6/1/2025) Based on comments made by Six Flags during an earnings presentation sent to Screamscape, the company does confirm that the 2027 season will likely be the last one for California’s Great America. The current lease now only runs through to June of 2028, so “unless we decide to extend, and exercise one of our options to extend that lease, that park’s last year without that extension would be after the ‘27 season.”
(4/3/2025) California’s Great America wants to let everyone know that they will open for the park’s 49th season this weekend. For those looking for a nice collectible, apparently there will be a limited number of commemorative buttons being given out on a first-come basis in the morning.
(1/6/2025) As previously mentioned, California’s Great America will not be putting on any of their seasonal events in 2025. This has been re-confirmed by the park, which just shut down for the winter, and has mentioned that the 2025 operational season will be shorter than it has been in many years, with the park closing down the 2025 season sometime in October 2025.
In this article, someone from Prologis has finally confirmed that the company has not yet asked California’s Great America to end their lease of the property. According to the Prologis rep, the company is still, “focused on identifying and partnering with planning and design experts to help us create a master plan for the property”.
(12/21/2024) While there is no way to know until the new Six Flags chain makes it known, many are worried that California’s Great America may have to close up by the end of 2026 based on the park’s latest announcement regarding the loss of all special/seasonal events for the 2025 season. Now what I’m about to say is going to have a lot of ‘maybe” and “what if” talk… as this is purely speculation, but it is worth giving some thought to I think.
Previously, the deal Cedar Fair signed with Prologis in June 2022 was said to have given California’s Great America a clear 6-year lease to continue to use the park (until 2028), plus the option for a 5-year extension if both parties agreed to the terms that could extend things until 2033. However, various news reports from when the deal was signed reported that there was an early lease-termination clause in place that would give Prologis the right to ask for the park to shut down early and effectively giving a 24-month warning period to clear everything out. While we don’t know the terms, it is likely that Prologis would have had to pay-out a sum to the park to enact that kind of clause, just to keep Prologis from triggering it right away.
As the park actually added a new kiddie ride in 2023 (Pacific Gliders), it seems unlikely that Cedar Fair would have gone through with that action if the lease termination clause had been activated already. However, another factor could have triggered it a few months ago… which would be the merger between Cedar Fair and Six Flags. Technically “Six Flags” is now the owner of California’s Great America and not Cedar Fair, and it isn’t entirely unusual for a change of ownership clause to also be included in long-term lease contracts. So effectively, it is possible that the change of ownership caused by the merger could potentially been deemed as a violation of the previous lease-terms. This could have not only given Prologis the ability to trigger the early shut-down, but to do it entirely fee-free.
Unfortunately, unless someone has access to the legal documents of the deal signed by Cedar Fair and Prologis, we have no way to know exactly what the actual terms are. All we can do is watch and wait to see what happens until someone decides to make an announcement. Given that the current SOP by Six Flags in regards to shutting down attractions is to do it silently and not make an announcement until the rides are closed, I can’t help but feel that the same rules would apply to shutting down an entire park.
But with an operation like that, taking place on a grander scale, there would be signs of course that the end was getting near. A lack of promotion for future season pass sales… or leaks from associated companies or individuals that their contracts with the park were coming to an end. Perhaps some rides may start to quietly shut down as they lack the spare parts to make repairs, or a sudden lack of effort to fix general maintenance items or paint things in the park as needed… and yes… perhaps the first sign could be the loss of annual special events.
(12/20/2024) Things are changing at California’s Great America in 2025. According to an official newsletter sent out to passholders today, the park’s 2025 season will begin on April 5 and only run through to late October 2025. The letter also announced that for the 2025 season the park will focus on their “coasters, beloved family attractions and kid-friendly experience” however, the park will not be hosting any of the seasonal special events that they have in the past.
Currently the park is still open for WinterFest, but based on next year’s schedule, this will likely be the LAST WinterFest ever for the park, so if you haven’t gone, you’ve still got a few days left to see it.
It goes without saying that this is a huge step in the unwinding of California’s Great America ahead of the eventual closure of the entire park. With the merger of Cedar Fair and Six Flags now complete, I’d also wager that we will instead see all of the major season special events taking place to the North at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in 2025, since it is now free of competition with GCA.
With the land under CGA sold off, the previous agreement set 2033 as the longest possible year that the park MIGHT remain open. From what I understand however, the actual lease to continue to run the park only guarantees that CGA will remain open up to the 2028 season, and at that point, if the new land owners are not yet ready to redevelop the property Six Flags will be given the opportunity to purchase a 5-year extension, which is where that 2033 date comes from.
Without the extension, the hard truth is that there may only be 4 more seasons left for California’s Great America to continue to operate. So I’ve got to wonder just how long it will be before we see any rides retired or “moved” out of the park as they start to wind things down.
2025 - Nothing is known at this time...
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