$22 off California's Great America and $13 off Gilroy Gardens

Link

Discount for Great America valid 3/29/09 - 11/1/09 with some blackout dates. Discount for Gilroy Gardens valid 4/4/09 - 11/29/09 with some restrictions. See PDF file for the fine print. Doesn't look like you need to be credit union members to use these.

With the coupon you save $13 of the $42.99 General Admission ticket at Gilroy Gardens you get at the gate so it comes to $29.99 per person ages 7-64. But that is the same price you pay for the online ticket you can buy on their web site below:

http://www.gilroygardens.org/tickets2.html

If you pay the regular price ($42.99 instead of getting the $29.99 discounted price), you can use your ticket for every day the rest of the year. So if you plan to return ONE more time this year, you are better off paying the $42.99 for the regular ticket.

Parking is $10. If you plan to visit often, it may be worthwhile to get an annual membership that includes free parking and:
20% off food at Sugar Plum Farm, Villa Pasta & Pizza, San Juan Grill, and Uncle John's
20% off merchandise at Hall's Mercantile, Red Barn and The Toy Soldier

and you can bring a friend free on 25 days during the year:
Mother's Day Weekend: May 9-10
Father's Day Weekend: June 20-21
3 Full Weeks: June 8-14, July 20-26 and August 17-23

You only need one annual membership ($80) per family to take advantage of the free parking and other bonuses (though the rest do need to buy a regular General admission ticket for admission the rest of the year).

If you can get another family to join with you, you can plan to split the Family & Friends membership for $68.75 (that requires at least 2 people). EDIT: that's $68.75 each

Get just one of these Family & Friends memberships per family @$68.75 and you will get the free parking and other benefits. That is, other members of the family don't need the annual membership if they are traveling together in the same car. The rest of the family should just get the regular General admission ticket for $42.99 and this will give you the most economical way of visiting Gilroy Gardens unlimited times during the year with free parking and 20%discounts and 25 Bring-A-Friend days.

Gilroy Gardens is a horticultural based theme park. Rides are more suited to the 10 and under crowd. A good test to see how your kids will do at theme park before going somewhere more expensive like Disneyland. I took my 11 y.o., 10 y.o. and 9 m.o and they all had a good time. I'd go again.

http://www.gilroygardens.org/

I am not that familiar with California's Great America or Knott's Berry Farm, but I recall that years earlier it seemed that if you did plan to visit those other theme parks regularly as well as Gilroy Gardens, it worked out better to get an annual pass from, let's say, Great America, that also included an unlimited admission to Gilroy Gardens.

This year, I see on their web site http://www.pgathrills.com/shop/shopping_season_pass.cfm that you can get Great America annual passes for 4 or more (ages 3-61) for $64.99 each (includes free parking at Great America).

And if you get 4 or more for the upgraded "Gold Pass" at $84.99 each, you get admission to Gilroy Gardens as well and free "preferred parking" at Great America ... BUT, NO free parking at Gilroy Gardens.

In fact, there doesn't appear to be any level of Season Pass for Great America that includes free parking at Gilroy Gardens.

So, if you think your family might be interested in spending time at Great America as well as Gilroy Gardens, you should be better off getting one of the Great America Season Passes that include the free Gilroy Gardens admission for just about $20 more.

Again, you might be best off coordinating this with another family (or another carpool group). To get the free parking at Gilroy Gardens and have Season Passes for Great America, the best bet could be to get 4 or more Great America Gold Passes that you can split with another family/carpool. Then one member of each family/carpool gets a regular Great America Season Pass for $74.99 (if you can get 4 families/carpools involved, you can get the regular Season passes for $64.99 each). That same person then splits the Gilroy Gardens Annual Membership at $68.75 each with the other family/ies.

EDIT: What it comes down to is that each family/carpool pays about $50 extra (one Gilroy annual membership @$68.75 minus the $20 savings from the cheaper Great America Season Pass) to get the free unlimited parking privileges and other discounts and free guest days from Gilroy Gardens). It should be worth it if you visit each place 3 to 5 times.

Complicated, huh?

Again, I'm not familiar with Great America, so I don't know if there are any other special discounts available that aren't listed on their pricing page. Maybe some locals have some tips for sales or other discounts available.

I would agree with captainjrl that Gilroy Gardens is more suited for kids 10 and under (at least the rides are more for younger kids). But the horticultural side is more of interest for adults and it's a place you can spend a lot of time and multiple visits getting ideas about gardening.

I'd say that for teens who aren't particularly interested in horticulture, it would get boring after a couple of visits. That's why the deal with Great America might make more sense for families with older kids.

GTSticky said: I have coupon codes from http://www.retailmenot.com/view/pgathrills.com but cant figure out how to apply them. Please help.under "Tickets", click on "Corporate Partners"