I have to get this out in the open first. This review may be slightly biased because I seriously love Frontier City.

Follow up:

But what's not to love? Frontier City is close to home, fun, clean, seems safe, and generally not too crowded. This time of year the crowds get even smaller. We never waited long. The Wildcat took about 10 minutes and it was the very longest.

Our visit was on the Saturday before Labor Day. The weather was great. We paid to park and got a spot that had a little shade. Parking is $7.

You enter through the gift shop. Lots of novelty items, t-shirts and other things emblazoned with the Frontier City logo. We also met a band of musical bears...

Kids liked them. They were all working properly, which was a nice thing.

Speaking of kids, I'm going to take this in a couple of parts. First up is the kids area. I never even knew this spot existed when I was a teenager, but nowadays it's one of my favorite places in the park.

The kids' area has rides, places to play, places for photo ops...all kinds of spots. Childrens' music is piped in through speakers that look like rocks. Very cute. There are two entrances and it's pretty easy to keep an eye on your kids if the crowds aren't bad. My kids are the perfect age because all three of them can ride the kids' rides (able to walk but under 54". They let parents or older siblings ride with little ones too. My kids loved the flying dragons and the teacups, but the yearly winner is the Wild Kitty. (Except for the baby, who hated it.) I thought that now that they can ride the Wildcat, the Wild Kitty would be small potatoes. I was wrong. They rode it repeatedly and would still be there today if the park hadn't closed at 8 p.m.

Teacups are a little weird. They are painted to look like logs, and I thought they used to be called something like Paul Bunyan's logging ride or something like that...now they are called Tina's Teacups but they still look like logs. The children did not seem to mind.

Now for the grownup rides.

I say grownup rides, even though my older kids (6 and 9) could ride them. I was surprised because some of these are very scary rides! My 6-year-old needed parents with him to ride some of them. The 9-year-old could have gotten on anything by herself. Weird!

Some of the rides (like the Hangman, seen above) I chose not to ride myself. That was because I needed to stay with the baby while the others rode. Sure. Kids elected to miss out on that one too. We like scary...but not too scary.

Ferris wheel is good scary. As long as you hang on to the kids because there are no seat belts in those things and it's a little nervewracking when it wobbles. Wildcat, seen from the ferris wheel, is also good scary. This was the kids' first roller coaster (not to downplay the Wild Kitty or anything.) Don't forget that the Wildcat will take a terrible picture of you during the first big fall. We forgot. We looked very bad.

On the plus side, that made it less tempting to purchase a photograph.

Other great rides every time are the Sidewinder (scrambler), the Carousel, the bumper cars, the old timey cars (kind of a line on that one...and it's a lot shorter ride than it used to be), the Tornado (tilt-a-whirl), the train, and the Renegade Rapids (this line was surprisingly short...I guess people forget it's over there).

Pirate ship was closed for maintenance. Sigh.

The log ride is always everyone's favorite, and the 2-year-old was able to ride it too.

My picture turned out to be one of the empty logs they send through occasionally for some reason...but there is someone hanging around on the right of it...on Eruption. You have to be 52" for Eruption...we didn't get around to that one.

And QuickDraw. We love QuickDraw.

I loved this place when it was the 89er Ghost Mine. Now that was a long time ago. Then it was Rock Mountain or something like that...when it wasn't closed down. Then it was a haunted ride again. It has been QuickDraw for a while now, which is great!

You still ride in the little mine cars, but there are two little guns attached to it. Each person on the ride takes a gun and you get to shoot little targets. You get points for each target you shoot. It's pretty fun, and if there wasn't a wait each time, I would probably go through it multiple times. I did it twice even with a wait. The only bummer was that a lot more lights on the targets were burned out this year than last year, so it does need some maintenance.

We brought our lunch, since we didn't want to eat at amusement park prices, and sat at the tables Frontier City provides. You have to get your hand stamped if you want to stay at the park, because they are outside, by the parking lot.

The tables are just north of the Diamondback (a looping coaster that also goes backwards) and we listened to the recorded announcer drone out safety reminders, the coaster whirring and people screaming while we ate sandwiches and chips out of plastic baggies. There were several other families making use of the tables. They were shady, they were clean, the trash cans were emptied, and I really appreciated the park making the area available. I know we used to be able to bring picnics inside the park when I was a kid, but they could have done away with that and not provided the tables too, so at least there's a compromise.

And I can't forget the bathrooms. They were pretty clean. We didn't make it the family restroom (there actually is one now - near the Silver Bullet) but the restrooms in the big indoor area were okay. Of course there was water on the counters, but there were literally hundreds of people moving through there. An attendant was there working hard every time I went in.

We saw a magic show in their big indoor stage area. It was a really nice show, and we had a good time in there. There were a lot of empty stages, but I'm sure they're full during the summer months. I don't think the gunfights go on in the fall either, which was a pity. I like the gunfights!

We stayed until close, and that's the only thing I don't like about Frontier City in the fall - 8 p.m. came too quickly! We only got to see the lights on the carousel for a little while, and we didn't make it back to that side of the park before it closed for the night, alas.

We didn't get to ride everything either, and I thought we would have been able to. I know I did as a kid, but I guess with the strollers and things it takes a little longer to get around. Plus the layout is different, I guess. Probably it would be a good idea to go with the season pass if you're planning on doing Frontier City and White Water in the same summer. It's a good savings if you're doing both, and then you wouldn't feel stressed to do it all in one day. Not nice on the budget for a large family though...season passes always seem more to me like a good thing for teenagers that Mom is going to drop off at the door. Maybe it could work though. I kind of wish I had one - I'd like to go again during Fright Fest. It looked like it's going to be a lot of fun.

But, all in all, a great day was had by all at Frontier City. This review seems a little disjointed in hindsight, but that's really how a trip to Frontier City is...you walk one way, you walk another, you head back to the thing you missed that you wanted to do, you buy a drink, you walk back to the first place...you get the idea. Maybe I made you feel like you were there.

I know some people say that it's too small, and not as grand as Six Flags or some other park, but I really like Frontier City. I like that there's not big crowds, I like that I generally know what to expect and where the rides are, I like that it's close to home. I like Frontier City!

It's not too late to make a trip this year. The park is open through Oct. 31 (weekends only). Online tickets start at $17.50 at the Frontier City website. Highly recommended!