HappiTraveler brings up good points. Three days is not a lot of time to cover half the attractions that card offers. That said, I don't see it a wise investment, as you would probably spend less than $400 anyways to go to the top attractions. My advice? Plan out which attractions you want to, what days you'll be here and see if any coincides with the museum's "free days." Do a rough tally of the admission amounts and see if you're under or over $400 for those 3 days of activities. Basically, if the admissions run out to be less than $35 per person each day, then you'd be better off not purchasing the card. I think the card would be a wiser investment if it was for a week-long excursion.

Here are some of the catches:

You haven't mentioned the ages of your children. If they are between 13 and 21, you must pay for adult Go Chicago Cards although they qualify for discounted student or youth admission at several of the attractions.

Also, the Go card does not admit you to special exhibits at the Field, stc. Be sure to figure out what you want to do and whther you want to pay extra for these.

Finally, the card does allow you to go through members only or other express admissions at some of the attractions. For many people, this would be worth paying a premium, but you'll have to decide. The Go card prices have not increased although many of the museum admissions went up this year, so the Go card does look like a better alternative than it did in the past. If you are an active family and willing to visit 2-3 attractions a day, it could be the right choice.

check the CityPass instead

In general, I am not a fan of these types of deals. I think that it would be difficult to obtain any kind of savings using it, but you would have to do the math to figure it out.

One thing I do recommend checking out is the ASTC Passport program. The Field Museum, Adler Planetarium, Museum of Science and Industry, and Notebaert Nature Museum all offer reciprocal general admission to members of museums outside the area. You can become a member of a museum at home for a less than admission to just one of these museums. Check www.astc.org/members/passlist.htm to find a participating museum in your area. I just checked for Birmingham and found that the Southern Museum of Flight offers a family membership for $45. You would of course have to pay extra for special exhibits (but you would have to do that anyway).

Everyone, Thanks for the valuable input. I wish we had more time to plan for the free days, but we are headed to Chicago this week. I agree with those who doubt that the pass is worth it at this point. Plus it would put a ton of pressure on my family because I would constantly be saying "Hurry up" so that we could get to the next event so that we would get our moneys worth from the pass. As for joining a local museum and getting free admission to others, that was a great idea. I wish I had known about that sooner. Thanks again for the help. Tom

Great discussion here. I have an insiders perspective to add as an employee of the company behind the Go Chicago Card that hopefully is of help.

It definitely would be tough to do most or even half of the things included in the card in 3 days as modeche points out. We set the program up so you don't have to do anywhere near that much to get value. As tomfromal's quick math shows, most people do a few things each day and save a bunch in the process. And in terms of special exhibits that might come with an extra fee -- those extra fees are added to regular ticket prices too.

If you are time constrained -- and especially if your kids at the age where standing in line is torture (that's where I am with my kids), then the skip the line privileges that pgo mentions are invaluable. For example, the Shedd is a must see for many people, but as a result can get pretty substantial lines (60 minutes or more is not unheard of in the busy months). And being able to grab the hop on/hop off trolley included with the Go Card can be a handy way to get around among the key sights.

It sounds like tomfromal intends to do a variety of things so the Go Card is probably a good fit. For anyone looking to only hit a few places, the Chicago Explorer Pass (pick 3 things from a list of 28) is another option worth looking into. Hope that helps -- have a great trip!

Thanks again everyone for the input. We are back from our trip, having three full days there, and there is no way the Go Card would have paid off. We did not start our touring until about 10am each day and some things close at 5pm. With travel times between attractions and the lines, we just could not have seen enough attractions to make it pay off. We barely had enough time for an architect boat tour, the John Hancock, Navy Pier, the LP Zoo, the Field Museum, shopping and eating (these last two seemed to be very important to our teens). Besides time contraints, it also would not have paid off because we only spent $53 to get in the Field Museum, versus the $100 that I thought it would take for four of us (two with student discounts) to get in. At the Navy Pier, we did not care to do anything there except the ferris wheel, so the extra tickets with the Go Card would not have there either. Thanks. Tom