ValleyfairFan

^Canada's Wonderland was drawing 3 million before Behemoth, Leviathon or Guardian ever opened.

I believe Valleyfair is slightly behind Worlds of Fun and CA's Great America in revenue, but not by that much. Valleyfair is generally considered the second smallest park in the Cedar Fair chain (not including Gilroy Gardens), and I'm honestly a bit surprised by that. Minneapolis-St. Paul is a relatively large metro area, so for it's largest park to be the size that it is strange, but then again, except for a few additions, Cedar Fair hasn't really invested in anything major at VF . I believe CGA grosses more than Valleyfair but Valleyfair's net is higher, if I remember the FUN Forward presentation from a few year's ago. One thing to keep in mind is that Valleyfair's operating expenses are also lower than Worlds or CGA as their operating season is shorter. So while VF grosses less the bang for the buck is higher if that makes sense.

The main issue, afaik, with Intamin is their reliability factor's especially in the US where they have to go thru a separate channel than European parks do. For reliability reasons I hope they go with B&M if/when they do finally get their next big coaster as it's not much fun to work on debuting a new coaster with the hope of having it open opening day and have an inordinate amount of down time tied to it.

Maybe they're moving Pandemonium into the Runaway Mountain building?

Where do you come up with that about Geauga? Is there anything out there suggesting that it's struggling?

If you look at the actual plans submitted to the city it should be noted that the employee road won't be completely rerouted, just slightly after Renegade toward the Employee parking lot. Theoretically I suppose this would free up room for more parking for the Physical Plant and I suppose it would be possible to repurpose the area behind Chickie & Pete's from parking to park proper.

^ While true, I would suspect that their (Wild Adventures) operating costs would be significantly higher, especially compared to Valleyfair when you just compare their operating calendars alone. That being said, 1.5 mil a year is still pretty respectable.

I think the water park helps out with the resort crowd, so I don't know if that'll be going any time soon. I could see them expanding into the parking lot before the took out the waterpark

I wouldn't over estimate the size of Picnic Point. If Subway and the Group Sales patio (both covered and the Imax) get demolished I wouldn't be surprised to see the park reconfigure a group picnic area in that part of the park still so that they don't reduce their capacity to service groups too dramatically. But who knows? I could be way off.

^Continuing on this thought, if the park wanted to move say Looping Starship to Chaos's former spot (or Tilter's) it'd free up that much more space for Soak City

^Considering the issues the Windseeker's have been having I'd be really surprised to see Cedar Fair invest in purchasing another one.

I wonder if the natives (locals) will get restless if they put in the waterpark expansion next year instead of going with a thrill ride? The changes the park has made over the past 6 or so years have all been well needed and has really made the park a lot nicer (brick paver walkways for a good portion of the park, new signage, repainting a lot of various building etc) and they've done a lot to make the park more family friendly after a decent five year run from 2003 to 2007 where 4 of the 5 years the park was adding to their thrill ride line up (Steel Venom, RipTide, Xtreme Swing, Skyscraper and Renegade). Tragically for the park though, RipTide's arrival didn't/doesn't generate a lot of enthusiasm after the first season, SkyScraper has since been relocated to Cedar Point, and Xtreme Swing, while well received, has had some off and on mechanical issues that has affected it's ability to stay open. So they've had some mixed results with a pretty good amount of investment that went into the park during this span (about $25 million). So I think for someone from the area it didn't feel like the constant stream of awesome that was intended. Does the water park need some new attractions to put it up to par with other regional water parks? Absolutely. However, is the park due for a mid sized to large thrill ride as well? I think so. Would a new coaster be freaking awesome? Most certainly.

The Whitewater Country transformation into Soak City (adding new bathrooms/changing rooms, food stands and wave pool)was also fairly significant as far as an investment goes.

^ Not entirely true, depending on the ride a visual scan is always a nice double check to make sure no one has made it into the ride area before dispatching a train. 99.9% of the time of course there's nothing out of the ordinary obviously, but everyone once in a blue moon you'll find a random person having had jumped a fence to try and get a loose article.

My thoughts exactly.