RCjunkie

Even if we got half of Fury 325 (6600 ft. long) at 3300 ft. long I would take it! That is some serious length. I like how they allow people to walk over the tunnel for Fury 325.

I sure hope so, an 18-20 million coaster I imagine would be a nice coaster, especially for VF. The size and scope of the water park expansion announcement will tell us if this will be possible. That will give us a sign of how much CF thinks VF is a growth park. This is why I am anxious to see what the water park expansion announcement will be.

He hasn't lead you on so far so I doubt he is trying to catch you (or us) off guard. My guess is between Sept. 2nd and the 5th since he confirmed demolition would be involved and if they get started right away because they would want people to know before they visit the park on September 6th and see the demolition. They could wait until the 19th but then that is letting 2 weeks of demolition/construction go by and the earlier the better with Minnesota winters because you never know how harsh or long they will be and I am sure they want it open by Memorial day as they usually do.

I thought the same thing and read this about a week ago explaining how they are doing this (not that it is right). I got this info from a blog: "Ken Ham‘s ministry, is a religious non-profit. That’s why the Creation Museum can require you to sign a “statement of faith” if you want to work there. What it appears is happening here is that AiG is hiring employees for their non-profit and having them work on the Ark Encounter project, a for-profit business. By doing so, they are able to use religious discrimination in the hiring process and claim that the Ark Encounter itself is not hiring or discriminating. If this sounds shady to you, that’s because it is." For all the details go to: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/08/14/theres-a-job-opening-for-the-for-profit-noahs-ark-theme-park-so-why-do-applicants-have-to-be-christian/ The Flying Spaghetti Monster frowns on this behavior. He would flip them his middle noodly appendage.

Borderline epic Caesar, congratulations on surviving! Never to be done again. I think I could handle 12 hours and maybe push it to 18 but never 36 hours. Being from Minnesota I could have handled the cold at night with shorts better than most but 36 hours would just be too much for me. Nice job with planning, determination and choosing the right support person.

Fantasyland? Sounds more like a nightmare. Dreaming of putting more money into Excalibur is like putting lip stick on pig and expecting it to get prettier. The El Camino of roller coasters just needs to be put out of its misery and put out to pasture. If your going to dream, dream an entirely new coaster!

From VF GM Dave Fraiser's twitter account for you Haunt fans, construction has already started on one maze near the amphitheater. Haunt maze construction has started.

And I think Quimet will be rewarded for his vision with increased attendance and revenue by bringing VF up a notch. I like what he has done for the chain so far, it seems they picked a good leader in Quimet who has a real clue on what makes parks successful. I just want to know why Kinzel did not think is was a good idea to invest in VF. He was GM of VF from 1978-1986 before he became CEO of Cedar Fair so I wonder what soured him on investment in VF? Did he just not see the potential even after managing it for 8 years?

Not that VF has to potential to be Canada's Wonderland but we have no idea how big this market could be due to past neglect by CF in adding first class attractions to the park. MPLS/St. Paul has the same population pool size wise as Canada's Wonderland and Kings Island. Give VF Diamondback, Banshee, The Beast, Flight of Fear and Backlot Stunt Coaster and let's see how high attendance can go at the park vs. the ride lineup VF currently has. Unfortunately VF's ride line up and attraction list just isn't going to make the average park visitor want to go more than once a year, only the hard cores fans like us on this thread visit more than once a year. I have to agree people will flock to the park if they get a first rate attraction not on the cheap for a change. Seriously. The last time this park got a coaster with inversions was 1980....I was 11 years old then and I will still be waiting until I am 47 (at the earliest, probably longer) to see another one. It's tough to visit other CF parks with the same population size as VF and see those parks have so much more to offer visitors.

^ Cedar Fair is only contracted to manage Gilroy Gardens and paid a fee, they do not own it The city of Gilroy owns the park so you would have to search for a financial statement by the city to check that out.

I am a little surprised by that too. VF (MPLS/ST. Paul) should be able to match or exceed WOF (KC) wouldn't you think? I agree with you it a lot has to do with how CF has invested into VF which like you said isn't anything major. We will see what they do over the next 3-5 years. I am reluctantly hopeful CF does view VF as a a growth park like they say. We will see how serious they are once they announce the water park expansion and what it all entails.

It goes GCA, WOF and then VF for revenue but it is very close between WOF and VF per the graph below. You can check out the entire report at: http://ir.cedarfair.com/files/doc_presentations/2013/2013_analyst_day_final_print.pdf

Fantastic trip report, loved the Doberman Pinscher sign so thanks for sharing. And I learned that there is another roller coaster called Excalibur which hopefully is a better ride than the one at Valleyfair that I am used too.

^ That was the objective/theme of the project to bring you back to the early years of VF so adding Flyers would work. That is a nice old school picture. As you can see the Flyers were added after 1976 when it first opened. I wish the picture was a little bigger so I could see the old entrance to High Roller before they swapped and reversed the entrance with exit to the ride.

Too bad we couldn't have been in on this meeting, it probably would have answered all of our questions. But then we would have nothing to speculate about in this thread. When the Chief Operating Officer of Cedar Fair pays a visit this time of year they are probably going over the last details before the announcement. Depending on how big the expansion will be VF has a chance to be the 2nd largest dollar value investment next year for a Cedar Fair park after Carowinds.

Valleyfair did not open up with Flyers in the park but they would be a perfect fit up in the Route 76 area. With CF adding these at CP, MiA and Knott's over the last 2 years it is a very real possibility in the next couple years. VF can always use more flat rides of all types.

What's the possibility that the demolition could include the amphitheater? It easily could be included. Get the expense of demolishing it and hauled away under this years budget and then add something in the coming years. That is why I say the announcement will be interesting, so many possibilities. My biggest curiosity is what happens to Looping Starship after we find out how much money they are putting into the expansion and what gets removed and/or added.

^^ We can only assume the demolition involves the water park due to all the other signs indicating an expansion. That means there will be an announcement before demolition/construction in the next 20 days with all the details. It will be interesting to see what is coming/going and any redesign of the area.

From the pictures it looks like you were all fully blessed that day by his noodly appendage. Ra-men.

There is no right or wrong of course but I am on your side too when it comes to thrilling vs. a unique layout for a coaster.

But that is the thing with Wing coasters, they are not very forceful rides. Gatekeepers does look nice over the entrance though. I have only been on Gatekeeper and X-Flight and neither are that forceful of rides. I was hoping the size of Gatekeeper was going to change that after I rode X-Flight but it didn't. They are fun though, the seats are a cool experience, I have no problems with the restraints and they are very smooth rides. I am just personally hoping VF's next coaster is more thrilling than a Winged coaster. The new launched Winged coaster Thunderbird at Holiday World looks interesting though. With them only making the train 5 cars long instead of the usual 8 they may be able take tighter turns and have quicker directional changes which may provide some more powerful G forces for that type of ride.

I heard it today too. And like you said the screeching noise was very loud. It happened all along the track, hopefully it is just a bad wheel or something. It doesn't sound good at all though. On another note, I got stuck on Wild Thing's lift hill today for about 7-8 minutes at the top. When we got back and stopped on the other side of the loading dock everyone there and in line cheered for us. They were running all three trains today and since we were stuck on the lift hill the train stacked just outside the loading station was also stuck and the other train was unloaded in the loading area. To make it up to us they took us over to Renegade and ran us up the exit ramp and allowed us to skip the line. That was pretty cool of the park to do, good customer service there. I was stuck on Raptor at CP during ERT one morning for 20 minutes and they did nothing for us except say they were 'sorry' which didn't bother me at all but what VF did today was a nice touch.

Do you find Gatekeeper more thrilling than Raptor?

^ Thanks for the info, now I can go to the park today.

That is terrible news. For a one trick pony coaster like Steel Venom taking away an element like the brake really affects the experience. I hope they do not make it like Vertical Velocity, VF does not need to go the route of Six Flags. I am going to the park tomorrow so I will give an update of what is going on with SV. If anyone goes today please update the rest of us.