Mdcastle

Do any other Cedar Fair parks have water coasters or flowriders? Wondering if there's any chance of those at all.

1) Have Frazier and Cedar Fair flat out lied about something before (as opposed to being evasive or teasing?) 2) Other parks are building permanent haunt structures, why doubt that it's happening here? High Test might be a "good" location, but I assume it's still a hassle to set up and tear down every year. 3) If I were building a dark ride I'd want it to be in a more prominant location than behind Mad Mouse next to the maintenance shops.

Suggestions where to put a major new coaster without razing Excalibur and building a new parking lot? The DInos aren't going anywhere for a while. They aren't going to take out any parking unless they can replace it. Agree about Lazy River. Yes, it would be nice if it were longer, but we need other things more, and I'd rather get those than have them devote more resources to redoing lazy river at this point. Lazy River and the Wave pool are the biggest capacity sinks, but also the biggest staffing needs and a longer lazy river would need more. Tornado: Low Capacity, Low staff, high space can't comment on the thrill because I can't ride them since I'm always alone. Flowrider: Very Low Capacity, low staffing, low space, extreme thrill. Watercoaster: Low Capacity, low staff, high space, high thrill Matt Racers: Medium Capacity, low staff, medium space, medium thrill. Family play area: High Capacity, medium staff, low space, thrill not the point. If nothing else, please just dump some cement in the old Kiddie play area and put down more recliners. This year, please.

Are we talking Thunder Rapids or Raging Rapids? I've seen both in operation this year.

The new slides are the first indication we're even trying to compete. We finally got an OK wave pool two decades after Noah's Ark and Family Land / Mt Olympus had them. Really, if only Noah's Ark had Poseidon's Rage, I could spend two days there. Mt Olympus doesn't even have private changing rooms for the men, and it making their park more and more unfriendly to the people that don't pay for one of their overpriced hotel rooms

Valleyfair would never put in something as awesome as Poseidan's Rage

My sister like the Monster and that can take a long time too since it takes so long to load and unload.

I'd say it's an extremely good rumor. Valleyfair filed a permit application to the US Army Corp of Engineers that's on the Corp's web site. It clearly shows half of Excalibur designated as a "proposed road and parking area". Generally the middle of September they close the back of the park (Excalibur and Thunder Canyon).

There was a map posted a while ago that had the area highlighted in yellow north of the proposed waterpark parking lot and south and east of the new road that has been pointed out would be a good spot for a coaster. They could indeed and probably will now of eventually expand the waterpark to the existing filled area east of the new parking lot. The line of questioning was if we were getting a new coaster. Both that and the parking lot wouldn't fit in any areas they've applied for permits to fill.

Looking at the permit application I got the impression they're only applying for permits to fill wetland for parking lots and roads. There's no mention at this time about filling additional wetlands for things like rides, buildings, and the like. If they want to build something on the parking lot later they can of course do that, but I'd expect it to be called out on the permit if they intended to do so at this time. The yellow highlighted area between the parking lot and the new perimeter road is not being filled (and thus is not build-able) at this time.

It was due to maintenance issues, same thing with one at CP. At the end of it's run the ride was down about as much time as it was up and running. People really liked the ride, it was just too much work and money to keep it running. There was that accident at Michigan's Adventure too where the entire wheel basically slipped on the spindle. Cedar Fair got rid of all of theirs and other parks are doing likewise.

I simply don't see one happening next year. Where would it go? The Dinos aren't leaving yet. If it was going in the new area in back we'd see something juicy looking in the permit application. For all our creative ideas, I don't see them squeezing it in an around existing attractions. Just the Wetland Credits they need to buy are going to be spendy. They need to buy 9 acres of credits, that the going rate seems to be $20,000-$40,000 per credit. Not that they don't have that kind of money, just pointing out they have to spend it before they can even bring in the bulldozers.

I had really hoped they had fixed the problem with the lack of recliners with the new expansion, but based on yesterday it's obvious they hadn't.

Is there some reason for permanent haunt structures? Want to put something else where Hi-Test is? Tired of moving all the games and setting up and taking down the haunt every year? Want better props that aren't easily moved? What about moving The Asylum to a permanent structure next to Wild Thing's queue? As for staffing, that can always be solved if you pay people more. Right now they've decided closing rides early and late in the season > paying staff more. Lazy river seems to take a lot of staff compared to say the body slides. The pool takes a lot of staff too, but that's really the core of the waterpark.

The waters heated to the point that it's still a bit of a shock going in (unless it's been baking in the sun all day), but you don't get chilled once you get used to it. It should be noted that private pools aren't common in the area. With the short season the maintenance and expense are not worth it and it can actually be a liability when trying to sell a house. So you got to a lake, public pool, or Valleyfair. The area, and especially the suburbs, are car oriented, so there's actually some competition going on between municipal pools to add more and more amenities, so Valleyfair is trying to keep ahead of them to justify it's admission prices. If they don't use the idea to have the path extend back to delineate the waterpark from the rest of the park, and build a new coaster in the yellow area, then it might make sense to do something with Thunder Canyon. If they rebuilt the sides to be a gentle slope maybe it can be Raging Rapids 2.0. My main problem is that brings the "cool down in your clothes" rides down to two (Riptide and The Wave), down from five when Hydroblaster and the Flume were up. The park probably should have less than five but more than two.

I'd guess the parking lot will be it, considering the scope of the work. As for "just getting a parking lot" comment, it gets old really fast walking from the parking lot to the waterpark on a hot day, it's over a half mile from the typical spot in parking lot, and it's almost a prerequisite before anything else major happens.

From the permit application they are asking to fill in wetlands. Since they can't replace them 2 for 1 on site they will pay into the "wetland bank". The new location for the park road is actually a very old, disused road grade (although I can't find it on historical topo maps), so the location was not arbitrary. Wondering if the "new wave pool" rumor is actually an adult pool like Ocean's of Fun. It would be only steps away from where the kids are playing. Restrooms- There are some in whatever they call the Red Garter Saloon nowadays, but I'm assuming some will be built with any new gate.

My guesses: The Excalibur Memorial Walkway gets extended straight back to the parking lot and delineates the wet side to the south and the dry side to the north. A new coaster goes in the space to the north inside the road but west of Thunder Canyon.

Another idea is that rather than an exClusive direct entrance to Soak City (It's unlikely they'd ever make it a separate charge since they went away from that a Worlds of Fun), the new gate could lead to a widened and extended Excalibur / Thunder Canyon path. Beyond my conspiracy theory about making people walk by as many concessions stands as possible, that explains why they didn't move the Soak City entrance. It's possible even that they planned to early on since the concept art shows people using the path the the employee gate, then dropped it when they got a grander idea to build a new parking lot. I don't think it's escaped management's notice how many people are traveling to Wisconsin Dells because they waterpark offering here are so incredibly pathetic. Valleyfair doesn't have to be as good as WI Dells, just good enough to people are tempted not to travel.

My thoughts: 1) The original document notes "These new parking lots will allow for some development of some of the existing parking lots within the levee. 2) I believe the first image represents the area to be covered by pavement. The second image is wetland to be filled in. The discrepancy is that Excalibur has already been filled in, so no additional wetland disturbance is necessary. Also how would you build an entrance with Excalibur in the way? All signs point to Excalibur being toothpicked. 3) Despite how much extra area is between the parking and the waterpark, this may be too limiting in the long term unless plans are to reuse the Thunder Canyon area or start cutting into the parking lot. 4) Excalibur not closing until September doesn't mean they can't start leveling out the land around it before then. 5) If they leave Thunder Canyon for the dry park that's going to be a very isolated ride

The new covered seated area by the new slides was barricaded off and all the tables removed.

If anyone sees me at the park, I usually wear a forest green, irish green, or royal blue shirt, have dirty blonde or red hair that covers my ears but isn't shoulder length, may be by my sister who has long dirty blond hair and glasses.

I doubt that Cedar Fair would invest in another HUSS Giant Frisbee after the problems that maXair and Delirium have had. However, it would be nice if Valleyfair could receive a similar ride from another manufacturer. They have also had issues S&S screaming swings, Mondial Windseekers, Huss top spins, and the Vekoma suspended boomerangs. Which is sad because those are all good rides lol What aren't they having trouble with? The Cotton Candy stands?

What's the joke?

Much as people like to be creative, I don't see moving major park elements around to build a new coaster as happening, not when there's so much land that's empty, underutilized, or with aging, sub-par rides on it. I know Frazier said he doesn't want to lose any coasters, but he also liked the old sign, and eventually brought himself to trash it. Excalibur isn't going to get more popular and easier to maintain over time. It's already a tedious walk on the south side without having to go all the way around the WT turnaround (And I know it won't happen, but I'd like to see a season pass or exit only gate in Route 76 because it's so far to backtrack to get out at the end of the day. Besides having to walk 3/4 around the Imax Memorial Splash Pad it's already tiring to go either on the roundabout southern path or through the middle of the kids area on the northern path to get to the waterpark. I was there on Friday and Saturday, and did speak very briefly to Frazier. He had to run, but he left me his card with his email address. Looks like they're still having issues with rides, namely High Roller and Power Tower. I skipped Power Tower on Saturday because the lines were so long only running a single drop tower.