RollerColester

If it is a sky roller, I wonder if they will try to get creative with the name or just copy Skyhawk from Canada's Wonderland. I guess the same could go for if it turns out to be a frisbee, with Delirium. Either ride would fit the "new heights in 2017" hint. I would lean towards it being a sky roller, since a frisbee would be somewhat similar to Xtreme Swing, just some added spinning.

I'd be surprised if this had anything to do with a front gate coaster. Don't get me wrong, I think a coaster is coming to the Dino's spot a year after they leave (2020-2021). It just seems like Enterprise needed to be rehabbed badly. Let's put a new flat ride in it's place while we do that. Then we can bring Enterprise back in 2018 all shiny and new at a different location. I think it's a great spot for a flat ride with some height. Something people will notice and be attracted to right when they enter the gates.

They have really put an emphasis on that random pathway to Steel Venom lately. 3 out of the last 4 years have been focused on it with Route 76 ('14), Flying Eagles & Amphitheater ('16), and now this "New Heights in 2017." I hope it's a Sky Roller. Those look like a ton of fun and are pretty unique! I know that Nick Universe has something similar, but Valleyfair's would be taller. I'm still not sold on a Windseeker being added. I think that ship has sailed with Cedar Fair. The announcement makes it sound like Enterprise leaving is a permanent thing. I hope it's a year or two off to get refurbished and return in Tilter's old spot or something... Another smaller-medium sized investment. Sooner or later something large has to come!!

https://www.valleyfair.com/what-s-new/enterprise-announcement/?mobile=0 Last year for Enterprise. Twitter says to prepare for new heights in 2017. I'll guess Sky Roller or Frisbee!

What are they suppose to say? They can't tell you the truth..."Yeah, this train is pretty much shot and the plan is Excalibur is getting scrapped anyway after this season, so we're just gonna run one train the rest of the season and tell everyone (including employees) the second is in the shop for maintenance. They'll all believe us, suckers!!" I may or may not have added that last part.

I hope Valleyfair's announcement this week is similar to Cedar Point's just now. Insert: Excalibur. Even though I enjoy Excalibur more than most people, the low ridership and superior plans for that area mean that it is time for it to go!

But, if Cedar Fair has never gotten one of the smaller versions I don't see why they would start with VF. The smaller version only seats 32 people. With how long it takes to load these things and the length of the ride, the line could get insane on busy days. I think it would be stupid to get the 32-person model instead of the generic 64-person model. Who cares if there are empty seats during the week? If they're going to spend millions on a ride like this, I think it would be worth it to spend another million or two to get the larger model so capacity won't be an issue if it doesn't have to be. Seems like Cedar Fairs Windseeker buying days are over though, maybe due to some issues they've had. Also aren't all of them over or at 300 feet? Which is a problem here (yes, I know you can make them shorter but maybe cedar fair is only interested in them at the 300 foot mark). If it's a thrill ride, I'd guess frisbee. Especially if Delurium at Kings Dominion went over well.

I'd imagine that Gemini and the Cedar Creek Mine Ride at Cedar Point could possibly use some parts from Excalibur's train as they are both Arrow Mine Train concepts. I believe Carowinds and King's Island also have arrow mine trains in Carolina Goldrusher and Adventure Express. I see that Cedar Point's announcement is happening Monday at 10am now. Maybe Valleyfair decided it didn't want to overshadow Cedar Point's announcement, so they moved it!!

As a new father of a now four month old son, WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DOING WITH AN INFANT AT AN AMUSEMENT PARK!! I wouldn't even think about bringing my son to Valleyfair until he's at least 2-3 years old, and even then might be pushing it. I think best case scenario for next week's announcement would be the water park renovation with new parking lot and entrance. Would be cool if they re-branded it towards a Minnesota theme, like Carowind's did with Carolina Harbor. Maybe tie in a lake theme, since that's what the state is mostly known for when you think of water. Worst case scenario and a major disappointment would be a flat ride or two refurbished from Europe. Besides marketing them as new attractions, it doesn't make sense as to why they would put refurbished rides found in Europe in, when your current outdated rides need refurbishment (Enterprise, Supercat, Looping Starship). I guess I'd be happy with a frisbee or a tech-dark ride. Better than anything we've received 6 out of the last 7 years. I do rank the 2015 slide complex as a pretty awesome addition. I know enthusiasts tend to overlook the slide complex because it's part of the water park, but they are an awesome thrill ride.

The rehabbing the second train seems strange to me. Why couldn't they rehab it over all of winter? After all, Excalibur does close early for the Haunt giving them even extra time to rehab it. I wish Valleyfair's PR staff would do some cool stuff like King's Island and Carowinds are doing! Also strange how they haven't been on the same page for two years in a row. Last year they kept delaying the announcement. Now this year they say the're ready for a Monday announcement, now they don't know? Seems odd...

The army corps public notice was April-May of 2015, with the actually document and photos dated 2014. The time line makes sense to start construction in 2016. They've been working on the project for 2+ years, it's time! People saying there are no rumors or ideas, I'd say that public notice is a pretty good lead! Anybody notice any markings/flags while riding Excalibur or Renegade lately?

Sorry. Double post.

This early of an announcement? I'm guessing the water park entrance/makeover! May have to get to the park sooner for some final Excalibur rides

They bought the Paramount parks for $1.25 billion dollars, then financed the principal amounts of debt to be due years down the road... ..We are now getting close to the years down the road.

If I remember correctly, Cedar Fair does have a large chunk of debt coming due in 2018. Close to $250 million or so, with larger chunks due in 2020-2021. Could be the reason for what seems to be a lack of investment dollars in park attractions so far for 2017. The interest you could save on paying down that debt could probably pay for a future coaster itself. Glad I don't carry that debt on my balance sheet!

In MY opinion, the bumper car spot is not a logical place for a dark-tech ride. The Galaxy Theater makes way more sense as a possible building. With the Galaxy Theater you would have so much more room to work with, plus I don't think it's being used for much this year besides showing some movies. It'd be pretty easy to "gut" and have a fresh template to work with. The bumper car building just seems small and cramped, plus it's the bumper cars. Every amusement park needs to have bumper cars! The bumper car building just doesn't make any sense to me for a tech-dark ride. Just my opinion. I believe these tech attractions do cost a fair share of $$$. Spending $10ish million on a tech attraction, only going to delay that coaster even further into the future... "Muaahahaha..I will continue Valleyfair's coaster drought for FOREVER!!" - Matt Ouimet

2007-2011, no complaints. Everything that was done needed to be done, can't say I'd change a thing. $25-$30 million of investments, can't complain. In my opinion the investment that was needed the most during '07-'16 was the wave pool. That was only 10-15 years overdue, and before that Valleyfair's water park was laughable. 2012-2016 has been a little boring, I'll completely agree. $15-$20 million of investments. But like I mentioned before, in my opinion this is because the next five years ('18-'21) are going to be worth the wait. Until Valleyfair addresses the flooding plain issue, which they have a proposed plan to do, there isn't much Valleyfair can do besides flat rides/slides and refreshing certain areas of the park visually. Which is what they've spent the last 5 years doing. There is no where to put a new custom, full-length coaster besides the Dino's or the parking lot. The Dino's aren't going anywhere for a few more years as they are still fairly new, and if you put a coaster in the parking lot you take parking spots away while your attendance increases, creating a parking problem. The new parking lot will allow the park to expand into the current parking lot, which in the Army Corps proposal is one of the reasons specifically mentioned for the new parking lot.

Can anyone tell me how have Saturday nights been this summer? Do the crowds tend to die down after 4-5pm? I ask this because I'm thinking about doing an after 4pm ticket on an upcoming Saturday. I usually only get a trip or two in each year to Valleyfair and I try to avoid mid-summer and weekends if possible, but it's looking like I won't be able to pull that off this year.

You've got my tone all wrong man! Ugh, the struggles of text-only related communication. What you noted was basically what I was saying. I don't think it affected Valleyfair as much as their investment path after the acquisition was very similar to before the acquisition. Yes, Dorney received improvements, but nothing like the previous years before the acquisition (2 hand-me down coasters compared to 2 custom B&Ms.) So, you basically got the point I was trying to make. But then I think you took the negative, whiny history of this Valleyfair thread and assumed this was one of those negative, complaining situations. In no way was I complaining, just sharing an opinion. I'm on the opposite side of most people's point of view and think Valleyfair has done some incredible improvements over the last 10 years despite no new coaster.

I just got done reading Dick Kinzel's biography and a few things jumped out at me regarding Valleyfair while reading it: 1.) Kinzel was Valleyfair's GM in the early-to-mid 80s and was responsible for bringing Corkscrew to Valleyfair because he saw it went over so well at Cedar Point. He loved how Cedar Point's Corkscrew interacted with the midway and he wanted the same thing at Valleyfair. So thank Kinzel for that, I guess. Also, his last project was Thunder Canyon in 87 before going to back Sandusky. 2.) Kinzel was not a fan of debt and during his time, additions and capital improvements were paid for without debt. This made Cedar Fair's park investment history make sense to me as to why the older smaller parks (VF/WOF/DP) always took the conservative approach in terms of capital investments and growth. Also, when Cedar Fair acquired parks like WOF, DP, etc. they did it by giving the previous owners company shares with often little cash involved in the transaction, again avoiding actual debt. While I applaud his conservative business approach from an investor standpoint, I loath it from an enthusiast's point of view!! 3.) After the Paramount acquisition, it was noted the company "slowed their roll," so to say, on some capital improvements due to the crippling amount of debt taken on. I think more than anything the Paramount debt affected the older Cedar Fair parks as far as dollars invested go. I don't think this is as much of the case for Valleyfair as say Dorney Park, as we still had above average investment years in '09 (wave pool) and '11 (Camp Snoopy). In '12-'16 it showed a little bit with smaller investment improvements ('15 was average), but I think that has more to do with what is to come in the future. The biography was an alright read. A few interesting things in the book related to Cedar Point, Cedar Fair, and surprisingly a few other chain parks. I wish he shared more and went a little more into depth about things, but I suppose he probably can't. It was worth the $9 on Amazon.

With Knott's removing their 10 year old Tornado slide Pacific Rim and Looping Starship rumored to be on the chopping block, anybody else thinking that could be on the way to Valleyfair. Looking at aerial shots of both parks, it looks like it would match up pretty well in that space.

God I hope they don't just plop a SLC over the dinos and call it good, nightmare scenerio!! With Valleyfair being so land locked, I would think they would want to utilize as much of an area as they could. You can do that better with custom rides, which is why I don't see them just plopping an SLC down and taking up a huge rectangular area of space. They could better utilize the dino area for other things too besides a coaster by having a custom coaster that takes up only a narrow part of land and travels out further into the old picnic area. I'm kinda hoping the new Skyhawk ride goes over well at Canada's Wonderland and various parks in the chain start receiving those, like how a bunch got Windseekers back-to-back-to-back. I would take a timeline like: 2017 - Digital attraction in Galaxy Theatre like Plants Vs. Zombies at Carowinds, New water park attraction to replace Looping Starship (like rumored); 2018 - Skyhawk (Canada's Wonderland) in Tilt-a-whirl's or Scrambler's old spot; 2019 - Water Park makeover with new entrance and parking lot. Then 2020 - B&M Invert to replace dinos (contract reportedly up after 2019? thought somebody might have mentioned this, who probably has no idea what they are talking about, but we'll roll with it) Trying to be realistic, and I'm probably still overly optimistic! I know there is no coaster for 4 more years and some of you will give up on life... I just don't see a coaster replacing the dinos and taking up part of the current parking lot until the new parking lot is complete.

Haha, seriously though! How long can that rumor live? It has to be almost 15 years old already! I remember when Steel Venom was announced, people were boycotting Valleyfair because it wasn't a B&M Invert! It's pretty obvious to me that the water park and new access/parking lot project will dominate any larger capital investments in the near future. We should just be hopeful that those investments do well so large investments can be made in a couple quality coasters 2020+!!!

Using the bumper car building for a new dark ride is a pretty far fetched idea. Don't see that happening. I'd say the Galaxy Theater is a prime candidate for that in the near future. Isn't that a sitting duck this year anyway?