Park News - (9/24/18) According to the local news Valleyfair was forces to empty the park and shut down early on Saturday night after a number of fights between guests broke out. The local Shakopee Police Department was brought on site and it was determined that the best course of action was simply to clear the park of all guests during the ValleySCARE event.
(6/14/18 - Updated) Nothing has been said about the future of Excalibur at Valleyfair yet. According to the latest reports, they saw no sign of any clearing work yet. If they do remove it, it will come down to when they plan on expanding the waterpark and we wont know more about that until later this summer.
(5/18/18) According to a reader who just visited Valleyfair this week, while riding Excalibur they noticed a ton of new land clearing taking place behind the coaster that was new from last year. Given that the park's plans to expand Soak City were approved last year, these plans seemed to involve new access roads and parking lots (with direct Soak City access through a dedicated entrance) which I believe will require the removal of Excalibur. So get your last rides on Excalibur now... if they are moving ahead with this project for the park's 2019 season, the ride's final days are happening now.
In the meantime, if someone can get some pictures of the site clearing and send them in, I'd appreciate it.
(3/8/18) Screamscape sources have confirmed that Rip Tide was removed from Valleyfair late last year, shortly after the park closed down for the season.
(3/6/18) Tipped off by a reader we have to wonder if the Rip Tide tide (Top Spin) has been removed from Valleyfair. So far there is no mention of it on the park's website other than in the current "park map" graphic, which is listed as still being the 2017 park map. Stay tuned.
(1/21/18) As the NFL season winds down to the finals another pair of theme parks have challenged each other to wager over the outcome. In this case, Dorney Park is hoping for a win of the Philadelphia Eagles over Valleyfair and the Minnesota Vikings.
According to the wager posts on social media, the losing park will light up a major ride in the winning team's colors during the Super Bowl, as well as temporarily rename one of their rides after the winning team for the park's opening weekend. In this case, I believe the rides in question would be Dorney Park's Dominator tower and Valleyfair's North Star tower.
(12/8/17) Add this in as a strange news bit, but according to a local report Valleyfair is asking for an "interim use permit" to store up to 450 semi-trailers on site at their property. They previously had been given permission to store up to 100 on-site back in September, but are now asking for permission to store an additional 350.
Now before you get your hopes up... storing 450 semi-trailers is not what normally happens when a theme park orders a new attraction. Typically the parts and pieces are delivered by semi and off-loaded into an empty field backstage or unused section of the parking lot until they are ready to be assembled. Given that the first wave granted back in September, my gut feeling says that the park may simply be trying to make a buck off their parking lot during the winter months while the park is closed by renting out the space to another company looking to store the trailers over the winter. Anyone feel like taking a drive out past the park to see what kind of trailers are parked on site right now?
2018 - Delirious - (8/17/17) Valleyfair has announced that they will add Delirious, a Larson Super Loop flat ride to the park, going in next to the park's Steel Venom shuttle coaster as part of another wave of improvements to the park's Route 76 themed area. Delirious will send 24-riders at a time back and forth inside a giant loop, before hitting top speed and sending them through 10 back to back inversions in less than a minute through the 7-story tall loop.
(8/14/17) Valleyfair has posted a brief teaser about their 2018 plans on Twitter the other day, about how they were only a few days away turning things upside down on Aug. 16th. So it seems safe to say that the new attraction coming to Valleyfair in 2018 will have inversions of some kind, but what will it be?
While some believe this could signal the return of the park's Enterprise ride, I'm hearing elsewhere that could be some kind of Larson style Super Loop ride. Anyone know more?
(8/2/18) Despite having approved development plans in place, Valleyfair does seem to be in no hurry to remove the Excalibur coaster from the park. A reader dropped by and send in some new pictures of the coaster and site, which looks to be in good condition with no sign them even thinking of removing it. Perhaps the park plans to sit on those waterpark expansion plans for awhile longer before taking action.
(6/12/17) From the sound of things Valleyfair looks to be ready to begin construction on their newly approved expansion plans. I'm told that a couple of bulldozers are already sitting in the employee parking lot and an excavator and bobcat are in the field between the main parking lot and employee dorms.
(5/19/17) According to the notes from the Shakopee City Council, they have recommended approval for Valleyfair's future expansion and wetlands replacement plan which was also approved by the Army Corp of Engineers apparently. Of course, as previously mentioned when the plan was first announced, it seems pretty clear cut that Excalibur will be removed to make this happen, so get your last rides in on it this season while you still can.
(6/2/15) New plans for Valleyfair, submitted through the Army Corps of Engineers, show that Cedar Fair is now looking into more long term ways to improve the use of their property in a way that would also provide more room for future park expansion projects.
This project in particular shows a plan that would replace the current employee parking lot road that cuts through the Western side of the park between Excalibur at the Soak City waterpark. A new access road would be build instead that would run along the outer edge of the park property to the south of Excalibur, run West and North along the property’s edge, then coming back again to run into the current employee parking lot in the rear of the park. Also as part of the project, two new parking lots would be created: a new employee parking lot at the rear of the park, but closer than the current one, and a new guest parking lot in the south/west corner of Vallyfair’s property.
This later part of the project is perhaps the most telling of the park’s future plans, as the map label this area as “New Water Park Guest Parking Lot”, and shows it covering not empty property, but also a section of the property currently occupied by the park’s Excalibur roller coaster. This matches up with a rumor I was sent this past week claiming that Excalibur was down to one train operation for the season, and that this may actually be the coaster’s last season. Excalibur’s site would be the most ideal location for Valleyfair to build a very large new addition to the Soak City waterpark experience… one that would apparently include the addition of a dedicated parking lot and entry gate directly into the waterpark itself, without having to park in the main lot and walk all the way through the theme park.
Kings Island added a similar concept for their Soak City waterpark a few years ago by adding a separate entry gate directly into the waterpark from the far end of the parking lot as a way to keep guess only interested in the waterpark from having to use the park’s main entrance.