Valleyfair

Infobox Amusement park
name = Valleyfair


caption = Valleyfair logo
location = Shakopee
location2 = Minnesota
location3 = U.S.
address = One Valleyfair Drive Shakopee, Minnesota 55379
opening_date = 1976
season = Daily Memorial Day through Labor Day, some weekends in May and September. Also, Valleyscare in October.
area = convert|125|acre|km2 (0.5 km²)
rides = 75+
coasters = 8
water_rides = 6
owner = Cedar Fair Entertainment Company
homepage = http://www.valleyfair.com/

Valleyfair is a 90 acre (0.5 km²) amusement park located in Shakopee, Minnesota, USA and is currently the largest amusement park in the Upper Midwest United States. It has over 75 rides and currently operates 8 roller coasters, one of the most popular being Wild Thing. Valleyfair also has a water park, White Water Country Waterpark, located completely within it.

Valleyfair opened in 1976 and was originally themed as a Coney Island-styled turn-of-the-century amusement park, which leads to some jarring contrasts with modern-style rides like the steel roller coasters Corkscrew and Wild Thing.

The park is owned by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company. Valleyfair and Cedar Point are the two original Cedar Fair parks and the "Fair" in the Cedar Fair name comes from Valleyfair.

Valleyfair’s normal operating season runs daily from Memorial Day through Labor Day and some weekends in May and September. There is also a "Valleyscare" event near Halloween.

History

Valleyfair! opened in 1976 featuring 20 rides and attractions on 26 acres, with the roller coaster High Roller being the main attraction. The carousel in the park came from Excelsior Amusement Park which was closed many years earlier. It is the oldest ride in the park. In 1978 in an effort to increase investment capital for continued park expansion, Valleyfair was acquired by Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio and placed under the management of Cedar Fair Limited Partnership. The park continues to grow every year with new rides and attractions. Since 1976, Valleyfair has invested over $96 million into the park, and today the park has over 75 rides on 125 acres of land. A height restriction was imposed in the year 2001 with the building of Power Tower. After negotiations with the FAA and the nearby Flying Cloud Airport, the FAA restricted the building height of Power Tower at 275 feet due to its proximity to the airport. Power Tower's original plan was to be a height of 300 feet and to take riders to 275 feet. [http://www.valleyfair.com/public/information/history.cfm ValleyFair Park Information]

Attractions

Roller coasters

Although not as well-known a "coaster park" as some other parks like Cedar Point, Valleyfair does have many popular coasters and is known widely for them.

*High Roller - Wooden Out & Back (1976). An ACE Coaster Classic. [ [http://www.aceonline.org/CoasterAwards/?type=1 ACE Coaster Classic Awards] ]
*Mild Thing - Steel Kiddie Coaster. (1976) Hershell. This classic Little Dipper was renamed and repainted to match Wild Thing in 1996. [ [http://www.coastergallery.com/2000/V29.html Mild thing | CoasterGallery.com] ]
*Wild Rails - Steel Wild Mouse. (1979) (decommissioned 1998) Schwarzkopf. Formerly known as the Wildcat and operated at Cedar Point from 1970-1978. [ [http://www.coasterbuzz.com/2003-29-945015.htm Wild Rails | Coaster Buzz] ] Relocated to Jolly Roger Amusement Park in Maryland. [ [http://www.rcdb.com/id115.htm Factsheet | Roller Coaster Data Base] ]
*Corkscrew - Steel Looping (1980). Arrow Dynamics Features three inversions, including a loop and double corkscrew.
*Excalibur - Hybrid Wood-Steel (1989). Arrow
*Wild Thing - Steel Out & Back (1996). Morgan, D.H. Features a convert|207|ft|m|abbr=on lift hill with a convert|198|ft|m|abbr=on drop and the longest stretch of negative-G track in the world.
*Mad Mouse - Steel Wild Mouse (1999). Arrow Dynamics
*Steel Venom – Steel, Inverted, Launched (2003). Intamin AG
*Renegade - Wooden (2007). Great Coasters International, Inc. It features include a twisting first drop, a near-ground high-speed S-turn and a high-speed station fly-by. The ride is convert|3113|ft|m long and convert|104|ft|m high, with a convert|91|ft|m|sing=on drop. [ [http://www.shakopeenews.com/node/675 Coming to a Valleyfair near you: A new wood coaster | Shakopee Valley News ] ]

Challenge Park

Challenge Park is located on the southeast corner of the amusement park. Challenge Park is a separate charge attraction and requires Valleyfair admission to participate in activities. Challenge Park features four different attractions: RipCord, Adventure Golf, Go-Karts and Bumper Boats. Ripcord is a Skycoaster where 1-3 individuals are harnessed, raised to a height of 161 feet, and one of the riders must pull their own cord to release them to a swinging freefall. The Adventure Golf is semi-mountain themed with a waterfall and ponds, making a rather picturesque entrance to the park. The go karts travel beneath the figure-eight of the park's hyper-coaster, Wild Thing.

White Water Country Waterpark

White Water Country is a water park located within Valleyfair. It is a no-additional-charge attraction open to all Valleyfair visitors. It includes two high speed, single-person water slides, a lazy river, a large river rapid raft slide and other small attractions. For the 2009 season, it has been advertised that the park is getting a large new wavepool. The announcement will be on October 15th.

Halloween Haunt at ValleySCARE

Valleyscare is a Halloween event put on by Valleyfair starting in 2006. Originally, Valleyfair operated Halloweekends until 2000 and changed the name after it reinstated the event with more theming and haunted areas. The first event featured 3 indoor haunted houses, one indoor/outdoor haunted house, and one scare zone. The following year (2007) the haunt expanded with one more scare zone. This year, the haunt is expanding yet again with another haunted house entitled "Mr. Cleaver's Bloodshed" which will be located in the building behind Cool & Creamy, and "Hellside Farm" was restructured from a scare zone into an outdoor maze. In addition to the new house, more actors and monsters will be staged around the park to scare random victims.

Accidents

*On September 3, 2007, the ride Xtreme Swing experienced a fire in an electrical junction box. There were no injuries, and the ride reopened several days later after the problem was fixed and the ride successfully tested. [ [http://wcco.com/topstories/valley.fair.fire.2.370004.html wcco.com - Ride At Valleyfair Closed After Fire ] ]

*18 people were injured on the Wild Thing on May 21, 2006.

ee also

*Excelsior Amusement Park – a park that operated in the region from 1925 to 1973. The carousel that stands inside the entrance came from Excelsior Amusement Park.

References

External links

* [http://www.valleyfair.com/ Valleyfair Official Website]
* [http://www.rcdb.com/pd24.htm Valleyfair] at RCDB
* [http://www.valleyfairzone.com/ ValleyFairZone]