Trip Report: Behind-the-scenes tour of Valleyfair

Yesterday, I went up to Valleyfair for the Season Passholder Preview Day and had a great time kicking off the 2016 season. Before the park opened for the preview, I was fortunate enough to take a behind-the-scenes tour of the park. I had won this tour through the #VF40 trivia contest the park has been holding on Twitter recently. We were led around the park by Matt Hehl, Valleyfair's PR manager. During this tour, we were able to tour the park's maintenance shop, walk in some restricted areas, meet general manager Dave Frazier for the first time, as well as take a close look at the new amphitheater and the new Flying Eagles. I also received some interesting tidbits of information that I found interesting, which I will share in the photos below. After the tour, we enjoyed the rest of Passholder Preview Day. The weather couldn't have been better, sunny with temperatures in the low 70s most of the day. The park was a bit more crowded than I expected. It wasn't busy by any means, but the parking lot was a little over one-third full (as seen from the top of Wild Thing), and some rides had decent lines. Honestly a little surprised that Valleyfair has such a big passholder fanbase. Every coaster was running one train (except for Wild Thing, two trains). There have been a few more general improvements throughout the park that, while they don't seem like much, they are helping to improve the overall environment. All-in-all, I had a fantastic day at the park, and hopefully I'll be coming back next weekend for Opening Weekend.

Moving on to the pictures...

The drive to Valleyfair features some amazing landscapes...

We're here!

About to go under Renegade's lift hill and airhill.

Stuff near the employee lot.

Backstage view of Renegade.

Backstage view of Mad Mouse.

Some other rides.

Entering the maintenance shop, ultimate coaster geek moment.

Old sign from the front of the park.

Excalibur's second train cars. Excalibur will only run one train this season while this one gets some work done on it. I was also told that despite the rumors, Excalibur is not going anywhere for now.

Old Steel Venom seats. As you'll see later on, Steel Venom's train received new seats.

Lots and lots of wheels. Most of these are Wild Thing wheels, but the red ones are for The Wave.

These are Arrow wheels for Excalibur and Corkscrew.

A box...

In the room that had the wheels, nuts and bolts for the wooden coasters.

Old Renegade wheel.

Old Wild Thing lift chain piece.

Seatbelts.

Snoopy doghouse.

Was told this mechanism is used to hold and release Power Tower's Turbo Drop cars at the top.

Heading out to the rest of the park, they were doing some work on the new waterslides.

The back of Subway (formerly Ben and Jerry's).

Some Haunt stuff in storage.

Backstage Wild Thing shot.

Tour of the newly renovated amphitheater.

Speakers.

Stage still being set up.

Bleachers.

This sign near the front of the park has a new electronic screen.

Was told while walking by here "if we were to put anything here, it would be a flat ride."

Flying Eagles close up.

I rode Flying Eagles later in the day. This was my first experience with flying scooters, so I don't have anything else to compare it to, but I thought it was enjoyable. Not thrilling by any means, and certainly not something that coaster nuts will be jumping up and down to ride, but it was a good time, and families are going to have a lot of fun with it.

Steel Venom's new seats look nice.

Inside the Steel Venom control booth.

Got a look at the carousel, which just completed phase one of a renovation.

2016 park map.

Valleyfair 40th anniversary bracelet for the first guests.

First ride of the day after the tour.

Was not the most intense ride I've had on it, but it was mostly smooth thanks to the recent trackwork and is still the best ride at Valleyfair.

Gave me a small headache.

Did not ride Mad Mouse due to long lines.

Wild Thing was running decently today.

Two trains in one picture.

Unfortunately, High Roller's buzzbars are no more. These are the same car chassis that have been here for years, but the restraints are actually the old Ghostrider lapbars from Knott's Berry Farm, which I thought was interesting.

For a 36-year-old Arrow, Corkscrew still runs rather smoothly.

Nerd shot.

Wild Thing in the figure-8.

New clocks in the entrance plaza.

Eventually, it was time to go. Thanks to Valleyfair for the tour and for a great day!

Thanks for reading my trip report!

[herman116]

Thanks for the report! It was nice to see some backstage stuff from this park!

for someone like me, who's interested in the technical side of rides and coasters, the photos were very interesting!

[Oscar]

Nice! These yours are awesome

VF15 wrote:

Stuff near the employee lot.

New for 2017 spoiler

I'm guessing that box is the giant space snoopy that goes on top of the moon bounce. I noticed it was not on top of it yesterday, maybe they just haven't set it up yet.

Hey VF15, would you be able to get some pictures of behind Thunder Canyon? like the lift area and the building. Its hard to find pictures of it and it would really help me with my recreation.

Wow, they are doing quite a bit of work behind the scenes, especially with trains. Sad to see High Roller's old trains go, but I'm sure there was a reason. Cool report. I always wanted to tour that area. And that's a sweet angle of Renegade.

Was this the angle you are talking about?

Yes