User blog:RCTFan2002/Whatever Happened to... Episode 5: Whatever Happened to...Valley Hills?

Hey everyone, welcome back to the "Whatever Happened to..." series. This week, we're going to focus on another famous RCT3 timeline park that apparently just up and stopped for seemingly no reason - I'm talking about JonnyRCT3's Valley Hills.

This was one of the most popular RCT3 park projects on Theme Park Review, so the fact that this project just apparently stopped updating out of the blue was just not only strange, but practically an outrage to fans everywhere, including me. Not to mention, the last official updates on the park - which took place in 2011 in the VH universe - sort of left a bad taste in my mouth, so hopefully, I can try to fix them in my own version of what happened to the park afterwards.

(Disclaimer: I do NOT own Valley Hills. It belongs solely to the brilliant, talented JonnyRCT3)

Introduction
Valley Hills opened as a small, independently owned theme park in 1972. Over the years, it quickly expanded, adding some more coasters, a kiddie area, a log flume, and more. Eventually, in 1990, the park was sold to Tierco Group Inc., which eventually became Premier Parks in 1994. In 1997, the park was renamed "Six Flags Valley Hills" and quickly grew to become a popular midwestern SF park. However, in 2004, Six Flags put the park up for sale due to their ongoing financial issues, and the park was bought by Cedar Fair, who reopened it in 2005 under it's original name again and gave it the "Cedar Fair treatment", such as Peanuts theming, Coasters Drive-In, etc. Last we heard of the park, it was 2011, and while the park had seen an expansion of one of it's kiddie areas, it also removed three rides - one of which had just opened a year before, and two classics, the "Towering Inferno" first generation freefall, and "Apple Twists", a Paratrooper that'd opened with the park in 1972. That's the last we know of Valley Hills.

But what happened since then? What did the park get in 2012, 2013, and so on? Did they remove any more of their classic rides? What would the park look like today? Well, sit back and prepare yourselves, because you're about to see what I imagine Valley Hills would be like in 2022!

Valley Hills: A History (from 2011-2022)
For the 2011 season, the park featured an expansion of the Camp Snoopy kids area, featuring several new rides such as Krazy Kars (bumper cars), Flying Beagle (a Larson Flying Skooters ride), and Snoopy's Rocket Express (a Vekoma family boomerang coaster, and the first one to open in North America). It also featured an upcharge rock climbing attraction and an all-new picnic catering pavilion opening in the back of the park called "Spruce Pavilions". However, this year also saw some major ride removals - Towering Inferno, the park's Intamin first generation freefall tower, was unceremoniously demolished and scrapped, a vacant dirt lot being all that was left from the ride. Charlie Brown's Wind Up, a Rideworks Whip that had just opened a year before in 2010, was suddenly removed with no explanation before the season started, and it's old ride pad was reduced to an empty spot.

But probably the most surprising ride removal was that of Apple Twists, a Hrubetz Paratrooper ride that had opened with the park in 1972 and was considered a classic. It was replaced with the aforementioned upcharge rock climbing attraction, a switch-out that MANY park fans did not approve of at all. Finally, in October of 2011, after months of little to no explanation, Cedar Fair made an official formal announcement regarding the removal of Charlie Brown's Wind Up and Apple Twists, along with 2012's new additions - apparently, the removals of both Charlie Brown's Wind Up and Apple Twists was NOT final after all. Apple Twists had simply been put in storage to accommodate for the new kids area expansion, and Charlie Brown's Wind Up had also been put in storage due to some maintenance issues during testing. Because there had been a lack of spare parts for the ride at the time (there was a delay in spare parts coming in), Cedar Fair didn't want the ride becoming a maintenance nightmare, so they briefly put the ride in storage until the spare parts came so they didn't have to worry about being unable to fix it if it broke down.

Now that the spare parts had finally come in, Cedar Fair announced that Charlie Brown's Wind Up would indeed be reinstalled at Valley Hills for the 2012 season, as well as Apple Twists, much to the relief of park fans everywhere. However, it was also announced that these rides would not be in the same spot as they once were when they were originally at the park, causing speculation amongst fans as to where they'd go...

Sure enough, in 2012, Charlie Brown's Wind Up and Apple Twists were back at Valley Hills! Both rides were now installed right next to each other in Towering Inferno's old spot, taking up the old drop tower's ride pad quite nicely. While Apple Twists remained the same, Charlie Brown's Wind Up experienced quite a change - the ride was repainted, rethemed and renamed "Saloon Sidewinder", to fit the faint wild west theme of the area it was now in. When both rides reopened this season, lots of guests immediately flocked to them, especially Apple Twists, which pretty much everyone was relieved had not gone to flat ride heaven after all.

But that wasn't all - also new for the 2012 season, was WindSeeker! And yes, the ride is exactly what it sounds like. A 300-ft tall Mondial WindSeeker ride indeed made it's way to Valley Hills that season, just like it did at a bunch of Cedar Fair's other parks. Located in the old spot of Saloon Sidewinder, it quickly became the tallest ride in the park and attracted a lot of guests that season as well, for being a very exciting and intimidating-looking swing ride, yet also actually being gentle enough for families to get on it as well. And as for the icing on top of the cake, Halloween Haunt was announced in August of 2012, therefore extending the park's operating season all the way until October - something lots of park fans were also excited about. Overall, 2012 was definitely a very successful season for Valley Hills, in a couple different ways.

Sadly though, as much of a success 2012 was, the park still, unfortunately, had to remove one of their more redundant rides that year - that ride was Chaos, the park's Chance Chaos that had opened back in 1999 when the park was still under Six Flags' reign. After waning popularity over the years (as well as having to go into a restaurant just to enter the ride's queue) and becoming outshined by the park's other, more updated and exciting thrill rides, Cedar Fair decided to pull the plug on the 13-year-old ride, announcing it's removal in October 2012. The last few days of Halloween Haunt, the ride was closed off to the public as it began getting dismantled, and by the beginning of December, it was completely gone.

2013 saw two major changes to the park. First, Ignition, the park's B&M invert, finally got rid of it's awkward Batman colors and got a much deserved repaint, from it's old blue, yellow and black scheme to an all-new red and bright orange scheme. The second, however, is the more important one - Disaster Transport: The Second Mission, an all-new Sally Corporation dark ride that opened on the former spot of Chaos, and also took up some of the old land that had been previously occupied by Deja Vu. The ride's name was meant to be both a tribute and reference to the defunct Disaster Transport coaster at Cedar Point, which had been removed just a year earlier. Since it was the first tracked dark ride to ever open in the park's history, the ride instantly became popular with guests when it first opened at the park for the 2013 season, immediately being a hit with families and kids specifically.

2014 didn't see any major changes that year, the most prominent addition being the Peanuts Theater, and even calling it that was being generous - it was basically a small stage where meet-and-greet sessions with Peanuts characters happened every half hour, and every week a small 10-minute show would be performed there as well. It replaced the old upcharge Snoopy's Bounce House attraction, which had practically become obsolete and forgotten due to the park's many other kiddie attractions. Other than that, nothing new came to the park that season, other than general improvements. 2015, however, saw an exciting new family ride come to Camp Snoopy, replacing the old upcharge rock climbing wall that everyone apparently seemed to hate. Snoopy's GR8 SK8 was an all-new Zamperla Skater ride, nearly identical to the Zamperla Disk'O but with a rectangular, skateboard-themed vehicle instead of a circular disk. It received acclaim for being quite an exciting family ride, plus it's location right behind White Lightning gave riders great views of the coaster's mid-brake run and turnaround right next door. West Virginia Turnpike also received minor upgrades that year, mainly being new cars (which were actually the relocated cars from the now defunct Cadillac Cars ride at Cedar Point).

However, the 2015 season also featured the park saying goodbye to three more classic rides: Patriot, the park's Huss Ranger which'd opened in 1985 as "Sun Spin", Valley Lift, the park's chairlift ride that opened in 1989, and "Music Box", the park's Moser Tagada that opened in 1983 alongside Towering Inferno. Cedar Fair later confirmed that the official reason that all 3 rides were being removed from the park that season was because of old age, increasing maintenance issues, and a lack of spare parts for the rides. They also announced that the three rides would be replaced in 2016 with an all new flat ride package, just like what Carowinds would later do in 2017...

And sure enough, in 2016, FOUR new flat rides opened at the park. Shockforce, Rock N' Roll Express, Valley Twister and BackWoods Swinger opened! The four rides - a Mondial Top Scan, a Wisdom Rides Himalaya, a Mondial Rollover (relocated from the European fair circuit) and a Zierer Wave Swinger respectively - opened, all in one of the old ride's spots (Rock N' Roll Express replaced the Valley Lift station near Planet Snoopy, Shockforce replaced the other station near Barrel Blast, Valley Twister replaced Patriot, and BackWoods Swinger replaced Music Box). Cedar Fair, wanting and trying to allude to the park's history, used part of BackWoods Swinger's name as a reference to the old BackWoods Buffet restaurant that had operated in the park from 1972 to 1980. While the Planet Snoopy kids area already had a swing ride in the form of Treetop Flyers, that was more of a kiddie-oriented swing ride, which meant that BackWoods Swinger was technically the park's family swing ride (and WindSeeker the park's thrill swing ride. Besides Carowinds has Yo-Yo, WindSeeker AND Zephyr, which are all swing rides, so why not this park?). All four new rides received a fair amount of attention when they opened at the park for the 2016 season.

2017 saw yet another small kids area expansion, this time for the rather neglected Planet Snoopy. It wasn't much, just two small new kiddie rides - a Zamperla Samba Balloons named Woodstock's Airmail and a Zamperla Happy Swing named Sally's Swing Set - but it certainly did help bring some more guests, mainly families and little kids, into the area. Treetop Flyers also got a refurbishment that season, having it's tree theming taken away and replaced with a baseball theme. The ride was ultimately renamed...wait for it...Charlie Brown's Wind Up. Yep, Cedar Fair reused Saloon Sidewinder's old name for the ride, so it would better fit the Peanuts theme of the area it was in. 2017 also sadly saw the end of the park's iconic log flume, Wild Waters, which was quickly demolished and scrapped during Halloween Haunt. Buccaneer, the nearby Huss Pirate Ship, was also taken out during Wild Waters' demolition, though Cedar Fair later confirmed that the ride was NOT getting scrapped unlike the log flume and would be briefly put in storage for the time being while they worked on 2018's new addition.