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Park News - (7/26/10) Great news for CGA… Invertigo reopened this weekend.
    (7/24/10) A reader reports that Invertigo is still making test runs with the water dummies. When they asked an employee about the ride they were told that they had to get in 100 hours of successful test runs before they could reopen it. So hopefully it will reopen soon. Now if only they would put those plans for the long-delayed GCI Wooden coaster back on track for 2011 or 2012.
    (7/16/10) Invertigo at California’s Great America has been seen testing with water dummies lately. Are they close to finally reopening it?

    (5/24/10) A nice photo update from the Bay Area Bash trip to the park last weekend has been posted to Theme Park Review.
    (4/26/10) Seeing that it seems most likely that the 49er’s Stadium will be dropped onto their front yard, no matter if they want it or not, Cedar Fair is now attempting to re-negotiate the terms of their lease with the city. The top issue is said to be that they are asking for the “guaranteed minimum rent” figure that they owe the city regardless of how successful or poor the park performs, be dropped or lowered. It’s a good argument as they have complained all along that when the team has games that conflict with normal park operational days, that it will cause utter havoc for the park resulting in reduced attendance and possibly get so bad that they could be forced to even close the park entirely on those days. Since the city seems hell bent on forcing this stadium to be placed on land that Cedar Fair is leasing from the park without their approval, some sort of re-negotiation seems only fair.
    (4/14/10) With Cedar Fair now firmly back in charge of their world and not looking to sell themselves off or merge with anyone quickly jumped back into the fray on Monday by filing a lawsuit against the city of Santa Clara, objecting to the proposed 49er’s Football Stadium plans.

2010 - Planet Snoopy - Confirmed - (1/25/10) A local news article gives out many of the new attraction names like Peanuts Pirates, Woodstock’s Express, Sally’s Love Buggies and the wet fun over at Snoopy’s Splash Dance.
    (1/18/10) Details of the new Planet Snoopy revised attractions for California’s Great America can be found posted to the LA Times.
    (8/26/09) California’s Great America has confirmed plans to add Planet Snoopy to the park in March 2010 at the bottom of their events page. “There's a new Top Dog in town! Join us in welcoming Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the rest of the PEANUTS gang as they take up residence in the children's areas of California's Great America (formerly Nickelodeon Central and KidZville). Stay tuned for more details.”

???? - GCI Wooden Coaster - In Limbo - (8/30/09) Another year gone by and still no plans to build that great GCI wooden coaster that was once planned to wrap around the Skytower. Looks like the plans have been called off due to the uncertain future of the park by the invading 49’ers stadium project.
    (11/24/08) After being left off the 2009 Capital List from Cedar Fair’s big corporate announcement last week a company spokesperson confirmed that the coaster would not be coming in 2009 as planned. However they were kind of vague if it was just being delayed a year or two or if it was canceled entirely. More as we find out.
    (9/1/08) According to the latest rumors, the various delays and setbacks over the new proposed wooden coaster planned for California’s Great America have pushed the project back too far. What this means is that the project may very well be delayed until the 2010 season at this point. I also can’t help but wonder if this has anything to do with all the talks between the park and the 49’ers over building a new stadium in the parking lot. Obviously if the team is willing to buy the park outright from Cedar Fair, then Cedar Fair has no reason to pay to put in a new coaster just yet.
    (8/14/08) For anyone who has heard a rumor lately claiming that the new GCI wooden coaster planned was cancelled, don’t believe it. I went right to the source with this one and asked Al Garcia, the Marketing Communications Manager for the park, to find out what the status of the project is. 
    “As of right now, we're still moving forward with our new wooden coaster project. While it has been a little bit of a bumpy ride to get this project rolling, we are awaiting final approval at an upcoming Santa Clara city council meeting on Aug. 26. So, in short...we're still moving forward with the project!”
    (10/26/07) In 2009 Cedar Fair has already confirmed plans to add a new GCI wooden coaster to the park. The new coaster will stand 104 feet tall and send riders on a 2 minute ride at 52 mph ride through a twisting first drop, a low to the ground S turn and a high speed station fly-by.

???? - 49’ers Stadium Project - In Talks - (6/10/10) In a move sure to irritate Cedar Fair the Santa Clara citizen finally got their say in the matter and voted in favor of the new 49’ers Stadium project on Tuesday.
    (5/22/10) Local voters will get their say on the 49ers Stadium issue when the official vote on the issue takes place on June 8th.
    (2/1/10) It has been confirmed that the proposal for the new 49’ers Stadium will be put on the ballot in Santa Clara after getting the required number of signatures. A date has not been set, but some would like to see it put on a special ballot as early as June 8th.
    (12/11/09) Cedar Fair has now officially filed a lawsuit against the Santa Clara, claiming that the agreement with the 49ers to build a new stadium is illegal.
    (12/8/09) At this point the issue of building a new stadium next to the park is close to being put onto a June ballot for public approval. Read more here.
    (11/16/09) The news reports that various impact reports have now been filed about the proposed new stadium, putting everything on track for a public vote on the matter in June 2010. If approved and things move quickly the new stadium could open by 2014.
    (9/14/09) The latest article about the proposed 49’ers Stadium next to California’s Great America says that Cedar Fair has become kind of ticked off over the whole thing as it sounds like everyone is just going ahead and planning it to happen without meeting any of their concerns and are now threatening to sue.
    (6/5/09) While the city and the 49’ers seem ready to press ahead and build a new stadium, Cedar Fair has now threatened possible legal action if their concerns over the parking situation at the park are not addressed. You can read more here.
    (5/22/09) A major sticking point in the 49’ers plans has come to the close today as the local news reports that the team and city have come to an agreement on the financing terms to build the new stadium. A meeting is planed for Tuesday next week to disclose the terms and possible plans to the public, but they also need to make some kind of deal with Cedar Fair over the use of the land and parking lots for the stadium if they want to open it by 2013. Otherwise, it’s going to get sticky and very legal real quick.
    (5/20/09) The local news mentions that a finalized plan to build a new 49’ers stadium could be signed off on soon and announced in the very near future. In fact, from the tone of the article, the city may actually attempt to just give the land over to the team to build the stadium “as long as it still gives Great America adequate parking nearby.”  Of course, this doesn’t mean that any plan to sell off the park to the team is off the table yet either. More when we find out.
    (4/29/09) We’ve come to the end of the month and still no announcement on what is going on with the park and the 49’ers. Some have taken this sudden silence to mean that perhaps a deal has been reached as they are just busy finishing up all the minor details and paperwork to come up with their final agreement. A good argument for this line of thought is this news article that talks about how many police and security people need to be staffed per game and who will pay for them. This seems like they’re getting ahead of themselves to me, unless perhaps they know something they’re not sharing yet...
    (5/9/08) In a weird bit of news, the city of Santa Clara has sent word to Cedar Fair that they actually don’t need their approval to build the new 49ers stadium on the park’s overflow lot. It seems the terms of the city’s land-lease agreement only require that if the city does develop the parking lot property, that they only need to replace any lost parking spots. This means that the option is open to build a huge parking structure in the theme park’s main parking lot that would make up for the loss of the overflow lot.  The hitch here is… just who would pay for it? The city or the 49ers?  Seems the city already has already committed $42 million towards building just such a parking structure as part of their deal with the 49ers and could simply opt to move to. Apparently Cedar Fair is also still open to the idea of selling off the entire theme park to the 49ers, which would allow them to do as they please.
    (12/26/07) Here’s the latest talk about the various issues involved with building a new 49ers Stadium in the overflow parking lot at California’s Great America. It shows off Cedar Fair’s basic stand on the issue, since they have really nothing to gain by allowing it, so to make it worth their time, Cedar Fair is asking for a cut and some compensation.
    (12/17/07) The latest news about the proposal to build a new stadium for the 49er’s next to California’s Great America is interesting. In addition to some money haggling over who is paying what between the city and the team, Cedar Fair has also demanded “unilateral control of stadium scheduling” during the park’s season (March – October) along with reimbursement for lost revenues because the parking and traffic demands of the home games will require the park to close down entirely on at least four days during home games. Previously Cedar Fair has been entirely opposed to the project, but this is now a first step towards negotiating to allow the project to happen, a step that the team in glad to see. Though I’m a bit sticker shocked to see that the total price for this project may end up costing $916 million. Oh, to dream of just what kind of theme park I could design and build for $916 million… Screamscape: The Park.