Welcome To Screamscape!

Park News - (10/29/09) For a good laugh check out this broadcast of the local Good Day Sacramento show where a couple of the monsters from the Halloween Haunt apparently arrived and took over the broadcast, tried to steal an Xbox 360, kidnapped the Entertainment Anchor in their hearse and more! Check it out!

    (9/4/09) According to this news report the state inspectors have started to temporarily dismantle the Invertigo coaster in order to determine just what went wrong last month when the coaster stranded riders for hours on one of the lifts.
    (8/13/09) According to this news article the Invertigo will be closed for at least two months while investigator try to determine why it got stuck and find a way to fix it so it wont happen again.
    (8/11/09) The big news from earlier this evening was an incident involving the Invertigo at California’s Great America. For whatever reason, the coaster became stuck in mid ride at about 1:30pm or so, stranding about two dozen riders in the air for several hours. According to this report, only 17 had been rescued so far by 5pm by the local fire department. Thankfully the train was only stuck on one of the two lift towers and not in the boomerang element itself. In a similar fashion, riders became stuck on another Invertgo style coaster at Six Flags America in October of 2007, also on the lift tower.
    (8/4/09) Cedar Fair is not happy with the way things are going with the proposed 49’ers stadium in their parking lot. According to this news report they dropped off their official complaint letter to the government officials the day before the official stadium proposal was to come out. Their concerns are warrents as well, as they are afraid about what will happen on the days when football games take place during the park’s more busy days and the effect it will have on both parking and traffic in the area. After all, there is already some established history as to the complications that arise between an NFL football team stadium being too close to an established amusement park as we saw take place towards the end of the lifespan for Six Flags Astroworld in Houston, and things never did work out in the park’s favor.

2010 - New Ride - Rumor - (11/9/09) According to the LA Times, California’s Great America has officially announced that the Screamin’ Swing from Knott’s Berry Farm will be added to the park by Summer 2010. I haven’t seen any statement from the park to confirm this yet however, so stay tuned!
    (10/20/09) With Knott’s Screamin’ Swing on the way out, it’s now been rumored that the upcharge attraction may be heading to California’s Great America. According to one source, they may place it somewhere between Grizzly and Drop Tower.

2010 - Planet Snoopy - Confirmed - (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.”
    (8/23/09) Those rumors about converting the Nick areas into a Planet Snoopy themed land just got one step closer to being true as similar plans were just announced for Canada’s Wonderland. 
    (8/16/09) The latest rumor to come down the pipe indicates that California’s Great America may try to retheme the current Nick and Kidzville areas into a new Planet Snoopy area for 2010. With all the park’s Nick merchandise on clearance sales, this does make sense.

???? - GCI Wooden Coaster - Proposed - (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 - (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...
    (4/3/09) According to this article there has been some good progress lately in the efforts to make a deal between the city, the 49’ers and Cedar Fair that could allow them to all come to an agreement on a new stadium plan within the next couple of weeks. Cedar Fair is talking with them it seems, as they have been having some meetings with Cedar Fair about it in Ohio lately.
    (1/12/09) According to the local news the current economy problems are likely going to slow down any progress the 49ers may have hoped to make on building a new stadium for the team next to the park. In fact they may be forced to do what was once “unthinkable” and bring the Oakland Raiders into the deal with a plan to share a new stadium facility.
    (6/16/08) The rush to try and finalize a deal to build a new 49’ers stadium next to California’s Great America is no longer a rush issue as the city has now extended the deadline to finalize the stadium plan until February 2009.
    (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.
    (4/17/08) We haven’t heard much lately about the proposal to build a new football stadium for the 49ers on the park’s overflow lot, but this is due to the fact that not much is going other than talking it seems. The city and the team are on the same page it seems, but no one can move forward until Cedar Fair is happy and allows the project to happen. According to a Cedar Fair spokesperson quoted in this article, “We are agreeable to the overflow lot if certain concerns are met from our end," Frole said. "And we have to work through some of those items.” Apparently the rush is on since July 22nd has been set as the “soft deadline” for all the these negotiations to take place that would still allow for time for the issue to be placed up for a public vote this November.
    (3/18/08) The 49ers have wrote a check to the city for over $14k to begin the planning review process for the new stadium they hope to build in the overflow lot at California’s Great America. Currently the 49ers and Cedar Fair are said to be in negotiations about the issue but so far Cedar Fair has not given their approval.
    (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.