We are a family of four. One of us is too short t...

We are a family of four. One of us is too short to ride steel venom and power tower. Other than that we could all ride all of the rides. We purchased Fast Lane Passes for all four of us. We all enjoy rides. The first time I went to Valley Fair I was five years old, I have been there a few times since, now I am 38 and my wife and I brought our kids. We went on a Thur in the second week of August, on the day we went the park was open from 10am to 10pm. We arrived at 1015am and left at 10pm. Tickets, Fast Lane, Food and Parking we were in $550+ for the day. We have done Wilderness WI Dells, Great Wolf Lodge Bloomington, Disneyland Anaheim all in the last two years. We also camp at State Parks, National Parks and KOAs. I am not sure we will return to Valley Fair, they seem to be doing plenty of business without us, so I doubt it matters to anybody involved in the oversight of the place. I think 3 stars is generous. It was a lot of money for a mediocre experience, but the kids had fun, the memory is what counts.

Parking was easy at 1015 am, we were very close to the front gate. We sat in a long line to get through security. Luckily I was able to sneak 6 Nature Valley Granola bars in to the park by having them in my pockets.

Then we sat in a long line to enter the park and have our tickets scanned. We had printed paper copies of our tickets. I saw multiple people having trouble trying to get the bar codes on their phones scanned.

Then we had to stand in another long line at the gift shop to get our Fast Lane wristbands. The guy in front of us in the gift shop had the meal plan, he was told he has to go stand in another line at a food vendor to get his meal plan tickets.

Rides are ok. There are many spinning rides, ICK. Power Tower, Steal Venom are still good. North Star was cool. Wild Thing is getting less smooth and more jerky every year, still fun. I remember when it was new, it just glided. The other coasters will give you a concussion and break your neck. Especially Renegade, which we did ride three times. It is like the roughest freight train you could imagine. The intense shaking is as thrilling as the ride itself. Fast Lane was fun, its good to walk on to rides, no lines. The day we went was pretty slow, we still avoided 20-30 min lines all day at every ride with very few exceptions. I would not do it any other way.

Customer service is hit or miss. Definitely not Disney. The entire park is run by a bunch of untrained teenage brats on their work abroad summer vacation. Some are nice and interested in doing a good job, some are rude and indifferent. Incompetence can make for some long lines with concessions here and there. Like I said, hit or miss depending on the individual. Overall no one really cares about your experience one way or the other. Patience and thick skin goes a long way.

Bathrooms are horrible, everywhere.

Food is crazy expensive and overpriced, also it is barely passable quality. Glad I didn't do the meal plan. We ate what we wanted when and where we wanted and spent about the same amount of money as the add on to our tickets would have been. Two meals, three pops and one round of dipping dots we were in about $130 for food for the day. My granola bars were helpful in keeping spirits up in between meals.

I thought the water park kind of sucked. Wave pool was small. If you want a tube in the wave pool you need to pay extra money. Lockers were expensive and so junky they were difficult to operate requiring staff to open ours as it would not open like it should. There is a line for the lazy river, you go around once, then you have to get out and go stand in line again if you want to go again. The two biggest speed slides are good slides, very smooth.

Extra money to rent tubes in water park, extra money to go through dinosaur world which we did not do, super expensive food and drinks, minimal shaded seating, poor customer service, jerky rides, filthy bathrooms, broken lockers. This was my $550 experience. Have fun! :)