California Great America (CGA) Discussion Thread

[sfmmrules!]

Well the park opens Sun March 29 & if it were any big ride we would have heard about it already. The only thing I can think of that will be new for this year is toilets & garbage cans. That's all CF has time for! Another year lost for something big.

[dpxtreme]

Looks like Grizzly is getting some major re-tracking. cfpl3.cagreatamerica.com/public/fun/blog/index.cfm

 

And according to the blog, the announcement is coming next week.

[USCoaster]

It's not just Vortex. All the coasters at CGA need to be taken out!!! Top Gun er Flight Deck(yucko name) is halfway decent but it would be kick a$$ if it were a Batman/Dueling Dragons/Montu! & a nice long ride instead of being over in a split second. It's also real sad how long we have to wait for a new roller coaster. If we have to keep waiting years for the park to turn around then why not just sell it to the 49ers or let those stupid office buildings take over. Take the new woodie for example which we were supposed to get this year. Now we have to wait for two more years! If CF really cares then they would have ruled over those stupid office buildings & we would have gotten it this year.

 

Flight Deck should stay. It may be short, but it is still one of the more entertaining B&M inverted coasters. And given B&M's recent trend towards the less forceful coasters, I think that any replacement would just be a major disappointment. While I like Vortex, I can see how getting rid of it could give the park a chance to put in something bigger and better. Invertigo and Demon need to stay, and as I mentioned in a previous post, Grizzly needs to either be fully demolished (if the neighbors will allow a replacement to be built) or completely retracked/reprofiled and given new trains.

[Angry_Gumball]

For those curious about what's new this season, we'll have all the details for you next week. Until then, we'll be busy getting the wheels rollin' for 2009!

 

My 'giving us CGA fans a hint' sense is tingling...

[KGA29]

From the blog:

Until then, we'll be busy getting the wheels rollin' for 2009!

 

Hmmm...Rolling trash cans??

[Tmcdllr]

Well that's good news for Grizzly and way overdue. The last time I rode it, it was absolutely horrible I hope this makes it better. I am actually kind of amazed they would do that considering how many people have voiced how much they hate it. Maybe this will change the minds of those people and this is probably less expensive I am sure that tearing it down and building something else. At least they are doing something to improve it and I am all for that.

 

And that "wheels rollin'" in italics..... Hmmmm, wheels, rollin', part of the announcement?

[ND2009]

New to the site, though have been reading for a while. After reading the blog, it got me thinking. At first when I read the part that said "getting the wheels rolling", I thought it was just referring to getting the park going for 2009, as in getting the coasters up and going. But after reading it a few more times, it got me thinking. Obviously the park is getting something new worth making an announcement for. It can't be a new ride because there would've been something floating around by now. Cedar Fair has the "All Wheels Extreme" show at some other parks, so it goes good with "wheels rolling". But then again, where would they have it?

[Swimace]

Maybe the "wheels rollin" hint means new trains to go with a newly re-tracked Grizzly. I'm just sort of taking a shot in the dark on that one, but that would seem to make the most sense to me since a new ride announcement seems unlikely this time of year.

[Angry_Gumball]

As weird/random as this may sound, and as unlikely that it would even come close to happening, wouldn't it be cool/odd if Triple Wheel/Skywhirl made a return somehow?

[SFGAm Shock Wave]

As far as hypothetical defunct rides returning are concerned, I've been wondering, does anyone know ended up happening to Triple Play after Paramount removed it? If the park still owns the ride, it would take very little effort to reinstall it since the entire former ride area is still completely intact.

[sfmmrules!]

The Triple Play might still be sitting in the employee parking lot. That's what I read at greatameriaparks.com As far as the hint "wheels rollin" maybe Greased Lightnin is returning.

[dpxtreme]

Triple Play has been gone from the employee parking lot for a long time. I believe it's been gone from the employee parking lot sine 2005.

[Mechanic]

I have the ultimate solution for The Grizzly. See the red gas can in this picture? Splash that around and light a match.

 

[Goliath513]

^ Win!

 

^^^ Greased Lightnin was sent to SFKK and some of it's track sections were used as replacements on the other "Tidal Wave." So there's no hope for it returning.

[KGA29]

New to the site, though have been reading for a while. After reading the blog, it got me thinking. At first when I read the part that said "getting the wheels rolling", I thought it was just referring to getting the park going for 2009, as in getting the coasters up and going. But after reading it a few more times, it got me thinking. Obviously the park is getting something new worth making an announcement for. It can't be a new ride because there would've been something floating around by now. Cedar Fair has the "All Wheels Extreme" show at some other parks, so it goes good with "wheels rolling". But then again, where would they have it?

 

I think this makes the most sense, although just a show for 09 is very lame and I also wonder where they would put it. Maybe they'll add some more Haunt stuff too in October. Or maybe a water slide to Boomerang Bay. At least those wouldn't have to be ready and open by March.

[Tmcdllr]

^Well they did mention they were painting one of the theaters.

[John Peck]

It's obvious to me that Cedar Fair are trying to make the most effort they can on the park considering they are having problems with the neighbors and 49ers.

 

The sooner they can get past all the political crap and move on, the sooner we'll see some Major Capital improvements.. of course, theres always the possibility that the park could close and be sold, too, but the price has to be right.

 

It took Dorney Park 6 years to expand after fighting with their neighbors on building a higher ride (Steel Force), Michigans Adventure took 4 years to fight with the city on water usage and 4 years for Cedar Fair to decide that Geauga Lake wasent profitable enough to operate a park of it's size.

[USCoaster]

^ I think that CGA's biggest problem is with the City of Santa Clara. If I remember correctly, the park leases the land from the city and its the city that keeps giving up sections of the parking lot to new development. The only reason that the 49ers are looking at the parking lot for their new stadium is because the city offered the land to them.

[EastCoastn07]

It took Dorney Park 6 years to expand after fighting with their neighbors on building a higher ride (Steel Force), Michigans Adventure took 4 years to fight with the city on water usage and 4 years for Cedar Fair to decide that Geauga Lake wasent profitable enough to operate a park of it's size.

 

Don't make me laugh...I think anyone could take the hint that Cedar Fair never had an intention of trying to make the rides side work at Geauga Lake from the minute they took over. Come on, we're talking about a park that was at one point competing with Cedar Fair after it got X-Flight in 2001. In the 4 years they operated the rides side, Cedar Fair didn't add anything to that side of the park to even show they had interest in keeping it open. Yeah, their PR person continued to say that they had no plans to close the park down (even throughout the 2007 season), but I think its clear Kinzel had his mind set when he took over the park. He saw all those nice and semi-new rides for $145 million and couldn't pass up on the deal. The only major work that ever went on in the rides side was minor retracking of two of the wood coasters and new paint on Thunderhawk and Texas Twister (funny those are two of the rides that ended up getting moved). Other than that, all the money the company put into the park was into the water park, which still remains open today (probably not for long though). It's funny because if they wanted to at least TRY to keep Geauga Lake running, they would have at least added some new attractions to the water park side as well. Geauga Lake experienced a 19 or so percent increase in attendance from the year when WWK opened, imagine what could have happened if Cedar Fair actually made an attempt and put some new rides into the park.

 

To be honest, I really don't see Great America remaining open much longer. I went to the park back in 2007 and its quite sad how terrible the park is compared to when I visited it many years ago under Paramount. I'm not pointing the finger at Cedar Fair, but the park is in shambles and like I said before, if Cedar Fair expects to see better attendance numbers without putting in new attractions, they are mad. Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is easily the best park in the area and has seen increases in their numbers year after year. Why you ask? Well they've added some sort of attraction every year since the purchased the park. In 1999 the park got Roar along with several flat rides, 2000 the park got the second floorless coaster with the introduction of Medusa, 2001 they got V2: Vertical Velocity, 2002 they gave V2 a facelift and introduced a new show in the Dinosphere Theater, and in 2003 they brought Zonga to the park. In 2004 after the close of the animal side of Geauga Lake, Six Flags brought Shouka the killer whale to SFDK introducing a new show surrounded around her, in 2005 they got the Ocean Discovery area with some all new marine animal exhibits, 2006 they added kiddy area Tava's Jungleland, 2007 they got another kid friendly area with Thomas Town and this year they got the new Tony Hawk's Big Spin Coaster. And next year, they're bringing back the Jungle Theater and introducing a new show, Odin's Temple of the Tiger.

 

So as you can see here, in the 10 years Six Flags has operated this park, they have introduced some sort of attraction at the park. And in that same time period they have turned attendance around completely and have brought this park into the conversation of one of the best Six Flags parks in the chain. Why is Cedar Fair failing? Well, as you pointed out look at Geauga Lake. Geauga Lake's attendance wasn't bad because the park was too big or too close to Cedar Point, it's because they didn't put a damn thing into the park except that waterpark. Yes they put in the waterpark, but you can't expect things to turn around over night (or in 3 years in the case of Geauga Lake). Attendance rose slightly but continually neglecting the ride side eventually did the park in, and I'm sure Cedar Fair TRIED to make that happen so they had a reason to blame other than Kinzel's hidden agendas. In the case of Great America, the park is horrible and hasn't received much attention even since the Paramount days. If Cedar Fair would do what Six Flags did with SFDK, I'm sure they could eventually turn things around. But that's just the thing, Six Flags has the winning formula and Cedar Fair doesn't. Why do you think all the Six Flags parks are turning things around and Cedar Fair parks are continually getting worse and worse. Just think about that....

[KGA29]

To be honest, I really don't see Great America remaining open much longer. I went to the park back in 2007 and its quite sad how terrible the park is compared to when I visited it many years ago under Paramount. I'm not pointing the finger at Cedar Fair, but the park is in shambles and like I said before, if Cedar Fair expects to see better attendance numbers without putting in new attractions, they are mad. Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is easily the best park in the area and has seen increases in their numbers year after year. Why you ask? Well they've added some sort of attraction every year since the purchased the park. In 1999 the park got Roar along with several flat rides, 2000 the park got the second floorless coaster with the introduction of Medusa, 2001 they got V2: Vertical Velocity, 2002 they gave V2 a facelift and introduced a new show in the Dinosphere Theater, and in 2003 they brought Zonga to the park. In 2004 after the close of the animal side of Geauga Lake, Six Flags brought Shouka the killer whale to SFDK introducing a new show surrounded around her, in 2005 they got the Ocean Discovery area with some all new marine animal exhibits, 2006 they added kiddy area Tava's Jungleland, 2007 they got another kid friendly area with Thomas Town and this year they got the new Tony Hawk's Big Spin Coaster. And next year, they're bringing back the Jungle Theater and introducing a new show, Odin's Temple of the Tiger.

 

Well if you want to compare going all the way back to 2000, then look at what (P/nothing/C)GA has put in:

 

2000-Stealth the world's FIRST flying coaster compared to Medusa, ok fair fight

2001-Psycho Mouse, Celebration Swings, new movie to the FX theater, compared to V2 (i think this one is pretty fair too, but maybe advantage SFDK)

2002-Delirium, Flying Eagles, new movie (better than V2 facelift, adv. CGA)

2003-3 new kiddy rides, new movie, complete retheme of Nickelodeon area (Adv. Zonga even though it only "ran" for like 2 years)

2004-3 large water slide, huge water playground, kiddy water play area

2005-Lazy River, 2 body slides, activity pool (adv. CGA because i'm guessing that the water park brought in more people than Shouka did)

2006-Suvivor the Ride (Advantage CGA)

2007-Wave pool (Tie..Thomas Town or wave pool. Hmmm, maybe adv. SFDK because of the wave pool incident that happened in the summer)

2008-Ice show, Firefall, Halloween Haunt (Adv. SFDK, althought I wouldn't say by much)

 

I don't see how you can make the argument that SFDK has really added that much more than CGA in the past few years. Sure, they removed 1 instead of 2 roller coasters, but GA's Boomerang Bay has brought way more guests to the park than Stealth did, I guarantee it.

[EastCoastn07]

No, I wasn't just comparing stuff back to 1999 for the hell of it...I was talking about additions Six Flags has put into the park since they opened it (something new every year) and why that park has done nothing but get better since it opened. You don't have to tell me things about this park, I've been to both and I've always favored Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. And you're completely right, Boomerang Bay has been a very nice addition to the park, but on every occasion of me going to California's Great America, the waterpark would be absolutely packed and all the ride's would be dead. To be quite honest, it was sad walking in the front midway seeing more garbage cans than people. I'm not degrading CGA or anything, I liked the park at one point, but I just see it being a very large disadvantage to SFDK and just don't think it will be able to compete with Cedar Fair's mentality of watch and see what happens.

 

I mean if you really want to see how successful each park is, go to each of them on a Saturday and look at the crowds. I went to CGA in 2007 on a Saturday and it was dead, I go to SFDK on a Thursday last season and the entire parking lot is full before I even get there. Times are changing, Six Flags is beginning to shape up and Cedar Fair is getting worse. They might have though this Paramount acquisition was just a great thing, but I can guarantee you that they'll eventually choose to either close down or sell off a few of the parks. And as much as I hate to say it, CGA will probably be the first to go. Don't get me wrong, like I said I liked the park, I just see it as being a very large advantage. Their coaster collection is mediocre (Invertigo is my favorite, go figure) at best and the best thing going for them is the waterpark, which is pretty small in itself too. I just can't see Cedar Fair fighting for this park when they have the 49ers breathing down their necks and billions in dollars of debt to pay off.

[sfmmrules!]

Too bad CGA can't get the Greezed Lightnin from Astroworld. I guess it really is going to Joyland. It says on their site. They just have to find a place to put it because of land issues. I can just see it. The new woodie we were supposed to get this year will fall through again & CF won't care. They'll end up selling the park to the 49ners or the city. I can't believe no one cares about this park. CF is turning out to be just like Paramount. I plan not to go to CGA for at least 10 years. But who knows. In 10 years CGA will probabably be turned into a giant 49ers stadium which I don't really care if that will happen or not. I mean looking at CGA in these past years & currently it has gone WAY, WAY, WAY DOWNHILL. If all these rides were still there I would still be going!:

-Stealth

-Greased Lightnin

-Days Of Thunder

-Yankee Clipper

-Original Loggers Run(running beside Yankee Clipper & through trees)

-The Edge

-Triple Wheel

-The Lobster

-The Whizzer

-Triple Play

-Smurf Woods

I hate that Paramount. They just ruined the park & CF I know will run it like Paramount. Just wait & see. We may never get that wooden coaster.

[John Peck]

^ At LEAST they put forth time and plans to build the wooden coaster. Those designs weren't just done for kicks.

 

Like I said before, I have "Complete" Faith that Cedar Fair will do a good job with this park (if they do intend to keep it)

[USCoaster]

^ They may have put forth the plans for a new wooden coaster, but the whoever decided that they should try to put a coaster in that location didn't do their research. To be honest, I don't think Great America had a chance at getting approval considering how close the coaster was to the office buildings at the front of the park. While I would have loved for this coaster to be built, I think it was announced to give the park a better hand in the 49ers stadium talks.

[Angry_Gumball]

I still have hopes that we'll see some form of coaster by 2010. This year, given the time frame, I could see possibly a flat ride (I think those go up pretty fast) or maybe a new show or 2 in the action theater. Spongebob's lived in that theater a few years now...think it's time for him to throw in the towel. His picture in the front of the theater is all faded out.