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Geauga Lake Discussion Thread


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Every park I can think of that has closed in the past few decades had the decency to tell the GP that "this is the last season come and enjoy it cuze this is all she wrote" Euclid Beach, Idora, Astroworld etc....

 

Kentucky Kingdom.

 

Is still open, at least, partially

 

Intresting news is popping up though that the big dipper may actually *HAVE* been purchased now, but we don't know for sure yet until someone can confirm/deny it

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Is still open, at least, partially

And Geauga Lake isn't?!?!

 

Geauga lake is purely a waterpark, last i heard KK was still operating rides in some capacity/bringing in more rides

 

As such, i have *0* reason to ever visit GL Again, i'm not a waterpark guy.

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Geauga lake is purely a waterpark, last i heard KK was still operating rides in some capacity/bringing in more rides

 

As such, i have *0* reason to ever visit GL Again, i'm not a waterpark guy.

 

I am a water park fan but WWK isn't that big. Which is not to say I don't like what's there, it's just not an all-day park.

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So when does the incessant complaining and ranting end? The park closed three years ago.......

 

It feels like it was closed yesterday.

 

Sarcasm aside I think a lot of us feel like the park got cheated out on its life by some BS business decision made by an unethical amusement park company. Six Flags; in my opinion, was the best thing to ever happen to Ohio. Six Flags Worlds of Adventure was something that Six Flags could definitely be proud of and I definitely saw it as a major competitor to Cedar Point. That reason alone makes me wish it was still operating as Six Flags, but the only thing the park lacked was proper access. It seemed out of the way when it came to highway access, but the park definitely could have been the Disney World of Ohio if it would have been given the chance.

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It feels like it was closed yesterday.

 

Sarcasm aside I think a lot of us feel like the park got cheated out on its life by some BS business decision made by an unethical amusement park company. Six Flags; in my opinion, was the best thing to ever happen to Ohio. Six Flags Worlds of Adventure was something that Six Flags could definitely be proud of and I definitely saw it as a major competitor to Cedar Point. That reason alone makes me wish it was still operating as Six Flags, but the only thing the park lacked was proper access. It seemed out of the way when it came to highway access, but the park definitely could have been the Disney World of Ohio if it would have been given the chance.

 

^ ? GL/SFWOA was within 10 minutes of 2 highways.

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Yes, here is an excerpt from Dick Kinzel's yet to be released autobiography.

 

"In early 2003, I finally decided how to get back at the people of Cleveland. Ever since Cedar Fair was formed I hated Cleveland and Geauga Lake in particular. So here is what I did.

 

I convinced the board at Cedar Fair to buy the Geauga Lake property with the sole purpose of shutting down that hated park and leaving Cleveland with only a waterpark. Hey, it's more than LeBron left them.

 

Sometime you just have to stand on principles. So what if my 1.5 Million shares in Cedar Fair valued at $45 million at the time of the decision are now worth only $18 million. So what is my malfeasance caused me to personally lose $4 Million in dividends over the past 3 years, as CF had to eliminate dividends. It doesn't matter. I triumphed as I closed down Geauga Lake. Yay, me!"

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I fail to see where the decision to close the park was unethical. If my local McDonald's closes tomorrow without notice because there's a McDonald's just down the street, does that make it unethical? Hell no, it's a great business decision because now that McDonald's that's staying open is going to have their business.

 

Closing the park was a business decision. Cedar Fair's not denying that they bought the park to close it in order to eliminate competition at Cedar Point, where's the conspiracy theory? They got a hell of a deal on a large amount of land and a few dozen rides they could move to other parks.

 

There is no one to blame for Geauga Lake's downfall, honestly, other than general business decisions. Six Flags made a brilliant business decision growing the park to compete with Cedar Point. At the same time, however, they weren't making very many other good choices, and ended up in a ridiculous amount of debt. Cedar Fair doesn't want competition for Cedar Point, and why would they? The GP loves Cedar Point and it brings in more money every year than most of us could dream of. If you have the chance to eliminate your competition, of course you're going to take that opportunity!

 

The thing people forget about is that saving the Big Dipper would cost a ridiculous amount of money. If it was viable, someone would have done it by now, they've had three years. If someone really wanted to save the Big Dipper, they would, but sitting on the internet complaining about it just makes you sound ridiculous. Even more ridiculous is sitting on the internet calling someone greedy for making a business choice, but that's an argument for another time.

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^ Well it's not like McDonald's bought an existing building that was there for a hundred years and after a year or two decides to demolish it. I've said this before, but despite the so-called success of eliminating a competitor's park the "ethics" of buying the park are poor because while they shouldn't even be buying in the park in the first place they also managed to take business and jobs away from the community. I know you made some good points about the business end of the park which have been made quite a few times by a lot of people in this thread, but I don't think it's good business ethics to do it at the cost of something that is more important than a couple of extra bucks and rides. I really wish Cedar Fair could have just dealt with the idea of there being more than one big fish in the pond. Cedar Fair got greedy though.

 

Disney World of Ohio? Seriously? I think hyperbole has been taken to a new all-time high on that one.

 

I don't know if I should view this as an insult or a comment, but I was simply stating that the park had three nicely themed areas that made the park very attractive to a family. I apologize for trying to being clever.

 

? GL/SFWOA was within 10 minutes of 2 highways.

 

I don't really remember there being any major highways (interstates, 4 lane highways, etc.) being located around Geauga Lake. I just remember the two-lane state roads that were packed with traffic the one time that I went. Of course, I can look this up now on google maps, but I really don't care anymore.

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Yes, here is an excerpt from Dick Kinzel's yet to be released autobiography.

 

"In early 2003, I finally decided how to get back at the people of Cleveland. Ever since Cedar Fair was formed I hated Cleveland and Geauga Lake in particular. So here is what I did.

 

I convinced the board at Cedar Fair to buy the Geauga Lake property with the sole purpose of shutting down that hated park and leaving Cleveland with only a waterpark. Hey, it's more than LeBron left them.

 

Sometime you just have to stand on principles. So what if my 1.5 Million shares in Cedar Fair valued at $45 million at the time of the decision are now worth only $18 million. So what is my malfeasance caused me to personally lose $4 Million in dividends over the past 3 years, as CF had to eliminate dividends. It doesn't matter. I triumphed as I closed down Geauga Lake. Yay, me!"

 

Lol Larry. Can I add an excerpt?

 

"I couldn't just stand by and let Six Flags try to invade my terrritory. They were a little too close for my comfort so I wanted to show them that they couldn't beat Cedar Point. They just acquired a killer whale and I knew that would start to draw more families towards Cleveland than Sandusky. I had to put a plan in place.

 

We had to get people talking about Cedar Point again because I knew before too long everyone was going to start talking about that other place. We tried with Wicked Twister in 2002 but it didn't really get people as excited as we wanted them to be. So we did something we never did before - we added another coaster the very next year.

 

We added a launch coaster to our California park, which proved to be a success so we went back to Intamin, the ride's manufacturer, to see if they could take the same technology used on that ride and take it to the next level. They were eager to expand on the hydraulic launch concept and it eventually became Top Thrill Dragster. Never before had a ride been built to match the height and speed of this new, spectacular ride. We began construction towards the middle of the 2002 summer season and I was right, people started talking and trying to figure out what Cedar Point was adding. I couldn't have been more happier.

 

When it came time for the ride to open I never forseen the problems this ride would be for me and for park maintenance. The ride was down more than it was up and it got people talking - though a lot of it was somewhat negative. We had Intamin out to help try to get the thing running consistently and if we were lucky we could get it to run for half a day. Eventually we got the ride running rather efficiently even though it took a few years to get the bugs out.

 

I blame Six Flags for the fiasco that haunted me those first couple of years. If they never came to Ohio I wouldn't have had to build this ride. While Dragster continues to have its hiccups every once in awhile and the general public enjoys it, at least it isn't anything like what happened the year we built Shoot-the-Rapids. I'll save that for another chapter."

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Reality check time, ready for this?

 

"Closing down GL Was a sound business decision" is a load of steaming, rank s***

 

Yes, it was, but for who? ONLY CEDAR FAIR

 

Anyone remember when you'd drive through that part of aurora, and you couldnt even find a parking space at the fast food places because it was so busy?

 

I Do.

 

Guess what, it's a ghost town now, the business are a lot slower, a few have outright closed, and the whole area is like driving through the bad parts of cleveland compared to the bustling business center it used to be

 

Geauga lake was a MASSIVE draw to the area, stores nearby had LATE hours just to capitalize on the huge outrush of people leaving at park closing, and restocking what they used in the day or making quick grocery stops on the way home after a day at the park

 

Closing GL Killed a huge amount of that business, now it's purely locals, when people from states away used to stop there after days at the park on the way back to hotels and such

 

Yeah, the decision was great for cedar fair, and the people of Aurora and Bainbridge are still paying for it, WWK just doesn't have the draw the GL once did

 

Yeah, saving dipper wouldn't bring it back either, but it would definitely be the start of something that might, at the least, redeem GL and bring back that lacking business

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Yes, I do remember. The McDonald's across the street would have a huge line for the drive-thru when the park closed and I also remember Red Robin and Steak-N-Shake being much busier than they are now.

 

You also have to factor in Streetsboro as also paying the price. All those hotels and restaurants that were built along Route 14 have to be hurting for business.

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  • 2 weeks later...

they would be better off donating the ride to a park in return for free season passes at said park. it seems like they plan on operating the ride by itself much like the coney island cyclone, which doesn't seem like it would be feasable to do in a market already saturated with parks relatively nearby (kennywood, CP, KI)

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^Indeed. One of them is actually "lucky enough" to live in Ohio, while her partner in this endeavor has a "fair idea of what's going on."

 

Hoo, boy . . .

 

This sounds like a prank to me.

Edited by cfc
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