Who killed Geauga Lake?

[OISU8P]

If it is the case you can not blame Cedar Fair. I have always thought that they did buy the park to kill competition. Six Flags overgrew it and launched a marketing campaign against Cedar Point that they could not hold. You know, that is business and I see companies acquired all the time. It happens...

 

I however, felt that they wanted to initially keep it in an Idlewild \ Kennywood fashion and it just did not work out.

 

Kennywood bought Idlewild years back and marketed the two parks properly. I really believe they wanted to reduce the park to a family friendly waterpark and amusement park like Idlewild. Which is really what it was prior to SF buying it.

 

From what I understand. The same people bitching about the current state are the same that where bitching about it being there in the first place. Bet they wished they did not initially go to Aurora County and Baimbidge County (however they spell it) to give a hard time about the park while it was operating. I am proud that the problem these idiots had are getting the big middle finger from Cedar Fair now.

[GayCoasterGuy]

I however, felt that they wanted to initially keep it in an Idlewild \ Kennywood

 

Yes! That would have been great. Six Flags hurt the place but I think CF could have done this - but they chose not to.

[Jew]

Speaking of a dying Geauga Lake...

 

http://www.news-herald.com/articles/2013/05/15/news/doc5193a7ae1f654550687468.txt?viewmode=fullstory

 

Cedar Fair still hasn't sold the property and neighbors are getting pissed.

[Devious]

^ Not a big suprise, The park was literally the lynch-pin of the whole area, with it gone, most of the commerce traffic and things that used to keep the big stores and food places going is gone (The waterpark simply does not have the draw)

 

Oh well, 'least kennywood is still within driving distance of me.

[sfkk]

I find it interesting that when Wildwater Kingdom was built, the name was chaged to Geauga Lake and Wildwater Kingdom. All of the other cedar fair parks don't include the waterpark. For instance, it is not Kings Island and Soak City, so why would it be like that for geauga lake? Maybe Cedar Fair knew something and changed the name so that they could just replace the "and" with an " 's ". This may be common knowledge, but I thought I would point it out anyway.

[thrillseeker4552]

Dorney Park calls themselves "Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom" as well. I never really understood why parks do it. Maybe it's a way to say that their water park is included with admission. Anyone know if Dorney Park includes water park admission with theme park admission?

[ernierocker]

^Yes, it is included.

[Geauga Dog]

If I"m not mistaken Dorney's Wildwater Kingdom was a separate water park. Based on old photos I've seen the main midway that Talon is on used to be a parking lot.

 

Geauga's Wildwater Kingdom could have been an entirely separate park since the water activities no longer were on the ride side at the end of 2005 (Hurricane Hannah's wave pool, lazy river, and Shark Attack slides were all that were left after WWK opened on the former Sea World side and remained open one final year since Tidal Wave Bay was coming in 2006).

[Devious]

i realllly hate to necro this, but someone linked a fly-over of the park by what i assume was a drone or other smal RC with a camera

 

 

[youtu_be]http://youtu.be/3vh2KcyMDS0[/youtu_be]

 

The park is pretty bad, especially when you can see it from above.

[RandallDuell]

That's really unfortunate. I feel bad for those who grew up with that park, and those that still live nearby that can't at least shake their first at some Best Buy big box store/development where their park once stood....rather they have the remnants just rotting away.

 

Thanks for sharing.

[djcoastermark]

That is so sad to see. I grew up in the 70's with GL only a few minutes away. Ah the memories. The first coaster in the world with 2 loops, before cedar points corkscrew. And even up till the six flags era with the impulse spike coaster, which CP tried to one up the next year with Wicked Twister, but for me the one at GL was/is better because of the straight up spike on the backside with the "lock" on the last drop. Good mems of my old home park, so sad to see in its condition now.

[cfc]

i realllly hate to necro this, but someone linked a fly-over of the park by what i assume was a drone or other smal RC with a camera

 

 

[youtu_be]http://youtu.be/3vh2KcyMDS0[/youtu_be]

 

The park is pretty bad, especially when you can see it from above.

 

Based on the sounds heard in this video, I deduce that the park was killed by a gigantic swarm of killer bees.

[IronWolfman]

The first coaster in the world with 2 loops, before Cedar Point's Corkscrew.

It actually wasn't the first. That one was the Knott's Berry Farm's Corkscrew, opening in 1975. It was the prototype, so I'm pretty sure it was originally built in 1974, on Arrow's site in Utah. In fact, Geauga's Corkscrew was built in 1978, 2 years after Cedar Point's Corkscrew, and either 3-4 years after the original.

[djcoastermark]

I didnt mean corkscrew at GL, it was Double Loop that came before that. Sorry to confuse.

[IronWolfman]

^Oh. Makes sense it held the double loop (In a row) record till 1980, which is a lengthy period of time to hold a record, considering how fast records were being broken during that time period.

[goatdan]

Wow, hadn't seen this topic before. Maybe at some point in the future, I'll dive into this more, but as for who killed Geauga Lake...

 

Geauga Lake (pre Six Flags) had a big role. So did Six Flags. So did Sea World. And so did Cedar Fair. While we're at it, both municipalities that the parks were in didn't help matters, and should share in the blame.

 

The entire thing was a disaster on so many different levels, but no one can be blamed individually. To just give a taste of how deep the entire thing goes (and why I should go to bed instead of writing a book on it until the wee hours of the night ), George Millay talked about how the ownership of Geauga Lake was misrepresenting stuff to him as they were trying to attract Sea World to the area in the 60s, this was before they sold to Funtime, and then Funtime convinced Sea World to build across the lake... on land leased by Funtime. And that's all stuff 30 years before the park got rebranded to Six Flags.

 

Obviously, it wasn't all screwy, but the history of Geauga is particularly strange. Ultimately, I think that the downfall of the property can be attributed mostly to one thing - the incredible egos of many of the people higher-up involved with it to believe that more to it could be done than there was.

 

(Oh, and random note... I visited the year that it was Six Flags Ohio. My only regret was not getting to ride The Edge... *ahem* Dr Jekyl's Nasty Fall, which managed to break down as I got on to ride it THREE DIFFERENT TIMES throughout the day. I'll also note that my visit there is still a vivid memory of the obvious mismanagement going on, as they had just opened four new coasters for whatever stupid reason they decided to do that, but the park was so severely understaffed that they had partitioned off about 1/3rd of the park and just closed it. Good ol' Premier Parks management for ya.)

[KPfan]

I can only think of two reason why Cedar Fair killed Geauga Lake in 2007, at the time they just bought out Paramount's parks and also Geauga Lake was taking away business from Cedar Fair's flagship park, Cedar Point.

 

In my opinion, I think that Cedar Fair made a bad decision to buy Geauga Lake in the first place!

 

Cedar Fair did not kill Geauga Lake

 

 

That's a matter of opinion one way or the other. People will debate that for decades to come. You can definitely say that Cedar Fair had no intention of helping the park thrive. Their actions back up that statement.

[G Force]

I can only think of two reason why Cedar Fair killed Geauga Lake in 2007, at the time they just bought out Paramount's parks and also Geauga Lake was taking away business from Cedar Fair's flagship park, Cedar Point.

 

In my opinion, I think that Cedar Fair made a bad decision to buy Geauga Lake in the first place!

 

Cedar Fair did not kill Geauga Lake

 

 

That's a matter of opinion one way or the other. People will debate that for decades to come. You can definitely say that Cedar Fair had no intention of helping the park thrive. Their actions back up that statement.

 

In order for the park to thrive, they would of have to significantly reduce operating costs while still maintaining attendance. So essentially, remove rides but somehow still get people to attend.

 

The park was doomed as soon as SF added 4 coasters in 5 years with no plan of how to manage the park and for no reason other than to "compete" with CP. It was probably the dirtiest, worst managed, poorly up kept parks in the country. I believe the Geauga expansion by SF is probably one of the dumbest business decisions in the industry, possibly ever.

 

The additions combined with the poor operations drove away the local market for good and the additions were never strong enough to draw people away from CP. Remember, in the years SF owned Geauga, CP added Mantis, Millennium Force, WT, and Top Thrill. Absolutely no way a park could compete with that in a similar market.

 

If the park maintained its 80's and early 90's size and growth, it might still be around today. However, I believe the park eventually would have been marginalized by CP and Kennywood if it stayed small and not been operated with extreme care.

[KPfan]

I can only think of two reason why Cedar Fair killed Geauga Lake in 2007, at the time they just bought out Paramount's parks and also Geauga Lake was taking away business from Cedar Fair's flagship park, Cedar Point.

 

In my opinion, I think that Cedar Fair made a bad decision to buy Geauga Lake in the first place!

 

 

, Cedar Fair did not kill Geauga Lake

 

 

That's a matter of opinion one way or the other. People will debate that for decades to come. You can definitely say that Cedar Fair had no intention of helping the park thrive. Their actions back up that statement.

 

In order for the park to thrive, they would of have to significantly reduce operating costs while still maintaining attendance. So essentially, remove rides but somehow still get people to attend.

 

The park was doomed as soon as SF added 4 coasters in 5 years with no plan of how to manage the park and for no reason other than to "compete" with CP. It was probably the dirtiest, worst managed, poorly up kept parks in the country. I believe the Geauga expansion by SF is probably one of the dumbest business decisions in the industry, possibly ever.

 

The additions combined with the poor operations drove away the local market for good and the additions were never strong enough to draw people away from CP. Remember, in the years SF owned Geauga, CP added Mantis, Millennium Force, WT, and Top Thrill. Absolutely no way a park could compete with that in a similar market.

 

If the park maintained its 80's and early 90's size and growth, it might still be around today. However, I believe the park eventually would have been marginalized by CP and Kennywood if it stayed small and not been operated with extreme care.

 

 

Agree!!

 

Just keep in mind there's much more to that as well. Pumping $$$ to add the rides and coasters was a risk. But it had potential. I'm inclined to think that the Sea World purchase and subsequent mega park is what created the biggest issue for both Six Flags AND Cedar Fair. The mega park was attractive and posed a threat to Cedar Point. Cedar Fair had no choice but to act. But then also go out and drop over $1B for the Paramount parks really dug Cedar Fair a hole financially. There's no way that makes sense unless they had a master plan for the Six Flags purchase. So to me, it was all a well planned demise for Geauga Lake.

[DirkFunk]

The most relevant talking point/argument with regards to Cedar Fair's ownership of Geauga Lake is simple: Did they act in a fashion that gave the park the best chance at survival? Blaming customers for not buying a substandard product is a thing conmen and crappy businessmen too.

[Thunder_Run]

Six Flags sealed Geauga Lake's fate when they purchased Sea World Ohio. The removal of another brand name in the area, no matter if it was just a case of a linking of the two parks, meant a lot less people would be attracted to the region, mostly due to a lack of awareness that the Wild Life side was technically still open.

 

They may have marketed as three parks in one, but with the removal of another big name in the region, people were under the impression that Sea World was just plain "gone." The inevitable financial troubles just hammered that final nail in the coffin even more.

[Nrthwnd]

Miss Scarlett, with the Candlestick, in the Library.

 

[DoinItForTheFame]

Miss Scarlett, with the Candlestick, in the Library.

 

 

But. . . I thought it was Miss Amelia Peach, with the knife, in the kitchen.

[CP Maverick]

I don't know how you can blame the locals. That park was always around 700_900k visitors, not including the Sea World guests who bought a 2 park ticket. I attended several times per year throughout the 80s and 90s. It was also a frequent location for corporate buyouts. The park that Cedar Fair closed was doing about 700k per year. It was a mistake to ever think it would match Cedar Point in attendance. And an even bigger mistake to think that combining parks would combine the attendance.

 

When Cedar Fair bought it, I was expecting a return to the 80s and 90s park. I felt like it was doing that just fine. Moving the water park just expanded the footprint unnecessarily, unless you expect to close the park in the other county.

[coasterkid124]

Overexpansion IMO is just the single greatest reason why the park was doomed. But I have heard from a few sources that attendance was actually in decline even during those years. If that is true then they are definitely to blame.

 

Wildwater Kingdom would probably still be here if it performed a little better. The same people who are crying over the park closing are the same ones who didn't visit when the park was at its best or chose to go to Cedar Point instead. I feel bad for the locals who truly were devoted to the park, but some of the same poeple weren't going.