Geauga Lake to Close down in 2008 season!!!

Originally posted by dcs221

Yeah but I don't see those millions of people putting money up to keep the park running. Yeah they went and gutted the park, but the main objective of most businesses is to make money. You say they have no respect, they say they're losing money, who's right? I say either side has a good argument, but it's the company's decision in the end.

Geauga Lake was never the "millions of visitors" type park. Yes, it had its years when neighboring SeaWorld helped push attendance over the one-million mark, but it was never the superpark Six Flags tried to create. They soon realized this when 4 coasters brought in over 2 million people, but adding the animal park and X-Flight could not sustain that number. From there numbers declined back to pre-SF days of around 1.5 million [approx the average between GL and SWO]

In comes Cedar Fair, with the story of how they want to return Geauga Lake to the small family amusement park it once was. After one year of operations (without the animals) attendance is around half of what it was before. Well they obviously didn't understand the relationship the animal park had with bringing people outside the area to the park. Kinzel has even admitted this himself.

So to continue their plan with the "disappointing" attendance figures, they come up with the brilliant idea to downsize the park. How do they start downsizing? By expanding the waterpark further away from the central location of the park. Not only that, this "new" waterpark actually has LESS in it than the previous one. With that, they also cut out easily the busiest time of the year when they cut the Haunt. [If you want to know why they did this, look at the before & after for CP's Halloweekends. It's not a secret that the Haunt was cancelled to help boost Halloweekends.]

Ok, now they've got a new story. The park is underperforming [at about 70% of the old attendance with the animal park] and "too big" for the attendance it brings in. So with this they decide to dump the most expensive [and most popular] rides in the park. Now, I don't really have a problem with this being they wanted to bring back the old Geauga Lake feel, right? Well, they really didn't. Did anyone else see the old rotting waterpark? That should have been cleaned up. [But why, if they were closing the park anyways?]

They took out the two biggest attractions and raised prices, yet the park was still performing at around the same level, or better. Each employee and GL "fan" I've spoken to over the summer has told me that things were turning around and people were starting to come back. Wait a second, they took out rides and raised prices, yet attendance was up?!? This can't be right.

So, fast forward to now. They can't do nothing with the park, it's been performing better than in previous years. [Still well under the one million mark, but it's in no way a pit sucking in dollars instead of producing them.] They already had planned on taking out Dominator and Thunderhawk, that is obvious. (Contractors were at the park months ago.) Well, that puts them closer to their "original Geauga Lake" that they proposed to us, but Cedar Point's attendance was down. [See: Haunt vs Halloweekends ^] They couldn't do any capital improvements to the park, they were having a hard time justifying a $25 million waterpark that was smaller than the one it replaced. They can't add the "big" coaster Spehn wanted as it would pull more people away from Cedar Point. So, instead they look at it from the almighty dollar standpoint. Cedar Fair is in a HUGE debt right now, and Geauga Lake is a $170 million collection of rides, land, and a waterpark. Redistrubte the rides, sell the land, and the waterpark is basically paid for...

Here are a couple of Spehn's comments closing day during my brief conversation with him...
- Asking how he felt about Cedar Fair taking out rides:
- "The footprint of the park was too big for the attendance."
[Well, jeeze Bill, maybe the waterpark was fine where it was?]

- Asking what he thought of the comments about "competition" between Geauga Lake and Cedar Point:
- "We have to work together."
[Does this mean Cedar Fair wants Geauga Lake's guests to go to Cedar Point instead? It certainly contradicts the claim that Cedar Fair operates each park independantly of each other. It also leads me to wonder, will Kings Island ever get anything that could overtake Millennium Force or Magnum on people's favorite lists?]

Geauga Lake was not a "failure" on it's own. Cedar Fair allowed the park to "fail" and thus pulled the plug. And if you think it was NOT because of competition, Cedar Fair has said it will not sell the park to anyone interested in developing an amusement park on the site. They bought it to kill it.

Wow.

Cedar Fair sucks :-
Let's see what they do with the Paramount Parks! I think they purposely installed a retarded B&M with almost the same layout as one a couple hours drive away so that they could pump up the already highest seasonal attendance. But then they're going to remove everything, trash the park and then pave it, then put a boomerang on it and some trash cans and call it "Wonder Point!"

That ride really does not have the same layout as Goliath! How have you not realized this yet?

Also Cedar Fair doesn't install Boomerangs.

Mkay then, an impulse coaster. Same thing but worse

Yeah, well Geauga has totally declined since Six Flags turned it into the Mega-park, and Mega-parks are very hard to keep up if you aren't Disney or Universal. So, as rumors go, Dominator is going to KD, obviously MI gets Thunderhawk, and of course, how great for my home park, CAROWINDS gets Boomerang....grrrr...stupid Cedar Fair . But that's just rumors.

[bockzilla]

ACE - Northeast Ohio Regional Email Update - 10/12/2007

Geauga Lake Update:
Here's a summary of recent news coming after the announcement of the park's closure:
- It was officially announced that Thunderhawk, the park's Vekoma SLC, will be relocated to Michigan's Adventure.
- Those driving by the park will notice that Dominator and Thunderhawk have started to be dismantled and placed in pieces in the parking lot.
- Reports from Cincinnati say that the Villain and Raging Wolf Bobs trains are at Kings Island.
- Sadly, nothing has been reported about the future of the rest of the rides.

Originally posted by tracksix

What a disgrace... Period...

I am getting really tired of every greedy Corp. just abandoning all our history when the going gets tough...total disgrace.

My biggest problems with this whole situation are these...

Thousands upon thousands of Northeast Ohio Families have made some fantastic memories at Geauga Lake, and I feel it shows a complete and utter disrespect to the many those families, as well as park enthusiasts, to not make it clear that Cedar Fair's Intentions were to close the ride side of the park. Especially considering that many of these families have supported Cedar Point and then Cedar Fair, Making Dick Kinzal a very, very wealthy man.

Yeah you have at Geauga Lake, in operational condition, one of the last operating, John A Miller coasters. With the loss, at least at the moment with no prospects of her being saved, we have 8, i believe operating John A Miller Coasters left. No respect for history and no respect for the greats who came before you Dick, without those like John A Miller creating rides which made Coasters become part of our American Heritage, Cedar Point does not exist as it does today, and Dick, you would not be a rich man...

I hope this doesn't happen to knoebles!

Im pretty surprised too. i went there a couple summers ago and had a blast. then i read about all of the coasters being removed and relocated and i couldnt believe it. It makes since that the park would close but its still hard to believe.

I don't get why people are so shocked by it. WE all knew that it was going to close soon or later. It was just a matter of time. The park is just simply not a park that can make money that the company wants. Look how many times the park has been traded off. It is for the best of the park. When I heard about it I wasn't surprised at all. Thats why I went in 06. I knew that it would be gone in a few years and I better get there one last time.People should lighten up a bit about the subject.

I think the funniest part is the weekend after hoards of people were at CP wearing shirts that said "RIP Geauga Lake" or using the GL symbol and turning the smily face upside down. Classic.