? about Geauga Lake

I know that Geauga Lake at one point turned into a six flags. Before it was Six Flags, the second park next to it was Sea World. When Six Flags took it over, the park next to it was still Sea World or a sea life park.

My question is why did Geauga Lake turn into Six Flags and then turn back into Geauga Lake? And is the sea life park still there right now?

In 2000 Six Flags took over Geauga Lake and became Six Flags Ohio. In 2001 Sea World was for sale and Six Flags bought that. It then became Six Flags Worlds of Adventure. Six Flags last season was 2003 and then sold the park to Cedar Fair (Cedar Point's owner). They then changed the name back to Geauga Lake and due to no animal experience they took out the animals and built a brand new waterpark on that land.

That should answer your question, but use the search feature next time.

Six Flags bought Geauga Lake in hopes to create a mega-park, and get a chunk of the Cedar Point market. When the opportunity to buy Sea World came about in 2001, Six Flags saw that as yet another opportunity to expand, and to reach their goal of becoming a mega-park in the Cleveland market area. Unfortunately things didn't go well for Six Flags, and attendance fell quite low (which many attribute to many ride breakdowns and bad park operations).

Six Flags became frustrated with the park, and knew that their goal of creating a mega-park was quite difficult. They had enough, and in 2004 they sold the park to Cedar Fair saying that "Cedar Fair has more experience in the market". Immediately after buying the park, Cedar Fair announced that they were terminating the former Sea World side of the park (all animals were to be removed as Cedar Fair had no experiance in the field). Cedar Fair announced in 2005 that they would be building a massive waterpark on the former Sea World side of the park, which had sat dormat during the '04 season.

Cedar Fair is still strugling with the park, but they hope to stick it out and regain some of the lost attendance. There are no animals on the former sea world side of the park, nor anywhere else in the park. Right now there is virtually no chance of their return. Hopefully that answers your question as to why all the commotion within the property.

I'm not sure about Jesz, but I can't seem to get the search feature to work.

In the 1960s a Cedar Point alumni formed Funtime Parks Inc., which owned a number of parks including Geauga Lake, Wyandot Lake and Darien Lake. Meanwhile Sea World was operating as its own park across the lake.

Between 1993 and 1995 Funtime was bought out by Premier Parks who would turn the park into a modern amusement park.

By 2000 Premier Parks had purchased Six Flags and began branding its parks with the Six Flags name; Geauga Lake was one of them as it became Six Flags Ohio. In an effort to build a mega park, Six Flags purchased the Sea World across the lake to become Six Flags Worlds of Adventure. It was later announced by both companies that it "was just a matter of time before one of us bought out the other one."

In the years that followed, Six Flags spent millions of dollars on the park in hopes of great returns, which came, and then began to fall sharply.

In 2004 Cedar Fair L.P. was given the option of the buying the park and then did. In an effort to return the park to its former glory days, Cedar Fair announced it would again be called Geauga Lake. Cedar Fair also announced that they had a goal of making it more of a regional park rather than a national destination, and that, because of Cedar Fair's lack of experience with animals, the animal portion of the park would not be returning. Geauga Lake would become the largest park in the Cedar Fair chain with more than 600 acres of land. Later Six Flags announced that its attendance had fallen so sharply, that if they didn't find a buyer, they were planning on closing the park.

*** Edited 4/23/2006 9:12:43 PM UTC by DBCP***

Yeah, I think Jeff is redoing the search feature. In the meantime, go to google, type in

site:pointbuzz.com searchterm

and that should work, for now.

Thanks for the info. And next time I won't use the search feature. I will just ask again.

Jesz said:
And next time I won't use the search feature. I will just ask again.

ha! i loved that...

I love this topic.

It seems clear to me that SFI had to dump capital to get out from under its debt. The only park they had that was worth a bunch of money and losing bunches of money at the same time was Worlds of Adventure (Geauga Lake). The really funny thing is that SFI didn't get near the amount of money from selling then they did in investments from 1996 through 2004. Most notably the outrageous amount for the Sea World purchase and the boat load of money to "flag" the park with the Six Flags franchise was money well spent ;) For us at least.

I totaly agree. I heard a while back someone saying that if CF bought the park at the begining rather than SFI, they would have gotten it for a lot less. Which if you look at if from the perspective of capital vs. price, I think it's the other way around. It's just like you said, all those coasters SFI put in had to cost quite a bit. The only reason I would have for wishing CF bought it first, is that they would probably never have bought Sea World, and they probably never would have lost the customer base they once had at GL.