Cedar Point's 2011 ride will target thrill seekers

Kyle2154 said:Have they really not given Soak City any major capital in 10 years?

Wasn't it 2004 when they added Splash Zone? Plus they add capital improvements every year but unless you go go the parkevery year, you wont notice the improvements.

Not to mention all the locals that use Soak City on a regular basis. Especially from about 1:00 Sunday afternoon on. Seems everyone gets done with church, changes into their swimsuit and heads to SC. As far as the speculation about the new thrill ride not being in the old OM location, everything that has been said so far indicates that is exactly where it would be. OM is up for sale, Chaos is listed on the same website up for sale, ( http://www.italintl.com/detail_page.php?record_id=1267 ) and wouldn't be surprised to see the stadium knocked to the ground either. There has been no indication of anything other than grass going into the old Demon Drop spot yet, so who knows, maybe they're saving that for some other use in the future.

As it has been said a few times in this thread, I highly doubt CF is about to make any major modifications in any way to SC. The water park really is just there as an extra perk to resort guests (and to entice them to stay longer and make the place viable for multi-day entertainment). Unlike WWK, or the Californian Soak Cities, it doesn't have to worry about drawing in guests on its own merit. CF knows this and I don't think they are about to invest a lot of money into it when they know they don't have to. Believe me though, I am the first one to agree that I'd love to see the whole place knocked down and redone.

And given that Cedar Point is only open half the year, I doubt we'll see any huge expansions (i.e. relocating the parking lot). Too large of a park footprint would really start eating into the park's profits in terms of labor and maintenance.

At Geauga Lake, when it became six flags the added a man made island. So its possible to add more land.

GL added an island into a pond. CP is surrounded by Lake Erie! Adding land to Lake Erie would be a WHOLE different ball game! Is it impossible? Probably not. Is it going to happen? Probably not!

You guys are all forgetting that CF has already begun to develop a waterpark that is off the penninsula but still in Sandusky. Why do they need two waterparks? it would be far more efficient to operate just one in terms of personnel. They could very easily relocate the slides to that site, keep the local traffic, keep the multi-day destination advantage, and yet expand the ride section and do so by simply adding some sort of mass transit between sites. You also have to remember that Geauga Lake could absorb some of the slides as well as that location has done just the opposite and minimized what was thier ride side of the park and has had very little capital $ expansion since.

It all boils down to what will return the best revenue - and Soak City brings in a fraction of what the amusement park does and when it is closed for that month or two before and after the theme park it brings in nothing. Maintenance has to be their either way if it is a chain lift or a water pump that goes down - so I don't see that overextending that resource either.

jwalk03 said:
GL added an island into a pond. CP is surrounded by Lake Erie! Adding land to Lake Erie would be a WHOLE different ball game! Is it impossible? Probably not. Is it going to happen? Probably not!

Yes i am aware CP is surrounded by Lake Erie. And they could build it over years. Yes it would take awhile to build the island but its still possible.

Erik Lee said:
If they moved parking off the penninsula, just where would they move it to? And then they would need a shuttle service or a monorail to get you to and from the park.

They have some space by the CP Housing. Have you ever heard of a parking garage? Many parks have trams and Cedar Point could use one.
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Regarding Soak City, I don't see an expansion to the Water Park until Geauga Lake's Wildwater Kingdom closes. Then I could see Soak City getting a ProSlide bowl hand me down from Wildwater Kingdom. How has Castaway Bay been doing lately? I don't hear about that much.

AmazingMaverick(: said:

jwalk03 said:
GL added an island into a pond. CP is surrounded by Lake Erie! Adding land to Lake Erie would be a WHOLE different ball game! Is it impossible? Probably not. Is it going to happen? Probably not!

Yes i am aware CP is surrounded by Lake Erie. And they could build it over years. Yes it would take awhile to build the island but its still possible.

It's 'possible' for them to do a lot of things. That doesn’t make wildly expensive/impractical ideas sound any less moronic (at least to those of us that aren't basing forum contributions on our experiences playing Roller Coaster Tycoon). Land reclamation isn't a matter of throwing dirt into the water; aside from the cost, all it takes is one objection from the EPA or the Coast Guard to cancel the entire project.

Kyle2154 said:

djDaemon said:
So long as people are filling the resorts and the water park, there's no need to add on to it....

That's one of the more shortsighted statements I've read in awhile. People are there so don't invest?

Actually, I'd suggest that it's the opposite of shortsighted. It would be knee-jerk to say: Crap! even though attendance and occupancy have not been affected by our lack of capital improvements, we seriously should make some capital improvements, because, well, the kids want us to! Quick, everyone come up with a few million dollar's worth of ideas that will have little-to-no impact on our bottom line!

;)

SuperSonicGoalie said:
Moving it is an interesting thought given they still have some land for expansion off the penninsula according to their last 10k.

I don't believe that land is available for construction. Rather it is restored wetlands that have been purchased and restored to off-set the removal of wetlands on the peninsula in order to build new rides. I've heard varying ratios thrown around, but there was something that for every acre they fill in on the peninsula, they restore 5 or 10 acres on the mainland.

djDaemon said:
[Actually, I'd suggest that it's the opposite of shortsighted. It would be knee-jerk to say: Crap! even though attendance and occupancy have not been affected by our lack of capital improvements, we seriously should make some capital improvements, because, well, the kids want us to! Quick, everyone come up with a few million dollar's worth of ideas that will have little-to-no impact on our bottom line!

;)

I still think it's shortsighted to watch attendance flatline and not do anything about it, in fact, I've seen you reference that exact point about Cedar Point's flatlined attendance and refusal to dump major capital into other areas (aside from Coasters) in response to it.

I dunno, maybe the argument flips when advantageous to your newest position :)

What are you talking about? You're comparing two completely separate issues, Kyle. SC is not a destination. It's something for resort guests of CP (which is a destination) to do while they're visiting. Do you know anyone who has driven 3 hours simply to visit SC? I sure as heck don't.

People aren't driving 2 or 3 hours to ride water slides. They're coming to Sandusky to enjoy the amusement park.

ADDED:
Are you implying that SC's lack of additions has resulted in flat attendance for the water park? If that's the case, a couple things:

- prove that not only attendance has flatlined, but that there is correlative evidence to suggest that such a scenario is due to lack of capital improvements
- prove that such a scenario is detrimental to CP's bottom line for the entire property

DjDamemon

Soak City could be much more. Here in Wisconsin we have Noah's ark water park that is a destination because nearly every year a new water ride is going in. Some pretty awesome water rides I might add. If Soak city would do that a person like me might stay and extra day or at least by tickets that include admission to soak city. Instead I don't bother going to soak City at all and buy Cedar Point Admission tickets only. Soak City doesn't look like anything special to me.

Should they add a new water ride to soak City every year probably not, but one really good one every few years would help attendance.

You've allowed yourself to become overly bias. I get it, you love SC, you don't think it should go anywhere. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with that point. I'm just saying the park has been ignoring it relative to Cedar Point. Yes it's only a third, fourth, or whatever fraction of the revenue that Cedar Point is, but it doesn't even get it's fair share of capital... or anywhere near it.

If they keep ignoring it and pumping money into Castaway Bay it's not a good sign, that's all I'm implying.

The mark of any good argument is accusing the other side, without evidence, of bias and fanboyism.

I'm so in love and biased toward SC that I've been once in 13 years.

I don't care what you call it...Castaway Bay is amazing. All that it would take is Cedar Point to say "Platinum Passes now include year round admission to Castaway Bay" and bam... game over, see ya later Soak City.

Anyone who is saying how impossible it is to get rid of Soak City is bias, a fanboy, or crazy... it is possible.

No one claimed it was impossible, so far as I know, Kyle. Just that it would be a pretty moronic business decision.

And CB is not a suitable replacement for SC. Rather, it's something for CP to have to compete (on a very limited level) with the other hotel-waterpark resorts in Sandusky.

Yeah, sales would really plummet if people with Platinum Passes find out the outdated Soak City that was open 4 months a year was being replaced by a more state of the art indoor park in Castaway Bay... oh, yeah, that's open year round. There's no way they could run shuttles from the resorts to Castaway either.

What a terrible business move. Shoot, I bet people would boycott CP altogether, even if there were a couple new rides, pools, restaurants, and resorts, put in Soak City's old location.

Given your accusations of fanboyism and use of blatant hyperbole, it's clear you're not interested in having a substantiative discussion.