Geauga Lake Going to Close?

Not that I wish any ill on MA but I dont think it has the crowds to keep up with a capacity monster like Dominator, sorry to say. Not that GL has the crowds right now either but I think it has few more than MA.
*** Edited 7/3/2007 12:46:00 AM UTC by coasterdad***

I too was there for the Cleveland Clinic day on Saturday.

As one who worked many a CCF day in the past I would estimate that this one was far less attended than others in the past. Part of it has to do with how the clinic handles the day now. For example the first ones in the 90's there would be one day for the entire clinic network. Now that was a disaster. Also they used to allow unlimited purchases of guest tickets at the outrageously reduced price. Now they have two days for the main campus and (unless it's changed since last year) there are other days for the suburban sites. Anyway I thought it was suprisingly unbusy for a Cleveland Clinic Saturday with the weather as nice as it was.

I have to say that overall i left the park a bit depressed. I didn't even want to come home and complain here to you guys about it.

Mostly these problems are in the food service department. But the list is too long to go on about in detail here... unless you all really want to hear me complain.

Beyond that the general attitude of the employees is lacking. The gamers have lost all skill in using the mics to attract players. All the price points are high enough to turn off a lot of potential spenders.

Dispite all of the good things i hear about the park they are still doing a lot of the bad things the Six Flags WOA put in place as well as some problems we had all the way back to the Funtime days.

On the flip side props have to go out for the rides running with multiple trains and the little golf cart ride along the land bridge was nice for my very pregnant wife.

But in the end the park is still more like the mess SFI left behind and less like the old GLP that CF claims to want to bring back. I can think of three simple ways to improve the park, but it doesn't seem that the company wants to think to hard about it or spend the money.

For me it was definately a product that people will not feel as if it was money well spent.

If CF closes GL ride side here where i think the ride should go

Cedar Point: Dominator, Most of the kiddy rides (CP needs updated kiddy section(s) relaunch as Nick town), Starfish add to wicked twister midway, Texas twister add to frontier town, add El dardo and the other 50's car flat ride over by coaster resteraunt

Michigan Adventure: Head spin (easy to maintain since the park has arrow coaster with interchangable parts) kiddy coaster and some kiddy ride add camp snoopy, Obersavation tower,add some o0f the old water slides to there water park.

King Island or Valley fair: Thunderhawk

Carowinds or World's of Fun: Villian

Villian Lover:

Loved your response on the other thread. Can you move it to this thread so it may be preserved for sarcastic posterity?

BTW, Gemini to Canada's Wonderland, which can use a high capacity racing coaster

Gemini is anything but a high capacity coaster nowadays.

Sure! :-)

Unfortunately, others failed to see my whole point in posting that.

My point is, is that many people aren't just talking about moving certain rides here or there; they are talking about closing the whole park.

Anyway, here ya go:

After reading many posts on here, I would like to add my own 0.02 on where certain rides should go.

Top Thrill Dragster: Should go to Michigan's Adventure. They don't have anything there to draw people except for Shivering Timbers and an awesome waterpark. Needs more thrills.

Blue Streak: Should go to Knott's Berry Farm. They need another great woodie there besides Ghostrider...something that doesn't jerk you around so much.

Cedar Downs: Would look great at Dorney Park, right next to the Whip. Might as well keep the old rides together!

Maverick: Should go to Worlds of Fun. They need something newer and different there.

Magnum: Move this one to Canada's Wonderland. They need a good steel thrill coaster there.

Millenium Force: Let's move this one to Geauga Lake, right where X-Flight and Steel Venom used to be. This will provide a great view of 43!

Gemini: Let's put this one at King's Island, in place of the Racer. Racer is a little too rough, and anyway they already have enough wooden coasters with Beast and SoB.

Disaster Transport: This one can just go in the dumpster.

Anyway...on a more serious note...

Many of you are jumping the gun on the future of Geauga Lake. Christ, many of you already have all of their rides evenly distributed.

While it's OK to state your opinion, don't give anyone any dumb ideas. Geauga Lake has been around a very long time. Removing that park would be like removing a piece of history.

Many of you are saying "I'm through with that park since they got ride of XF or SV. Now I have no reason to go".

There are many reasons to still go. How about supporting this piece of history? Any trip can be fun if you're with the right people. Record-breaking coasters are not necessarily needed to have a great time!

(And keep in mind, Maverick still does not break any records.)

Since we're playing "Copy Your Post"...

And prior to Six Flags over aggressive expansion of the coaster count, they had only 5 coasters. Which was fine for what they were. Now Cedar Point is slowly moving back to that number. Six Flags tried to make a park to compete with Cedar Point, and thought, mistakenly, that the solution was a ton of coasters. So they added 5 coasters between 2000 and 2001, which was about 5 coasters too many.

No Cedar Point is correcting the mistake. And the best way to do that is remove the mistakes. That doesn't mean they are bad coasters, it means they don't belong.

I still haven't been to the park, but I do want to make it regardless of what rides are still there or have been moved elsewhere.

I was there with my daughter on Tuesday evening. There couldn't have been more than 150 cars in the ride side parking lot. I doubt the water park was much busier, since the temperature was about 73.

Virtually every food stand and a good number of games were closed. Most of the major rides were open, but over at Happy Harbor the pirate boats, Monster and Thriller Bees were all closed. So was Americana, even though the weather was clear. Ditto for Rocket Sled Ride. Nobody was operating the Happy Harbor nets, so kids were happily climbing up and running down the nets (nobody got hurt, but there were some near misses).

Despite all the talk of how Geauga Lake is turning around and how busy it has apparently been on at least some days this summer, I have never seen this place more of a ghost town -- and I've probably been to the park more than 80 times.

Well, some schools started already. I'm sure CP or KI probably wasn't all that busy, either.

I agree. Sure, CF seems to have stopped the bleeding that SF started, but it's still just a fair ride park with no charm, a few good rides, and a pretty good water park. It's a decent value for $22.95 (easy to find $4 discount tix), but an easy experience to forget about.

I judge a park by how I feel at the end of the day. With CP, Kennywood, Knoebels, and even Waldameer, I never think about leaving before the park closes, I feel sad about the day ending, and I look forward to the next visit. When I left GL last week, I started looking forward to leaving around 7pm, and I was wishing we had taken the family to CP, Knoebels, or Kennywood.

I miss the charm that GL had back in the 70s and 80s. I hope they can find it again.

i went for the first time to geauga lake this summer, we didnt get there untill about 8pm, but yet we got on everything that we needed to get on in those two hours. It is such a confused park at this point, i'm really interested to see where the park goes from here. I dont have any suggestions at this point, and i think that CF doesnt even have a plan for this park yet.

I have only been to GL twice. I was there back it 2002 when SF was running things. And i made a return visit This year back in July.
First off when i was there in 02 i was quite happy. The water park was great. Good water slides, wave pool, and one of the best lazy rivers ive been in. also i liked how you could rent your own tubes for the lazy river and Slides. The ride side of the park was good to. I Really liked S.V AKA SuperMan because it stoped you for a couple of seconds right over the wave pool. Then there was X-Flight AKA Fire Hawk. WOW what a ride that is feels like you are truly flying. So YES i was very happy.
Then we went back to GL in july. Not knowing that X-Flight and SuperMan was removed from the park. We arrived and i was excided to get to the old water park. But I saw X-Flight and SuperMan were nolonger there. There were also signs saying they were removed from the park. Without looking at a park map we walked our way over to the entrance to the old water park. Come to find out it is no longer open Yet all the old Slides are still standing, the lazy river is still there but no longer used. I was upset.. So we walked over to the big dipper. i rode it and got a glimps of the old water park. Everything is still there but not operating. So we pulled out the map to see where the water park was and we found out where the old sea world was. The Lazy river was cool, The wave pool was nice to. The water slides were nice but i think they need to ad more tube slides. like a double tube slide or two. So all in all i was not happy this time i went and probably will not return until they build it up again. Allthough i understand waht cedar fair is doing. i hope they turn it around.
Can anyone tell me why they closed the old water park?.....
*** Edited 8/26/2007 9:40:36 PM UTC by MaVeRiCk 'n MaGnUm XL***

Superman?

Many people from the Cleveland area grew up on GL as I did. What a travesty to lose it just because SF ran it in the ground. I 1st went when Big Dipper was called the clipper and that place had an awesome atmosphere. It wasn't CP, just a few notches below, but lots of fun and lots of memories. Bring GL back to the days when it was a family park and quit screwing with the lake, that was part of the atmosphere too. A personal friend of mine viewed plans for a condo in the City of Aurora's planning office similar in scope to the rumor. I hope it isn't true! :(

Many people from the Cleveland area grew up on GL as I did. What a travesty to lose it just because SF ran it in the ground. I 1st went when Big Dipper was called the clipper and that place had an awesome atmosphere. It wasn't CP, just a few notches below, but lots of fun and lots of memories. Bring GL back to the days when it was a family park and quit screwing with the lake, that was part of the atmosphere too. A personal friend of mine viewed plans for a condo in the City of Aurora's planning office similar in scope to the rumor. I hope it isn't true! :(

Mean People Suck said:
Many people from the Cleveland area grew up on GL as I did. What a travesty to lose it just because SF ran it in the ground.

First of all- yes Six Flags made some mistakes- but attendance at WoA after the 03 season (last year in operation) was around 2 million. Cedar Fair estimated that they would see 1.5 million in 04 (they thought attendance would go down 500,000 visits because they removed the animals) in the first year under Cedar Fair the park did 700,000 visits- less than HALF of what they originally anticipated; Dick Kinzel is quoted saying this huge decline is because of the elimination of the animals, that they underestimated the draw they had to the park. Also, WoA WAS making money- just not the amount they wanted to see. I believe reading in the CF press release on the acquisition that WoA made $65 million, and GL only does somewhere near $22 million now.

Where Geauga Lake sits today isn't all Six Flags' fault- a lot of credit goes to Cedar Fair. There are many companies out there (Busch comes to mind) that could've bought WoA and made it something awesome (even if they opted to take the animals out)

The public has spoken- there's nothing new at Geauga Lake to go and see, there's way less- that's why attendance is down, it has nothing to do with Six Flags or family park or anything like that anymore, its been 4 seasons, Six Flags was only around for 4 seasons as well (not counting pre- 2000, as attendance rose solidly every year, and in 2000 a new vision for the park began) so in my book, Six Flags and Cedar Fair are tied as far as having the park for the same period of time- and Cedar Fair has lost big time as far as who can make the park more successful. Six Flags did hurt the property- but in my book it was Cedar Fair who ran it in the ground. Sure they have a new water park, but in the GP's eyes, GL has always had a waterpark.
*** Edited 8/27/2007 3:16:03 AM UTC by Tilt-a-Whirl***

Why did SF pull out if it was such a good thing? CF bought it to stop any nearby competition and will probably sell out to the condos. They are not in the business to make us happy, only to make money. If we happen to be happy while they make money , well then all is good. After all, CF is up for sale now.

Screamscape is saying Dominator and that other coaster (can't remember the name) might be going next year.

Nothing Cedar Fair would do with Geauga Lake would surprise me anymore. Well, except invest more money into it. They tried that already, and that ship done sailed.

BRACE YOURSELVES COASTER ENTHUSIASTS!!!

It does not look good for Geauga Lake for 2008. Already talks, and semi-confirmed rumors about ride removals.

Dominator and Thunderhawk- both being removed. Raging Wolf Bobs in serious need of repair.

So that leaves: The Villian, The Big Dipper, Headspin (boomerang), and the Beaver Express (kiddie coaster). With RWB's in serious question????

Now, the key factor for any business is to make money. And Clearly this park is not performing to Cedar Fair's standards. The days of drawing over a million people to the park are over. Six Flags had brand recognition, and Geauga Lake by itself does not. Also, more than Six Flags would like to admit, the animals and killer whales drew HUGE CROWDS. People like animal park. Period! That's how Seaworld has been so successful all these years.

So now what is in store for the ride side? Condo's, lakefront property, Mega-Target? And does anyone think the waterpark can sustain business as a stand alone attraction?