Geauga Lake letter on Website

Coasterdad,

GL would have closed anyways if Six Flags still owned it. The parks attendence was pretty much the same year after year. Cedar Fair was just cleaning up the mess that SF made. They cluttered the park with a ton of coasters not needed. Cedar Fair waned the park to be more family friendly. When CF purchsed the park it was way more well run, much cleaner, and much more updated. The park was far from neglected. I think you need to accept the fact that your park just wasn't making any money and it was all SF that caused it.

Juggalotus, I agree with just many of your points defending CF's actions with respect to GL and Paramount. Many try to lump the GL and Paramount purchases together, but they are dramatically different. The Paramount purchase got CF into a new, growing region of the country, and I believe like you that purchase will pay off for CF, despite the debt it incurred.

On GL, I have no problem with the ride removal, either. SF made the HUGE mistake of trying to turn GL into CP-East, and even the fish couldn't help them pull that off. My beef with CF is the all or nothing approach to GL. Why not keep the ride side open with a dramatically reduced footprint?

NE Ohioans with any sense understand that SF overbuilt GL and that the new coasters had to go once attendance plummeted from 2MM to 700M. But many of us remember GL fondly when it had just one or two coasters, and that old park is still viable, I think, in tandem with WWK.

But, instead, CF gave up on GL completely. That's what puzzles and disappoints me. There are plenty of successful small, regional ride-plus-waterpark places. Why not remake GL into what it once was, something similar to but bigger than Waldameer, not unlike Knoebels? Waldameer is just now getting its first adult-sized coaster, and Knoebels is getting its third, yet no one seems to be talking about closing those parks.

GL was a free admission, pay-per-ride park not that long ago.

CF could move or bulldoze all the coasters except BD and DL. Then, bring back a train, Big Ditch, the Geauga Queen, Geauga Dog, a set of Flyers, and some other low-cost, classic flats that actually light up at night.

CF could still sell the parking lot land as well as the old Turtle Beach area for big box stores, plazas, or condos. With 500-700,000 annual attendance, they could get by just using the old SW side for parking.

I believe a scaled-back ride side could've survived and allowed GL to command $25-30 for a POP instead of the $15.95 they'll be lucky to get for WWK only. Offer POP for WWK or a higher price for a combo pass like Waldameer with entry only at WWK.

Heck, Knoebels gets $30 for a POP with much less of a waterpark and, again, just 2 coasters in 2007. And Knoebels is only 60 miles from a destination park in Hershey, much like GL is in CP's backyard, so it's not like they have a captive audience either. Waldameer gets $22 for a POP and it's only about 100 miles from DL and MarineWorld.

The coasters and some thrill rides had to go, everyone should recognize that. But complete closure. I still don't get it. It seems like CF is leaving some money on the table.

^ Wow - someone on this forum that makes sense! I honestly dont care about the coasters that are leaving, bring back a "small footprint" GL and add it in with WWK. I dont think WWK on its own wil survive, but hey you guys are the experts.

Seriously, let it go. It's gone.

Give it up….
Let it go….
Blah blah blah….

That’s the kind of answeres one gets here when trying to discuss something? No I will never give up on something I believe in. I do appreciate the ones that actually take the time to write, even though I may still disagree. You all are showing your maturity like cpboy when you must make a post that shows nothing but to show that your with them.

Oh and cpboy I didn’t ask anyone to help me out - you were wrong again. – Although I appreciate it rasing4daughters!
*** Edited 10/4/2007 1:45:27 AM UTC by coasterdad***

raising4daughters - you sparked an interesting idea in my head.

What if Cedar Fair is "shutting down" the park so as to not continue to lose money on it while right-sizing it?

Keeping it open at a loss while doing work (that costs money on top of the operating costs) doesn't make much sense. But shutting it down (no wages, no food costs, no inspection costs) gives you the time to remove, remodel and re-format the park and re-open in a year or two.

I checked, and I don't think any of the literature (press-release, letter on the GL site) says anything about selling the rideside off, although I would imagine a portion will be sold off.

I know the company has made no mention of this possibility, so its a really off the wall theory.

^^coasterdad- maybe you should go back and read some of your own posts. Over generalizations about anyone who has different opinions than you as inhuman. Overly emotional responses to without logic, facts or business understanding. And downright childish behavior such as "Dick is a Dick". It is actually very hard to tell if you are 14 or 40 years old.

It wasn't too long ago that you cared alot that 2 coasters were leaving, but when faced with the park closing, you were willing to lose the coasters to save the park. A fair trade-off, but my question is now, would CF still be evil if they only removed the rides? Now that you have seen how bad it can be, just removing the rides seems like a good business decision, right?

My point is that it is really hard to know what their motivations are without all the facts, and I don't think you are invited to those meetings. What I do know is things change, plans don't always workout, and forecasts are not always right. This is a fact of any business. I also know that mistakes are more common than malice intent.
*** Edited 10/4/2007 2:58:36 AM UTC by Spit***
*** Edited 10/4/2007 3:01:13 AM UTC by Spit***

^^ John, I've wrestled with that idea more than a few times. Although I'd love it to be so, I can't help but think it's wishful thinking. I think that if CF were to go that route, they would have done or said something -- anything -- to that effect. It would have been very useful to counteract whatever bad press and bad feelings among the community the closing's caused. No, I really think it's gone for good. About the only hope I have is that they hold on to the Happy Harbor flats and nets; those would make ideal, and inexpensive companion attractions to the waterpark.

You know Mike I thought of that Idea as well. What if they are completely doing away with all the rides and that is the reason they shut Geauga Lake down. Maybe they want to reroute the park with a different feel so maybe they are closing it for a year or two. In the meantime they just decide to shut the park down? Sounds Logical and I'll probably be wishful thinking here, but you never know.

Well I do know what I wrote and while I am not happy about the removal of two coasters I could have lived with the fact that GL would still be there in some shape. The way the closing was handled is not the way a “great” company like CF should have announced it. I don’t like what Mr. Kinzel has done and that is obvious, but I NEVER said Dick is a Dick, I may have called him The Dick though.

Downsizing to the point where GL was back in 1967 would be a great idea, but I don’t think CF would want to bother at this point. They state that they are looking for a buyer for that side right now. Although is it another CF lie? Who knows.

It's gone. Why would they go through the hassle of renaming the park? Why not just keep Geauga Lake if it was going to open back up? Let's go through renaming the entire park and signs to Geauga Lake's Wild Water Kingdom while we remodel and then change everything back after it's done.

John, I thought you had more sense than that, come on now. I expect that from some here but not you.

I'm not sure why Cedar Fair would have paid for and commissioned a firm to study the potential uses of the "dry side" if their intent was to rebuild it and then reopen it.

While they didn't expressly say they were selling off the rides and land, I'm pretty sure that is the intent considering the study.

Loopy said:
Let's go through renaming the entire park and signs to Geauga Lake's Wild Water Kingdom while we remodel and then change everything back after it's done.

Since Cedar Fair loves to save money, I'm assuming a portion of why they kept the name was because the signs would be cheaper to change. All they have to do is take off the ampersand and add an apostrophe "S" after Geauga Lake.

This is not high school (even if some are of that age) and I am not the principal. So, bottom line, we're not going to put up with it. Those who post noise, or are otherwise guilty of general stupidity, may be subject to temporary loss of posting privileges.

We've ignored too much for too long. I'm not going to let 0.5% of the users bring down the discussion for the other 99.5%.

I see your point to an extent coasterdad. Do I think CF bought it to close it...no. I do think it was the dumbest move they could have done to buy it. It wasn't competition, and when sea world and the animals pulled out it started to die. I will agree with that. How are you going to pull people to you with no niche? CP had all the coasters anyone wants, if your just going to compete with coasters and have nothing else than it will be hard to survive and be big right next to CP. I agree to an extent that they really didn't do alot to keep the rides running. They found it was worse than they thought. It doesn't matter who owned it at this time, it would have closed without animals.

One other note, I have read on other websites about CPfan boys and I will agree with that. There are some people who patronize the park to death no matter what the park does. The park is good, however they still lack to improve food service, still have no electric ride time signs showing if rides are closed or open and wait times. And the crews (raptor for instance) stacks more than I can remember.

^^I think he's referring to CPboy77.

And maybe me for this post.

Loopy said:
John, I thought you had more sense than that, come on now. I expect that from some here but not you.

I didn't say it was a great idea (or even a reasonable one) it was just a thought that popped into my head.

OK, OK it was late and I may have overreacted to your post.

It's just frustrating the ridiculousness of some of the thoughts and suggestions on the situation. CF is a business and doesn't cater to anyone but themselves, if you think otherwise you're living in a rose colored world. If a company doesn't do what's best for the company then they're not making sound business decisions.

^ - if you think about it, mine is one of the less ridiculous posts. Its actually taking the information we have and creating a possible scenario.

Granted, I've got a better chance of getting hit by lightning, holding the winning lottery ticket, being attacked by shark and getting in a car accident -- at the same time. But that's a chance I'm willing to take.

* Note to self, avoid driving near the sea shore on stormy Tuesdays and Fridays.

Do you have a sea shore in Michigan? :)