Geauga Lake letter on Website

But I'm pretty sure they would have had a problem with all the red ink in the ledger column marked GLP.

JuggaLotus said:

coasterdad said:

Although if you are a regular poster here you have already been lobotomized by the CF BS machine so never mind.

And no matter what you're told, you've already got the "truth" determined in your mind regardless of any lack of proof.

Who's the brainwashed one?

It’s funny that without any "lack of proof" I determined what was going to happen. And no I am not going to give it up.

CF acted without any regard for anyone except their wallet. They went against two things they stand for in their mission statement, courtesy and integrity.

Who is brainwashed??

You claim they bought it just to shut it down? But then why operate for 4 years?

Did Cedar Fair suddenly get into the business of losing money on parks they would close anyway? No.

They bought a park in hopes that the change in ownership would turn it around and make it profitable. They underestimated the damage that Six Flags, the economy and closing of Sea World had done to the park's reputation.

It was a mis-calculation on their part, but whether it was CF or SF the park was going to close. Cedar Fair may have just bought it 4 more years of life before the closing.

I've still yet to see any proof that the park was really operating in the red. I've only seen CF say it wasn't "performing as they had hoped." The last published account of revenue showed it bringing in more money than Michigan's Adventure - one of Cedar Fair's supposed "success stories".

^^^^ I bet they would at least have spent more money marketing the park -- and probably more effectively, too.

KE sure as heck wouldn't have spent $25 million on a new waterpark across the lake, when there was a perfectly serviceable, fairly new waterpark right next to the rides.

Hey, this could be a fun sport. What would Kennywood Entertainment have done differently if they had bought SFWoA instead?

Nobody can say for certain, but it's a good guess they would have spent a fraction of what CF did on WWK and put in a couple new rides. Small, yes, family-oriented, certainly. But new rides, all the same.

In the end, they probably would have had to downsize some of the SF bloated expansion. But they would have done it reasonably, carefully, making sure to let folks know they were transforming the park -- not just mouthing the words like CF did, but actually doing it and making it obvious even to the most casual observer.

John, I'm sure the red ink would have been a concern. But in this scenario. KE would have paid Six Flags substantially less than CF did (guessing), and without the illogical $25 million new waterpark. There would have been significantly less red ink going in, perhaps enough to give more breathing room for the park to survive a few more seasons and finish its transformation.

Edited for carrot correction. *** Edited 10/1/2007 4:32:01 PM UTC by Ensign Smith*** *** Edited 10/1/2007 4:33:09 PM UTC by Ensign Smith***

The thing is, I don't think Cedar Fair releases red and black numbers. They just show the revenue (which I'm guessing is just the income) so there is no way to know if their operating costs are higher or lower than that published number.

I would find it very hard to believe though that if the park was making 26 million a year (I think that's the number you are referring to) that it would be closed. That's just bad business.

Edited for Mike:

Mike - I don't know that the waterpark wasn't a good idea though. All the reports I've read say that the ride side was dead while the waterpark was packed. It sounds like it was paying for itself, so that makes a good investment.

I also don't know that any removal wouldn't have resulted in grumblings. The uproar (at least on CB and PB, doubt the public really noticed until they got to the park) about ride removals may have caused Cedar Fair to rethink that as a building strategy.

*** Edited 10/1/2007 4:38:04 PM UTC by JuggaLotus***

I'm absolutely sure you're correct. There would have been grumblings. But I think a fair amount of that would have been off-set by seeing at least a few rides coming in to replace the outgoing. Better to see X-Flight and Steel Venom leave AND a Spinning Mack coming in than just the former.

Or, pull Steel Venom and X-Flight and expand the existing water park into the adjacent dead areas of the park. Imagine that. Pull something from the park and make it nice again.

It's a no brainer the water park was full. It's brand new and fun. But, it's also really far away from the ride side. People are inherently lazy. I'm beginning to think pulling coasters and expanding the existing water park would have been their best idea. Let the Sea World side rot away or sell it off.

JuggaLotus said:
You claim they bought it just to shut it down? But then why operate for 4 years?

Did Cedar Fair suddenly get into the business of losing money on parks they would close anyway? No.

Why operate it for four years? It was a very well planned out strategy to deceive the GP, and it worked as you were deceived. CF bought the park to number one, remove any perceived competition for CP, plus get some great rides to spread around to the Paramount parks they would be acquiring soon. The money they paid was well spent, in the CEO’s mind, to elimination competition, the purchase of valuable land, and some great rides - I am sure they knew this and in the end would not loose out on any money.

As for GL not being perceived competition in Dicks eyes, how do you explain Wicked Twister? It has also been said that TTD was in response to SFWoA. It was Dicks kick in the pants to say I can build a better ride than you can so there.

CF operated GL like everything was great, even putting some visual improvements to lead us to believe they cared. Then WWK opened. After that they did nothing to the ride side except to start dismantling. They used what little they had left on the ride side to draw people to the park and hence discover WWK. Once they felt WWK was up to the capacity they needed, poof, no more rides.

WWK will never stand alone as a water park for long, a few bad summer days and they WILL loose money. I am not sure who they think they are trying to kid. No wait, I know most of the posters here!

Here's the thing. Everyone who continues to place negative blame on CF has absolutely no credibility. No facts, nothing to take you seriously. It's just a whole bunch of crying and complaining.

Even if they DID buy it to shut it down after four years, it was still a business decision and most likely a well thought out and planned one.

^It sounds good to a 12 year old.

Here's the real scoop:

CF bought GL just to close it, but they wanted to do it in a way that could magnify the backlash and eventually cause CP to close too, which would give them about 25 coasters that they could relocate to the Paramount Parks, which are the REAL money-makers, and represent the only viable and profitable future for Cedar Fair.

With phase one complete, next they will start teasing about a new change for 2008 for CP, but fail to post the blog as promised. Lack of a 500ft Wild Mouse or Spinning 4d coaster will begin to have a dramatic effect. Eventually, public support will erode to the point where CP does under 700,000, resulting in CP operating only as "Cedar Point's Soak City" for the 2032 season.

In 2033, Cedar Fair will change it's name to King Carowinds Dominion and Dick Kinzel will be known as "King Carowind"

You got to give them credit for planning 30 years into the future! GENIUS isn't it? ;)

^ that was actually pretty funny

Well, it does go along with the logic of most people in here. :)

*** Edited 10/2/2007 2:33:33 AM UTC by Jason Hammond***

The sad thing is, most of them are serious. These threads are almost as bad as the construction/webcam watcher threads we get from time to time. It's the page after page of what makes people bang their head on their desk because it's so STUPID.

It took me a while but here are 2 of my last 3 visits to the park. Sadly I didn't take any pics on closing day.

8-12-2007

9-14-2007

coasterdad said:
It was a very well planned out strategy to deceive the GP

That's where I stopped reading.

I'm not a big fan of Wikipedia, but this article is an interesting read. I thought the "Rationality Theorem" section was particularly interesting.

Wiki said:
Allison argued that by using rationalistic thinking, individuals automatically take a "black box" approach to problems, meaning that they concentrate on data that was available and the results, but failed to consider other factors, such as bureaucracy, misunderstandings, disagreements, etc.

I don't buy into conspiracy theories in any walk of life, so it's no surprise that I'm not buying it here.

I don't buy into this "closing because of competition" theory either.

Consider that when SFO/SFWoA had their best year, Cedar Point's attendance did not suffer one bit. In addition, once Cedar Fair bought the property, all the money was going into the same pot.

To put it another way, if there are two CVS drugstores within a few miles of each other (common), does CVS care which drugstore you go to? Hardly, the only reason one CVS store would close is if it is not profitable. Maybe some business would go to the other CVS, maybe Walgreen's would get a little extra business. But, the unprofitable drain on CVS is eliminated.

I don't think anything different happened to Geauga Lake. The park was just not profitable. CF put the water park in because they hoped it would bring in enough business to help the entire park. It just didn't work. Nothing much was done to the rides side because the money was not there, the park wasn't profitable.

At least they are still trying to make a go of it with just the water park. They could have pulled the plug on the entire thing, if they are that "sinister" of a company.

The GL fans just have to face facts that they may have loved the park but not enough other people did to make it a viable business. Six Flags ruined the park, not Cedar Fair. I would bet anything that the park would still be closed if Kennywood, Six Flags or anyone else were running it instead of CF.

Oh, Pete. Don't you know that they've already decided to operated the water park for 4 years in order to deceive the public. Then they will be shutting it down regardless of its profitability?

coasterdad said:
It was a very well planned out strategy to deceive the GP

Wow, Walt and I stopped reading at the same point.

Walt said:

Wiki said:
Allison argued that by using rationalistic thinking, individuals automatically take a "black box" approach to problems, meaning that they concentrate on data that was available and the results, but failed to consider other factors, such as bureaucracy, misunderstandings, disagreements, etc.

Or they create their own data based on imagined board meetings and their own emotional response to a situation.

Fixed quotes. *** Edited 10/2/2007 2:08:33 PM UTC by JuggaLotus***