It's just amazing.

Anyone that says they will not visit a CF again, because of GL closing is honetly lower than low. What is wrong with some people? We have a lot of ignorant people out there I guess.

Did we really need another thread on this?

Well they just bought a park said they will not give up, but they did in 4 years. Little odd I might say...

Even though I'm pissed about it I will still be at Cedar Point and other Cedar Fair parks I still love amusement parks.

How is someone being upset lower than low? Geauga Lake's handling by Cedar Fair is currently EXTREMELY controversial. If I did not love CP so much, I would be very angry with CF at the moment (I still am but it will eventually pass).

So why are people angry?

1.) There is a lot of evidence to suggest that CF wanted the park to close. That doesn't make CF very popular...

2.) Ride removals, and the park closing was all announced after the fact. No chance for people to get their final rides/ visits in. This is another move which people think is low. Plus, the PR department would issue statements that were basically lies about the parks future.

3.) 119 years of memories have come to a close.

So while it may not make you upset, understand that there are people who are very much so.

www.ipetitions.com/petition/geaugalake

It's just getting out of hand. It's an amusement park for god sake. They are acting like the world blew up or something. Honestly, it's rediculous. I have seen many horrible comments made about Dick Kinzel, people making t-shirts saying Cedar Fair sucks, and tons of other BS. I'm guessing the majority of these people are adults? Honestly, grow up!

I"m with you CPboy77. I agree with most of everyone on here that they should have maybe announced the closing a little sooner like in the beginning of August, but we shouldn't give up on Cedar Fair just because it didn't work out. And why does everyone think it's all Dick Kinzels decisions? Maybe in one of his meetings, they had to bring this up and maybe this came up earlier in the season like in July or something. We don't know that. That's almost like blaming Bush for every law that gets passed. It's not always him, sometimes it's congress that makes decisions. Call me what you want to, but I understand the decision Cedar Fair made and I think Geauga Lake will do great as a Water Park.

Im with CPboy77 I run a few Restaurants around our state and if one is not making money and we tried to get more businessby updating stuff and it didnt work guess what, Im closing it down. Im sorry to me its a good business decision.

To anyone who's got the ideas of "CF wanted the park to close" etc..

I think I found all of the information you're looking for right here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51

Geauga Lake was doomed the day Six Flags took over, it's not Cedar Fair's fault. GL has been a place for a waterpark and now someone is finally getting it right, honestly..what park would you chose for thrills...GL..or CP? and then what would you chose water park..Soak City...or Wildwater...GL can't compete with amusement parks, it's only hope of survival is to be a waterpark. And if they can make it into something like Schlitterbahn in Texas or Wet n Wild, then that would be very sweet. So darn, GL is closed, suck it up and move on we all knew this day was going to come.

CPboy77 said:
It's just getting out of hand. It's an amusement park for god sake. They are acting like the world blew up or something. Honestly, it's rediculous. I have seen many horrible comments made about Dick Kinzel, people making t-shirts saying Cedar Fair sucks, and tons of other BS. I'm guessing the majority of these people are adults? Honestly, grow up!

Would you be singing the same tune if CP were to close tomorrow?

^ Be realistic. GL's closing was no surprise. It had been passed from owner to owner for a decade, each one trying a different technique to keep it afloat, all to no avail. If CP was in this same situation, I can confidently say that I would feel the exact same way I do about GL. It's a very disheartening situation, and I respect that many of you have lost a place you loved very much, but you need to realize that it's just good business. CF did this with the intention of helping themselves, the same reason it's past owners sold the park.

Everyone around here seems to believe that if left under SF or another former owner, the park would have prospered. But if that was the case, why was it sold over and over again? If Funtime, nor Premier, nor SF could keep it up, why is it that CF should have been able to?

A "deceitful, uncaring, greedy, and unacceptable" action? Did you say the same thing about Busch when they closed Sea World? If CF never owned the park and SF closed it down instead (because I assure you, somebody was going to eventually), would you say the same thing about them?

It's sad to watch 119 years go down the drain, but this is a little much.

Why would CP close tomorrow? It still makes money hand over fist, something another park couldn't do because people decided not to go there. The public simply decided to turn their backs on tradition for CP or Kennywood or other various parks where they were happier.

^ It wouldn't. I simply said that to show that GL was just as much of a park as CP is. People care differently about different parks.

^^ GL's closing was a surprise to many. I for one could see more ride removals, but never thought the park would have been closed completely. I don't know if that's because I truly didn't believe it, or didn't want to believe it.

And I completely agree that the park wouldn't have prospered under SF. Thats obvious. And it wasn't that CF wasn't able to keep GL going, they chose not to. MIA gets 550,000 in attendance every year. Is that park still in the chain? They recently got a rapids ride, new tornado slide, and other stuff. GL got over 700,000 in attendance for the past years under CF, and as anyone who visited the park this year will attest to, it was definitely going to be higher.
Many of CF's other parks in the chain (WoF, Dorney, etc) don't get much higher attendance than 850,000 or 900,000. So its clear that GL fit into their range of attendances... and with a bit more downsizing to meet the size of the other parks it could have been kept by anyone who wanted to.

And I think you misquoted and misinterpreted my signature. It is referring to the handling of GL by CF and how it was deceitful, uncaring, and greedy. What do I mean by this? I mean that instead of the parking lying, or dancing around the question when asked about the removals of XF, etc, they should have been honest so people could have gotten some final rides in. The same goes for the closing of the park.

Not everyone cares all that much about GL, and no one is saying you need to, but realize that GL is to a lot of people as CP is to you.

MIA gets 550,000 in attendance every year. Is that park still in the chain? They recently got a rapids ride, new tornado slide, and other stuff. GL got over 700,000 in attendance for the past years under CF, and as anyone who visited the park this year will attest to, it was definitely going to be higher.

Michigan's Adventure is a park built for 500-700,000 guests.

Geauga Lake is a park built for 1.5 - 1.7 million guests. Do the math. GL was overdeveloped. It wasn't growing (MiAdv IS) and the maintenance on some of the rides was driving the cost of the park up without adding anything significant to revenue.

While I am a bit surprised that they didn't try pulling out a few more rides for next year, I'm not completely surprised. The negative reaction they got by moving X-flight and Steel Venom told them that removing rides wasn't going to help match their revenue to cost. So if that won't work, do you continue to operate rides that you A) don't have enough guests to maintain ridership and B) cost too much to operate. Or do you just shut it down.

I said it before, and I'll say it again. Sea World was the life line of that park. Its survival as a full amusement and water park hinged on Sea World drawing in guests. When Sea World left and Six Flags dumped in more coasters than the park could handle, the park was doomed.

Everyone wants the rides the Six Flags put in, with the ticket prices from the early 90's. That wasnt' going to happen. One of two had to go, so they raised prices. But when people stopped coming to the park, they had to cut costs (remove rides).

Closing the ride side is the best thing for the continued existence of the park. I have no doubt that Cedar Fair could turn it into a northern Schlitterbahn. It'll take some work, but they could do it.

^^ As shown when X-Flight and SV were removed, taking down rides spreads a bad taste. Even fewer people would have gone if they would have downsized any more (and may I add that a "bit more downsizing" is an understatement... that park is big). I'm not a business person but from what I can see, it was a lose-lose situation. So yes, they chose not to continue dumping their money into a black hole.

I did not misinterpret your signature. The sudden shutdown of parks and rides is not a new thing. Kennywood recently shut down the Gold Rusher out of the blue before the season even ended, and I didn't get a chance to ride it one last time before it was gone. Though disappointed, I wouldn't call it deceitful. I'm sure there's a reason for their actions.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't agree that they should have announced the closure earlier. I'm just glad that I made my trip in August to see it. But I've been expecting this since I got back.

JuggaLotus said:

MIA gets 550,000 in attendance every year. Is that park still in the chain? They recently got a rapids ride, new tornado slide, and other stuff. GL got over 700,000 in attendance for the past years under CF, and as anyone who visited the park this year will attest to, it was definitely going to be higher.

Michigan's Adventure is a park built for 500-700,000 guests.

Geauga Lake is a park built for 1.5 - 1.7 million guests. Do the math. GL was overdeveloped. It wasn't growing (MiAdv IS) and the maintenance on some of the rides was driving the cost of the park up without adding anything significant to revenue.

.

Also Michigans Adventure is the most visited tourist attraction in the state and it's helping to improve our already horrible economy so they get a little help from the state with advertising and trying to get people going their. ohio didnt need to do this because A. they have a pretty good economy And B. they have tourists from all over the nation coming to cedar point and kings dominion it wasnt all that important

Is it really that amazing? At least everyone here is using common sense. Everyone seems to understand that to meet a financial goal that all or most of your assets need to be utilized in a positive fashion.

I will miss G.L. Maybe something from G.L. will end up at C.P.

As for those of you threating to never go to a C.F. park...good for you. You are one less person in front of me.

My question is if GL is going to be the "premier" water park how does that bode for Splash City? Will it be removed in favor of a larger dedicated facility in Aurora? If they did remove or relocate Sandusky's waterpark to improve GL's it would open up some valuable land resources.

As long as their are hotels on the peninsula at Cedar Point Soak City will stay. Anyone who thinks otherwise is off their rocker.

Whey get rid of a reason for guests to stay another night in their hotels? What kind of sense would that make?

I have a lot of special memories of GL and I'm upset about this. Threatening not to go to CP or a CF park is like a junky threatening his dealer that he will quit that stuff and no longer needs a fix. I had a blast at CP today, 18 rides on MF and numerous others. This junky had a great fix at CP today, though I will miss GL.