It's just amazing.

Jeff strikes again!

Really, if so many people cared about the park, then why was attendance so bad? And honestly, the MiA comparison holds no validity in my eyes. The park has never had a huge number for attendance, but it also hasn't been draining company resources because its actually turning a profit with the attendance they get.

Oooooh, Snap!

:)

Actually, I kind of took a liking to GL this year. I went 4 or 5 times, spent money on renting an innertube, and even went out of my way to buy food, and even shop for souvenir-type things, because I wanted them to survive.

It's sad, but what are you going to do?

When Is Geauga Lake's last day of Operation? Is it closed for the season yet?

And now this thread makes me think of Aerosmith, although their song wasn't all three words but close enough. :)

Aerosmith and 2008 watches, who thinks I had a premonition about a New Years Eve performance?

Jeff said:
Where were all of these people with strong feelings for the park? If they were actually visiting it, they sure are a very vocal minority.

I'm sure if the corporation had the best intentions for this park all along they could have actually advertised and promoted the park. We all agree that they dropped the ball on this but advertising surely would have helped with those numbers.

My family went 10+ times this year with our passes and parking passes and spent nothing at the park. The park was too pricy for us as is the case with most, once again that goes back to the intentions for the park. If they really wanted to create a family park, they should have priced it accordingly!

"CP is something GL, and many other parks are not."

True, but it was also once a dumpy, sad little park headed for the wrecking ball. Even if it made "financial sense" to close the point then pressure was brought to change that course of action and look at what we have now? There are other ways to actually manage the property and build a customer support it once had. Closing it isn't the only option. But it is the easiest and doesn't require smart people to impliment it.

Again there is an arguement that can be made that it would be a sound financial decision to scrap CP for the payoff now. After all a dollar today is always worth more than a promise of a dollar tomorrow. Your denial of this is just blind faith that your favorite park would never see that fate.

Zeek, again you like many, suffer from an accute lack of memory or knowledge. The 2000 year for GLP as Six Flags Ohio was the best financial season ever for that park. Sure the people came out to see what all the fuss was about, but i'll tell you what, season pass sales for 2001 had already broken the record BEFORE the anouncement of the SW purchase. The people were speaking with their dollars about their approval of the new product. It wasn't until August of 2001 before the public began to run away in droves (irronically that season July was a better month than August). SFI had a good thing going with this park before it bought the SW. While SFI was at the helm and the imputus of the crash that was GLP, you can't say they didn't do a good job before one bad decision.

Come on Loopy, it's not like 90 percent of the speculation on the sites are rubbish. Why should random guesses from unverified sources make anyone prepared for a terribly short-sighted decision.

Finally i have to say that as consumers we really only have one way to tell a company what we think and that is how we spend our dollars. Perhaps you can add something of value instead of complaining about the "whining".

*** Edited 9/26/2007 4:28:39 AM UTC by gener***
*** Edited 9/26/2007 4:46:37 AM UTC by gener***

"Throwing in a crap ton of new rides will make people flock to the park, but giving them the worst customer experience ever will prevent them from ever returning, regardless of who is running the park"

Definately one of the biggest failures (or was it part of the plan) of CF was to replace or change the culture at the park created by the WOA regime. If i didn't know better the fools from 01 to 03 were still running the park.

"Cedar Fair bought a park that had generally gained a reputation as a dirty park and thought that cleaning it up and refurbishing the rides would go a long ways. There was one thing they didn't realize until after it was too late, that the animals were the biggest draw for that park. "

Gained a reputation? We were always known as the poor mans CP. Once you price yourself at the CP level and don't provide a quality product you loose both those who cannot afford the CP prices and those who see the better value in Sandusky.

And how in any significant way did CF "clean up" GLP. Unless you mean get rid of rides. They didn't do a thing to improve many areas of GLP over the course of three years and for the most part let a lot of it rot. All significant investment came on the former SW property.

And finally it cannot be said enough. The animal couldn't be more overstated when you consider that GLP's attendace for years was based on company events/group picnics and season pass holders. Both of whom did not come because of the fish. Considering the average attendance around 1.5 mil and 66% minimum based on the two main attendance groups, more than a million a year attended this park regardless of Bush. Sea Worlds leaving had a max impact of 25 to 28%. Not good, but not dibilitating. Besides the annual attendance for the park had already dipped below a million while there were still animals IN the park. Kinzel's just blowing wind up your skirt.

After a disapointng trip to GL in 2006, I decided not to return this year.

We went on a Sunday. The crowd was good size, but it wasn't too crowded. There were about five rides not working that day including RWB and SV. We were hungry as we had come from church and not eaten breakfast.The lines for for food were very long and very slow. The lines at the sit down food places were also extremely long. I waited in one line and gave up it just didn't move. A few stands were closed. We decided to go on some rides instead hoping the food lines would shrink. They never did. I found a rather short line at a temporary hot dog stand near Double Loop. When I got to the front to order they said they were out of buns. The girl's attitude was crappy too. We went on a few more rides, discovering more that were down as we went. Finally after about three hours we caved in to hunger and left the park to go eat. We could have waited in line, but we didn't want to spend that much time doing so. For the amount of people in the park it shouldn't be so hard to get food. We came to ride not wait for food. We weren't expecting a banquet. With all of the breakdowns we couldn't even ride that much.

We bought Platinum passes the day they announced GL was closing. We hadn't heard the news yet. We were going to go to GL next year using our passes. I didn't want to go if I had to pay admission and parking. The passes are still a good deal as we'll use them for CP, SC and KI.

We don't plan to go to GL's waterpark. We go to CP often and stay over a few times, so we visit SC occaisionally.

Top Thrill 182 said:

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?

I would.

I have a life other than riding coasters.

-Tambo

See, that's the HUGE difference. They aren't removing coasters from CP and the park is still being kept up.

There were obvious things pointing towards its closing, people just decided to look the other way and hope for the best. Sorry your optimistic outlook hurt your feelings, better luck next time.

Surprised? Not. Pissed I didn't take more pictures around the park instead of just Dominator? Heck yes! Sure explains why Bill Spehn wasn't at our breakfast reception at the FFO and certainly why he dodged us for most of the day.

I think no one knew what an impact the removal of Sea World would have. When that circus left town, so did most of the people :(
Many people left and never came back when they found out SW was gone. It will be interesting to see how many people leave and never come back when they find out GL is gone.

I am as guilty as the next person to having a season and parking pass since '03 and not spending very much in the park. I will admit during FFO I bought a ton of stuff, and sorry I opted not to get a couple more GL shirts!! Doh!

As much complaining as people have been doing about GL's death how many really visited the park? How many opted for GL instead of CP? How many recommended/suggested GL to friends and family instead of CP?
I can say I did all that but obviously our visits, and no amount of my friends and family could possibly make that much of a difference.

As a stock holder I am very disappointed for CF, as a CF fan I am very disappointed that they couldn't have let us know their decision before closing day. How many of us would have loved to have that last ride on Dominator or even Big Dipper? How many of us would have loved to walk around the park that one last time?

I hope WWK does well for them and boy am I glad I held off on getting a GL tattoo! Phew! ;)

Jo
Lifetime Raptor flights: 1220 :)
Lifetime Dominator flights: not enough! :(

gener said:
"CP is something GL, and many other parks are not."

True, but it was also once a dumpy, sad little park headed for the wrecking ball.

When? Everything I've heard and read has said it was quite the little get away. Ok, so it didn't always have rides, but who did back then? Slow during the depression? What wasn't? Before all the mega rides, were people flocking to any park in the country let alone CP?

And like I said before, from what I was hearing, no one was really riding the rides anyway. It was all about the waterpark. And its not like they really had anything there that was one of a kind. Take a weekend roadtrip next summer to a new park to ride your favorite ride. It doesnt hurt to go someplace new.

I'll be going to a couple of new parks next year. Knoebels and Waldameer.

For eveyone getting mad at Cedar Fair.. take a look at what Six Flags is doing to New Orleans. It could be worse..

Last time I checked, New Orleans flooded and the park was pretty much damaged beyond reasonable repair.

Who said it wasn't?

On thier website it says:

"Six Flags is still in the process of settling claims with its insurers due to substantial damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. As a result, Six Flags New Orleans will remain closed for the 2007 season. We know that it is still a difficult time for the residents of New Orleans, and we remain committed to working with the city in support of the recovery efforts."

Don't you think they should be honest and say they are trying to close the park down without voiding the contract they have with the city?

How can you compare a park that was devestated by a hurricane to a park that had no vital improvements since X-Flight? Six Flags would have to spend MILLIONS of dollars just to get SFNO up to par. 90% of the parks attractions suffer major water damage. Give SF some credit. AT least they have the balls to tell the public ahead of time that their home town park will not reopen next season(SFAW). I mean...come on...anyone who believes that CF came up with the decision to close the park last Thursday is crazy.

I second that. Add Kennywood and Hershey as possible winners from GL's demise. We've already made reservations for a mid-week trip to Knoebels and Hershey Park next August.

I'm absolutely convinced that GL and CP were NOT competitors. Yes, they were in the same industry and business, but I think CP will be disappointed in the modest bump it gets in attendance in the years to come.

People who want to go to CP go there. People who want an alternative go to GL. Some do both. It's like the Browns and the Indians. Yes, they compete for discretionary dollars, but if one left town (ouch), would the other see a bump in attendance? Perhaps a little.

GL attendees want low-key, family entertainment, and Kennywood, Waldameer, Knoebels, and Hershey provide that in spades. They're the winners, not CF or CP.

Comparing the Browns and the Indians isn't even close to comparing two amusement parks.

They're two different sports that draw two completely different crowds, CP and GL had the same audience. Let's compare cantaloupe and cantaloupe not 3 toed sloths (Browns) and minnows (Indians).

raising4daughters said:

I'm absolutely convinced that GL and CP were NOT competitors.

I'd have to disagree. Whenever I wanted to do an amusement park & considered GL, I always just figured since it was a road trip anyway, why not travel another hour & go to CP.

I really do hope attendance doesn't jump up too much because, of course, I don't want to wait in longer lines. But I'm wondering how many people will flock to other parks or head to CP next season.