Should Geauga Lake close the ride side and renovate

The floating boat restaurant is a good idea. They are definately restricted as to what the lake can be used for. I can't see why they couldn't do something like that, even if the boats they have are too small by themselves to acheive that end. Still a solid idea though...

Looks to me like a logical future for GL is to slowly close down the rides and concentrate on the water park. Perhaps that side of the lake could be used for on-site lodging. This solves the competition with CP and KI issues, and makes the most sense in terms of land use. In fact, if they were to build more in terms of indoor/year round facilities - you would now have a real complement to CP!

Ensign Smith said:Being short on money might have been true if we were talking about a single, independent park. But GL is part of a chain, and it's that total debt load that matters.

I was under the impression that Cedar Fair liked their parks to operate as independent entities whenever possible. So, I believe that means if they can't financially support a ride, it goes. Is this true, or will Cedar Fair "float" a park if they think its valuable?

Ensign Smith said:
Here's an idea. Take one of the boats and turn it into a little enclosed restaurant. They could moor it along the floating bridge in the middle of the lake. Something to break up that l o n g walk...

That is a fantastic idea! Indiana Beach has one of those on their boardwalk (the 'Pronto Princess' which was their original 'Queen Shafer' paddlewheel excursion boat) and it's one of my favorite places to eat everytime I head down there. You can sit on the top deck, have some cheese fries, and watch the park do it's thing.

*** Edited 12/2/2006 7:21:43 PM UTC by airee85***

I really have no idea how they operate in these regards. But typically when one corporation buys an asset from another corporation, don't they absorb whatever debt carried by that unit as part of the cost of acquisition? That is to say, just because Six Flags showed SFWoA as having accumulated x amount of debt, doesn't mean that CF would carry over the same ledger. Somebody who knows more about these types of transactions should enlighten us.

I believe that is true, but CF didn't buy the entire company. They only bought one park. I think that was more corporate debt than it was park-debt, but I could be way off on that.

*** Edited 12/3/2006 12:33:29 AM UTC by DBCP***

I guess the question is whether or not Cedar Fair just bought the physical assets of GL (huge tracts of land). If that were the case, I would think there would be no accumulated debt that would carry over.

Regardless if the debt was or wasn't absorbed during the purchase, the fact remains that the park needs to have a budget. So, if they pull in less than they spend, something needs to change. If they can gain some money by selling a ride AND eliminate a big chunk of money from the maintenance budget, that's a win win for them. Like a lot of people on here, I doubt very much that the removal of the ride is going to have a massive impact on gate numbers. Thus, they've made money AND saved money with one transaction.