What if Cedar Fair bought Geauga 10 years ago?

In interviews Richard Kinzel has said he wished CF would have bought Geauga Lake back in the nineties before Premier bought it. What do you think the park would have been like if they had bought it? Keep in mind that back in 1995 they had only 4 roller coasters, one water ride and a much smaller water park. Plus Sea World was still going strong. I would like opinions on what the park would be like today.

That is a good question. There are a lot of variables. Who would have been the GM 10 years ago? It would not have been Bill Spehn and that may have been a negative because the park was in need of a strong Operations leadership presence and Bill has that quality.

10 years ago Cedar Fair was still fairly well entrenched in the marine animal entertainment business so they may have been enclined to not only buy the Sea World Ohio park, but to keep it going as a separate gate.

Of course, if Cedar Fair had bought Geauga Lake 10 years ago they may not have been in the market to buy Knott's Berry Farm and that has proven to be a valuable addition.

It is a thought provoking question. You may be out of place here Tim.

I think the park would have been grown in much the same way that Dorney, Worlds of Fun and Valleyfair were. I suspect they would have built rides many years apart and concentrated on what Geauga Lake always did well, and what they're concentrating on now: Building the event business.

It's hard to say if Sea World would have sold earlier or later. I honestly think that Six Flags may have dragged even them down to a certain degree. I seem to recall there were co-marketing agreements and ticket sales way back in the day, pre-Premier.

From what I have heard, the Sea World Side was not all that great anyway. It is an interesting quesiton, though.

I enjoyed the Ohio Sea World more than any of the others. I liked the intimacy of the place and I always thought it was one of the most beautiful parks...on a par with Disney from a landscaping viewpoint.

Way back, even before my time there, there were always rumors of Sea World wanting to acquire Geauga Lake and vice versa. In fact, I think when the family of parks was sold to Anhuser Busch, Funtime had inquired of buying the Aurora park independent of the others but that was not an option.

While Funtime didn't thrill us with rides at Geauga Lake they did the water attractions very well, particularly Turtle Beach and the other amenites for kids (Rainbow Island), the dry playground, etc. That got neglected and overshadowed when Premier came into the picture and look where that led them.

A mental note for the park on the Lake perhaps?

This is an interesting question. Could they have just bought just Geauga Lake? Premier bought all of Funtime. Would Cedar Fair have had to buy Darian Lake and Wyandot Lake too? That would definitely have been interesting. They could have sold the other two of course though (probably to Premier).

Coasterfury: You heard wrong.

Funtime didn't have to sell them all together, but I think Darien Lake at least would've been an attractive property. I don't know what the attendance up there is like, but I would think that if properly marketed it would do really well.

Does anyone have any pics of the former Sea World?

I was just repeating what they guy at the hotel desk was telling me. He also said something about a boat that ran up into the crowd. I thought that sounded like an urban myth.

First Funtime wanted to sell all the parks not just GLP. After all GLP was the workhorse of the three, and BEC didn't want the baggage of the other two parks.

And also remember that in 94 and 95 Geauga Lake had strong numbers, strong leadership and a strong culture. Furthermore there was a strong base of fans supporting the park. It was an old time park with lots of older rides. People remembered going there with their family as kids. And even if it wasn't keeping pace in the coaster wars it was still a fun and affordable park.

The packaged trips were far more prevelant with Funtime. Premeir really didn't show any interest in SWO other than as a target. At least Funtime looked at SWO as a way to tap the travelers who had never heard of Geauga Lake, even if that wasn't the primary revenue stream.

If CF had bought the park they would probably have done some of the same things as Premier only more slowly and without the overwhelming urge to brand the park and double the prices. I can't see any way around SWO selling their park. So i imagine that CF would have bought that as well, only the question there is if they would have fallen into the same traps as Premeir? The thing is that Premeir didn't make to many mistakes until the SWO purchase. Then the house of cards fell in...

No, a boat from the ski show did in fact launch several rows into the stands of the stadium, but somehow no one was seriously hurt. The video on the news was pretty amazing.

The boat was a jet boat and the steering cable snapped. Because it was a jet and not a prop boat, the injuries were kept to a minimum with 22 people injured. 17 went to local hospitals and the other 5 were treated on scene and released.

The day it happened all other boat shows at Sea World parks were put on hold untill the investigation was completed.

The results of the investigation actually resulted in a major modification being made to all boats of that make and model. *** Edited 9/19/2005 2:08:55 AM UTC by Red Garter Rob***

Rob: I thought it was a pin on the steering mechanism that was improperly installed *at the factory* that finally let go after several years of operation. And yes, other boats were found with the same problem.

Anyway, it's worth noting that some years ago, HBJ had an option to buy Geauga Lake, but declined it. Lots of questions come from that, not the least of which is, if HBJ had bought Geauga Lake, thus putting them into the traditional amusement park business, would they still have sold out to Busch Entertainment?

(And if you were wondering why textbook publisher Harcourt-Brace-Jovanovitch has an office tower located next door to Sea World Orlando...well, now you know why: apparently they opted to build Sea World on their property, the first fateful move to turn International Drive into a strip-mall of major amusement parks...)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
(Was at Geauga Lake today and has the bruises to prove it...)

You're right Dave, I just looked at the reports and I just said cable when I should have said pin. Still "factory" failure of the steering system.

It was a long weekend. :)