Analysts ponder Geauga Lake land, reasons for park failure

---

Radical rightwing anitabortion groups

---

Who's Anita Bortion, and what does she have to do with Geauga Lake?

^ She's the one who ripped the rides out of the uterus of Geauga Lake! :)

-Tambo

You can believe whatever you want, Tim, and you'd still be wrong. Being familiar with Kinzel's ego and thirst for success is reason enough for me to believe this is a failure he sure didn't want on his watch.

And don't make me pull out the name dropping card. Spehn going to GL was, in my estimation, a huge loss for CP. He's operationally one of the greatest assets that company has, and most of the VP and GM types around the company would likely agree with me on that. I walked around that park countless times with him, and I was always impressed at his pride in the park and attention to detail. Simply put, you don't put a guy like that in a place you intend to let wither and die.

Well said about Spehn and their plans for Geauga Lake. If they were planning on just selling the land and moving the rides they have just kept the existing park management in place until they were ready to pull the plug. They did just the opposite, they re-interviewed everyone in place to see if they fit in with the Cedar Fair culture and moved important people to the park.

---

Jeff said:
Spehn going to GL was, in my estimation, a huge loss for CP. He's operationally one of the greatest assets that company has, and most of the VP and GM types around the company would likely agree with me on that.

---

I totally agree. I don't even know the guy that well, but the decline of operations at Cedar Point since he left is all the evidence you need to make that point. He's the kind of guy that just doesn't settle for mediocrity - something that is running rampant at the flagship park these days. Rides are giving hundreds of thousands less rides than they did just a few years ago, operational policies make no sense, food service still sucks, hotels are not worth the price, etc etc. Spehn wasn't in charge of all this, but I notice the rides dept in particular is in the crapper these days and he WAS in charge of that. Maverick is a tremendous ride and everyone I talk to says that. But somehow they come back feeling as if CP isn't the same as it used to be. I don't think the public is blind to the decline going on.

I hope Spehn isn't seen as a failure in all this. I'd love to have him in charge of operations at any park that I was running.

If Cedar Fair gets something positive out of this, I hope it's that they realize that it's a lot harder to win back customers than it is to keep them. They've done a couple nice things to try to make money more creatively, but I haven't seen enough yet to make me believe they are serious about it. I see lots of cutting in terms of staff, cutting trains on less busy days and making people wait in lines that shouldn't exist, etc. It's all the stuff people complained about for years as Six Flags was going into the toilet. I just wish management would see this and not follow that path.

I do have to say though, that the rides this past Saturday, a very busy day, were all running at capacity. When they did miss an interval they sure hustled to get caught up again.

I'm still a little hazy on just why it was that Sea World closed in the first place. And I don't need some smart-ass telling me it was because they weren't making any money! Of course that would be reason enough though... Just not buying it.*** This post was edited by Superstew 9/25/2007 6:44:30 PM ***

I took my family to Ohio seaworld several times, it was always on our way home from cedar point. I had no desire to go to Geauga lake, I was there for something different then amusement park rides. I think both six flags and cedar fair ruined the property. They might as well sell the land to the goverment for low income housing.

^^ Sea World changed their business model to include thrill rides when they became Sea World Adventure Parks. In their land contract, they were not allowed to build thrill rides to directly compete with Geauga Lake. Back in the day, that was no problem because they never had any intention of doing anything but sea animals. But, times change. They weren't able to adapt the park to include rides, so they left.

edit: I remember reading articles back then that said since Geauga Lake wouldn't let Sea World alter their contract, they would "stick it to them" and leave. It looks like it has finally come full circle and they really weren't able to survive without Sea World.
*** This post was edited by halltd 9/25/2007 8:07:55 PM ***

SeaWorld built rides where it made sense. They did so in Orlando, in my opinion in response to Islands of Adventure. Even then, they only built two, and it came down to one coaster and a water ride for each park.

The Aurora park wasn't zoned for rides. It never was going to be because of the neighbors. But beyond that, building rides wouldn't have helped anyway, because it was too expensive to turn a profit on an animal park in 120 days as time went on.

You may ask how they managed to do it for almost 30 years, and that's a valid question. Two issues came into play. The first was declining attendance. I can't explain that one because I thought it was a fine park. The second issue was that the taxes were really killing them.

I did some digging around today and I'd love to find out what their total tax bill was last year. Most of the property is in Bainbridge Twp, in the Kenston school district, which is something like 127 mils right now. That's $127 for every thousand dollars of assessed value by the county. I don't know what commercial property is rated for compared to its "real" market value, but even at $100 million, far below what I'm sure they can get for it, that's $12.7 million in property taxes alone. That seems pretty ridiculous to me.
*** This post was edited by Jeff 9/25/2007 8:45:13 PM ***

One thing I would like to say is that I hope Cedar Fair is very cautious when it comes to selling the land. We've seen how residents near parks react to rides being built. If Cedar Fair thinks they may ever want to add a large thrill ride to the park, the better be very careful what they do with the land.

Why turn the park into condos? I dont want condos there and that they are been put up where Euclid Beach stood. Are they going to do the same with GL?

Lets see here that um condos don't fit there and closing the park was a bad idea. That can cause other businesses can go out too like the walmart or target across from Geauga Lake.

That's a bad business decision for Cedar Fair and they should know that other businesses are surrounding Geauga Lake might go out of business. that is bad for that to happen and Big Dipper I heard that Coaster might be scraped now thats something to cry about.

that will sadden coaster enthusiasts really bad I might cry too about that.

*** This post was edited by Twistercoasterman 9/25/2007 9:02:07 PM ***

Jeff said SeaWorld built rides where it made sense. They did so in Orlando, in my opinion in response to Islands of Adventure. Even then, they only built two, and it came down to one coaster and a water ride for each park.

The Aurora park wasn't zoned for rides. It never was going to be because of the neighbors. But beyond that, building rides wouldn't have helped anyway, because it was too expensive to turn a profit on an animal park in 120 days as time went on.

You may ask how they managed to do it for almost 30 years, and that's a valid question. Two issues came into play. The first was declining attendance. I can't explain that one because I thought it was a fine park. The second issue was that the taxes were really killing them.

---

I have a question Jeff. Have you ever visited Marineland? They are farther north and their season isn't any longer. The only thing they have going for it is the falls and when I was there I mentioned the park to many people I met and they were like "there's an amusement park nearby. I didn't know that"*** This post was edited by raser 9/25/2007 10:21:48 PM ****** This post was edited by raser 9/25/2007 10:23:38 PM ***

Sea World IMHO was the WHOLE REASON for people from EVERYWHERE to come to GL in the first place, you want rides? CP, KWOOD Well you know. You want Dolphins and Whales you gotta go to FL or California.

Even though I believe that it was a buyout of competition, The ultimate and final blow to anything other than local was the closure of the sea world side.

SF did not sell this park because it was loosing money, Just like Houston they had creditors hounding them. CF seen this as easy pickens and then threw the Dorney/WOF formula at it.

Guess what? Didn't work.

Good Bye Geauga, I have no reason to visit a waterpark when I got three two miles from my house.

All Marineland has is the falls? Are you kidding me? One of the greatest tourist destinations in North America?

For Marineland you need to look at their future development plans: a major themed INDOOR attraction. However, with the falling USA dollar and the new passport requirments, I bet they are re-evaluating those plans.

http://www.marinelandcanada.com/attractions/futuredevelopments/

and GL with Sea World wasn't?

Thats what everyone is trying to tell you Jeff. True the animals were SF's But the infastructure was there and its the only Full blown marine park other than Marine Land in hundres of miles.

GL was different, The ops under SF stunk with one train ops ect but the experience overal was better than either CP or KI for the reasons mentioned, Difference.

My understanding (or maybe I've read this somewhere) of the addition of rides at the SeaWorld parks was that it was for a certain demographic. The idea was to get the whole family to come out and the parents/older folks and younger ones could go to the shows or look at the animals, while the teens could get on the rides if the shows and/or animals were boring them.

Without any rides, the teenagers/tweens might have steered Mom & Dad elsewhere instead.

GL and SeaWorld were a regional attraction. You can't seriously compare that to Niagara Falls. No one was planning their honeymoon for Aurora, Ohio.

---

raser:
...when I was there I mentioned the park to many people I met and they were like "there's an amusement park nearby. I didn't know that

---

Which is crazy because, if I remember correctly, you can see Marineland's S&S tower from the falls.