Cedar Fair announces Geauga Lake will be water park only

1. Michigans adventure has much less overhead than geauga lake did.

2. Cedarfair has invested money into michigans adventure, like the new river rapids ride, and coasters diner, old time photo, new train stations, 3 point challenge, and many other small things. And that was just in the past few years.

^^ There's no possible way Cedar Fair would ever consider purchasing Cypress Gardens. First of all, it's too small. Secondly, it has a significant animal section now, which I'm sure Dick views as a poison pill now. Thirdly, the chain is quite over-extended from the Paramount buyout. They simply aren't going to buy any new parks for the next 3 - 5 years, minimum. Like Six Flags, CF finds itself in a phase of retrenchment, possibly with one or more parks on the chopping block in forthcoming years.

A lot's been said about Cedar Fair's motives, their decisions, when they gave up on Geauga Lake, did they ever believe in the park as a traditional family park . . . etc, etc, etc. I won't add to that mountain of reading. The one thing I will say is this: let no one ever again claim that Cedar Fair has a "special relationship" with enthusiasts, or cares about the community of enthusiasts. Neither does it have any love of or dedication to preserving its historic parks. It's all just business, and we know that now. Shame on us if we ever get fooled again.

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Captain Hawkeye:
I'm still waiting to hear how MiA is more viable than GL despite drawing 100,000+ per year less. My guess--it isn't.

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Attendance alone is meaningless.

The park structure in comparison to attendance is what matters. MIA was never overdeveloped and allowed to become a non-viable buisiness plan.

What is pushing the emotional button is one simple fact. The CF executives did not create Geauga Lake, therefore, it is not theirs to destroy. A traditional park that only briefly competed with Cedar Point in the 70's, showed the region it was a viable weekend park packaged with Sea World.

It was 'no Kennywood or Conneaut Lake', with less landscaping and no signature food items, but it hummed along, but people who were watching the shows at Sea World seeing coaster trains move left to right, rocket ships gleaming in the sun, and boats traversing Lake Geauga docking by Capt' Kids World would visit every few years.

The shot in the arm of new coasters was accepted, but poorly planned, as stated many times. But, unlike other SF build ups at other parks, nothing was removed, except the Wave. That was bad of course, but set the tone for 2008.

I think if GL was returned to the Double Loop, Dipper, Wolf Bobs, and keep the Boomerang and Beaverland ride, life would be better. Start over, and become the park to service the group sales needs.

400 miles east, Dorney Park is ho hum. However, when Weinstein added WWK, life got good. However, CF has not neglected the ride side. Is Dorney worth a visit with WWK? Yes. Is it worth a visit without WWK? Maybe. I guess there is no room for 2 maybe's in the Cedar Fair.

Ensign Smith said:
"The one thing I will say is this: let no one ever again claim that Cedar Fair has a "special relationship" with enthusiasts, or cares about the community of enthusiasts."

I would have to disagree with you there. I recieved an e-mail from my ACE regional rep at 6:30pm Friday stating that ACE and National Roller Coaster Museum and Archives have already been contacted by Cedar Fair and they will be working with us to preserve what we can from the park. So why would Cedar Fair make that unprompted call if they didn't care?
*** This post was edited by Jason Hammond 9/23/2007 10:00:49 AM ***

Lurker said above:

"Perhaps the lack of an anouncement from CF to go and enjoy your favorites one last time at GL has to do with their attendance numbers at CP and possibly KI"

I think this summarizes nicely the entire Geauga Lake issue...

Captain Hawkeye said:

“I believe they bought GL in order to control comeptition to CP in CP's home market. (I believe that is why they bought MiA as well.)”

MiA Really?
MiA is nowhere near competition for Cedar Point. It was purchased because it can make them money and it can pull from the Chicago market as a day trip.
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Captain Hawkeye said:

“When was the last significant upgrade at MiA? Especially compared to WoF and VF)”

2006- $ 5 million dollar raft ride, coasters restaurant, train expansion. But they have been doing upgrades since they took over in 2001.
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Captain Hawkeye said:
“I do not dispute this. However, looking at objective data, the numbers, we see that MiA in its best year drew under 600,000. In its worst year GL drew 700,000. Why is a park that draws 100,000 more visitors per year less tenable--especially with CF running much of GL from CP thus having lower administrative costs than MiA?”

GL has higher infrastructure costs then MiA, making have a much higher break-even point.

GL
- 690 acres of developed land that has to be maintained and pay taxes on.
- Had 12 kiddie rides, 18 flat rides, 8 roller coasters (1 kiddie), 3 water rides, 3 shows.

MiA

- About 100 acres of developed land land that has to be maintained and pay taxes on. (only about half of entire propery)
- Has 6 kiddie rides, 15 flat rides, 6 coaster (2 kiddie), 3 water rides, 0 shows

Also, if you take the guest in park percap spending that CF stated for the quarter (about $40) GL had $28 million coming in on 700,0000 (2006*), while MiA had $22 million coming in on 550,000 (2005 attendance^). Having 1/6 the devloped land that GL has and only 20% less in income, that is how MiA is more profitable.

* Toledo Blade, "Fun starts at Cedar Point, Kings Island, and Geauga Lake",10 June 2007
^ Last year individual park attendance officially given.

I happen to agree with Paul's point above, even if that newspaper quote is not a direct quote from an area resident. I don't think his comments are pointless at all. CF kept food prices and parking prices high at Geauga Lake, and that is bad in an area suffering with an economic downturn. When I did my last visit a few weeks ago with my girlfriend, we easily spent over $60 just to eat and buy a few souvenirs. (We had a Cedar Fair max pass or it would have been worse...) That is tough for struggling families.

That Toledo Blade article said that Cedar Fair was unable to fix the issues they mentioned. But I do not see where they really tried all that hard to Fix anything...

I would actually bet that from CF's point of view it's genious;

"We got this park and some semi-new coasters that we can transplant to other parks giving them new names/themes...and we can really improve some of our already established parks"

Perhaps there will be an attempt to incorporate The Big Dipper, etc into the water park?

The Sea Dragon co-exisited with Wyandote Lake here in Columbus for years, and will continue to exist in the new waterpark being built.

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Agent Johnson said: I think if GL was returned to the Double Loop, Dipper, Wolf Bobs, and keep the Boomerang and Beaverland ride, life would be better. Start over, and become the park to service the group sales needs.

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I think this is the perfect plan. I think it would only work though if they added a few more flat rides. Geauga Lake was sorely lacking in the flat rides department. Their kids area looked pretty good, but I don't know much about it since I don't have children.

The coaster selection would still be amazing with only those 5 listed. Will people miss the other coasters, of course, but I think they would still be happy with the park as it stood.

That's just my two cents.

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Impulse-ive said:
Now, you chose to draw attention to points 1-3 while COMPLETELY IGNORING point #4 ... which is acknowledgment by a complete outsider, an industry layperson, that this was NOT Cedar Fair's fault, that ALL THREE problems were existing conditions PRIOR to Cedar Fair's purchase of the park, and that Cedar Fair at least made an EFFORT to fix the mess that was created by A-B, Premier and SF. Way to choose a quote that totally disproves your own childlike, illogical and pointless argument.

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Did Cedar Fair know they were walking into a mess? Because that is really all that matters here. I don't care what Six Flags did to the place, Cedar Fair FAILED to restore the park, fix the major problems, and bring people back. If the park was doomed before 2004 then Cedar Fair should have never touched the place.

The only "childlike, illogical, and pointless" argument here is that Cedar Fair made an "effort" to fix the place (apparently Six Flags's intention was to run the park as poorly as possible) and therefore should be applauded for their failure.

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SFLAKE said:
Reading some of these posts.... one thing stands out... No chain other than CF could announce that it is closing an ammusement park (sorry... closing the rides side but leaving the water park is STILL CLOSING THE RIDES SIDE) and STILL have people defend the move. Oh well... as long as the sun rises in (and sets on) Sandusky, I suppose all is well in the world.

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It boggles my mind, but sadly, is the truth.

Lurker Said:

How is Kinzel's recent purchase of 10,000 shares of FUN stock not insider trading? He obviously had inside information of a major anouncement that was not yet public information that could and will affect the performance of the stock and the company...for all of the business majors on this site, that is the very definition of insider trading. I can't believe the execs would not have been in a freeze out period prior to this information being released.

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Paul Blackstone Said:

As for Dick Kinzel and Peter Crage's (the company's CFO) large stock purchases this week... There probably isn't anyone here with the ability or authority to decide what occurred was unethical, illegal, or whatever. But if you still feel strongly about the issue you should probably contact the Securities and Exchanges Commission (www.sec.gov) and request an investigation.

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CPBoy Said:

I looked at the SEC website for FUN happenings and noticed one thing:

Good ole Dick purchased those 10,000 shares of stock @ $24.14 Friday, September 14. And then when you go through the filings for the past month, Dick also purchased another 10,000 stocks on August 17 for $20.60. I'm no genius at business and stocks and all that mumbo jumbo, but this sounds worse than Martha Stewart to me.

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All of the Cleveland area media outlets have been contacted about this. Hopefully someone will start the ball rolling on this.

That quote was no doubt posted to that news website by a disgruntled enthusiast....probably a kid.You can tell by the use of the name Cedar point instead of Cedar Fair in his opening line.

I swear this has really gotten out of hand,we went through the same thing when SFAW closed two years ago & did any of those boycotts or petitions work to keep that park open? no they did not.The whole universe doesn't revolve around parks & eventually we all outgrow them in terms of our ability to actually psychically tolerate the rides contained within them so instead of arguing like a bunch of spoiled pouty children we should move on like the adults that many of us on the forum are.

In another thread,

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nasai said:
Not that anyone seems to care, but Darrel Anderson bought 16,500 shares the next day.

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^^Darrel Anderson actually SOLD 16,500 units.
http://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/811532.htm

And the official document from the Anderson sale:
http://tinyurl.com/239jr2

Fair enough, I was just quoting someone else. Thanks for the correction. :)

Jason Hammond said:
I would have to disagree with you there. I recieved an e-mail from my ACE regional rep at 6:30pm Friday stating that ACE and National Roller Coaster Museum and Archives have already been contacted by Cedar Fair and they will be working with us to preserve what we can from the park. So why would Cedar Fair make that unprompted call if they didn't care?

Call me jaded, but I would call this a feeble attempt at spin. (Cedar Fair's actions, not Jason's.) It costs them very little, and they get to look (to a few people, at least) like good guys. Now if they had done this in conjunction with being up front about the closing and allowing the community -- enthusiast and local -- to obtain some closure, maybe that would have been a little different. But when Bill Spehn lied right to my face about the closing only three weeks ago, that was the point when they lost any sense of credibility in my book.

Now if CF were to shell out a few bucks and make sure that Big Dipper gets properly disassembled, and maybe contribute to shipping costs to some other locale, then we'll talk. But I predict within a few weeks we're just gonna see a big pile of rubble.
*** This post was edited by Ensign Smith 9/23/2007 1:20:38 PM ***

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BATWING FAN SFA said:
That quote was no doubt posted to that news website by a disgruntled enthusiast....probably a kid.You can tell by the use of the name Cedar point instead of Cedar Fair in his opening line.

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I love how there is always an answer to everything.

Its all a big coaster enthusiast conspiracy theory!..

God forbid someone who isn't an enthusiast might be unhappy about Cedar Fair's "new direction" for Geauga Lake...

• "I swear this has really gotten out of hand,we went through the same thing when SFAW closed two years ago & did any of those boycotts or petitions work to keep that park open? no they did not.The whole universe doesn't revolve around parks & eventually we all outgrow them in terms of our ability to actually psychically tolerate the rides contained within them so instead of arguing like a bunch of spoiled pouty children we should move on like the adults that many of us on the forum are."

I disagree with this analogy. Generations of family memories do revolve around local parks such as Kennywood and Geauga. The leadership under Six Flags at the time of the Astroworld sale was known to be incompetant and ruthlessly scraping for cash infusion to keep their stock from approaching penny value - if you recall, the sale of Astroworld was actually one of the ways Shapiro got into his current leadership position and he wanted to stop it's sale. Astoworld had other issues that combined to make it's sale more attractive to SF than continue it's operation, mainly the parking problem. SF was already known to scrap failing parks such as the ones in Baltimore and Flint, and the land value was a desperate grasp for quick cash. However, I still mourn the loss of AW as one of the first 'traditional theme parks' (to coin a phrase) and especially the TX Cyclone. It has forever scorned my view of the six flags brand - I see their logo in a negative view now after closure of AW, as I do now with the CF logo after this GL announcement. Luckily for them they never officially changed the name of AW by adding the SF brand in front, so Houstoners will probably patronize the other TX SF parks with little thought behind doing so.

Unlike SF, CF was thought to 'get it' in terms of respecting the industry that made them what they are today, and in terms of knowing what they were doing from a standpoint in the park business. It is now blatently obvious that they knew exactly what they were doing in the purchase of GL. The writing was on the wall, but not everyone thought they were capable of disrespecting the industry and community to the degree they have announced. Obviously DK is getting ready to retire and no longer gives a #%& about the industry that made him rich. Unlike AW, GL has over a century of history behind it and at least the Miller coaster should have already been designated with some State historic landmark status (way to go, OH - second big mistake since the last presidential election). To trash the last remaining large traditional park in NE Ohio since Euclid and Idora stings is a terrible blow to that area. After this slap on the face, I hope they have the sense to go east now instead of south or west for such places, especially with Waldameer now on the map. I for one certainly will - having spent a couple of days at CP this year, I found the customer service even more appalling than the last time I had visited. They have morphed into what SF used to be in that respect.

I predict more park sales for CF next year due to their overexpansion the way SF did. First one will be the GL waterpark after word of mouth kills the place ("we went to GL and they didn't have any more 'rides', so don't go there if you haven't heard already" - hmm, did they mean it was closed completely since there were no more 'rides', we just saw a commercial the other day that showed some water 'rides' so they must have shut the doors on the place this week?) and CF sells it to a developer instead of a waterpark company. Next MiA and VF to focus on their new Paramount purchases.

*** This post was edited by 9/23/2007 4:10:23 PM ***

i wish i had the $ to get gl . i will keep it as a park for everyone . i like this park and i feel what you all fell i will not be going to any cp park to sorry that what i feel if cp feel like that to gl