Cedar Fair announces Geauga Lake will be water park only

I would count Little A-Merrick-A out on this one unless they could get it relatively cheap. They still have yet to build the Lincoln Park Comet.

As for Knoebels....Where could this baby go?

Holiday World? Why wouldnt they just buy the dormant Screachin' Eagle coaster at LeSourdesville Lake (Americana) if they wanted a coaster like this one?

I guess this one could go to Dorney and might fit nicely along the side of the park, between the park and the parking lot if they wanted to move it there. I am sure Worlds of Fun too could use this ride. I suspect if the rides dont get auctioned off they will move to other parks or be demolished.

Well,

I'm split.

Geauga Lake has tons of history, and people in Ohio know what it's about. Friends of mine on Ohio STILL call it Worlds of Adventure.

Then again, business is business. And business is good. What works stays, what doesn't goes. That's simply the reality of our world, or society at least. Would they take the $5000 they would make over us over the $100,000 they would make pleasing the public? Of course not. No matter how much we love what parks are all about. Maybe they will spare complete hurt and relocate the Big Dipper. We're looking at the negative too much. CF has some great parks (I'm sure this will be argued). Maybe that's why it just folded. We have an amazing park just down the road.

http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/mb/FUN

The financial message boards are usually a good source of a different perspective on parks and such.

I'm reading that Cedar Fair is going to take their time with moving stuff out. Mostly let a lot of it sit around till they figure out what to do.

Anyone wonder if they *were* trying to get a sell out to take place and when it went public and blew up they had to take another, but still drastic, measure to keep things going... i.e. close half of the lake?

Too conspiracy theory?

Spreading out the rides helps keep down cap ex for a few years, which helps keep dividends getting paid, and all this alone probably outweighs the loss of revenue they'll see from part of the park being closed.

Mike

HOLY CRAP! This is a really bad move. Kinzel needs to be forced into retirement...This is a bad move on many levels other than coasters being scrapped....Makes me worried about their other parks. Especially the newly aquired ones.....

Hate to say I told you so but,

I told you so. They bought it to eliminate the competition. Quite honestly this hurts CF in my view as I no longer have a desire for a Overpriced SP with one of its closest to me parks now GONE.

Chuck, who thinks its a total B.S. Outlook that they couldn't make this park work. I could do it on picnic buisness alone but it's not enough money for WALL STREET to deem acceptable.

Great job CF, Take a hundred twenty year old park that has everything going for it and ruin it in 3 years.

How many of you said after SFAW's closing two years ago would never set foot inside another SF park again & yet two years later continue to visit?

Krax is right,sometimes change happens & we don't necessarily like it when it does but it's out of our hands now.At least the bright side of this news is that some of GL's rides will find new life at other CF parks where the attendance figures actually justifiy their installations.

I haven't been to a SF park since they sold Geuaga :)

" Some of these responses are borderline ridiculous. For every grandma that goes to a park for the sentamental value there are 25 kids that want to ride Millenium Force."

Well, that's the thing. Just because my reasons for going to a park put me in the minority doesn't mean they're not still valid. I take my money where I like to take my money, and I really don't care where those 25 kids take their money. It doesn't apply to me, it has no bearing on my own personal decisions.

"How many of you said after SFAW's closing two years ago would never set foot inside another SF park again & yet two years later continue to visit?"

Well....you tell me, yah know? Lol. I have no idea how many people said they wouldn't go to SF parks just because of AW but if you just look around the boards there are plenty of people who tend to avoid SF owned parks, myself included. Sure, there are plenty of enthusiasts who begrudgingly go to parks that they know they generally don't like, but there is also a large chunk that actively votes with their pocket books and have stopped going. What's wrong with that?

The statement some people are making is "I'm not giving my money to CF parks any more." It's not "I'm not giving my money to CF parks any more...and that will CRUSH THEM." I guess it's fun to pretend for some to think that making a personal decision to not go to a park(s) is some sort of political statement but I don't think anybody is really doing that because they think they're going to be putting some sort of financial squeeze on the park(s).

Voting with our wallets is important, even when the individual impact is slim. Mindlessly supporting something we don't like makes no sense to me.

Well, we've heard the "Get over it" already, yet this thread continues. I was always under the impression that once someone said that, that was the end of discussion. That person wins.

So as not to have anymore needless pages of bickering, I'll just throw the rest of the over-used and totally played out internet message board cliches out there:

* "If you don't like it, don't go."

* "You need to stop thinking like enthusiasts."

* "You just don't understand the business."

* "If it upsets you that much, perhaps it is time to step away from the hobby for a while."

* "Cedar Fair doesn't owe you anything." (in response to the "I wish CF would have let us know that GL was closing for good)

Ray P.*** This post was edited by ProgRay 9/21/2007 8:40:55 PM ***

From cleveland.com
"Cedar Fair is worse than Art Modell."

this is bad for cedar point, i dont think they know the kind of negative back lash they will get.... this is the turning point for cedar point, the decline has begun. I know i wont be getting my pass this year. you just cant and dont do this.

So much for my homepark. And I thought I was upset when it kept changing ownership. :(

^^ I think you'd be hard pressed to find many GP who even know GL is owned by the same company as CP.*** This post was edited by Jason Hammond 9/21/2007 9:37:22 PM ***

Well, after hours to think things through, I'm still totally ticked about this. This decision to close the ride side was NOT made last week. I still think the decent thing for CF to do would have been to announce the closing. "Hey, we're sorry things are not working out, please come and enjoy a last outing on the ride side of GL and help us bid farewell." That would have been better than this.

It shows me that CF does not have their fingers on the pulse of their market, be it enthusiast or the GP.

Jeffery R. Smith said: "How many of you are planning on backing out of Boobuzz?

I'm as sad as the next guy...but knee-jerk reactions tend to fade away. I'm wondering how many people are actually upset enough to actually not go to a CF park...? I guess we'll see how mad everybody really is...?".

...More ERT for the rest of us!!

About as hard pressed to find GP that knew the park was still OPEN. How come Cedar Fair puts up $175 million plus countless additional capital improvements, not to mention 3 years of effort to clean up the mess that EVERYONE can acknowledge Six Flags and Premier created (and if you can't acknowledge that, you're delusional) ...

... and when they admit their faults (something almost all businesses and most of all, our OWN GOVERNMENT CANNOT DO) and try to appeal to everyone's sense of logic and business, they get blasted for "ruining the park". Cedar Fair didn't ruin the park. The park was ruined by Anheiser-Busch, Premier, Six Flags AND Cedar Fair, but in my opinion, Cedar Fair had a very small part to play, and of all the players involved, did the most to try and resurrect this park as a rides park, and try to find it a niche in a rapidly changing, crashing local economy and continually increasing market pressure from competition.

Oh please! Cedar Fair didn't do anything with Geauga Lake aside from ride removals, changing the Six Flag signs, and moving the waterpark for the third time in nearly as many years. They barely even advertised the place. It's almost like they *wanted* it to fail.

Impulse-ive said:

---

You know I started to go into a whole market debate but I knew Rob would just come whining after it, so I'll just say this; you try and rescue and operate a mid- to large-sized rides and waterpark with 3 years of bad PR in the middle of the economic basement of the country with two well-respected parks with fiercely loyal fanbases less than 2 hours' drive in either direction.

---

Just for the record- and before I start my rant- I am one of 15, 20, maybe even 25 people "whining" about the loss of Geauga Lake. I really don't care if you singled me out, it's not like you delivered some kind of paralyzing blow to my emotions. "It's not personal" is a popular phrase around here nowadays, but by singling me out, I don't ever want to catch you saying that. You made it personal... or at the very least, tried to make it personal. And that's all I have to say to you directly.

I figured it wouldn't be long before it was suggested to people that they needed to "get over it". How original. That's almost as unexpected as the squaking of the corporate parrots around here, talking about how this is a business decision, Geauga Lake could no longer survive as an amusement park, yada yada yada. And those of us accused of not understanding that amusement parks are a business are supposedly predicatable and repetitious? Time to look in the mirror, folks.

Maybe I'm whining along with others. Maybe some of this borders on being overly dramatic. I don't know, nor do I care. I'm passionate, I'm emotional and I'm sentimental. I get sad when I see a dead animal on the side of the road, I get sad when I read about Hurricane Katrina victims being screwed by Dubya's goons and I get sad when an amusement park closes, especially one that I happen to like. And before I go on, let's not even begin to pretend that Geauga Lake is going to reopen next year. The waterpark is going to reopen, not the park itself. Anyone that tries to suggest those two scenarios are one and the same are idiots for thinking that everyone else is an idiot and can't tell the difference.

Amusement parks mean a lot to me. It's why I'm here. I have limited free time in my life, and I chose to fill my free time with a select few hobbies. Obviously many people are the same, as they're here on this site along with me. When something comes along and delivers a blow to an amusement park, I can't help but feel something. I feel because I won't get to go back to that park every again. But even more, I feel for all the people that have been touched by that park in one way or another. People grew up at Geauga Lake. People took their kids there, and they took their kids there. It's sacred ground. It's a place where people were made happy... urged to forget their troubles, even if only for a short time. Some of you around here practically blow a load when talking about Dick Kinzel's annual performance bonuses. Some of us get off on places like Geauga Lake and are understandly upset when sh** like this happens. We have to deal with your conversation. Deal with ours. It's the least you can do.

I'll be the first to admit that I'll lose some sleep tonight. Geauga Lake was a nice park, and was oozing with potential... potential that was sacraficed by bad leadership followed by more bad leadership. I won't get another chance to enjoy Dominator's acrobatics over the lake... enjoy the solitude of the Villian's shady cul-de-sac... enjoy the laughter that's impossible to hold back on Dipper's wild drops. Right now, don't try to take that away from me, or from anyone else. Because you can't.

I don't think the blame for this can be put on any one ownership. It was a series of bad decisions that led to the park closing. Maybe Cedar Fair could have fixed the park, maybe this was inevitable.

I would be surprised if this were Cedar Fair's intent from the start. I do think they tired to turn the park around, maybe not hard enough.

I don't think that adding an expensive new attraction would have helped. I don't think they could have gotten the ROI to even pay for a $20 million attraction. A less expensive new flat could possibly have helped, though.

...And almost 40 years to the day, I get to experience what my parents went through with Euclid Beach.

At least I got to enjoy the Dipper hundreds of times over the past 3 decades.

Ok, the continuously increasing length of this news thread is making it harder and harder for me to remember where I left off. Plus I have a headache from all the ranting going on. Everyone have a good night, I'm going to bed. :)