Cedar Fair continues its record revenue and attendance trend

Good, maybe poor, neglected Michigan's Adventure will finally get that new coaster it "deserves."

...and then whatever that attraction replaces can be sent to Dorney? ;~)

...but what about GEAUGA LAKE!!@?!2

Raven-Phile said:

...but what about GEAUGA LAKE!!@?!2

This is just proof that the plan to buy and shutter the competition has been wildly successful.

At least they got new shutters. Michigan doesn't get crap.

Those shutters would block out the sun, and then they wouldn't sell as many drinks

I'll add CGA to the deserves a great new coaster list. We'll see what those 2018 markers have in store...

Lord Gonchar said:

Raven-Phile said:

...but what about GEAUGA LAKE!!@?!2

This is just proof that the plan to buy and shutter the competition has been wildly successful.

So, what I think I am hearing is that the plan to boycott CF by Geauga Lake fans have failed

Given GL's attendance figures, it could have been wildly successful and we'd have no way of knowing.

Not to beat the horse that's been dead for a decade now (wow) - I know the place was bleeding money and not bringing in the people, but I still will always think of the 'what if'. If they had just held on one or two more seasons, would it have helped or just delayed the inevitable. With the 2008/2009 recession, they really could have marketed the heck out of the place as an affordable day out. And in the Ouimet era, I feel like it really could have been something special. Obviously we will never know and the fanboys will see drone footage of the current state of the place and demand that Aurora and Bainbridge reopen a nonexistent park. But us logical folks who still grew up with and loved the place will always wonder what it would have been like if it had survived to the Ouimet era.

They held on for a decade with the water park, and it still didn't work. While the execution was certainly terrible in the Kinzel era, the skeptics need to accept that there was no longer a viable business there.

I disagree.

There was a viable business there for over 100 years--with competition from CP for every one of those years. I still say GL was viable if CF (and, before them, Six Flags) hadn't tried to expand the park. If CP had kept the existing water park on the GL side of the lake and sold off the Sea World side instead of spending $25+ mil building a waterpark on the "other" side of the lake, they have a WOF sized park drawing about the same number of people.

But, by creating a 2nd park, they increased the overhead and made it inconvenient for people to visit both parks on the same trip, hurting attendance. The problem wasn't GL--it was keeping the overhead of the "Sea World" side instead of selling it off

I honestly can't believe this is still a discussion or point of contention a decade later.

Regretting making the joke.

I get pining away for a lost park, I really do. There are those who still miss places like Riverside, Palisades, Olentangy, and Euclid Beach, and probably will be after any of us who actually remember are long dead.

What I don't get is continuously playing the blame game for those lost parks, though it might've been less painful to watch when things like racism, sketchy neighborhoods, and lucrative real estate deals were the culprits.

Parks, like all businesses aren't God-given, but are owned and run by people. People who make decisions that usually benefit themselves some way right at that moment, and that's the clear nature of the thing. One can spend a lot of time playing "if only" or "what if" but that seems like a waste of time.

Gosh, I wish I could visit Howard Johnsons for a buttery fried clam roll and a pointy ice cream cone, so who do I talk to about that?

Captain Hawkeye said:
There was a viable business there for over 100 years...

The only way that's a valid argument is if the world and all its variables never change. Building steam engines was a viable business for a hundred years too.

In Hawkeye's defense, the variable that changed was that SF tried to grow a small, locally popular park into a competitor to one of the largest and most visited parks in the country. Geauga Lake was never going to be a destination park like CP. And lets face it, Kinzel didn't really do the best for the park. I'm not saying he made poor decisions based off of trying to close it down, but hindsight is 20/20.

I have a feeling that if the park had been right sized on one side of the lake, it could have slunk back to being a local park, but sadly the world will never know. But what was there before the insanity took over was consistent.

You put it better than I did.

Tekwardo said:

I have a feeling that if the park had been right sized on one side of the lake, it could have slunk back to being a local park, but sadly the world will never know. But what was there before the insanity took over was consistent.

Even without SeaWorld?

I had a great time at the Cedar Fair parks I visited this year. Hats off to them, I guess.

RCMAC said:

... I wish I could visit Howard Johnsons ....

Ye gods, seeing that orange roof as we pulled up thrilled me back when I was a youngster. I loved Howard Johnsons.

What Mac said. Amusement parks are businesses.

And what Tek said. Six Flags tried to turn Geauga Lake into something it couldn't be.

Okay, I'm going to go sit in the corner and wonder how many people on Cbuzz even remember Howard Johnson restaurants.....