Cedar Fair will make $90 million in capital expenditures for 2012

Yet another year that Cedar Fair can't provide guests at Wildwater Kingdom in Aurora with a new water attraction to drive attendance and tourism in the area?! All the while residents have a monstrosity of a mess across the lake staring them in the face that is economically damaging to the community.

I am a Cedar Fair fan boy but I am also loyal to the community that I grew up in and it really is time for Cedar Fair to step up to the plate and make some decisions; sell the waterpark to someone who will invest in it if you aren't going to nurture it, clean up the massive mess left behind at Geauga Lake so it isn't a detriment to the community, or take a low-ball offer from any developer willing to take responsibility for the entire complex since CF corporate management clearly doesn't want to deal with it. It really is time to find an ending to this story, whatever that ending is to be.

Hm, I just I had two realizations. One was that the water park at Geauga Lake still exists as the above poster exasperatedly noted, and the other was that Canada's Wonderland has now the 3rd most coasters.

If Geauga Lake needed something new to sustain its crowds, they would build it. Either that, or fill in your conspiracy here.

I'm surprised they don't say they're making some 'improvements' to the parks where there is no ride, seems a little obvious to omit them altogether.

If Geauga Lake could support a new slide, it would already be there?

Using the theory of Jeff and ApolloAndy, none of the parks would receive anything new as attendance is stagnant, looking at it from a multiple year perspective, with exception for Carowinds and Wonderland.

I know for a fact that WWK in Aurora continues to make improvements, both in attendance and revenue, each year. It warrants something, maybe not a huge expenditure like a Master Blaster but certainly something in the $1 million range.

If nothing else, at minimum it would be nice for Cedar Fair to clean up their abandoned park a little which has a negative impact on the community as well as people going to visit WWK.

Nothing for Knotts?

/m

mlnem4s said:
Using the theory of Jeff and ApolloAndy, none of the parks would receive anything new as attendance is stagnant, looking at it from a multiple year perspective, with exception for Carowinds and Wonderland.

I know for a fact that WWK in Aurora continues to make improvements, both in attendance and revenue, each year.

You made my point for me. If attendance is on the rise and in line with expectations, why would you add something? CW has never reached its potential, while most of the parks need something new every couple of years to bring people back. Water parks can go decades without adding anything and still maintain attendance.

The point is, you have to be able to make a case that adding something will result in an increase in revenue, and I doubt any such case can be made for Geauga Lake, a place that years of investment brought no gains.

Jeff said:
If Geauga Lake needed something new to sustain its crowds, they would build it. Either that, or fill in your conspiracy here.

Wouldn't that same logic apply to a SFGA onsite hotel?

Jeff said:
You made my point for me. If attendance is on the rise and in line with expectations, why would you add something? CW has never reached its potential, while most of the parks need something new every couple of years to bring people back. Water parks can go decades without adding anything and still maintain attendance.

The point is, you have to be able to make a case that adding something will result in an increase in revenue, and I doubt any such case can be made for Geauga Lake, a place that years of investment brought no gains.

Jeff, you use your analogy when it fits things you like and then you use it to fit things I assume you don't like or could care less about.

Prior to Premiere Parks ill-fated rebranding of Geauga Lake into Six Flags Worlds of Adventure the park did see gains. Prior to the ride side being shut down under Cedar Fair the park did see a gain in attendance. I was there, I know. Wildwater Kingdom is also seeing gains, even though it has been up against some of the worst adverse conditions any park has to face. That alone to me says a lot about its future potential.

Everyone knows the problem all along has been a communication issue of the brand and how it was marketed, the parks themselves were not the issue. Jeff, I have even seen you make comments on here that people still don't know Wildwater Kingdom is open or that Geauga Lake existed after Six Flags departed. This past summer the park finally has started to hit its stride with multiple events throughout the summer, radio station marketing days, etc.....all things that should have happened long ago but didn't because it was always an afterthought out of the offices in Sandusky. Hell, I can recall a day when the marketing folks at Cedar Point didn't even know the names of the attractions at WWK, that right there tells you EXACTLY where the problem starts and should end!

billb7581 said:

Wouldn't that same logic apply to a SFGA onsite hotel?

Yes. But don't forget that the whole debate about that wasn't that a hotel is needed; rather that one could be successful.

I'm not much into conspiracy theories in general, and certainly not into amusement park conspiracy theories.

But, as a business, I think you are always looking for opportunities to grow. Cedar Fair was doing fine before the Paramount purchase...yet they pulled the trigger and nearly put themselves out of business in the process.

So, I do think it is fair to ask what the plan is at WWK. Of course, I suppose we should look at the other stand alone water parks (maybe the Knott's Soak City parks in San Diego and...wherever) to see how they operate from a capital point of view. I don't hear much about them and new attractions so maybe it is just the way CF handles waterparks.

I know Typhoon Lagoon at Disney went a LONG time before they got their Blaster slides. (Granted, they were already a pretty comprehensive water park.) And, looking at a place like Wet 'n Wild they don't do capital improvements very often.

I think the issue with WWK is that it still sits adjacent to a ghost. And, it is a sad, constant reminder of what once was. That probably weighs heavier on us who had a connection with the place than the general public. Particularly the general public in Northeast Ohio who is not unaccustomed to blight and stagnation.

You can't look at capital expenditures in a vacuum. The issue isn't just whether a given capital expenditure would produce positive returns (though that is important as a starting point). Companies don't have unlimited resources and need to create capital expenditure budgets (based on practicalities of what they can afford to spend and often times, what their credit documents will allow them to spend -- don't remember if CF's credit agreement places any limits on capital expenditures). They then prioritize what they think will produce the best returns within that budget. And thats as much an art as it is a science as its difficult to determine exactly what the returns are for a given investment when there are numerous moving parts that determine any given business's profits.

At this point, it appears that CF believes its capex dollars can be better spend elsewhere. They have a lot more info than we do so I would tend to defer to their judgment. And I expect that we will see more investments in parks in areas that are growing in terms of population as those will tend to make more sense economically.

I think you're using analogies that fit things you like or something else that makes no sense to me. :)

I think a good thing to keep in mind is capital expenditures at the Cedar Fair water parks aren't regular things. Come to think of it, Six Flags doesn't seem to regularly reinvest in their waterparks either. With that said, it wouldn't surprise me if they have to wait until the capital plans Kinzel set in motion a few years back play out.

Here's an interesting corollary question then, which I'm sure some person(s) here could answer readily enough. What kind of and how much capital investment has Cedar Fair made in each of its various waterparks over the last few years? If the answer is 'not much', then clearly their treatment of WWK is unremarkable.

Dorney did the expansion at WWK a few seasons ago, which was sorely needed. And as I recall, CF made a big deal about what they did and how much they were spending. Then again, that's the only CF waterpark I would pay attention to.

Expanding capacity is the greatest incentive to add stuff in a water park, and if your capacity isn't being stretched, those dollars are probably better spent somewhere else. GL in particular had a bigger master plan, but had they followed through on it, I think you'd have a lot of empty stuff.