Continued: Cedar Fair announces Geauga Lake will be water park only

From the pictures I see posted at GLT site, evrything that has been remove is below 100 feet, so that could be easily done by a truck-mounted hydrolic crane, the park probably owns at least one, and they could of brought one from CP. I know SFGAm has one and I would expect any and all major parks to have there own. In the photo of the Dominator track piece, they are using all-terrain forklifts to move the pieces to the lot for staging. They also probably already have those as well for maintenance work around the park.

^It's funny how the one piece just sitting there looks more like vekoma,rather than B&M track unless you look closely at the image.My guess is it's the curved section of track leading from Dominator's station to the lift just lying on it's side.

Some people have made a good point about needing big cranes to get up to the upper reaches of Dominator. [from RCDB] With a lift height of 157', a drop of 148', and a loop at 135', you're probably not going to your local heavy-duty rental equipment place to get it down.

You're going to need a big crane--and that might need special permits just to get it down the road and/or a police escort.

I would also imagine that the Americana Ferris Wheel and the Skyscraper observation tower might need cranes as well.

I think it's also a question of how far the cranes boom can swing. Where Dominators concerned, quite a lot of that coaster is over the swamp, so a crane would have to swing a fair distance from the land to get over it.

When they put it in, didn't the use a barge crane on the lake? (i may be way off on that, but I remember that being done on some coaster.) *** Edited 9/29/2007 9:09:08 PM UTC by FLYINGSCOOTER***

I took a drive by today - Dominator's cobra roll is currently being dismantled.

I am the webmaster of GLT and have posted a couple pics on my front page.

I also stopped by, here's some pics.

http://rollercoasterfreak.com/Geauga_Lake/Park_Deconstruction.html

^According to those pics I counted about ten track sections & a couple of supports so far.

The final decision was made at the last board meeting, period. You can speculate whatever you want, but thems the facts.

There was never any announcement that CF originally planned only on removing 2 coasters. That was just rumor and speculation. So to say that there was plan A to remove the coasters, which was followed by a totally separate plan B to shut down the entire rides side hasn't been proven.

^^Sure, Jeff. Whatever. Keep drinking that Koolaid out of that company mug.

RGB is right, the Thunderhawk/Dominator story was only of story among many floating. The rumors I heard (or at least the ones I can remember, there were a lot) were as follow:

(1) Nothing was going to happen.
(2) Thunderhawk and Dominator were going.
(3) Just Raging Wolf Bobs was going to be torn down.
(4) Thunderhawk and Dominator were staying, but Villain, RWB, and Head Spin were on the way out.
(5) The entire park was closing.
(6) The ride side was closing and the waterpark was staying.
(6-A) All the rides were going to be sold at auction.

Obviously, #6 turned out to be the winner. (Or loser, as it were.) But that doesn't make #2 the original real intention of CF, not by a long shot.

But what has been dismantled can was done by rather standard equipment that any major park has on site. I would guess larger cranes have been rented and will be on site in the next couple of weeks. The normal end of season take down would of been going on if the park wasn't shutdown and that's the same type of equipment they are using for dismantling that they would of been using for that.

I have a fun question. Is CF planning to relocate the old slides into the waterpark? Can it be done? I would love to see it happen. They only have one slide tower. The park really needs more slides.

I wish the waterpark all the best! I might even pay a visit once they expand a little more. I hope that they keep the theming going as they expand.

I would also LOVE to see the Tidal Wave style water ride moved to that side of the park. It would be awesome to have some water rides mixed in to make the park even more unique.

The park really has potential.

I drive past 2 rental companies in Cleveland every day that have equipment that can handle what they've done so far. Equipment rental companies are everywhere. To say they had to have the equipment on standby is not true.

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Jeff said:
The final decision was made at the last board meeting, period. You can speculate whatever you want, but thems the facts.

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Unless you were in the next office emptying trash cans, I really don't know how you can say that with any authority. Do you think that because you have some kind of working relationship with Cedar Fair due to this site that they're going to be completely, 100% honest with you? Sorry, but what was done and what they say was done are likely two very different things. It's not a conspiracy theory, it's just that you know nothing more than anyone else outside that company's leadership.

Rob, just a friendly word of advice. You're barking up the wrong tree. Just believe what you do and don't waste your time trying to convince "the others". :) I've tried this before and it went nowhere. No matter how much I used to back up my thoughts, I was always wrong "because I don't know what I'm talking about."

You're probably right. Unfortunately, one of my "flaws" is an inability to shut my mouth, especially when I smell b.s. I realize that a lot around here becomes a "war of words" but for some reason I keep coming back to the battle.

It says right on the Cedar Fair website that the final decision was made at the Board Meeting on Sept. 20th. You don't need insider information to find that out.

Really, what were they suppose to announce publicly? "Get out to Geauga Lake and hit your favorite rides one last time because we may or may not be closing"? Then you'd all be accusing them of false PR to drive attendance at the end of the season.

Bottom line: Some of you won't be happy with any answer or explanation so it hardly matters to belabor the point any longer.

It has nothing at all to do with being happy. It has everything to do with it being pretty tough to believe that a decision as big as that one was made within a few days of the park closing for the year and consequently being dismantled a few days after that.

Then again, maybe it's my inability to understand why people are so willing to accept everything they're told as if companies never tell lies. That's all.

It must be similar to my inability to understand why people are so willing to gravitate toward the most scandalous answer while ignoring simple ones. (Or so willing to reject everything they're told as if companies never tell the truth.)

Who cares?

Let's assume the decision was de facto made earlier---that the board decision was just a formality. A reasonable person, in that position, could decide to let the public know. A reasonable person, in that position, could also decide to keep it to themselves. If you were the GM, you could imagine having good reasons to go either way, can't you?

For what it's worth, I completely believe the decision was all-but-made months ago. I also believe that the "formal decision" was made at the board meeting, but that decision was literally a formality. I believe that the PR person is picking and choosing what to tell us as to when the decision was made.

I don't particularly much care, though. I am certainly not losing any sleep over it. In the big list of global injustices, not getting my "last rides" in at GL just isn't high on my list of things to worry about.