Dover Lake Waterpark near Cleveland Closing

According to Fox 8 News in Cleveland, Dover Lake Waterpark is not opening for the 2006 season.

Supposedly their attendance was down in 2005. The interesting thing is how this will affect attendance at Geauga Lake & Wildwater Kingdom. With one of its closest competitors closed, this may help boost attendance. The right thing for them to do is to offer good group rates for people currently booked with Dover.

If Geauga Lake does things right, this could be a great opportunity for them!

-Sam

Dover Lake is just the 'odd man out' anyways...they were only open 2 months a year (late June thru late August)

*** Edited 3/13/2006 6:47:44 AM UTC by midwave***

Are they going to ever open again or is it just for a year? Also how does this affect teh park and parks such as GLP as far as waterparks go? I'm curious, I watch the news and didn't hear it on Fox 8 hmm...must of missed that segment.

Dover Lake has some interesting and fun mountain slides. Waterparks like these seem to be giving way to the concrete wastelands and indoor parks. It’s a shame to see a unique waterpark like this go, but it had its problems.

While I haven’t been there in a few years, the place really seemed to lack infrastructure. The bathhouses and restrooms were old and dirty, and the paths leading around the park were poorly designed and constructed. Plus, I don’t recall any sort of investment put into the place in years; all the water slides seemed really old. All this made the whole place just feel cheap and run down.

Seems to me with such a short operating season and the recently mild summers, they were probably struggle to stay afloat. They couldn’t afford to invest anything into the park, and now attendance suffers for it.

That'll make 2 OLD parks that Ohio has now lost recently along with LeSourdsville. :(

Yes, Dover Lake has gone down in years. While they did "mild" investments,they didn't make breaking investments to draw in the crowd.

They really lost what the park was about when they decided to shut down the Halloween festival that extended their season. That's really when there overall advertisement seem to stop for the summer and Halloween. Dover Lake is set up to handle HUGE corporate parties with their giant pavillions and big picnic grounds. Ever since then, those who are in charge, just really haven't done much with the park. They have tried to add kiddie rides including a roller coaster a small water slide (12ft tall roughly) and small lazy river...they could just have done SOOOOooooooo much more.

They have a HUGE hill and I just don't think they ever used it to it's HUGE potential that it had ever since they added the old slides. This park could have easily added, and been SO much more. they have a very unique pavillion set up and have a nice park to be a waterpark. They have always needed to fix their paths at the park. Rocks and feet just don't blend.

The park is also about 15 min. North of Akron, OH for those wondering off of (roughly) Rt. 8.

The park also did have problems being right in the middle of the state park and many things they couldn't build due to various state park reasons.

So Sad. For anyone who is interested in what the park looked like and had: Dover Lake Waterpark

"The Future of Roller Coasters"
-RollerCoasterGod
http://OhioThemeParks.com

*** Edited 3/13/2006 11:04:14 AM UTC by RollerCoasterGod***

I'm very dissappointed by this news. I hope they will be able to reopen next year. This is as bad as when Holiday Sands near Ravenna closed for good.

Dover Lake is a group picnic park, like Pioneer Waterland. Dover opening or closing or having free admission or free beer or whatever will have zero impact on Geauga Lake.

However, that is good news for Pioneer, Conneaut Lake, Geneva on the Lake, etc. Those companies will want to go somewhere else, and the formentioned parks will take that business.

Is that Clay's still open, or did it close as well?

^Great point, Agent.

Hopefully, Brandywine/boston mills ski resorts will buy the Dover lake land and expand their operations.

Dover Lake got a huge boost about 10 years ago when WildWood water park (in columbia station, ohio) closed. What killed Wildwood was bad press. They had like 3-5 deaths in one summer and were found guilty of not having enough guards. One of the deaths occured in the kiddie area where the water was only about 6 inches deep. Sad.
Wildwood was a nice park, though.
The Tube ride at Dover lake was cool and long.

Dover used a ski lift to get you to the top of the runs. *** Edited 3/13/2006 2:47:38 PM UTC by FLYINGSCOOTER***

Has anyone found a link for this yet? I haven'tfound anything. *** Edited 3/13/2006 4:22:40 PM UTC by FLYINGSCOOTER***

That's sad to hear. They keep dropping of like flies! I wanted to stop by there one time on my way up to Cleveland but they were not open.

Bummer. :-/

-Tina

Here is their website:

http://www.doverlake.com/

I am confused. Did they just decide that they are not going to open for 2006 and haven't updated their website or are they going to close after the 2006 season?

According to the website they plan to open in 2006.

-Tina

Ok so over at Zero G Network, someone had a conversation with the GM of Dover Lake and they are in fact closed permently. The website just hasn't been updated yet. Maybe it never will be. But more news of this is slowly surfacing.

http://zerognetwork.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2937 *** Edited 3/14/2006 12:19:14 AM UTC by rider85***

That’s some solid content about Dover Lake RollerCoasterGod, really the only site on the web it appears actually. Those water rides sloping down the hill are so unique and fun. I do recall going to a Halloween event there as a kid, and it being pretty popular, I wonder why they did away with it.

Hopefully an investor comes along and picks up the park for a cheap price, and puts some money into it. The park really needs some landscaping instead of the weedy felids of grass, and some new facilities. I think adding one of those interactive kid complexes (with the buckets) and a new slide or too could make it a really fine waterpark.

I emailed Peak Resorts (brandywine/boston mills ski resort parent company).
One of their resorts is located on the same hill as Dover lake. All they've heard are rumors, but agree that expanding would be a great thing.

About a year ago, they were talking about putting in a concrete bobsled thing like they have at Ober Gatlinburg. That would be great to have around waterslides.

That sounds like it has potential; a waterpark/ski resort can operate year round under one management team.

I wonder if the new WWK had any effect on Dover Lake last year, and if it did the current operators decided that they could not continue to operate. Granted, when the park was FunTime GL they had a few slides, turtle beach, and the wave pool, but nothing extraordinary (by my account anyway). While the “waterpark” section of the old GL seemed to do pretty well, it always seemed to me it was more of just an extra or a bonus, not a full blown waterpark. When the park went premier it seemed that idea stayed the same, if anything more thrill oriented. When they converted to SFWoA, while the marketing was “3 parks in 1,” I don’t think the waterpark was pushed nearly as much as the animals and the rides. Again, it seemed like just a bonus.

Then CF comes along, builds a whole new waterpark, and markets the heck out of it with great success. They cut prices drastically from the SF/premier days and next thing you know there is a new waterpark people can go to for nearly the same price as Dover Lake, with the added bonus of thrill rides. Now WWK keeps expanding into the biggest waterpark in region and Dover Lake can’t really do anything.