Geauga Lake----Why bother?

Oops...guess I scrolled too fast. My bad ;)

Maybe this will help job some memories in regard to the sale of Sea World to SF.

http://www.obgo.org/sea_world_sold.htm

You'll notice from the article that Sea World Ohio was the "worst performing park in the chain", and "Because of land-use restrictions, Busch has not been able to upgrade the park -like it has the other three - with thrill rides" Anyone who "knows for a fact" the park wasn't in trouble, I'd like some proof of that statement, otherwise I think you are making things up.

I would also like to know where the other "seasonal" Sea Worlds are. The only ones listed on their official site is Orlando, San Diego and San Antonio. You'll have a hard time convincing me that these places are just as cold and brutal in winter than Ohio near Lake Erie is and closed as early and opened as late as Sea World Ohio had to.

The park was doomed, and Sea World knew it. SF was doomed as well because Sea World took their biggest draws with them and left them scrambling for animal stars.

The hot rumor seems to be that Busch wants to get out of the roller coaster business all together.

Jeff hits on a very important point. I went to Sea World Ohio and I was there last year at Worlds of Adventure. The Wildlife side was a husk of a park. I will be honest and say that I was there during the first week of June so attendance may have been greater during the warmer months of the season but the place seemed like a ghost town. The facilities looked old while most of the employees looked desperate to have anything to do or people to see. It would have been interesting to see if Six Flags had figured out a plan that would pull it out of the doldrums but anything outside of a major thrill ride on that side of the lake would not have worked. Six Flags tried to throw their eggs in one basket and a good number of the eggs broke.

The Six Flags model for the park seemed to be get the season pass holders in there but they also seemed to miss the propensity of the key demographic they ended up attracting to be fickle when it comes to "shows". Your typical teenager/young adult is unlikely to go more than once a season to see the Killer Whale show and with nothing on that side of the park to draw them back, I would imagine that if a good chunk of season pass holders (making the assumption that the majority of season pass holders were of the teenager/young adult variety) made at least 6 visits to the park in a season, they only made their way over to the wildlife side on 2 of those visits.

CP Lady, I believe Sea World San Antonio takes December, Jan, and Feb off. However, a 9 month season is probably more than enough to push it over the "seasonal" moniker.

Even in the last year of Sea World I attended on days when the stadiums were filled for each performance of Shamu, the Sea Lions and the Water Ski Show. I agree with earlier posts that said their nightime shows were even more popular.

I don't think you can discount the loss of "Shamu". That name is right up there with Mickey Mouse in terms of recognizability. Down here the Miami Sea Aquarium is a quaint little attraction but I couldn't even tell you the name of the whale there nor could most people I know if you asked them. Shamu was an institution.

I too have heard rumblings of Anhueser-Busch getting out of the park business altogether. It does raise some questions. Who would (or could) buy the parks? Premier/Six Flags, Disney, Paramount, GE/ Universal? I doubt it. Do they sell the parks off individually? Maybe they could group the Sea World's to one seller and the Busch Gardens to another.

Could that be Kinzel's swan song for Cedar Fair? Not likely but then again I didn't expect him to pull off Knott's or Geauga Lake either. If it did happen, could Shamu return to Aurora?

These are the things I find fascinating about the industry. If you told me 10 years ago that Cedar Fair would own Knott's Berry Farm and Geauga Lake I would have told you to take a hike. If you told me GE/NBC would own Universal Studios I would have said, yeah...right.

Anything is possible it today's small world.

Hello again! I honestly do not feel I need to defend my strong opinions since I am so open-minded to all of yours. I am taking what I need and leaving the rest although I still have tons of passion for the subject.

I know the former manager who did Sea World's budgeting and she has (or at least had) all of the data. I guess it's one of those you can choose to believe or not, since I can't prove it right here.

Good luck to you all, and I will keep reading!

I went to Sea World at least twice a summer, I really liked that park, and the high quality entertainment and food Busch offered. I'm not too sad about the animals leaving because SFWoA just wasn't the same, in no way did Six Flags provide the same level of entertainment and service that Busch did.

Wildlife fan, are you sure about Sea World bringing in the most revenue from 8:00pm to closing? I remember going to Sea World many times when the park was packed during the day, to the point that they couldn't fit all the people that wanted to see a particular performance into a stadium. In the evening though, the crowds thinned out quite a bit. There was still a crowd, but not like during the early afternoon. I think that is one reason they put in New Orleans Nights, the night Shamu show and the Night Magic laser show. The wanted to give people a reason to stay late.

Listening to experts would have been a good idea, but when the Sea World name disappeared, many people thought the park was not open anymore. Many of the Sea World fans that still went were disappointed by the state of the park under Six Flags and didn't come back.

I'm convinced that many people who were overly impressed with the Wildlife side, the landscaping, food, etc., were ride park people who only ventured over to the Wildlife side because it was included. Those people should have seen it as Sea World, the park was a jewel.

I think Cedar Fair will make Geauga Lake a much better park that it could ever have been under the old management, in spite of loosing the Wildlife side.

Look at it this way.....

Idora Park

Euclid Beach

Puritas Springs

Chippewa Lake

Luna Park

all came around or after Geauga Lake, but GL is still standing. It did fine for over 100 years without animals, and it will continue to do fine without them. Do I miss the animals? Yes. But keepng the park going is concern, and with CF at the helm, I think we will have ot for a long time to come.

1eJ

Pete-two former managers have told me about the revenue at night from Sea World on two separate occasions, and this is after I asked a non-leading question: Did you keep track as to whether there was a time of day Sea World made the most money? Believe it or not, a lot was from all the glow-in-the-dark cheapy items and other "toys" they sold at the night shows as well as food stuff. I was there all the time, and like anything else, some days were busier than others.

About A-B selling the parks, seems likely considering what they have done recently to some of the parks.

Now SF does not have the money, Viacom sure doesnt want any more parks, Disney only under Jobs would they see the gain, GE seems like it want get rid of thiers, CF has the money, and is absent in those important regions.

I am sure CP would only take the Gardens, and the Animals the few that are there would leave BGW, there integral to BGT.

Only thing that unsettles me is the Busch feel, aka Landscaping beyond compare, and Food beyond compare.

But being from Sandusky, I can only hope.

I went to Sea World when i was 6 or 7. (1996, 1997) and I remember being so bored, but the most fun i had was playing in the little kids area with water cannons and stuff.

I think Cedar Fair knows what there doing, I think we should just trust them and stop bickering about not having the wildlife side open. Obviously its more important to think about the animals first rather then ourselves. I, for one, am glad its not open under Cedar Fair. Because if they did open it like 20 days after the sale along with 10 rollercoasters and a bunch of other rides, then things might be a bit more crappy then they are now. If they kept the Wildlife Side I don't think they would make the May 1st Grand Opening Date.

Plus, Cedar Fair was honest, they said they have no idea how to run a Wildlife park, so let people who do do it, and we will stay out of it and do what we do best, make people happy.

Here comes a hypothetical question:

If Cedar Fair did attempt to maintain the Wildlife Side of the park, but rectified an old mistake of Six Flags and turned it back into a separate gate, would you still be willing to go then? Assume that they spruced up all the attractions were there (maintenance issues) and basically maintained the shows at their current levels, sea lions, white tigers, a single killer whale, ski show, etc, would you still be willing to pay for that separate gate then?

The two parks previously co-existed as two separate entities but what changes the equation: that is right, the combined admission that was undercutting what the two parks were both charging separately before they were combined.

To be honest, I'm glad now that I did not get to the park in 2001 when the Wild Life side was even more of a shell than it apparently was in 2003. A chain reaction of events led to the ultimate end for the animals in on the wild life side. Now, Cedar Fair has a clean slate on that side to work with for the most part and can shape the park into the vision it has for the park. It may be unfortunate for some that the vision does not include the wild life but only time will tell if Cedar Fair's vision proves successful. They have at least taken some steps into the right direction.

Considering SFWoA got permission to build a 200+ foot coaster on the Wildlife side of the park I'd think you'd all be happy about the potential for Cedar Fair to expand the rides into the old Sea World section. It could end up being one HUGE park!

mOOSH

If and when CF decides to utilize that side some more, I hope they at least use half of it for part of the amusement park. Meaning more shops, rides, restaurants , and shows.

From the TR's I have read, what they are using currently isn't even worth a visit over there.

Could they possibly use Shouka's old pool for a high diving show or something?

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Mamoosh said:
It could end up being one HUGE park!

mOOSH

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And upstage the grand puba up north, nahhh. I think this is as far as they'll go.

they need to spread geauga lake out...from pictures it looks so darn cramped.

Alright here is the deal......

Sea World was a great park. Six Flags Ohio (2000) was a great park. For years people at both parks looked over the lake and wished they could do both in one day. Then Six Flags had the GOOD! idea of brining both parks together. They did it extremely poorly and offered a half ass version of Sea World. Shows were not as good the "Sea World Magic," as they call it was gone. If done correctly the park could have been one of the best and most unique anywhere.

As far as now, level all that crap and build a huge park. Make it great people will start to refer to it as CP East. All that remains of Sea World except for the ski staduim (there is just so much you can do with that) should be torn to the ground.

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DawgByte II said:...but the thing that REALLY really irritates me? Now that Cedar Fair has taken over... is how they are restricting adults from going into the nets & tubes thing on the wild-life side.
...what fun is that, if the adults can't have fun in that too? That was a blast, and if I take my nephew to Geauga lake... what fun is it for him to be climbing around if he doesn't have anyone to climb with?

**sigh**
I hope Cedar Fair knows what its doing.
Because I'd really love to attend there again.

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If the only thing stopping you from visiting is because you (an adult?) can't go climbing in the nets, you can put your fears to rest. My husband was all over and through the nets on Saturday with our daughter and did not get yelled at. As a matter of fact, there also was a group of at least 6 teenagers (older teenagers) that were climbing all through there also.

Those nets are fun!

It's funny because when the books from SWO were turned over to SFI it was found that the park was running in the red. That "i know for a fact". Your friend either doesn't understand business, is another SWO clone believeing whatever the management there told him, or is one of the big fat liars that was running that park in the end. BEC being owned by the corporate giant certainly isn't expected to turn the big profits, anything in the black will do. But it seems that Jr couldn't stand dealing with that park anymore. Attendance in 2000 was beaten by GLP for the only year ever after years of declining numbers all across the board. If the people of Cleveland/Pittsburg and Colombus etc were so in love with this place where they hell were they?

Secondly, if anyone spent any amount of time in the old GLP you know that the core of GLP attendance was locals. Some had passes, some didn't, most came with the company. Some from the city and others from Hiram. People who traveled from places like Pitt or further were NOT a major market for this park. Perhaps they always wanted it to be, but the beer swilling firefighters and cleveland clinic groups were the bread and butter of this park. We forget so quickly that GLP was and now literaly is Cedar Point's little adopted step brother. It isn't a slam, merely the truth. To think that GLP was supported by the overflow of people *swarming* into the dump that was SWO is rediculous.

Finally 2000 was by far and away the BEST year for that park in every regard, especially financially. It ran among the best percentages for any SF park that season and broke park records in revenue and attendance. It was also the last season (to my knowledge) that the management there recieved a bonus (which is based on the park acheiving numbers and profit). So going into the merger i would deffinately say you had a dud from the south side and a new hot player on the north. It could have worked if SFI just didn't buy that park.