Geauga Lake, future of the wild life side.

Jeff,

Did you not see the article in The Plain Dealer that had the diagram of the hyper layout, which was supposed to start from somewhere between the aquarium and the Batman stadium and then go further back into the park? Does anyone else rememeber this article? The diagram was not overly specific, but I figured you might remember this as it had been discussed earlier even on this site. Here's a related link that might refresh your memory: http://www.coasterbuzz.com/2003-29-563819.htm

Yeah, I saw it, and it was a generalization made to the local zoning board. So? That doesn't mean they were going to build it that year, the next, or ever. Why would they spend millions more when the $40 million+ in rides to date couldn't generate any growth?

The parks intentions have to do with me. Me, me, me. It was just an opinion I had on why I liked where the park was originally heading with everything. I haven't been fighting over whether or not it was a business failure because I've already stated in the other thread that it was. There's no debate over that at all or else we wouldn't have seen SF sell. Why would you sell a success (even though they were indeed making a profit)? Practically everything I've said has been my opinion of the park, the direction SF was heading in 2003 and 2004, and just generally talking about the points I liked and will miss. It has nothing to do with business nor Cedar Fair. You can throw that out to window. I'm certainly happy the park didn't just close for good and it's nice to see so many people excited about the change.

-Danny

Jeff,

Based on these articles, it clearly indicates that at some point in time they were planning on building the ride eventually or at the very least hoping to do so. Only obstinence and/or ignoring reality would lead anyone to conclude otherwise. Whether they somewhere along the way decided against the idea, is another story, but they wouldn't go along with an article that includes a diagram of the ride's layout if SFWOA was not seriously considering making such a ride. Plus, why would they get people excited about something, just to disappoint them? Oviously the plan never fully materialized and only people within SFWOA's planning team probable know exactly how far along the plan did get, but most people who post here probably remember the articles about how they originally wanted to make a hyper coaster by removing Wood's Arena and some parking spaces, but were blocked by residents and then later came up with the aforementioned alternate plan. The point is, as evidenced by all the posts on that link I provided, people were excited by the thought of a hyper coaster coming to the park and so it would have had some appeal to a number of people. It is impossible to gauge how much now, but such an addition would have surely had some impact and I can't imagine anyone rationally thinking that it would not have. Therefore, perhaps, additional improvements like those they considered adding at some point in time might have turned the park's economic growth around and though we will never know for sure, I highly doubt that the park under Six Flags was absolutely doomed to failure.

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Only obstinence and/or ignoring reality would lead anyone to conclude otherwise.

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I have no joke here. Really.

Brian,

As a master's student at Kent State University, who will be pursuing his doctorate at Ohio State University next fall, I actually found your website pretty interesting, especially the lecture on surving as a graduate student. Well done!

Anyways, regarding that agreement between Six Flags and the local community made about developing rides that was mentioned in the article from the link I posted from 2002, does Cedar Fair need to honor that in any way or will new zoning deals need to be negotiated?

How about this.......turn the wildlife section into the main parking lot and also move the water park over there as well.

This will give the park more parking, and also more room for future develepment.

The park can be large and not compete with cedar point..six flags never really affected cp that much anyway.

And why get rid of a major attraction like batman? If they took out a major coaster, that would decrease there attendance even more.

Definitely not doomed to failure absolutely Zar, I agree. I think it was way too soon to tell...

Geauga Lake was "flagged" as Six Flags Ohio in 2000 and attendance increased 42% to about 1.7 million. Approximately $40 million in capital improvement was spent on the park including retheming to Looney Tunes and DC Comics as well as the addition of 4 coasters. Good year!

Six Flags purchased SeaWorld Ohio for $110 million and renamed the park Six Flags Worlds of Adventure in 2001 advertising 3 parks for the price of one (Wild Rides, Wildlife, Waterpark). They also add X-Flight, the second major flying coaster project ever. I think this was the biggest mistake they made in not charging two different gates, but maybe they thought they would eventually do so after people got the taste of what both sides were like. This was also the worst year I've seen the park at since visiting in 2000. I think they made a lot of bad impressions and made something much bigger than they could handle. Attendance rose 37% to 2.7 million. Good year as far as attendance goes. That's around a 62% rise in 2 years.

Six Flags Worlds of Adventure adds no major attractions for 2002. Attendance at the park falls 21% to 2.13 million. I think this drop had to do with both no major attractions being added and some of the less than great experiences some guests had at the park in 2002. Their competition, Cedar Point, adds Wicked Twister, a double-twisting Impulse coaster that's the biggest of its kind, that draws a lot of people over there and away from Six Flags.

Six Flags Worlds of Adventure again adds no major attractions for 2003 and tries to focus on some of the minor things to increase positive guest experience. Like every other park in the chain and like 2002 when the park added nothing major, the park loses attendance- down 7% and to a little under 2 million visitors.

*X-Flight, yearly operating costs, GL original cost, additional animals and flats, restaurants, etc. not accounted for.

Overall, you could say the park grew 15% by 2003 due to the addition of the Wildlife side in 2001. Or you could say they went down 26% since they became a "new park" in 2001.

Eh, it still doesn't spell disaster to me. It definitely spells disappointment though and I imagine operation costs were way higher than the type of attendance the expected to get in the next few years. It probably wasn't worth it for them to wait that long for more money to come in and was easily to just cut straight to $145 million. Not a bad idea. I still think they should have done something like $54.99 general admission for a combo of both the Wildlife and Wild Rides parks or $32.99 for each. They were painfully undercharging IMO. This doesn't help them now, but it helps me see that it wasn't all that bad. But if they continued averaging a $16 million profit a year, it would take a decade to get what CF gave them. I could have waited and maybe business would have done better. We don't really know. In the time frame given though, it did fail and disappoint SF.

What a nice experiment to be a part of in its brief history though. Just some random thoughts.

-Danny

I agree that it was probably not time to throw in the towel, but stating that SFWoA didn't have any new major attractions for 2002, is a little off. Well, I guess if you don't count the millions it took for the return of a killer whale and a tiger show that is only 1 of 3 of its kind in world.

I don't think I've ever called an animal a major attraction, but ok. I guess they did add a couple of nice exhibits to the wildlife side though (Tigers *and* zebras in 2002??). My fault for underrating and not giving credit to those accomplishments. :)

-Danny

The Tigers were nice, but I might have actually liked the pet show better.

If the tigers and zebras had been housed together, would *that* have been considered a "major attraction"?

....and *I* am an animal lover? ;)

To answer your sig Bill, yes, those are the plans we have right now at Danny, moving him in a positive direction... +Danny. We'll see how it goes from here, but our operations don't like that CF and SF got to have all the fun this week. ;)

+Danny

Oh no.......Danny has multiple personalities now? ;-)

I loved those white tigers, and the sharks. :-)

-Tina