Geauga Lake: Memorial Day's Mis-Adventures. What Happened To This Park? (long w/pix)

Being a huge fan of the former animal park where Wildwater Kingdom sits, but also being an avid waterpark fan, I took my first trip to the new waterpark on the same day, Memorial Day 2006.

Me and my Godson spent the majority of the day in WWK, and had a wonderful time!

Fire-Grilled cheeseburgers behind Splash Landing was the best food i've had there since CF took over, and my Godson loved the Big Squirt spray tube, and spend alot of time going back and forth to the refill station.

Some guests do need to lighten up on the fun at waterpark, cause a few people whined "don't get me wet"...we and a few employees agreed they were in the wrong place. WWK isn't for prudish behavior, its a waterpark to have good-natured fun.

We stayed in Splash Landing and the new wave pool Tidal Wave Bay for most of the day...we were waiting to get onto the Tornado slide, but as the hours passes, the line kept getting longer, and at one point seemed like more than 1 hour wait for the line. I love parks and waterparks, but I don't wait in lines in 90+ degree weather like that...I find something else to do :)

There were a few problems...

(1) no door lock on the men's toilet door inside the bathroom which is just outside the WWK gate.

(2) theft...two other individuals in our party had their sandals and a few other items stolen, which were removed just prior to getting on the ride as not to be ruined, while they were on Shipwreck Falls (main GL side)

Nevertheless, we'll most likely be returning again in late July or August...I will most likely spend the entire day in WWK again.

If CF ever decided to offer a WWK-Only pass, I'd probably buy them. They probably won't, as Jeff has mentioned, but who knows what the future holds. Even when it was SFWoA, I spent most of my time in their waterpark and the animal park, and only spent alot of time in the 'main gate' during early season or Halloween, usually in Looney Tunes Boomtown with the kids.

*** Edited 6/3/2006 8:51:25 AM UTC by midwave***

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kpjb said:

That ad should read "The park that's closer draws 1/2 million more people per season without slashing their gate price, so they must be doing something right."

They were probably gonna use that, but it wouldn't fit on the billboard.

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Yeah, you know what they are doing right? Not switching owners left and right. Also, I love how everyone seems to think that this all happened when CF took over. NO.

This was a downward spiral since they branded it SF in 2000, and even before that from 1996 to 99 since Prem. Parks owned it then, and they were the company who bought SF. Then after that they branded GL. All was pretty much doomed at that point. Promising, yet doomed. The fact the park seems so empty now is lack of advertising outside of the region.(and SF rep) SF was marketing the park as a national destination.

This drew slews of guests, which in the end, those guests left unhappy with the service and such over the few years. Anyway due to the national destination take on the park, they designed it to hold maximum capacity that even some Disney parks couldn't hold. Now that the park is back to being a regional park, what it originally was to begin with, not to mention lost loyal guests due to SF,there's just WAY TOO MUCH room to move.

With the way they market the park now, I don't think they expect huge turnouts. At least for now. I feel that this isn't over by a long shot with CF. I feel that they just wanted to re-establish the waterpark, in a newer more innovative form on the south side with tons of room to expand.

The old one had ZERO expansion room left. Now that the waterpark project is complete, I think they will add something new to the rides side. Because once the old waterpark area is given new life as a new dry ride section, then the park will be two complete halves.

The only part that will seem out of place still is Happy Harbor. I understand it could fit in with WWK, but I think if it's going to be a part of WWK, they should bring back something like that Pirate ship water adventure thing Sea World had. It was a giant boat with nets, water cannons, etc. I remember that being awsome. *** Edited 6/3/2006 6:34:11 AM UTC by lakecrystal*** *** Edited 6/3/2006 6:35:51 AM UTC by lakecrystal***

....but didn't the park peek at 2.1 million guests or so during the 2001 season when they bought Sea World Ohio & added X-Flight?

I know they probably should have invested over a period of years & waited on X-Flight for the following year, but still yet they did attract a heafty crowd that could have been kept if they only did a few more things right such as what Cedar Fair is doing now (cleaner bathrooms, more garbage cans, better customer service).

I miss the whole wild-life/wild-rides dividing sides as well as the waterpark on the ride-side, despite the fact the waterpark was kind of split in 2 or 3 halves. It just seemed like there was so much to do there that you couldn't see everything in one day. Now at Geauga Lake, you can see everything in one day and then some!

The Lumberjack Show also seems kind of stupid. You've got a nice stadium set up by the lake which just screams for a stunt/action show with Seadoo's & explosions, but instead you got dudes cutting wood.

The waterpark in & of itself now still has a long ways to go. There's some variety, but not enough to justify paying a seperate entrance fee... yet.

One gripe I do have about the park, which is not necessarily Cedar Fair's fault (or Six Flags fault, at that), is just the distance walking between the two sides of the park. You got what seems like a REALLY long walk from Wolf Bobs to the half-dozen cluster of rides on the other side of the lake, or you can take the long bridge walk across the lake. They claim some kinda tram for that Wolf-Bob walk, but it's probably a golf-kart. It'd be nice if they could fill it in with something. At the very least, they do have music pumping through it, but it just feels like such a long walk, especially on a hot/humid sunny day.

Now, I never visited the park before it became Worlds of Adventure...

...so someone tell me what "charm" the park had before it's so-called downward spiral? I mean, wasn't the 2.1 million guests per year a good sign that this park was becoming a staple?

To me an empty park is no charm, it's eerie and sad because of all that it has to offer. I guess this goes to show you PARTLY how well marketing & advertising has an effect (the other part being that most Clevelanders and the surrounding community should already know about the park's existance).

Another park that is a bit short on charm is Altoona's Lakemont Park. It too was involved at one time in a grand experiment that failed (Boyertown, which was an ill-fated attempt to become another HP). This park has too much unused space and not enough trees or landscaping. Just compare it to the more compact and better landscaped DelGrossos park.

As for KW vs GL, KW has this attendance advantage even without a waterpark within the gates. KW's waterpark is 3 miles away. If you add Sandcastle's attendance, there is no comparison between the two park's drawing power at this time. Add the fact that KW is hard to get to and does not have season passes and the disparity becomes even more remarkable.

What KW has done is to have a park that appeals to two different groups at the same time. The park has a great assortment of thrill rides and is also family friendly. Throw in some nostalgia and landscaping and good park food at reasonable prices and you can see why this park does so well.

I was at the park on 6/14, my first time, and had a similar experience. Basically everything was a walk on, and it was a goregous day to boot. It was almost depressing. When a park is that empty, it just sucks the life out of everything. I also noticed games attendents harassing guests to play...I mean I wouldnt call it harassing, all in good fun I suppouse but it can get a little annoying. Its such as nice little park, it was a shame to see it so empty...anyways, full trip report coming tomorrow.

Dude. That Steel Venom photo is probably the best I've ever seen of that ride. Mucho kudos!