Geauga Lake Today

So I was just thinking about this today, what's been going on with Geauga Lake for the past year? It's been a while since someone posted a topic about GL and I haven't heard much about it. I visited the water park this summer and there were a good amount of people there. The ride side looked so sad. The parking lot on the ride side had weeds and is all abandoned.

Does anybody on here visit the water park and what do you guys think about it? Has it been successful as a water park?

We've been discussing it this year...this should help you

http://coasterbuzz.com/Forums/Thread/59178.aspx

Someone flew a drone over the park recently

Seeing how this park was stripped of almost everything. This proves how any park that Cedar Fair owns could meet the same fate. Does anyone know what happened to the Villain? It was built brand new, did they just bulldoze it? I know they relocated most of the steel coasters. But, I didn't know that the water park was gone too.

Very sad.

Its not gone, the waterpark is on the "Sea World" side of the lake.
I believe Villain was dismantled and sold for scrap. The trains went somewhere, something makes me say St Louis but I may be wrong bout that.

Timber-Rider said:

This proves how any park that Cedar Fair owns could meet the same fate.

It proves no such thing.

But he said it on the internet.

Internet = true. I read a quote from Abraham Lincoln on the Internet that said so.

Villain, Double Loop and Raging Wolf Bobs were all sold for scrap and demolished; Villain went for $2,500. Beaver Land Mine Ride was sold to a park in France that gave it the creative name of Roller Coaster. The other coasters from Geauga Lake were moved to other CF parks.

I vaguely recall Villain's trains showing up at Kings Island, maybe to be added to Son of Beast, which was running the other Gerstlauer trains they got from the Myrtle Beach Pavilion at the time.

Re: destination of Villain's trains. A NPN article from 2011 listed the recipient park at KI. Of course, they could have been moved again - but the Beast trains were so horrible last time I rode (shoulder pads?), I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer the G-trains.

Yes - I believe the plan was to have them for Son of Beast. I'm sure they are in a Kings Island maintenance building somewhere.

For as brutal and horrible as Villain was the last year or two, that was such a fantastic ride from 2000 to 2002-ish. Dare I say I enjoyed night rides on Villain in 2000 more than Millennium Force.

It was pretty amazing. It was sad to see it neglected by Six Flags, and it never did fully recover.

I really enjoyed my rides on Villain. In its day it was a great ride.

What is interesting too is that in the early years I actually praised the Gerstlauer trains for giving such a good ride, and in the later years I cursed them for making a rough ride even worse. I always did wonder how PTC's would have done on that ride, both in the good years and the bad.

I too miss Geauga Lake, loved the Cedar Fair years, but they didn't make any money. Personally I too blame Six flags for the demise but truth be told this parks days were numbered the moment they dumped all of there money in Wolf Bobs (shocking it struggled to compete with Magnum). Lets be honest, from the late 80's through 94 this park was a dump and Six Flags put tons of capital into rides and ignored the park. Cedar Fair did a great job cleaning things up but the park wasn't sustainable at the size and cost it was. I wish Cedar Fair would have purchased it back in the mid 90's and maybe it would have a shot.

Villain was my favorite ride at the park. I recall in 2000 this ride was amazing, but I knew that SF wasn't going to be able to maintain. Heck they couldn't even empty the trash let alone maintain a wooden coaster.

I'd hardly say the "days were numbered" when they built Raging Wolf Bobs (which actually came a year before Magnum.) Wolf Bobs was a big investment and addition given the size of the place back then, and although it would up being a suck-tastic ride, it was a good addition for the park's 100th.

The 80s and 90s Funtime years (and even the Premier Parks years of 96-99) were exactly what Geauga Lake was supposed to be. A small, local place that drew middle class families from Northeast Ohio. It never competed with Cedar Point and the GL/SeaWorld combination was so unique and perfect that it worked for decades. Geauga Lake packed 'em in back in the 80s and 90s. The place wasn't Cedar Point, but I wouldn't have called it a dump either.

What BrettV said. Back in the day, Geauga Lake was perfectly positioned for the market.

The park wasn't what I would describe as "nice" back in those days, but it was generally busy. I remember marathoning Wolf Kabobs the year it opened. National City Bank (eventually bought by PNC) had a company picnic there and it was crowded, despite some rain that day. Good memories.

Hell, I'm STILL trying to regrow skin on my knees and back from "THE WAVE" back in the day. That was one brutal wave pool - I'd love to be able to swim in something like that again.