Geauga Lake's X-Flight being relocated to another park

X-Flight had a limited audience and terrible capacity. Get that piece of crap out of there, I say.

Face it, Six Flags built too much at the park, and the attendance makes it too expensive to maintain all of that. Scaling down the rides side and boosting the water park puts it on scale with many of the other parks in the chain, like Dorney or Valleyfair. Makes a lot more sense.

I agree Jeff.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they remove SV and Head Banger...er....Spin also to shrink that area. Send SV to Dorney or Knott's and HS to MiA. As much as I would hate to see them do this, the park as it is now can not continue on their attendance figures. It's twice the size of HW, has 6 more coasters and draws 250,000 LESS people. I'd rather see them piece meal some of it out, make the park smaller, more profitable and keep it in operation. If that's what it's going to take to ensure the park and Big Dipper continue running, then so be it.

Wow, I heard rumours about them taking the lights off the ride last week but didn't think anything of it. I agree that SF built too much in that park, it was just a mess, especially with the whole Sea World thing. All I can say is darn, I might be going to GL next year! One less credit for me! ;)

On a scale with Valleyfair? Really? Then WHERE'S MY DAMN WAVEPOOL?

*looks at Renegade construction photos*

Wait. What was I talking about?

-'Playa

*** This post was edited by CoastaPlaya 11/22/2006 10:04:05 AM ***

Unless it is being sold I can't imagine it (X-Flight) going anywhere other than Michigan's Adventure.

I still don't understand what Six Flags did...and I guess I never will. It just seems odd to me that I (and many others who have more than a passing background in the park business) could see the missteps they were taking but Burke and the gang could not. To me, it came down to nothing but inflated ego on their part.

I think Cedar Fair has a chance to do something special with the waterpark. It could become the "Schlitterbahn" of the midwest.

"Unless it is being sold I can't imagine it (X-Flight) going anywhere other than Michigan's Adventure."

Why?

I for one, being a Canada's Wonderland fanboy, would like to see it go there. Of course, in order to have room for it, we'd have to bulldoze another one of CW's world class coasters such as Tomb Raider or Dragon FIre. ;)

WOW....
The first thought that came to mind was PKD or PCW. I forgot about Michigan's adventure. Does their attendance justify a ride like X-Flight though?

Tomb Raider? World class? Hahahaha!

Am I the only one out there that doesn't like the flying coasters?

Of course I've only been on the three Vekomas and non of the B&M flyers.

To be honest, I don't want to see that uncomfortable peice of cARp rebuilt anywhere else.

~Rob Willi

Hey, it's time to turn on your sarcasm detector, Ensign Smith. :) I'm the chick that refers to Tomb Raider as Womb Raider and Volares in general as Rat Cages of Doom. I know very well that almost every coaster at PCW is a pile of poo.*** This post was edited by niiicolaaah 11/22/2006 10:20:34 AM ***
*** This post was edited by niiicolaaah 11/22/2006 10:22:09 AM ***

I wouldn't discount either MiA (which hasn't seen a coaster since Timbers) or Canada's Wonderland.

MiA's waterpark is the big draw...but putting in a flying coaster would increase MiA's visibility to more of the state.

I'm strange, but I prefer the Vekoma offering to the "standard" B&M---I haven't been on Tatsu yet, though, so I'm ill-informed.

It will be interesting to see where it ends up. MiA is an interesting guess---it's been a while since they've gotten a thrill upgrade, and their attendance has been going up steadily. Perhaps enough to justify a new installation, and this one can be done on the cheap.

I'll mention the ironic possibility of PGA.

I think that ride would be overkill for MiA. It's way too much coaster (and maintenance) for a park that size. Agreed that I could see it going almost anywhere else instead.

I just can't see it going to one of the bigger parks like PKI, PKD or PCW, it's capacity is nightmariesh.

I still don't understand what Six Flags did...

Bite off more than they could chew is what they did.

As for where X-Flight is going? My guess: PGA :)

MiA has two post-timbers coasters (mad mouse and big dipper), but even those were put in seven years ago. I'd say with steadily increasing attendance and no new major thrill ride in almost a decade, it's a good bet that X-Flight will end up in Muskegon.
As for the size of the park, keep in mind it drew 550,000 people in 2005, and I've heard the 2006 figures are up thanks to the installation of Grand Rapids. I would guess MiA can handle a coaster with a maintanence budget like X-Flight.

Brian, Tatsu probably does the best job I've yet seen of exploiting the "flying" coaster idea. That said, if you really want a "flying coaster" experience, Zamperla actually does a better job with it than either B&M or Vekoma, it's just that the Volare ride profile stinks.

As for X-Flight...another point is that the ride is stuck out in the parking lot like a wart, and it's configured in such a way that it makes no sense at all for foot traffic. The only good thing about the way it is situated at Geauga Lake is that they can close a single gate and pretend it doesn't exist. Just from the standpoint of trying to straighten out the layout at Geauga Lake, the ride has to be moved, and while it could be relocated within the park, it probably makes more sense to try it out in another market.

Wahoo, what Six Flags did with Geauga Lake was to try and go head to head with Cedar Point. If they had thought a little harder about it, taken more time, and if they had understood that the Six Flags brand name was practically worthless in Ohio to begin with, they might have been able to do it. They should have continued a measured expansion of Geauga Lake, brought in the Sea World stuff as they did, brought the overall park experience up to the point of being on par with Sea World, and THEN re-branded it...and they probably should have re-branded it "Six Flags Geauga Lake" because "Geauga Lake" actually meant something while "Six Flags" meant nothing at all. Had they actually provided an experience that was comparable to Cedar Point (instead of merely a similar coaster count) they might have done well. Instead, they shot through three name changes, confused their existing customer base, alienated everybody who came through the gate, and basically burned the lot. They promised Disney World and offered something that was not even as good as Geauga Lake. Is it any wonder that Cedar Point ate their lunch?

I don't know; I am convinced, especially after what happened to AstroWorld, that Burke and Story were driven almost entirely by ego, not at all by a good sense of how to run amusement parks.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I think it would look like a good ride for Kings island.

It would be very funny to see it go to PGA. Maybe replace the crappy "waterpark" with it. ;)