Geauga "Traditional Family Park"

The announcement of Cedar Fair turning GL into a Traditional Family Park has some different meanings. I believe they mean traditional in the sense of not a highly commercial theme park, and not specifically on rides. Cedar Fair will probably be purchasing new family style rides not older rides. The reasons being that though older rides can sometimes be bought at a lower cost the ultimate price is paid in retaining them. Specially ordering older style rides to be manufactured specifically for the park is even more costly and again parts are expensive to replace and usually take time to make. This leads to extended downtime. Kennywood is an example of this, but they have been doing it for a long time. Though we all love older traditional rides, I don't think this a good ground for GL to cover. At least not at this time.

What do you think Cedar Fair will decide?

I wanted to specifically comment on this:

"Specially ordering older style rides to be manufactured specifically for the park is even more costly and again parts are expensive to replace and usually take time to make. This leads to extended downtime. Kennywood is an example of this, but they have been doing it for a long time."

Huh? Examples, please? Every time I'm at Kennywood all rides have been up and running. The only exception to that was during the Phantom's Revenge construction, when Thunderbolt and the Turtle were closed.

mOOSH

Can you be a "traditional park" and still keep ALL those loops?

Wonder if CP isn't getting a floorless coaster out of the SFWoA/GL purchase...Woodstock's Night Flight?....;)

Kennywood also pulled NOTHING short of a miracle transforming that old Arrow headbanger into a masterpiece of airtime and speed...

I heard that they were gonna eventually rename the park Cedar Flags..Worlds of Amazement Park. ;)

Wood - anything else is an imitation

Uh, Geauga Lake doesn't have many "old" rides left. I don't understand why everyone is so anxious to see Cedar Fair buy/sell/add/remove anything. Don't you think they might just go with what they have to start with?

CF is a company of many metrics. They aggregate data from everything short of how many times a particular toilet flushes (and who knows, maybe they do that too). They'll look at what people like to ride, what rides have the highest capacity, etc., and go from there. My guess is that they'll take a real hard look at how to alleviate the bottlenecks all over the park first.

And that Jeff is probably one of the best places to start looking at making the park better (besides better trained staff.)

I for one am taking a wait and see what happens attitude. Sure the park will now play second fiddle to Cedar Point but it would probably have even with Six Flags at the helm. Or any other chain for that matter.

The bottlenecks and flow problems in the park are exactly what Janice brought up to me when I ran into her there. So I think it's logical that they would look into that problem first among other things. The log ride area is a horrible jam of people. Almost always has been for years now.

Wood - anything else is an imitation

I agree thrillman, With expanding the walk way.

I also think there are other ways to fix the park that are not too costly.

1. Clean the park up, get more trash cans, clean all the paths daily.

2. improve traffic flow in the parking lot on the Geauga lake side.

3. Clean the attractions nightly.

4. Train the staff to help people not just walk by when a customer seems confused when looking at a park map.

5. Rework the paths troughout the entire park widen areas where there is alot of conjestion.

6. Install green areas with shade and plants, so that the Gp can take a break during the day.

7. Add more resturants and better live entertainment.

All of these things are not much to ask but will help to bring in more guests to the park, and make there stay more enjoyable.

Want to see flow problems? Try walking past PKI's Slingshot on a moderate or heavy crowd day. Geesh.

I still think that the bottleneck created at Cedar Point between Corkscrew and the Dragway food stand on any given day is pretty bad...I found myself walking in front of the grandstands to bypass it many days.

Congested walkway? Easy: Adventureland @DL on an even modest day.

Oh please, I would say that there will be some "raping" of the park and that a few rides will find its way out of Geauga Lake. You know Dorney is getting a floorless (BKF) and WOF is supposed to be getting an impulse (S:UE) and then you know that SLC would work good at MiA. ;)

-DHo

*That* SLC would never work at MiA.....it has two trains...;)

edit: My vote for most-congested walkways, without a doubt, goes to Silverwood...."strips" of blacktop not even wide enough for a wheelchair, LOL... *** Edited 3/19/2004 9:36:37 PM UTC by rollergator***

I doubt Dorney would get BKF - I am pretty sure they are getting a custom design that will work with the existing terrain that Hercules was on. I would guess the BKF would be pretty hard to take out as well.

Jim 'jimvid' McDonnell

Jim.....Swoosh was *playing*....

He's just trying to import the SF coaster-trading game into the CF mentality...:)

Dorney is not getting BKF. Their decision was made long before the GL deal went through. It is going to be 100% custom. I'm only bitter that now they won't be the first in the chain to have a floorless.:(

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Michael Darling said:
Want to see flow problems? Try walking past PKI's Slingshot on a moderate or heavy crowd day. Geesh.

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Or KBF - the path between Supreme Scream and the Dipp 'n Dots stand/Timber Mountain Log Ride (near the railroad crossing). Yikes. Not only is that path small to begin with, but the nature of the kind of ride Supreme Scream is lures A LOT of spectators that stand beneath and watch it, jamming traffic flow in that pathway.

I can top that: on a busy day, the pathway entering Frontierland that takes visitors to The Tiki Room, The Jungle Ride, Indiana Jones, and Tarzan's Treehouse towards Pirates.

mOOSH

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Mamoosh said:
I wanted to specifically comment on this:

"Specially ordering older style rides to be manufactured specifically for the park is even more costly and again parts are expensive to replace and usually take time to make. This leads to extended downtime. Kennywood is an example of this, but they have been doing it for a long time."

Huh? Examples, please? Every time I'm at Kennywood all rides have been up and running. The only exception to that was during the Phantom's Revenge construction, when Thunderbolt and the Turtle were closed.

mOOSH

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Some of the older rides must either have inhouse parts made or specially ordered. Kennywood makes most of the parts for the older rides but the ones that can't be made at the park need to be sent for. GL would probably need to send out for special parts causing longer downtime.

I doubt they'll remove the major coasters like BKF, because fans of the park would be too disappointed. Do y'all think they will have park maps depicting any closed sections of the park, i.e. former Sea World side?