Pittsburgh area man organizes rally for Geauga Lake's Big Dipper

Since this has turned into a thread of old arguments, I'll throw another one out there:

Geauga Lake never affected CF's cash flow (straight from a CF executive, I believe?), which means the park wasn't operating at a loss. Cut back on a few more liabilities and BAM, the park is turning a small profit. Small profit for a small park, what a concept.

The removal of more rides (Dominator, Thunderhawk, others), employee cuts and creative marketing could have put the park over the hump.

I don't believe in a conspiracy, but it does seem like executive decision went from point A to B to C to Z.

How do we know for a fact that SFWoA was not profitable? I do believe that GL never operated at the huge loss one might expect.

For some reason SFWoA was a perceived threat to the CEO, otherwise his infamous TTD statement would never have been made.

The removal of rides, employee cuts and creative marketing should have put the park over the hump. Why then did they choose to go from point A to B to C to Z?

d_port_12E said:
...it does seem like executive decision went from point A to B to C to Z.

And that's why this argument will last forever - there is no right or wrong answer. It's a personal opinion.

At what point do you throw in the towel? You say CF threw it in at 'C' and some people think that was enough. The preservationists/nostalgics seem to think they should have also tried D-thru-Y before giving up.

Neither side is right or wrong. It's a personal decision of how far you'd be willing to go or how far it made sense for you to go with it.

The decider to me is that CF owned the park and it was their money on the table - not the angry mobs' that have formed since. It was CF's choice to make. They felt they did as much as they wanted or reasonably could given their personal approach as the owners of the property.

Maybe they did go from A-to-B-to-C-to-Z, but that's ok...and it certainly doesn't mean there was intent to fail.

coasterdad! said:
How do we know for a fact that SFWoA was not profitable?

I don't know what "we" know, but I know that the people working for Six Flags at the time, at that park as well as others, said it was the albatross they needed to shed. Do the math... they acquired SeaWorld for $110 million, installed $40 million+ of rides in two years, and ended up selling to Cedar Fair for $124 million. Does it really sound to you like Six Flags got a good deal? Seriously?

For some reason SFWoA was a perceived threat to the CEO, otherwise his infamous TTD statement would never have been made.

And where exactly did he say this? Sounds to me like if that were true, and Cedar Point maintained its attendance anyway, then Six Flags continued to be irrelevant. Remember, at the time, SFWoA, in the Cleveland market, had no impact on CP attendance, which was already 60% from Detroit anyway. They bought the park because they wanted all of the possible revenue, not because it threatened any portion of it. Let's also remember that Dick was quoted in the Plain Dealer as saying that he wishses Cedar Fair would've bought the park in the 90's when they had the chance. It was always about growing the company, not the size of his balls.

d_port_12E said:
I don't believe in a conspiracy, but it does seem like executive decision went from point A to B to C to Z.

Perhaps Z was where the company wanted to be after acquiring the Paramount parks and going from A to B instead of A to D was the way to arrive at Z? Yeah, that sounds like a conspiracy theory, but I reject the notion that anything contradicting what Cedar Fair claims to be the truth is automatically a conspiracy theory. No company's operations are 100% transparent. I don't mean this as a knock against anyone (so don't think I'm making some kind of personal attack, Jeff) but I seriously doubt a company with an agenda is going to be 100% truthful with someone outside of the company, whether it be a newspaper reporter, a group of coaster enthusiasts or an enthusiast site's webmaster. I agree with this:

Lord Gonchar said:
And that's why this argument will last forever - there is no right or wrong answer.

No one knows for sure what happened. We can believe what we want, but unless we were in the room when the decisions were made that led to the closing of the park, none of us are right and none of us are wrong. I don't see how anyone can claim to have the upper hand in this debate.

You can have the upper hand when you reject the absurd and accept the most simple and likely answer. Occam's razor.

I guess I never understood why, if CF bought it to shut it down, they continued to operate it for 3 years.

Understanding doesn't seem to be relevant to the argument.

What's absurd, Jeff? The things that people are saying, or the things that contradict what you've been saying?

My idea of an absurd statement would be casting a spell on all the food sold in the park so the guests would get sick and never return. Wanting to eliminate a park so the company could focus on their flagship property less than two hours away? The idea of adding some smaller rides when larger ones were removed? Building a new waterpark on the opposite side of the property being an indication the decision was made long before it was announced? None of that sounds absurd to me. As I said, it just goes against what you've been saying.

Bad decisions don't necessarily imply bad intent... :)

Rob Ascough said:
My idea of an absurd statement would be casting a spell on all the food sold in the park so the guests would get sick and never return.

Fortunately, not even the folks at GeaugaLakeToday.com could accept that one.

Wanting to eliminate a park so the company could focus on their flagship property less than two hours away?

Because GL was impacting attendance at CP? Which year was that?

The idea of adding some smaller rides when larger ones were removed?

Reduce cost by adding cost. Because the Yo-Yo ride op wasn't already standing around picking her nose?

Building a new waterpark on the opposite side of the property being an indication the decision was made long before it was announced?

Or because... wait for it... there wasn't enough room to expand or better the existing water park? I know that's crazy, because you could obviously just build a Tornado slide and a giant wave pool over SR 43, right?

Feel the razor, baby.

So anyway, there's this roller coaster, see? Think it's called the um, Broad Digger . . . no, that ain't it . . . the Boob Dragger . . . no, not quite. Sure it'll come to me in a minute.

Anyways, while I'm trying to think of the name of this here ride, maybe we could chew the fat a bit about hows folks might try to hang on t'a ride that like.

Yessir. Mighty fine ride.

Ensign Smith said:
So anyway, there's this roller coaster, see? Think it's called the um, Broad Digger . . . no, that ain't it . . . the Boob Dragger . . . no, not quite. Sure it'll come to me in a minute.

There, you see how forgettable the coaster is? ;)

D'oh! I really am just kidding. I couldn't help myself. (go back and look at the winkie! And here's a few more just to prove I'm kidding... ;) ;) ;) )

Jeff said:
Or because... wait for it... there wasn't enough room to expand or better the existing water park? I know that's crazy, because you could obviously just build a Tornado slide and a giant wave pool over SR 43, right?

Feel the razor, baby.

Uh, not really, Barney. Although nice job trying to back up your constant crying about my alleged personal attacks on you.

So the Yo-Yo operator is standing around picking her nose... that crazy overabundance of guests rendered the old waterpark too small and demanded a new, larger waterpark be constructed on the opposite side of the property? But you're missing the point, as I somehow guessed that you would. I was illustrating how many of the things that have been said so far are far from absurd. It's just a matter of them not agreeing with what you've been saying.

But that's fine. I'll bow out of this conversation, so feel free to say whatever you want. If someone wants to talk about the Big Dipper, I'll jump back in. But I have better things to do with my time than argue with people that constantly feel they're right and everyone else is wrong (and therefore a misguided fool). That's not a conversation.

Rob Ascough said:Building a new waterpark on the opposite side of the property being an indication the decision was made long before it was announced?

Why would they build a water park that now competes with the inferior Soak City if they bought Geauga Lake because it competed with Cedar Point?

Rob Ascough said:
But I have better things to do with my time than argue with people that constantly feel they're right and everyone else is wrong (and therefore a misguided fool). That's not a conversation.

In all fairness, Rob, that's exactly how it looks from this side of the fence too. :)

Rob Ascough said:
But I have better things to do with my time than argue with people that constantly feel they're right and everyone else is wrong (and therefore a misguided fool). That's not a conversation.

It is on the internet! ;)

I got three winkies from Carrie! No, wait, make that four.

Life is good . . . :)

Says the guy with 8,600 posts. That's good stuff.

eightdotthree said:
Why would they build a water park that now competes with the inferior Soak City if they bought Geauga Lake because it competed with Cedar Point?

Wow, there's an angle I had not considered. That's a really good point. The GL water park really is better than Soak City in almost every way. The only thing I would give SC is Bubbles Bar, and I do like the "active" lazy river a little better. Other than that, I'd take GL any day.

Lord Gonchar said:

In all fairness, Rob, that's exactly how it looks from this side of the fence too. :)

Post of the year!