Rumors of the removal of GL's X-Flight

Now that I think of it MIA might be a good fit for XF,the lower attendance levels there will lead to a reduced need to run multiple trains,thus cutting back on the maintenance & operational costs for the ride.

A larger park like PKI, PKD or Dorney for example would draw more crowds to the ride thus increasing the need for a 2nd train to run most of the time & even then running a 2nd train & station doesn't do much to decrease the wait times.

I rode XF early in the season when it opened and they had both trains running. I didn't realize the ride had become such a nightmare for maintenance and capacity. Is it something that can be addressed during the move or is it inherent in the design?

Im going to give you all my thoughts and opinions here:

Funtime ran the park well through the early 90's but were in a financial hardship and were looking to sell.

Geauga Lake was also the highest attended "Funtime Park" with slightly over 1 million annual guests.

Attendance never really slipped badly, but the industry was changing in the late 80's and costs were up.

After Premier purchased the park from Funtime in 95, attendance was up due to great marketing, they retired the Corkscrew for the more-intersting Mind Eraser and added the popular water attractons as well as Serial Thriller and a new landmark Giant Wheel. But they got greedy. When Premier rebranded the park Six Flags they officially went up against the big players without the size of the park and size of the staff that PKI and CP had. They were also terrible for customer service, cleanliness and capacity.

2000 Killed Six Flags/Geauga Lake.

It just DID.

That park brought in over 2.1 millions guests in 2000. The park couldn't handle that amount with it's skelaton crew staff. Those who went that year either got major discounts or free tickets, the park reduced the amount of corporate picnics it held, and those who did attend, went home mad and never came back.

Busch had been thinking of selling Sea World for about 5 years by this point. Six Flags Inc (formally Premeir) were offered the park with a handful of animals for $100 million cash. Six Flags thought that the annual attendance of Sea World (1.5 million) and Six Flags Ohio (2 million) would bring in over 3.5 million.

Ha!

SFWOA brought in 1.7 million in 2001 as the gate included both parks.

The numbers dropped from there

So as some of you would disaggree with me, I definatly say "Six Flags RUINED Geauga Lake"

But...... They started to fix it! Things got better by 2003 in terms of customer service and prices. But it was TOO LATE. They burned the public.

So, let me tell you what I think of ride removals at Geauga Lake now:

Lets look at what Cedar Fair has removed:

2004 - Enterprise: Totally broken, would have to be replaced

2005 - Nothing, but they refurbished several rides

2005/2006 - HYDES: Mechanical Nightmare, many problems

2006 - MONORAL: Again - Monorail has many mechical issues not worth fixing... plus, it was not wheelchair assessable.

X-FLIGHT- Very low capacity, the ride was a fish out of water, high maintenace cost, one of four coasters with a 52" or more height requirement

It would fit a better market

Cedar Fair are fixing many of Six Flags things here, peeps. I hope you see that more now.

Very nice assessment, John. And I do agree to their reasons for removing some of these attractions, including X-Flight. But, without something new added as a replacement, even a small flat ride, the public has not been as receptive to their business strategy. Thus, flat attendance, even dropping attendance, some seasons since the Cedar Fair take over. And I see 2007 being another "down" year for them with X-Flight's removal. Unless, of course, there IS something new planned for the park, which hasn't been announced yet.

I too thought Premier Parks nursed GL along nicely until the disastrous rebranding/mega-expansion. Mind Eraser seemed to fit the park nicely at the time. At the time I knew much less about parks and the industry than I do now, and I guess for that reason Serial Thriller seemed a logical investment back then.

I've often wondered, how differently GL would have turned out if PP had continued that go-slow, piece-at-a-time growth curve they had followed prior to 2000. What if Dominator had been introduced in 2000, with Villain coming in, say 2002? Maybe with a few more kids' rides and flats gradually added, but with nothing remotely to the extent of the Loony Toons Boomtown expansion. (And in this scenario, the Sea World buy-out would never have happened, obviously.)

Of course, keeping a better eye on infrastructure, maintenance, service and cleanliness would have gone a long way to turning any new peeps they attracted into loyal customers, and probably for a fraction of the investment they put in.

I'm all for whatever it takes CF to turn things around, not to the illusory and grandiose objectives SF planned, but to that gentle growth curve that would have been sustainable by a shrewder and less greedy company.

It's gonna take some time for cf to stighten things out but when they do I think it will be a success

Brother Dave also makes a good point.

The Public sees removals as well... "removals". And if something new isn't added and marketed, it doesn't get the attention of the public.

We all know 2006 brought the new wave pool. The public saw it as new, but us die-hards saw it as just a replacement with the loss of another slide and the other lazy river.

It goes back to the Cedar Point philosiphy: Kinzel stated that they see an attendance increase when they build a new attraction, but on the off seasons they see a dip or attendence is flat.

Holiday World frankly don't want the dip, but they also can't afford a $25 million coaster, so they do several $1-3 million additions then something bigger... and boy, their gates show it works!
Of course, HW want people enjoying the rides as opposed to waiting for them, so they take into effect the capacity issues. How many parks would reconfigure two coasters to run additional trains? Honestly?

What do I think Geauga Lake should do? I'd say build a new waterslide and relocate Shark Attack to WWK with a new restaurant and a flat in the 50's area.

Then rebrand the 50's area for the following year like the Dollywood or Silver Doller City new areas (county fair and old worlds fair) and make it an Americana-like section with lots of red white and blue banners, a bandstand with performances and lots of American flare.

Then they can remove Steel Venom and then build a train.

Then they can put in a steel spinning coaster.

Thats all I've got for now.
*** Edited 11/26/2006 2:04:54 PM UTC by john peck***

^ That's a good plan. The park really needs to cater to families.

I visited twice this past summer, and the line for Beaver Land Mine Ride was almost as long as Dominator's. A re-do of the whole 50's area is needed (though this isn't news to anyone).

As far as park improvements, I wouldn't mind seeing an S&S tower and smaller Screamin' Swing (ala Lake Compounce's swing) somewhere, too. Both seem to be crowd-pleasers.

I like your plan, John. The total makeover into a county fair/American "theme" would almost make it like the pre-SF midway we want to see return. Now that they have that huge empty space I can see GL do it right.

Tidal Wave Bay may have been the new attraction but I don't think people knew it was until they got to the gate. Jeff and many others have continually stressed how weak the advertising has been for this park. GL did not advertise TWB as "NEW" unlike how Funtime did when they built The Wave ("I am THE WAVE"). After all these years I'm sure people still remember that classic commercial.

As for a Screamin' Swing - CP has the giant and Kennywood has a mid-sized one. With GL in the middle I don't see one coming to Aurora unless it's an extra charge like Dorney's.

Any news/ pictures of the deconstruction yet?

Screamin' Swings are just pure fun. In a perfect world, it'd be as ubiquitous as a Tilt-A-Whirl or Wave Swinger.

That is truely what SF should've done across the board by pacing out their expansions instead of trying to bring their parks up to "SF" standards.

Instead of adding four major thrill rides in one season they should've added them over a period of say,one every two or three seasons but in the meantime add a smaller,marketable attraction as well.

Premier <pre SF> seemed to be able to do this rather well but they also added rides that were best suited to the individual market of the park in the process.Take SFA during the AW era when premiere first aqquired the park as an example.

Back then the park paced their expansions by adding a major thrillride/coaster once every two or three years with smaller less high profile attractions in between & they still managed to get by during this time period and one key to this was that they balanced out the rides to cater to just about everyone & not just the thrillseekers who they later relied upon from 99 on up.

John's example truely explains how premier kinda ruined the image of many of their pre-SF parks by expanding too much,too soon.Those paarks did rather well for years as traditional family parks rather than all out thrill parks & I kinda believe that CF recognizes this with GL & they're trying to restore the park's image....although it's sure gonna take a lot of work to fix the damage that SF did to GL between 00/01 & 03.

Whats with every body thinking their all that.

It saddens me when I hear things like Geauga Lake not advertising well. There are many people who would be very excited to have this park so close to them.

When I was growing up, we couldn't afford Cedar Point, much less convince my parents to drive an hour and a half to it. So we went to Geauga Lake once a year.

Parks like Kennywood and Holiday World have a good grip on the surrounding areas. They are household names. I feel that Geauga Lake not only needs to re-evaluate their marketing stragity, but they need to be more community-friendly. I'd say have high School marching bands on the weekend, have a half-price community days event, sponser a few other local events.
And drop the dang parking prices!

And I don't mean just local, theres a lot of people only a few towns over in a place called Youngstown and Canton.

I also don't buy them trying to make Cedar Point the only recipient of business, though the Point offers more and costs more, doesn't the money really go to the same place? I thought so.

MiA may have the space to fit XF but consider this:

The year TTD opened, I made an expedtition starting from MN, to SFGam, to CP, up to MiA, and then took the ferry boat across to Wisconsin and home again in 7 days.

I had seen at CP children under 10 (over the height limit of course) mad-crazy-excited to get on MF! TTD was not operating that day. :( Two days later at MiA, I'm at the gates waiting for the park to open only to overhear the local burley farm boys proclaiming, "I'm not going on that! It goes upsidedown!"

Referring to Corkscrew.

It blew my mind to hear grown men say that in contrast to what I witnessed only days before.

What kind of impact will moving XF to MiA realy cause? Even though they have ST to get the attention from out of state, my impression of the park is somewhat of "a locals' only" set up. Would anyone ride it there if it did go there? *** Edited 11/27/2006 4:27:23 AM UTC by WildThingNative*** *** Edited 11/27/2006 4:31:07 AM UTC by WildThingNative***

If Six Flags didn't at least START the demise of Geauga Lake, then why were they so eager to sell the property to Cedar Fair at a loss?

^I've wondered that. Why sink 60-100 million into rides across 4 years and sell? That part made no sense to me at all. Especially after they got a whale for their show. Shouka alone brought in at least 750,000 people.

Because they don't seem to have time or desire or money to fix their own mistakes. So they are selling (or trying to sell) off what isn't already working or easily fixable and moving on. imho *** Edited 11/27/2006 3:00:19 PM UTC by Jason Hammond***

<--- Agrees that SF *started* the demise of GL...

...but I *am* kinda surprised that SO many who gave Shapiro a SHORT leash to get the entire SF chain turned around have what seems to be endless amounts of patience for CF and GL...since CF took over, looks to me like GL has done everything BUT get the sucker turned around...

bill, normally a staunch defender of CF's *business* strategies...

*** Edited 11/27/2006 3:01:37 PM UTC by rollergator***

gator...I understand your point of view. But, Premier/Six Flags started with a relatively clean slate. Prior to their involvement Sea World and Geauga Lake were crusing along fairly well as their own entities. Geauga Lake had a solid customer base and was doing decent attendance numbers. Sea World was doing fine...but with limited growth potential A/B decided to get out.

It was the decisions made by Premier/Six Flags that really brought the park(s) to their knees. Combining the two parks, the massive capital investment, losing sight of the company picnic market, insufferable damage to their customer relations, etc that left lasting memories in the minds of NE Ohioans.

If you recall, there were editorials in the Plain Dealer on a fairly regular basis that were very critical of a post-Funtime Geauga Lake.

It takes a LONG time to win back disgruntled customers but only a split second to lose happy ones. And, frankly, the general public doesn't really care who runs the place. They just know they enjoyed it, then hated it, and now aren't certain they want to return.