The Geauga Lake story has made a Chicago paper.

I still believe the park could have had a turn around, had the proposed hyper coaster been achievable, and if they had kept the animal park, a second gate. Along with an indoor water park, it would have become a family 2 day destination, and more affordable than local competitors such as Cedar Point.

I *am* over it though.

It's not a matter of being "over" anything, it's just a discussion. I'd say most people are over WWII but people still talk about it. If anything, this is a commentary on the amusement industry as a whole. If we are still discussing something that happened more than a month ago, chances are there hasn't been much since then worth talking about. Or should we have a 300 post thread on Six Flags sticking Wild Mouse coasters in metal boxes?

Like I said earlier, if people have a problem with this never-ending conversation, why get involved at all? It's very easy to ignore.

---

Or should we have a 300 post thread on Six Flags sticking Wild Mouse coasters in metal boxes?

---

I actually think these have the potential to be a fun little ride.

I didn't say they wouldn't be fun- I try to imagine Hershey's Mack mouse in a dark area and that puts a smile on my face. My point was that the closing of Geauga Lake seems to have garnered a little more interest than that "mouse in a trap" concept.

^Maybe SF should have had Hasbro sponsor the rides?

MouseTrap would even make a cool name/theme...

But as I said earlier, maybe even in this thread, Geauga will continue to be "newsworthy" until Paris and/or Nicole start making more attention-grabbing headlines...or until SF/CF close another park without warning.

Call it what it is: a Mack-in-the-Box ;)

Had to stop back and read up on this thread. Yes, over a month and a half later, and this is the topic in the industry that I'm still most interested in. Why?

I'm a fan of the industry, not just the rides. How much can really be said about a park shutting down a ride with well-known and documented issues, or the announcements for rides that we haven't seen yet and can only hypothesize about? Not much. How much can be said about a monumental closure of a not-too-long-ago huge property? Lots, obviously.

Now, just to toss a couple points in here...

It is a really interesting path that CF took. While the taxes on the ride side were higher as Jeff has pointed out, it would seem to me that if they wanted / needed to sell a large portion of the land, selling off the Sea World side and building in the ride side would be the way to do it. Without animals, the Sea World side was pretty much dormant before the new water park. The ride side was still operating.

It seems to me that while the taxes may have been a little higher, selling GL as a hybrid park with a whole bunch of water rides, the Big Dipper, the corkscrew coaster and a few of the other smaller rides would have made it very unique. Get rid of all of the non-family rides, and just leave a few small coasters and build the water park up. Instead, CF placed the water park across the lake which seems to me that they were basically saying, "Hey, if the rides side doesn't work, we'll just close it and use this instead."

And, while there is no proof, it seems like it very well could have been a nice plan from the beginning or near it to turn it into just a water park. It would have allowed it to maintain the public profile of it, while allowing CF to give it a new direction.

I still don't agree with that idea that has been tossed around on here that CF will make "more than its investment" back on the park. First off, ride relocations cost money -- it isn't like the rides suddenly show up and start operating in their new homes. If they claim that they are moving $60 million in rides, they are really probably moving about 1/3rd that, as demolition and reconstruction cost a lot, as well as the fact that the rides would have depreciated from being at the park already.

If the land that the park sat on was really worth as much as is claimed, Six Flags could have easily taken the hit of closing the park (it wasn't like they had the best reputation there anyway), moved the rides elsewhere in the chain, and made enough money to pay down their debt (and not add as much cost in new rides to themselves) instead. Considering that Six Flags sold the park instead seems to me that both CF and Six Flags thought that the value of the park was higher as an amusement park than as land.

Last time I argued this though, I was told that Six Flags just had no idea what the land was worth, and if that is true good gosh I'm glad I don't work for them, as if the land value is so simple that a group of enthusiasts can see it as a mistake, it would be scary to trust the people in charge for anything.

As others have pointed out, it is interesting that CF decided just to dismantle the park instead of try to sell it. As a nation, land values haven't risen since the park was sold. Is CF just ensuring that there isn't competition from a new company, or did SF really just sell it for SO much under value that it is still worth FAR more as land today?

--

For the record, I'm not saying for sure one way or another that I am either correct or incorrect about any of this stuff, but it is the stuff that really has made me think since the whole deal was done. It all seems odd to me.

At the end of the day, the one thing that I definitely do think that CF failed to do with the property was announce it's closure before it closed so they could better capitalize on the closure of the park. Astroworld did a great job celebrating their history (and bringing in lots of last visits) to guests, and although the closure of Astroworld was met with some disappointment (it too was a business decision about an underperforming park that sat on land that was worth more than it, as is supposedly the case with GL), the overall reaction to its closure was much more positive overall, and the park enjoyed some of its busiest days as people gave it one last visit. And I'm sure that Six Flags was only too happy to have the extra money from those people.

Interesting, none the less, and I'll try to go back to just reading the posts for a while again after this one. I don't want to stir the pot again ;)

I still don't agree with that idea that has been tossed around on here that CF will make "more than its investment" back on the park. First off, ride relocations cost money -- it isn't like the rides suddenly show up and start operating in their new homes. If they claim that they are moving $60 million in rides, they are really probably moving about 1/3rd that, as demolition and reconstruction cost a lot, as well as the fact that the rides would have depreciated from being at the park already.

Yeah but they can give the new parks attractions for a fraction of the cost. I bet Dominator would cost close to 20 mill. I bet it can be moved for less than five mill.

Theres a 15 million dollar ROI.
Chuck

---

Charles Nungester said:
Yeah but they can give the new parks attractions for a fraction of the cost. I bet Dominator would cost close to 20 mill. I bet it can be moved for less than five mill.

Theres a 15 million dollar ROI.
Chuck

---

I doubt that Dominator could be moved that cheaply. From what I have been told from a relatively reliable source, the most expensive part of a new ride is the concrete footers. Then, you have to hire the company to take apart the ride part by part, transport them, and hire another company to set them all up. You still need to do surveys of the land it is going on, and you need to make any necessary adjustments to that land, and also build an infrastructure for the ride itself (queue house, station, etc). Basically, the only thing that is being kept is the track and the trains, and of course the design of the course itself (worth more on Dominator than say the SLC).

I'm not saying in the case of Dominator that it would have been cheaper to build a new ride, (obviously, it isn't), but I don't think it is a 75% return on original investment.

I highly doubt footings are the most expensive part of a ride. Footings are built for basically anything going in the ground - so they're quite common. Everyone knows how to build them. They already have the engineering done for the footings - they just have to verify soil conditions are the same. Labor is cheap.

The largest cost in a steel coaster is just that - the steel. Why do you think wood coasters cost so much less than steel ones? They both have footings. Actually, wood coasters have way more footings than steel coasters because they have more vertical supports. So, there's something else that says the footings don't cost the most. There's also way more labor involved in assembling a wood coaster. But, labor is relatively inexpensive. They both have stations and queues. Again, the big difference is the material of the coaster.

I'm pretty sure that's why you see steel coasters relocated far more often than wood ones. They're easier to relocate because they're "bolt-on" rides, plus the coaster itself is the big ticket item. If the footings cost the most, you'd wouldn't see so many coasters being relocated. They'd just built new - since the track and stuff is relatively cheap. Ya know?

Footings may not be the most expensive part of a ride, and they are common in any type of construction, but it doesn't mean they're cheap by any means.

Cement itself has gotten more expensive, and delivery can be very expensive if your batches aren't made within a few miles of where it's being poured. Reinforcing steel, like any steel has also gone up in price. The locations of individual footings themselves may not be in the most convenient or accessible locations either.

You'll have to do soil testing and core borings in every proposed footing location, not a cheap proposition. Depending on the soil bearing pressure, some foundations may have to be redesigned. Steel coasters may have fewer footings than wood ones, which is because wooden structural members have limited length, but individual footings on steel coasters are much larger. This is because each one takes a larger proportion of the weight of the structure plus the loads of the moving trains.

The point of all that is, while relocating a coaster is less expensive than constructing a new one "from scratch," I don't think the cost is only 10-20 percent.

Jeff, I never said capitalism was greed. Neither is selling a product or service for a fair profit. Greed is wanting something you don't need or have a use for just to have it, or to keep someone else from having it.

So if the idea is to close empty rides sections of parks in favor of crowded waterparks, how long will it be until CF decides to "Geauga" Dorney Park?

Here's something to the whole topic. CF released the pricing for tickets and parking:

http://wwk.geaugalake.com/public/general.cfm

How long will the waterpark remain open with those prices?!?

Greed Is Good

---

Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street:
The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good.

Greed is right.

Greed works.

Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind.

---

Yeah! And after all, he wound up with Catherine Zeta Jones. Woo hoo!

It appears that their theory is to just sell season tickets for WWK. They've said all along the water park draws mainly from local guests. So, it doesn't really make any sense to buy a single-day ticket if you're local. A season pass is cheaper than two-days admission. Plus, if you're local, why would you only go once a summer?

$45 for a season's use of that water park seems really cheap.

Again, if you're local, you're probably going to attend CP and/or King's Island. So, you're going to buy the Platinum Pass.

How do the platinum passes work as far as revenue goes? Do they go by per-park sales of the passes? If so, I can't really see WWK selling all that many platinum passes with CP so close by (and the added benefit of Point Perks if you buy at CP).

So, where's the revenue coming for WWK? I'm guessing here, but I'd think a ton of the visitors would get a Platinum Pass or even the season pass. If people buy the Platinum Pass at CP, WWK sees nothing in terms of revenue (again an assumption). If they get the WWK pass, it's only $45. Plus, they're not getting parking fees from ANY passholders.

Are water parks really that inexpensive to operate?

As much as Rob's stance on this whole "How Cedar Fair could've done more" point is getting a little bit stale and tired, it's definitely not AS nauseating as reading the forums over at Geauga Lake Today. *gags*

It's almost comical to read. A huge group of angry locals that are feeding off each other's misery and anger to a point where they're believing in all the conspiracy theories that to the rest of us, are just theories.

And you all MUST read this first post: http://www.freepowerboards.com/geaugalaketoday/geaugalaketoday-about448.html

Just the kind of image us enthusiasts would like to portray of ourselves isn't it? *rolls eyes*

After a couple thousand posts, I'm the only one beating the "How Cedar Fair could've done more" drum? I didn't realize I was talking to myself all this time. Now I'll ask you, if this conversation is getting stale, why the hell do you bother reading it and posting? You're just as bad as those people that complain about the subject matter on Howard Stern's show when they can easily change the channel and ignore it.

---

thecoasterguy said:
Had to stop back and read up on this thread. Yes, over a month and a half later, and this is the topic in the industry that I'm still most interested in. Why?

---

So what's happened in the past month and a half that trumps the closing of a 119 year-old amusement park with eight roller coasters? If you can offer up something more interesting to talk about, we're all ears.

Wow. Makes our discussions here seem like dispassionate boring discussion. What a jerk. Be a confrontational dick to Spehn, make the stupid accusation that they wanted to keep competition away from CP (because making money from two places instead of one is something no business would want, right?), and what do you expect? For him to be like, "Yeah, you're right, we'll give it another shot?"

Not being confrontational here Jeff but what did CF do to market Geauga with CP? A park with over 3 million guest? They marketed in Pitt and stuff but did they have a sign, A note in their brochure or anything at CP that acknowledged Geauga existed? Did they sell two park one price tickets?

Heck they didn't even let CP passholders in geauga the first year.

Chuck, who still says they totally misshandled the property.

I seriously doubt the conversation when down like that, if it went down at all. Why would Spehn sit there and take a verbal beating from a no-name diehard while smiling throughout the whole thing? Besides, I disagree with the poster's brand of of boycotting. He hates Cedar Fair enough to never spend money there, but he has no problem patronizing the park? That rubs me the wrong way.

I'm all for Geauga Lake passion, but some of the conversations on that site make the ones over here sound Shakesperian.