Will Geauga Lake's WWK Phase 2 ever happen?

Yep, GL was our home park. I have so many memories of my daughter when she was three or four. Climbing on the nets with her and worrying as she began to outpace me. That wide-eyed look on her face riding BD for the first time. Pictures of her nestled in my arms, shooting down Pepsi Plunge. Carrying her half asleep on my shoulders as we trudged back across that long bridge...

I guess the best memories of parks are those you make with people you love. So it's not just about the parks, and not just about the people, but both together.

OhioStater said:
So really what people miss is their lives being more convenient.

Really? Is that what we said?

Going to Geauga Lake has never been "convenient", it was just nice to have something entertaining within a half hour that wasn't a shopping mall.

I miss the park and wish I could trade Sandcastle for Geauga Lake!

I hated that park with a passion, except for the B&M and Villain.

...Just to balance out the opinion in this thread. :)

Remind me to rave about how much I adored the V.I.P. line-cutting experience in the next Kennywood thread. ;)

I'll go even further: other than Big Dipper I found no other coasters I liked.

I'll go a step further than that: I always found Big Dipper to be "meh". When Villain was running well, I loved it, BD - not so much.

Ensign Smith said:
I guess the best memories of parks are those you make with people you love. So it's not just about the parks, and not just about the people, but both together.

And the important thing to remember, to me, is that the memories don't go away.

crazy horse said:

I think that one of the reasons that seaworld failed, was because they were not allowed to add rides like the other seaworld parks were doing. There was also a height restriction, so they could not build anything over a certain height.

They also had a contract with geauga lake that stated that they would not add any amusement rides.

Source please? This is bunch of nonsense. How tall is that slide tower that Cedar Fair built? Why would SeaWorld agree to such a thing?

Let's say I try to open a hamburger stand in a strip mall and across the street there is already a hamburger stand. That owner comes over and says "Excuse me, but I will need you to agree to not sell hamburgers" and my response would be "buzz off". SeaWorld agreeing to not install rides with Geauga Lake sounds one-sided. I doubt Geauga Lake was threatening to buy their own Shamu. Also, if I'm not mistaken the two parks are in different townships too.

SeaWorld parks started adding rides in the mid-to-late-90s and by the time they started to make those investments they were likely done investing money into the Ohio marine life money pit. The sale in January 2001 to Six Flags was a failing park, not a thriving park.

Jeff said:

Ensign Smith said:
I guess the best memories of parks are those you make with people you love. So it's not just about the parks, and not just about the people, but both together.

And the important thing to remember, to me, is that the memories don't go away.

Very true, and for me as well. But Ava was five years old on her last trip to the park -- the last day of its existence, as it turned out. And she's forgetting a lot of it now, which saddens me a little bit.

^Because they're your memories, not hers. She was probably too young to understand the importance of that day and what the time you spent there with her over the years meant to you.

Now that she's older you have the opportunity to make some memories for her :)

Does anyone have the picture of what phase 2 was suppose to look like? I tried looking it up and couldn't find it

Jeff said:
to remember, to me, is that the memories don't go away.

Until you get dementia or Alzheimer's.

That's a really positive outlook on life.

We're just lucky to have such a wonderful daughter. Now if I could just get her straightened out on the whole "water parks are even better than amusement parks" thing, life would be perfect. ;)

FutureMan said:
Does anyone have the picture of what phase 2 was suppose to look like? I tried looking it up and couldn't find it

A very large (over 9 MB) scan of the rendering can be found on Mr. Hammond's site. It's the last item on the page, just above the horizontal divider. Looks like another lazy river, some shorter slides. The wave pool was built obviously, but I think it's closer to Splash Landing than the drawing shows. Could be wrong.

FutureMan said:
Does anyone have the picture of what phase 2 was suppose to look like? I tried looking it up and couldn't find it

Here's a high resolution scan I did a while ago.

http://www.rollercoasterfreak.com/Geauga_Lake/2_phase_expansion.jpg

When this rendering was released I was hopeful that they would integrate the Seaport Village/Asian Adventure buildings (where the pearl diving was) into the waterpark. It seemed like a natural location for a swim-up bar like Bubbles at Soak City. I'm not sure if those buildings are still standing today.

If you go here:

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=41.347392,-81.370874&spn=0.002046,0.004801&t=f&z=18&ecpose=41.34739163,-81.37087406,660.16,0.007,0,0

I'm not exactly sure which venue your refering to. But, this map is no older than last year.

If you look at the other side of the lake, you can see the ride side of Geauga Lake demolished.

egieszl said:

Source please? This is bunch of nonsense. How tall is that slide tower that Cedar Fair built? Why would SeaWorld agree to such a thing?

Let's say I try to open a hamburger stand in a strip mall and across the street there is already a hamburger stand. That owner comes over and says "Excuse me, but I will need you to agree to not sell hamburgers" and my response would be "buzz off". SeaWorld agreeing to not install rides with Geauga Lake sounds one-sided. I doubt Geauga Lake was threatening to buy their own Shamu. Also, if I'm not mistaken the two parks are in different townships too.

SeaWorld parks started adding rides in the mid-to-late-90s and by the time they started to make those investments they were likely done investing money into the Ohio marine life money pit. The sale in January 2001 to Six Flags was a failing park, not a thriving park.

I am too lazy right now to look for the proof( what would you want to see), but seaworld came along long after geauga lake was there. For one, they had a crazy stupid height limit on the seaworld side(if you look at a map of seaworld, you will see that there was not a building taller than the trees. The shamu stadium and dolphin stadium, were built into the ground.

The deal with no rides being able to be built at seaworld, was an agreement with geauga lake. I believe because geauga lake used to own that property that seaworld was to be built on. Back when seaworld ohio was built, the seaworld parks did not have anything to do with rides, so it was not a big deal to seaworld at the time.

Say you own a burger stand, and the empty lot next door to you. Your not going to sell the property to another burger stand.

I think they still have a height restriction on that property. If you look at a map of the park, the only real tall slides are built in the one corner of the park.

Even the phase 2 portion looks like everything is below tree level.