PREMiERdrum

QUOTE (Jason B @ Sep 21 2009, 03:03 PM) I am not sure where they could pull it off on the scale it is at CP, but it would be a great use of the International Gardens on a smaller scale. This. Tower Gardens was my first thought when I read that on Screamscape. I also doubt that we'll see the "same" show as CP, but the same technology.

I mean just what I said: Cedar Fair has made great strides in the area of designing and maintaining themeing. I was very impressed with Planet Snoopy @ CP, the detailed backdrops, graphics, themeing on the (admittidly used) rides, it all comes together very well. I do think that the NickU do overs will be a big test, but if their recent installations are anything to go by, there really isn't much to worry about.

I see what you're getting at, but let's not say CP as a park has "practically zero themeing." 2 of their 3 kids areas are pretty heavily themed (I'd say about as much as NU), and the 3rd has a lite (albeit 70's) castle themeing. Two of the major areas of the park are themed, and are both beautifully done (Frontier Town and Frontier Trail, with the trail being much better done than Rivertown IMO). The new games area is aesthetically very pleasing, and several of the new rides are themed fairly well. In fact, the themeing on Disaster Transport (the poster child of CF theme fail) has been worked on this season, and much of the original on ride themeing is back under lights and looking good.

That would be ironic as R.L. Stine, writer of the goosebumps books, wrote a book about a certain wooden roller coaster in the woods...do I even need to state its name? So, in a way, we already have one. PS: Terpy's gonna be mad because I just did something he would do... Didn't the Sea World parks have and RL Stein Haunted Lighthouse film in their 4D theaters for a time? I know that I saw it at SWSD a few years back.

Club Blood and Urgent Scare were good at KI last year... BUT after my CP "Behind the Screams" media preview tour last night (see my Halloweekends thread in the "Other Parks" section for details), you HAVE to get back up to CP for Halloweekends, and you CAN'T miss GE Boeckling's Eerie Estate and Happy Jack's Toy Factory. They easily, and I mean easily beat anything at CP, KI, and I'd say they're on par with HHN at Universal. If they let JT start working on haunts for other parks, then CF has started to move up to a new level.

I was fortunate enough to take my family to the "Behind the Screams" VIP Tour at Cedar Point this weekend, and after seeing what Halloweekends has new to offer this year, I would strongly encourage you all to get to the point this year. I'll try to do this as a pseudo-trip report for the first bit, then details and impressions of the new haunts at the end. As a member of the media, I was invited to the preview event Saturday, September 12th at the Point. The event didn't start until 7pm, and with the park opening at Noon, we had some time. My wife, my sister, my brother-in-law, and I left Columbus at about 9:30 Saturday morning. We stopped for lunch at the Taco Bell/Long John Silvers on 250 before getting to the park (trying to save some money). We gave the attendant at the booth our parking pass (first time I've ever had free parking at a park), and parked in A33. We went to guest services, picked up our tickets and VIP passes for the event later, then went to spend some time in the park. I should tell you that (for those who aren't my facebook friends), my wife is expecting, so we tried to do more than just hit all the coasters, and tried to find some things we could all do. Our first ride as Iron Dragon (one of the few that my wife was cleared to ride by our doctor). After about a 10 minute wait we were on the ride. The ride didn't have the pronounced shuffle I've noticed the last few years. It ran smooth, the swinging was pretty good, and the speed was nice. I'm also glad that a live spiel has been added back after the canned spiel of a few years ago. We made our way up towards the Frontier Trail and put our bags in a locker by Millennium Force. We meandered up the trail, really taking some time to soak up the atmosphere. This has definitely become my favorite part of the park in the last few years. When we got to Frontier Town, we checked on Maverick (which had a full queue), decided to skip it for now (since my wife and my sister weren't planning to ride anyway). We hit the Mine Ride (which was one of the longer waits of the day [2 train op]), then Gemini (walked on), and Magnum (15 minutes). Jenn had to sit all those out, though she did have some excellent people watching while we were riding. At this point I wanted to ride some things that we all could do, do we hit both the Himilaya and Matterhorn, both always a good time. We walked up to the Wicked Twister Midway and decided for a snack. Jenn and I got some fries from Hot Potato (across from the aquatic stadium), which were good, while my sister and brother in law lined up next door at the Gazebo for a corn dog. After 10 minutes in line with no movement, they came over and got some fries too. I guess the hangup over at the Gazebo, as they overheard, was a customer not getting Coney sauce on his Coney dog. Coneys are clearly on the menu, but the server swore up and down that "we don't have anything like that here, there is ketchup and mustard by the tables." Well, after about :10 minutes of arguing, the server finally offered to put some chilli on it. That's what a Coney is. I was embarassed for him. When they went to get their fries, they ordered the Parmesan Garlic fries that were on the menu, which they were out of. They then tried to get the mini-corn dogs and fries, which they were out of. So they got some plain ol' fries. They were still good. The 3 of us (sans my wife) then hit Disaster Transport, which looked the best I've seen it in years. I think that the ride actually presents much better when you enter the queue in the "Repair Bay." The worst part of the queue was the cut through Pharo's Secret, so this helps a lot. The lighting in the show rooms of the ride itself was also looking better than it has in a long time. All (and I mean all) of the show scenes were lit (including all the "broken spaceship"panels in the first helix of the big room - I haven't seen those lit in quite a while). It seemed like last year most of the show scenes were blacked out, so this was encouraging. My brother in law and I then hit Raptor (2 train wait for front row), which was running much smoother than it was last year. All 4 of us rode the Cadillac Cars, then grabbed our bags from the locker, made another loop up through Frontier Town, and headed back towards the front of the park. It was getting close to 7pm, which was when the event started. As we walked by TTD, my brother in law and I decided to hop in line, as he had never ridden it. After a 20 minute wait, we were on the red train. That launch never gets old. He loved it too. By the time we got off, it was time for the event. We put our passes on and headed for GE Boeckling's Eerie Estate, which is in the (already creepy looking) former Admin building next to Planet Snoopy. I won't give too much away, but this is easily the best haunt, from a design standpoint, that I've ever been in. For the event, the house lights were turned on, and the only scaractors were the undead wait staff walking the halls, but it was STILL very scary even when you know nothing's going to jump out at you. First, the haunt has layers of detail unlike anything else at CP or KI. The attention to the little details is simply astounding. You honestly feel like you're walking through an old haunted mansion. For the event, they had quite a spread of food scattered throughout the haunt. In the wine cellar (which is probably the 3rd of 4th room), there was a big tray of cheese, a cheeseball shaped like a severed head (with a dried-beef tongue!), and an undead bar tender serving wine. After a few more rooms, in the dining room, there was a table covered in beef ribs, chicken, meatballs, fruit, cooking, dirt pudding with worms, deviled eggs that looked like eyeballs, and a full bar serving soda, ****tails, and "Bloodweiser" & "Blood Light beers" (I saved my Bloodweiser bottle). I thought that for sure that was the end of the haunt, but it just kept going through several more rooms. We finally stopped in the mansion's "closet" to eat our food. It looks weird, but this is what they encouraged you to do. Just pick a room and eat. That is (from left) me, my wife (with baby!), and my brother in law. My sister took the picture. In the middle of Eerie Esate, we got to talk for a while with John Taylor, who designed the new haunts. If you ever get the chance to meet him, do it. I told him how impressed I was with all the detail, and he just grinned ear to ear and said "don't miss Happy Jacks Toy Factory" and chuckled a little bit. Overall, even with the lights on and no monsters, Eerie Estate topped anything else at any other regional park I've seen. It truly was world class. Easily an 11/10. We then made our way over to Happy Jack's Toy Factory. I'm not going to give away any surprises, but the new haunt can't even be compared with Pharo's Secret (which occupied the same space). If you know your CP history, look around in the first main "room" for a familiar face. Where Eerie Estate was "creepy," Happy Jack's is "twisted." We also toured Monster Central (in the Colliseum's ballroom), and Boo Hill, which were both cool. It's obvious to me that they're moving towards "permanent" Haunts that allow them to build things that are 100% believeable (unlike the old Pharo's Secret, or even Urgent Scare and CarnEvil at KI, which both still have a temporary feel because of their design). I would say that seeing these 2 new haunts at CP this year is a must. They are truly the best I've been through. If this is the direction CF is taking their Halloween events, then we don't have anything to complain about.

I see what you mean. I'm not sure if the rides park will stay as it is, or be absolved into one of the other two parks. Every time I've been (except for the media preview day) the rides area was pretty empty. I think it would do best as part of the Zoo, since Zoombezi guests have access to the Zoo already. I too think that raft rental is crazy, although I know continued this from Wyandot Lake. I'm still overall very impressed with the park - especially comparing to what it was just a few years ago. As the Zoo becomes more of a destination, I think we'll see some awesome new attractions coming to Zoombezi (and I know for a fact that animal / water attractions are under development).

Strange. In our several trips this year and last, I was very impressed with the park. Other than the lazy river tubes, what else is an upcharge at the waterpark? The Dispatch article does hint at a new attraction for next year... and I know those in charge are really looking at some great stuff for the park. I'm excited to see how things turn out.

Most of the locations I've seen the new monitors used as menu boards, the screens change every :10 seconds or so, thus greatly reducing (if not elimitating completely) the threat of burn in. Because Plasma displays (and LCD for that matter) emit such low levels of heat, it takes significant exposuer to the same image to cause burn in (much, much more than on standard CRT, which was quite easy to burn into). I also think that some of the boards are animated, with there being a slight movement to all of the elements on the board, which would also eliminate burn in.

I agree with all of this. I think we're on the same page.

I think that a Sally Corp GhostBlasters attraction is pretty likely, considering that SDatHC was a character retro-fit of the original GhostBlasters.

One year from now we'll have the conversation about what damage was / wasn't done by the changeover. I am certain we won't see attendance fall, and at worst the might see merchandise sales decline (although these losses could be offset by the ability to streamline merchandise production over 5 additional properties, and also could be affected by the merchandise deal with UFS vs. Nick. I believe a decent percentage of Nick merchandise sales went back to Viacom). Kids will still run and hug the characters at the front gate, and they'll enjoy the rides just as much. A handful will stop going, because their kids "want to see Spongebob," and that will be their child's loss. If we only introduce our children to what they ask to be shown, we are failing to expand their experiences as they grow into well rounded adults. Also, with CF as a publicly traded company, I feel safe in assuming they made the best decision they could to protect their business. As it has been argued here - how many of the Anti-Snoops would pay an extra $xx per ticket to keep Dora and company around? I'm sure they thought this through, and went with the best choice they had. We'll see... about a year from now.

The northeast Ohio, Michigan, and Western PA economies were falling long before Bush was in office, and to blame a cyclical recession on one person shows great ignorance on the subject - unless you have specific policies that you think caused the recession. Capital Expenditures (like the long rumored hyper along Depot Rd) wouldn't have been enough to save SFWoA. The park was a flawed execution of a good concept, that, like someone said earlier, probably would have been able to succeed in a climate allowing a longer season. The inherit design flaws with the park (cramped water park with no room for expansion, guest flow bottlenecks with no easy fix) mixed with the astronomical operating costs (mostly on the wildlife side) never gave this park a chance to succeed. Had the animal park stayed a separate gate - with discounted combo tickets to the ride park and animal park, it might have had a chance, and at the very least would have allowed them to keep a quantitative tab on how much the animals bring in (which could then have been used as a goal for operating costs on that side of the park). The ride side should have grown into a medium sized SF park (in the vein of Elitch I'm thinking), and they should have promoted multi-day stays with hotel and multi-park packages. But, woulda coulda shoulda I guess. The SIX management gurus were pretty dense, but if the park was a money maker, or even had the prospect of long term survival, they wouldn't have sold. They weren't that stupid. They let SFWoA go before several other smaller properties that, ironically, might have been good candidates for CF purchase before the PP buyout. The park was a pretty nice place to if you visited on a less busy weekday, but it didn't have a chance in NE Ohio.

True, but the huge problem here is that during the offseason for a water park, they turn off the water, shut down the lights, and essentially come back in the spring and turn it back on. During the offseason for a marine life park, those animals still have to eat, see doctors, get medicine, play and exercise. Although both scenarios have expenditures during the offseason, I would guess the cost of animal care for the 8 (?) months that the park is closed is multiple times that of the waterpark. I completely agree that the layout of GL was just fine for the size of the CF era crowds, but that wasn't my point. All these things (paths, employees, facilities) added together to create a solidly negative perception of the park. A lot of those people who visited under SFWoA weren't come back (as evidenced as the lower attendance in the last season as that park), no matter what name was on the marquee. I think Cedar Fair had a much better understanding of what the park should be: A picknick / water park with some great rides. I wish it would have worked out differently, and I still maintain that had they not purchased the Paramount Parks we'd still have a Geauga Lake of some form.

Actually, think of it being themed in line with Paddlewheel Excursions. CP is underpromising / overdelivering here. As of now there will be show scenes, tied into the Paddlewheel show scenes. After the flack they caught with Maverick having elements on the animation that didn't come to be, they left most of it off the video this time. Look for more details to come out over the winter. Don't expect a Splash Mountain, but PWE and even the CP&LE RR have some decently thought out, and very well maintained show elements. I think after what happened with TTD, Cedar Fair corporate Planning and Design has been much better at reading their customers, not their enthusiasts. Maverick is top 5 for me as well. Other stellar (though not necessarily record breaking) additions have been Renegade, Prowler, and the new hypers (Behemoth, Diamondback, soon to he Intimidator). The public really seems to be eating these up. I work for WBNS (and spent several painful years at WSYX, as my screen name suggests), and WCMH has run that file video for Shoot the Rapids at least 5 times that I've seen. They have access to the same CNN video server that we (and WSYX) do, they just don't care to look. That place is a mess.

Adding lots of roller coasters is not an indicator of a quality park experience. Having lots of rides is great, but if the time you spend in between them is miserable, the people aren't coming back. The paths were too small. There weren't enough facilities. I had probably 20-30 visits to the park under Six Flags (we used to get Wyandot Lake season passes for only $40, which were good for all Sis Flags parks), and a great number of the employees were rude. Not just lacking smiles, but downright rude. Knight Flight, Superman, and X Flight were great rides, few dispute that. Six Flags succeeded in concept and failed in execution. Their projections for SFWoA as a combined property were decided by adding the reported attendance from Sea World to that of SFO. I thought this was a rumor until I spoke to someone who did consulting for the park. They figured that any guest duplication in the projections would be offset by new guests brought in by their new ad push. Like I said earlier, the wildlife park was most impressive, and the only area of the park that could handle the crowds. The money associated with operating the marine life park year round obviously wasn't compensated for in the open-season revenues. I'd argue that if the park were as successful as you portray it, it would still have six flags flying at the entrance... there's no argument here that the park was impressive, but I think SIX had to get out from under the operational costs that were crushing them.

Sorry for the double post, but there's a bit more I think I should say about the former management team of SIX and their thought process. There's another company who has been failed by a critical flaw in their decision making process that is strikingly similar to Six Flags: And that is General Motors. Both companies, for years, have set their target on their competitors instead of their guests. If you look back about 10 years, to the time when GM was realigning their brands to try to save the customer base of the outgoing Oldsmobile brand, you'll see that they worked hard, and spent tons of money, trying to chase other brands. Cadillac was to become their "BMW fighter." Buick was to be their "Lexus fighter." Investment in the future Chevrolet Malibu was ramped up so that it could be their "Camry fighter." In the last 4 or 5 years, in the wake of Honda, Ford, and Toyota publicly announcing that transaction prices had gone up substantially, indicating strong customer demand for new, expensive options like navigation systems, heated and air conditioned seats, and panoramic glass roofs, GM saw this as a push to take their Saturn brand upmarket. They started throwing all kinds of money into importing and rebranding Opel models from Europe, which were very nice, but expensive. The new Aura, Astra, and new VUE arrived to dealers with critical acclaim, and they sat. And sat. Where did they go wrong? They set their sights on, and targeted, their competitors instead of their customers. They didn't care that Saturn had been a brand of inexpensive, economical, and reasonably solid cars, for more than 10 years. They saw what others were doing and followed, with no regard for who THIER customers were. Six Flags did the exact same thing with SFO. They set their sights on Cedar Point, and looked to defeat them by copying them. What they got so very wrong is that Cedar Point isn't just a coaster park. They have a great collection of flats, good shows, 3 solid childrens areas, and a strong resort atmosphere which brings in visitors from a much larger geographical area than Geauga Lake ever had. What they SHOULD have done is to target Cedar Point's guests... why do they go to Cedar Point? Where does that park have some weaknesses that we can exploit? What can we do different from them that will bring people here instead of there? I see a few weaknesses that could have been exploited - the value proposition, as well as the quality and value of food service. What if Six Flags had only added one or two new headline attractions (instead of 4), and included free parking? Free soft drinks? High quality, affordable food options? All of those things are very marketable, and would have done wonders for retaining customers. SF had no problem getting them through the gates (attracting as many as 2 million a year), but they failed at keeping them as customers. The experience from the view of their target customer (families who come into the park and spend) was not a good one. I think that offering in the wildlife park was very nice, but I think that if a marine life park in northern Ohio was a money making venture, Sea World would have stayed in the business.

Also living in Columbus, I agree wholeheartedly. I visited in the mid 90's as Geauga Lake, SFO, SFWoA, and then Geauga Lake again. The newer rides were decent, but the park just couldn't handle all the visitors they had (especially after the combination of the old Sea World property). The paths were too narrow (and illogically laid out), there weren't enough bathrooms, and the high demand on those facilities ensured that they were hardly ever found clean, and the waterpark that SF built (Hurrican Harbor - renamed Hurricane Hanna's under CF) was way too cramped for the crowds the park was drawing. The SFO/SFWoA expansions show exactly what was wrong with Six Flags management at the time: they focused on adding big ticket roller coasters (and added 5 coasters in just 2 years at SFO) with little regard to guest experience. While the attraction list at WWK is a bit slim, the park itself is gorgeous, and it seems like CF is taking baby steps towards improving the park. NewsPlusNotes posted a link to a photobucket album of WWK pictures this season, and the park looked gorgeous. It's always sad to see a park go, and you'll hear many different people say many different things about why the park closed. I'd say that the park's fate was just about sealed when SF overbuilt the park to be a CP competitor. I think that CF's attempts at rightsizing the park were genuine (I really think it's obvious they were shooting to model the park after Michigan's Adventure: the waterpark had been GL's big draw [apart from that fish next door] for years), but the Paramount Parks purchase caused them to focus their efforts on the new properties. I think had they seen the severity of the coming recession (and subsequent collapse of the real estate market, especially in saturated markets like Aurora), they would have kept a pared-down rides side open for a few more years (Big Dipper, Villian, the flume, rapids ride, and flats). Hindsight is 20/20, and Ohio is still blessed to have 2 top notch regional parks, several world class zoos (including the #1 in the US), and a handful of really nice water parks.

Because, as has been reported here, the ride is licensed through Sally Rides, and I believe the license contract expires sometime in 2010 or 2011.

I was hoping for a show about "The Enchanted Voyage"... but HW's Voyage is a pretty good reason to watch, too.

Yes, I didn't write to my illustration very well. I wanted the "new" entrance to Invertigo to be right up on the plaza, but in the interest of keeping the restrooms I pushed it back. I'm not sure that a smaller land like AZ needs 2 restroom facilities. The go karts could also stay under this plan, but I think that a new attraction built on the SOB site would use that space for the entrance, queue, and possibly the station.

::I apologize in advance for the dreadful paint image, but I think you'll get the point:: Well, here's my thought for a way to "fix" the traffic problems in Action Zone (provided the removal of SOB and the go karts). The only major hurdle would be relocating AZ's bathrooms to an area more central to the water tower plaza. My idea is to turn each of the paths that go out from the plaza into their respecive ride's entrances. New signs over each path would mimic the large poster-poles that surround the water tower. The former FD/SoB path would become the new entrance/exit for Flight Deck with the main sign right over the path, Drop Zone's entrance would be moved up (and a gate next to the entrance would allow the path from Timberwolf to still exit here, The path that leads back to Invertigo would become the ride's entrance (although a similar set up to DT would allow the Timber Wolf traffic to still exit this way. Delirium's entrance is already right off the plaza, and the SkyCoaster's entrance could easily be right off the plaza. Add some landscaping (the green spray paint) and some new signage and I think it would be pretty decent. This way, guests coming in to the area would be directed around the "loop" to browse at the different attractions, instead of meandering down several small paths which are all dead ends.

Yep, in fact, his original name was "Dippy Dawg"

Just a little rewording, courtesy of some clever marketing folks would remedy that: "Cedar Point: No one has more coasters than us!"

From looking at the Simex Iwerks site, I'd like to see Smash Factory, some iteration of Dino Island, or Pokemon 3D in there. I would bet SB3D is through a agreement with Simex Iwerks and not Viacom. FWIW, Cedar Fair installed Dino Island as a replacement for Mission: Bremuda Triangle and Lego Racers as a replacement for Pirates 4D when they bought Geauga Lake. Edit: Maybe the CP teasing is actually for something in another corner of the state... http://www.simex-iwerks.com/Default.asp?id...&mcat_cid=0