Random Geauga Lake Memory's & Questions

[Magm&MForce24/7]

I was just think about all the amusement parks I've been to especially when my half brother & sister would travel with us, and remember how much we loved Geauga Lake. I remember we had a really bad feeling about the fate of the park, as we traveled in august or July, and the park was DEAD. Everything was 1 train operation, and we would normally be the only ones on the ride, except on Thunder hawk, and Dominator. They had no machines to scan our passes at parking, so we had to get a refund at guest services, which took forever. We stayed for 2 days, and had a blast, and became one of our favorite parks, being that our family LOVES CCI wooden coasters, and we all really liked Dominator.

The thing that I really wanted to post/ask about though was when we went to go find food for lunch, we wound up into the old water park. We saw that there was what we thought was a restaurant (The circular building on the main pathway). The doors turned out to be locked. We were all kinda confused, and figured that they just didn't have enough staff, but then on our way back to the main park, we were just looking around and saw the lazy river, and just had a feeling we weren't supposed to be there. We then just fastly walked back and found that 50's style hamburger joint and ate.

The question is, was the old water park normally blocked off, or were they careless and just had it unattended and wait for someone to drown in the rain water filled lazy river, and not find for a long time? After the visit I did my research and found out that it was in fact not in use anymore. I just happened to be thinking about memories, and remembered that, and just wanted to know if that was or wasn't blocked off.

Those are just a few memories out of the MANY I have of my only time going to Geauga Lake, and I hope you guys know of my question, or have any other memories!

-MagmMForce247

[jdawg1998]

It really makes me sad that I never got to go to Geauga Lkae. It looked like a great place. Why didn't it get good attendance? It had so many rides!

[Outdoor Man]

there are a handful of people (fans of GL) that are still VERY salty that the place closed- 4 seasons later. any picture I have ever seen of the park since about 2002 had precious few people there. I guess they don't take into consideration that Cedar Fair bought the park hoping it would be profitable and not a charity.

As to your question, I don't know why other than I think piece by piece the care of the ride-side of the park ebbed away into apathy until it eventually closed. that all being said, it is sad what the once bustling grounds has become. I haven't seen any pictures recently, but it is pretty sad.

[jdawg1998]

Is Wildwater Kingdom a good waterpark? I was just looking it up - it seems alright, but a lot of people like it!

[Magm&MForce24/7]

It was a great place. I think attendance was poor because they wiped out the park after 2006, and Cedar Fair's true intention I think from day 1 was to bring all the guest to Cedar Point instead. From my standpoint I didn't think the closing of Geauga Lake really affected the attendance of Cedar Point. They lost a market, and probably lost a some business. I though Wild Water Kingdom was a great water park, and was probably 5 times busier than the amusement park. We were just shocked to see that there was such a huge difference in attendance between the 2. I think from an enthusiast stand point, Six Flags was great in making the park a nice thrilling park, and was nice to see them put in custom rides unlike many other parks that were being transformed into Six Flags' at the same time. BUT I think that also killed the park. They were trying to set competition to Cedar Point, which the park just couldn't stand up to it. Cedar Fair probably wouldn't of closed it if it was like before it became Six Flags. It wouldn't of been any competition to Cedar Point, so they wouldn't of closed it.

Some might think I'm crazy still discussing about Geauga Lake after 4 years, but even after just going to Geauga Lake for 2 days it instantly became special, especially after seeing my dad smile after riding the Villain, after missing The Boss at our home park SFSL, when we lived in Illinois.

-MagmMForce247

[PhantomTheater]

The round building was a gift shop for the old water park, the restaurant Beachcombers which was open still was in the big building behind there.

[bkroz]

I think that the idea of Six Flags Worlds of Adventure was far greater than the reality. After all, a SeaWorld and an expanded, well-invested Six Flags sit across the lake from each other. First off, what are the chances? So to see them combined was truly a strange and perplexing situation. It seemed awesome, of course, from a business point of view, that two opposing parks were now joined by a floating boardwalk, retaining their unique landscaping, architecture, etc. while uniting under one (or six) flags.

The reality, of course, was that Geauga Lake (pre-Premier Parks) had always been a small, family-oriented park. In my experience, I'd say it was similar to modern day Michigan's Adventure. According to what those here have said, Six Flags intended to dump money into expanding their then-newly-acquired Kentucky Kingdom. Kings Island launched a pre-emptive strike by building the Paramount Action Zone area, so Six backed off of Kentucky Kingdom and decided to invest in the Geauga Lake / Six Flags Ohio property. Again, my understanding is that the "Six Flags" side and the "SeaWorld" side lie in two different counties, with SeaWorld's county forbidding building structures above a certain height. Since it was falling behind its three sister parks (who were each getting new coasters,) SeaWorld tried to buy out the rides park, who refused, but counter-offered to buy the animal park.

The result was two parks each meant to cater to very small, local crowds suddenly being marketed to the region. Again, it was a lovely idea and even still the concept is captivating, but the paths were not wide enough, the restrooms were not equipped to handle the patronage they received, and two parking lots continued to exist, so if you ended your day on the wrong side of the park, you had a good 30 minute walk ahead of you. On that note, the only connection for quite some time between the "Wild Life" and "Wild Rides" sides was a long, hot, unshaded, floating boardwalk which switched positions three times in an effort to find the most direct and sensical route between the two. Not to mention, Six Flags undoubtedly found the work required to transport an arsenal of sea creatures to and from Ohio every six months to be very daunting and expensive...

I vilified Cedar Fair for a long time for what they did to the park. I was a pre-teen when the switch occurred, so all I knew was that the themes were gone, the rides started disappearing, and the animals were removed. The truth as I now understand it, of course, is that Cedar Fair was trying to bring the park back to a small, family-oriented day trip place that had no reason or will to compete with Cedar Point, which is not wrong or evil of them. Still, I think the massive change (which had to have been publicly seen as a downgrade) was too much for many to accept. Simply based on area alone, a park that large must be impossible to run efficiently. Didn't it end up being something like 500 acres, even as the reduced Geauga Lake & Wildwater Kingdom?

Basically, I see it as the park having overexpanded far too quickly in far too small an area, trying its darndest to compete with an internationally-recognized park by attempt to cram people into two small family parks combined by a floating bridge. I can't stress enough how many great memories I have there, especially at the Six Flags Worlds of Adventure complex. But the reality of it is that it wasn't able to support itself. I don't think Cedar Fair's purpose was specifically to buy it and redistribute its rides, but it would've been moronic to keep all of its rides there until the bitter end. Firehawk did much more to earn money at Kings Island in 2007 than it could've if it had stayed at Geauga Lake that season. In the end, probably as much in spite of their efforts as because of them, the park couldn't reasonably stay open. I wish it was. I really do. Like I said, it's a very smart, unique, captivating concept that two parks could be combined like that, but the infrastructure wasn't there. "Cleveland," they purported. I have news for you: It was not in Cleveland. It was among farms, Amish communities, and small towns. I visited WildWater Kingdom last week, and passed two horse tack stores, an outlet mall, and a half-dozen big farms. The roads leading to the park were widened from one lane to three (and have now been reduced down to two), and the construction and lane shifts alone were nightmarish. People would forget which of the two massive parking lots they parked in... And the official "Geauga Lake Hotel" (now being re-modeled into a retirement home) was no better than a Days Inn, with no indoor hallways, and three floors of motel-style rooms. It wasn't ready to be the official hotel of the worlds largest Six Flags, and that showed.

EDIT: Though I think Cedar Fair did what it needed to do, I do desperately wish they'd have warned us locals before it closed. Keep in mind that, after it closed for the season, they announced that it would never open again. That was in September, I think? Still plenty of time for them to say, "Come out and share one or two last weekends with us." We, as locals, never got that closure. And Geauga Lake was around a LOT longer than Kings Island, so we had generations of memories. It was a local landmark and a historic destination for many of us. To not get that last chance in the park was hard.

[Dalefan]

Is Wildwater Kingdom a good waterpark? I was just looking it up - it seems alright, but a lot of people like it!

It is a good waterpark. The issue to me is that Six Flags ran Geagua Lake into the ground a few years before Cedar Fair bought them. I went to the park for the first time when Six Flags owned it. I was not impressed at all. Rude workers, dirty park and it was over priced. Cedar Fair bought it and the park got 110% better. The only issue is that the park went backwards on which side got the guests. Lol.

[flightoffear1996]

I went to Geauga Lake the year it closed on my way to Cedar Point. They charged me and extra $5 to park for driving a SUV. While I had fun there I was able to ride all the rides and rode Dominator about 10 times before we left and we only stayed until about 3:00 on a nice weather Saturday. We ended up going to CP later in the day and our passes said we were all ready in the park.

[CedarPointer]

I think the passes will say you were already in the park if you use it at another CF park in the same day... I don't think that's a glitch.

[kingsrattler]

CedarPointer, I think sometime I'm going to have to "enter" Kings Island, then high tail it over to Kings Dominion (just because Cedar Point would be too logical) to test this theory, haha.

[jcgoble3]

I've used my Platinum Pass at both Cedar Point and CP's Soak City on the same day without a problem. Of course, both of those parks are on the same peninsula, so the system may be programmed to accommodate for that, but then it doesn't make sense as to why couldn't it accommodate for other parks as well.

[CedarPointer]

If I were the Paramount Parks employee that designed the system (the system used is the old Paramount Parks one, isn't it?), I would find it really suspicious if someone used their pass at, say, Canada's Wonderland and Carowinds on the same day. It might happen occasionally, but I'm sure it's really rare.