The Beach Waterpark is for sale!

[BoddaH1994]

Doesn’t look good for our friendly neighbors to the north!

https://coasternation.com/the-beach-waterpark-at-adventure-landing-is-listed-for-sale/

[IndyGuy4KI]

Here is the real estate posting.

https://www.anchor-associates.com/property/the-beach-waterpark/

[CoastersRZ]

I`m kind of surprised that they lasted as long as they did.  The place hasn`t seen any major investments in the last several years.  Hard to compete with Kings Island right next door.  I remember going to their "HolidayFest" event and riding the pedal boats in the lazy river.

[Snowball]

Every year for the past 5 years I've thought it's their last season. Looks like this could be it.

[flightoffear1996]

I haven't been since I was way younger. It on extremely hot days it was the place to go over Kings Island water park. Hardly any lines.  

[KIghostguy]

There are a couple of interesting Kings Island connections. The Beach was the brainchild of Walt Davis, a top Kings Island executive from 1978-1984, who wanted to...well, that’s a story I’m saving for my book.

Additionally, the general manager of The Beach for many years was the sister of Dean Nahrup, who was Kings Island’s general manager from 1988-1992. Many of the slides at The Beach were built by Nahrup’s father, Walter.

[BoddaH1994]

2 hours ago, KIghostguy said:

There are a couple of interesting Kings Island connections. The Beach was the brainchild of Walt Davis, a top Kings Island executive from 1978-1984, who wanted to...well, that’s a story I’m saving for my book.

Additionally, the general manager of The Beach for many years was the sister of Dean Nahrup, who was Kings Island’s general manager from 1988-1992. Many of the slides at The Beach were built by Nahrup’s father, Walter.

The manufacturer of most of their slides was a company called Surf Coaster. I was asked to research them but found nothing. Was that his company? 

[gforce1994]

https://www.citybeat.com/arts-culture/culture/blog/21097174/the-beach-waterpark-in-mason-is-for-sale?utm_source=featurefollow&utm_medium=home&utm_campaign=hpfeatures

[MDMC01]

I haven't been to The Beach in years; I remember going a few times as a kid and it was fun (but I was always bummed you couldn't pet the goats on the way to Snake River Rapids (not sure what it's called now, but it looks like there is a mat racer attached to it). The last time I went was for the tubing hill and I was underwhelmed. I hear it is a ghost town now and its nice in that regard.

[KIghostguy]

6 hours ago, BoddaH1994 said:

The manufacturer of most of their slides was a company called Surf Coaster. I was asked to research them but found nothing. Was that his company? 

I think it might have been, but the article I read really did not go into a lot of detail about his work.

[IndyGuy4KI]

WCPO story. Not really anything we don't already know. 

https://www.wcpo.com/news/crime/mason/could-southwest-ohio-lose-its-only-beach

[gforce1994]

18 minutes ago, IndyGuy4KI said:

WCPO story. Not really anything we don't already know. 

https://www.wcpo.com/news/crime/mason/could-southwest-ohio-lose-its-only-beach

I see a discrepancy of an acre.

[Oldiesmann]

I worked at The Beach as the main Dippin' Dots guy in 2006 and later at their donut shop during Holiday Fest. It was a fun place and definitely unique compared to KI's water park (real sand, lots more trees, a bit more variety, etc.), though I never did make it back there following the 2006 season except for a visit for Beach Mountain with several other KICers several years ago. I was a bit surprised to hear of their financial troubles but hoped that the new ownership in 2012 would take care of the park. It seems they completely forgot about it as well.

[MDMC01]

So, you're saying you had the inside scoop, @Oldiesmann?

 

Other assorted memories I have of The Beach are as follows: That high dive "cliff" that went down really deep (like, it wasn't that high up off of the ground, but it was long way to the bottom). the triple slides, the year Volcanic Panic (the slide at the front near the wave pool) opened and being really excited for that, the first time I rode Aztec Adventure my friend and I didn't weigh enough (we were kids), getting water in my eyes from the drop when I did finally ride it (it was also my first "water coaster"), getting sick airtime on the Bansai (the racing slide) just by lifting yourself off the slide before the drops, getting stuck on Hidden Rapids, finally getting up the courage to do The Cliff (that was like a big deal as I was always scared of it as a kid), the Twilight Zoom, the unique layout of Snake River Rapids, that weird really wide slide near the enclosed one, said enclosed slide freaking me out a little, that rope bridge to get to said slides terrified me as I thought it would break... I think that's it for now

EDIT: Looks like Queen City Disco has an article about The Beach's closure... in 2012! Link: http://queencitydiscovery.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-beach-waterpark-all-dried-up.html

[calakapepe]

Oh no! Hopefully someone buys it again this time, but can outlast this current owner's successes. KI will need to expand SC if we don't have another water park option in the immediate area. We already run out of seats with the many we currently have.

[gforce1994]

On 11/16/2019 at 8:38 AM, calakapepe said:

Oh no! Hopefully someone buys it again this time, but can outlast this current owner's successes. KI will need to expand SC if we don't have another water park option in the immediate area. We already run out of seats with the many we currently have.

It’s done for according to the listing. Question is, would you like to see a mall on that location?

[Outdoor Man]

On 11/12/2019 at 7:38 PM, BoddaH1994 said:

Doesn’t look good for our friendly neighbors to the north!

https://coasternation.com/the-beach-waterpark-at-adventure-landing-is-listed-for-sale/

Friendly.  What planet are you on? 

They, unfortunately, had a GM since 2014 that was decent fiscally but a PR nightmare which everyone but ownership observed.  Middle management staff was largely a revolving door.  

It could have been much better than it turned out.

 

[silver2005]

12 hours ago, MDMC01 said:

So, you're saying you had the inside scoop, @Oldiesmann?

Channeling your inner Terpy I see. 

I think this is it for The Beach, too.  Not only with the neighbor to the south, but even more so with Coney Island announcing they're going all in on their water park. 

[HarvestmanMan]

1 hour ago, silver2005 said:

Channeling your inner Terpy I see. 

I think this is it for The Beach, too.  Not only with the neighbor to the south, but even more so with Coney Island announcing they're going all in on their water park. 

Really hoping it's not curtains for both The Beach and Coney...

[silver2005]

^No way both go.  Having one fills in a niche for people who can't afford to go to KI.  

[Delirium13]

Maybe Coney could scoop up some of the Beach's slides? Guessing their age may make that not so attractive, but I would think buying and doing a little refurbishment would be an easy way to expand the slide count for Coney at a low cost?

[BoddaH1994]

11 hours ago, Delirium13 said:

Maybe Coney could scoop up some of the Beach's slides? Guessing their age may make that not so attractive, but I would think buying and doing a little refurbishment would be an easy way to expand the slide count for Coney at a low cost?

Unlikely. Their slides have greatly exceeded what most would consider end of life. All except the Riptide Racer, in which the legality of ownership may be questionable. 

[Skyrider]

It is a shame that it looks like The Beach waterpark is closing again.  I worked there for one summer before the first time they closed and got their new ownership.  I always thought they should have offered a big discount to season pass holders of Kings Island for general admission tickets and/or a huge discount to buy a season pass.  Some years I would buy a season pass to The Beach just to use on the crowded days at Kings Island's waterpark.  I think they could have survived if they gave Kings Island season pass holders a real perk to also get a Beach pass too.

[Oldiesmann]

They already had a bargain on passes under original ownership (prior to their initial closure) - towards the end of the season they had a BOGO sale on season passes which also included unlimited access for the remainder of the current season, plus Holiday Fest. This includes the year that Paramount brought Winterfest back but still required passholders to pay. I think with some updates and better marketing they could have succeeded longer.

[BoddaH1994]

Their most recent marketing was buy a 2018 season pass and get 2019 for free. Same offer as most of Cedar Fair, just marketed the other way around.

The Beach was very clear that they had a very successful Holiday Fest in 2005 with how Winterfest was blundered. All it did was draw attention to theme park Christmas events. All really was was a ploy to market season passes. 
 

The Beach has a million coulda-woulda-shoulda scenarios that you can discuss all day for the Beach being successful. It comes down to several umbrella issues:

-Customer service, as @Outdoor Man states, they’ve had some leadership members that were both PR and HR nightmares. If you look at the reviews of the location you will see nothing but negative reviews about one specific person who was at the helm for several years.

-Employee issues, see also the statement above. Staffing there is very difficult. Lifeguards make a killing compared to their peers in the industry. This is because the job is tough and often boring. Both KI and GWL pay their guards very well for this reason and still have staffing issues. The Beach paid just over minimum wage. I visited in the middle of summer and they could only open 3 rides at a time because they just didn’t have a staff. That doesn’t even include the revolving door that was all of the management positions. Again, see the above bullet point.

-Facility issues, things like an overload of leaves in the pools, decks that should have been replaced years ago, “real sand” that was years old, packed down, and rock hard. Often pumps would go bad and they’d run 2 or 3 slides off of one pump when they should each have their own. That’s why people are getting stuck on some slides, including at the top of the iconic Cliff. 

-Stooged off opportunities. When the park reopened they had to make several desperate calls to get members of the media to come out for its media day. Why? They FORGOT TO MAIL OUT THE INVITES. You can’t make this stuff up. They also were unsuccessful in garnering the correct media attention for Beach Mountain. Their former PR, a woman named Nancy, did several live hits out of Dayton. She just didn’t have the contacts to do the same in Cincinnati. No one’s coming to your water park from Dayton.

-Broken promises - The park’s first GM of the Adventure Holdings era was a man named Ralph Valardo. Good guy to have around. Well connected. He went on every news station and talked about their two new attractions for 2014: a Soarin’ Eagle Zip Line and a mat racing slide. The zip line opened in 2014 (an up charge, no less) and they seemingly forgot about the mat racer until late into the 2015 season when it finally opened. 

-Marketing - I’m not going to sit here and write a hindsight marketing plan for them, but it’s pretty telling when the average person in Cincinnati doesn’t know that The Beach had reopened years ago. 

 

[silver2005]

^I attended and covered that media day when I was a staff member at Coaster-Net, and in hindsight, its pretty telling they let us at the media day considering we were one of the smaller park news outlets at the time.  

I also am aware that the owners have other attractions across the country.  How are those holding up in comparison, @BoddaH1994?

[BoddaH1994]

1 hour ago, silver2005 said:

^I attended and covered that media day when I was a staff member at Coaster-Net, and in hindsight, its pretty telling they let us at the media day considering we were one of the smaller park news outlets at the time.  

I also am aware that the owners have other attractions across the country.  How are those holding up in comparison, @BoddaH1994?

Hard to compare. They have two other water parks in Jacksonville which I understand do rather well. Everything else is an FEC of one sort or another so it would be an apples to oranges comparison. The Beach is their biggest property. 

[Outdoor Man]

2 hours ago, BoddaH1994 said:

Hard to compare. They have two other water parks in Jacksonville which I understand do rather well. Everything else is an FEC of one sort or another so it would be an apples to oranges comparison. The Beach is their biggest property. 

* Was.

[MDMC01]

19 hours ago, BoddaH1994 said:

Their most recent marketing was buy a 2018 season pass and get 2019 for free. Same offer as most of Cedar Fair, just marketed the other way around.

The Beach was very clear that they had a very successful Holiday Fest in 2005 with how Winterfest was blundered. All it did was draw attention to theme park Christmas events. All really was was a ploy to market season passes. 
 

The Beach has a million coulda-woulda-shoulda scenarios that you can discuss all day for the Beach being successful. It comes down to several umbrella issues:

-Customer service, as @Outdoor Man states, they’ve had some leadership members that were both PR and HR nightmares. If you look at the reviews of the location you will see nothing but negative reviews about one specific person who was at the helm for several years.

-Employee issues, see also the statement above. Staffing there is very difficult. Lifeguards make a killing compared to their peers in the industry. This is because the job is tough and often boring. Both KI and GWL pay their guards very well for this reason and still have staffing issues. The Beach paid just over minimum wage. I visited in the middle of summer and they could only open 3 rides at a time because they just didn’t have a staff. That doesn’t even include the revolving door that was all of the management positions. Again, see the above bullet point.

-Facility issues, things like an overload of leaves in the pools, decks that should have been replaced years ago, “real sand” that was years old, packed down, and rock hard. Often pumps would go bad and they’d run 2 or 3 slides off of one pump when they should each have their own. That’s why people are getting stuck on some slides, including at the top of the iconic Cliff. 

-Stooged off opportunities. When the park reopened they had to make several desperate calls to get members of the media to come out for its media day. Why? They FORGOT TO MAIL OUT THE INVITES. You can’t make this stuff up. They also were unsuccessful in garnering the correct media attention for Beach Mountain. Their former PR, a woman named Nancy, did several live hits out of Dayton. She just didn’t have the contacts to do the same in Cincinnati. No one’s coming to your water park from Dayton.

-Broken promises - The park’s first GM of the Adventure Holdings era was a man named Ralph Valardo. Good guy to have around. Well connected. He went on every news station and talked about their two new attractions for 2014: a Soarin’ Eagle Zip Line and a mat racing slide. The zip line opened in 2014 (an up charge, no less) and they seemingly forgot about the mat racer until late into the 2015 season when it finally opened. 

-Marketing - I’m not going to sit here and write a hindsight marketing plan for them, but it’s pretty telling when the average person in Cincinnati doesn’t know that The Beach had reopened years ago. 

 

Oof.

And now that you mentioned it, I do remember a slide being closed (and I'm pretty sure it opened later in the day) as well as one of the pools (I wanna say it was the kid's area or the adult pool near it) being closed during one of my visits.

EDIT: Also, which slide was "Riptide Racer" and why do you say "the legality of ownership [of the slide] may be questionable"? Like, did The Beach not own the slide?

-MDMC, curious...

[BoddaH1994]

2 hours ago, MDMC01 said:

 

EDIT: Also, which slide was "Riptide Racer" and why do you say "the legality of ownership [of the slide] may be questionable"? Like, did The Beach not own the slide?

-MDMC, curious...

Riptide Racer is the “new” mat racer and was manufactured by Arihant, an Indian company that makes knock off models. Many of their models in their literature they give out at IAAPA are labeled as, “Not available in the US due to patent disputes.” Whether Riptide falls under this heading is something I don’t know. If they had trouble importing it into the USA then it would account for them opening it a year and a half late.