The Geauga Lake Disaster - What Were Cedar Fair's Motives?
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- Опубликовано: 15 июл 2020
- This is a follow-up to how Six Flags' actions led to the demise of this park (see that video here: • How Six Flags Built & ... ) But this time we look at the reasons Cedar Fair bought this park in the first place and what caused them to pull the plug in 2007.
Special thanks to XtremeCoasters Network for their great footage - be sure to subscribe to them here: / xtremecoasters
Video credits:
XtremeCoasters Network: Geauga Lake 2007 - • Geauga Lake Final Seas...
XtremeCoasters Network: Six Flags Worlds of Adventure 2003 - • Six Flags Worlds of Ad...
Cleveland.com: Geauga Lake Rise and Fall - • The Rise and Fall of G...
Wii041: Wildwater Kingdom - • The Final Day of Wildw...
Cedar Fair Commercials: Geauga Lake 2005 - • Geauga Lake & Wildwate...
Jen Wolford: Six Flags Worlds of Adventure commercial - • Six Flags Worlds of Ad...
ElToroRyan: Millennium Force - • Millennium Force Off-R...
Sean Flaharty: Son of Beast - • Son Of Beast Off-Ride ...
Menachem Piekarski: Stealth - • 2002 videos stealth pa...
Sharp Productions: Volcano the Blast Coaster - • Volcano (On-Ride) King...
Sharp Productions: Thunderhawk - • Thunderhawk (Off-Ride)...
Music in this video:
Intro music: Epic and Dramatic Intro Music: • Epic and Dramatic Intr...
Background music (RUclips audio library): End of Time
![NoCap - Yacht Party [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rm_lvDln8kE/mqdefault.jpg)
Definitely doesn’t sit right that they gave no warning and shutdown without people saying their goodbyes.
well thats how business sometimes work
I was there the last day it was open and we all new 100% it was closing. The official announcement was after, but everybody knew.
I visited the park from Pittsburgh in August before it closed, it was my first time there since before Six Flags took control but the park meant a lot to me as we went there every year when I was a teenager. It does suck that they didn't officially announced that they were closing the park for good, but that's the reason I went, everyone knew it was going to close, the writing was on the wall. I went so I can see it one last time before it was gone
No one wanted to say goodbye till it’s to late lmao 700k annual visitors cedar fair dookies that
Why did they need to? Is it really worth getting so much staff retesting the rides and all that other mess when the park closed for the year just for some locals to get 1 last visit. Yea I dont think so. If they wanted to get there last visit they should've went earlier.
I've heard from word of mouth from locals that the reason the park shut down was ultimately a pissing match between CF and the city of aurora. CF wanted a new transformer to make future investments easier, and Aurora said, "okay, build it yourself" and CF was like, "you know how many jobs and how much revenue we provide? You build it." This went on until CF was threatened to close the park, and the city of Aurora called their bluff. Unfortunately, it was NOT a bluff. I've heard this story from loads of people that were local (having lived in north central Ohio a good chunk of my life) and if this is the case, I blame the parties in order of 1- Six Flags, 2-Aurora, Ohio, and 3-Cedar Fair. Either way though, no one came out looking good.
alex seidner I never heard this before but it makes sense. Those are small towns and the super park was too much for the local roads. Plus the land technically takes up two cities and two counties. And the fact that the land hasn’t been sold in all this time probably has to do with some local issue.
Doesn't surprise me. I've lived in Ohio most of my life and I'm familiar with pissing contests involving corporate and local interests. It can get really petty.
Wow. A true Autobots vs Decepticons battle. 🚗
Alex, your description makes the most sense of any I’ve heard. There for along time all people heard was “Cedar Fair bought it to close it.” When one looks at that theory, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see it makes absolutely no sense. Plus, it was no secret there was a pissing match after the park became this huge thing WHEN it was Six Flags. A park that size, with no infrastructure around to support the influx of people after it reopened as Worlds Of Adventure. They came, and they came in DROVES! Six Flags really mismanaged the place. Who’s the last one standing? Sure as hell isn’t Six Flags with all their parks. It’s Cedar Fair. So anyone stating they bought it to close it really needs their head examined.
The fact that Aurora and Bainbridge Township really didn’t seem to want the park and refused to make infrastructure improvements was definitely a big piece of the puzzle.
The reason for the drop in attendance was the closing of the animal exhibit. They closed a major attraction that was there for 20 years, only to replace it with a water park...which already existed on the ride side of the lake. Then, instead of cleaning out the old water park and putting investments into the ride side, they just let it sit there and rot. That gave the impression the CF didn’t care, so guests stopped caring too.
Plus in the same area of the park, Cedar Fair removed Mr. Hyde's Nasty Fall after the 2005 season and X Flight, the monorail and Steel Venom after the 2006 season leaving a dead area of the park.
@@johnfoltz8183 I still remember seeing promotional posters for Mr. Hydes nasty fall when I was in the 1st or 2nd grade lol
@@bobthedopeman7327I grew up in Aurora, and Geauga Lake was my entire childhood. Six Flags killed GL, Cedar Fair was just the pallbearer. It's main purpose was as a gathering place for the locals, and a "best kept secret" for people passing through who just happened to drive by it and decided to stop or plan a trip there. SF tried to turn it into a destination park, but it didn't have the infrastructure to support that plan. We all knew that too. There was no way GL was gonna take any business away from Cedar Point, and SF ran off all the locals who had patronized the park for generations, by doubling the prices of both admission and concessions. When CF bought it we all knew it was on borrowed time. There was no way CF was going to operate another park that was only 90 mins away from CP; all they wanted were those new rides Six Flags installed so they could install them in their other parks. I seriously get a little choked up thinking about what Six Flags did to my home park. I will never attend one of their parks currently in operation because of it.
But with all the money that Cedar Fair has, and having the lock on all the Ohio parks, this park NEVER should have closed, as it WAS making money.
The marine side wouldn't be an issue but CF is not in that type of environment for amusement parks. Made perfect sense to phase out that whole area.
Some might theorize that Cedar Fair was being run by EA at the time. Buying the park, barely doing anything with it, shutting it down, and relocating assets to other subsidiaries.
EA, as in that video game company?
DGB_IceFury yes, that same EA. I don’t know any other companies with that name.
😆 underrated comment
Cedar fair is ea they just dont care they said this eliminate the competion
I was at the park on its last day open. It was surreal. There were hardly any guests and the ride operators let us re-ride the attractions over and over without getting off. The game people gave us a bunch of free stuffed animals. It was sad, really.
I'm so sad and disappointed with myself that I didn't go. My family had season passes every year from 1996 on. I could have gone if I wanted. My family went at some point in the last two weeks. I was being a little surpuss and didn't feel like going, so I stayed home alone. I'm still kicking myself to this day. I said, "eh, I'll go again in the spring." But spring never came. Geauga Lake Park is closed for the season.
I have heard that the City of Arorea and the neighborhood didn't like all the noise that the park made because of noise ordinance people knew the park was there long before they moved into the neighborhood so I put the blame on on not only the neighbors but Cedar Fair and The city Geauga Lake Miss you something awful.
@@ruthietoothie68Those people in Aurora and Bainbridge never knew how good they had it when Geauga Lake Park was open. Where's their tax base now? Serves them right as neither tried to save that park. 😢😢
Did they know it was going to close? Why didn't they tell anyone?
It's such a shame that Busch never bought the park from Six Flags. Given Sea World's approach today, this could have become such a good park.
GrumpyGoomba9 omg yesss
seaworld isnt even doing well at all right now or the last 5 years
@@NickyD SeaWorld was doing very well over the last few years
At one time, Busch actually tried to buy Geauga Lake, but Funtime wasn’t interested. This was long before Premier Parks came along.
I was surprised to hear Busch thought about buying geauga lake. When I worked at gl we always heard rumors of sea world closing or being sold because Busch didn’t like the fact it was closed half of the year because of winter.
What screwed the park was the lack of infrastructure. No highways persay, no hotels, etc...
If I was in charge I would've replaced sea world with a hotel. Missed opportunity
@@Coolsomeone234 People were upset because they took the animals out.
Uh-not quite. There are still hotels nearby and route 480, 14 and 271 are there.
@@aaronwilliams6989 true dat
Aaron Williams I agree. They could have simplified it but removing some of the marine animals and keeping easier to manage land animals.
Airtime thrills: mentions geauga lake
Me: bursts in like the kool aid man to talk about how much I loved geauga lake growing up in every comment
But what about that one guy that was on the rotor everyday. I loved growing up going to geauga lake
“Cold and corporate approach “. - the only way large corporations know how to operate.
The real tragedy would be if sesame place closed 😭
Cries in vapor trail
@@mrgiga5891 Oscar's wacky taxi RIP
Wacky Taxi is better than Candymonium and is the best coaster in P.A.
Is Sesame Place worth a similar price to the total of all the liens against SW? If so, holy heck (toward SW not Sesame Place).
@@jacobellis9752 Uh. Have you seen Vapor Trail?
I think that Cedar fair didn't intend to bring down the park, but I do think that they shouldn't have bought it. I feel that a chain like herschend could've dealt with this better
I think that cedar fair really just underestimated the draw of live animals and how that drove much of the parks demand. That was really what six flags shouldve used to promote the park. No point in competing with cedar point on thrills, and maybe you could even share some business with a week vacation package across the two parks. Cedar point is a 2-3 day park, geauga lake shouldve stayed a mid size park with an extra draw of the live animals, making it also a 2.5 day park
I put the blame 70% on SF and 30% on CF with most of that being, as was pointed out, their lack of understanding on how important the animal side was.
C.f. Does not do Zoos
@@JeffreyPiatt True today. In the past they (Cedar Point) had Jungle Larry (exotic animal zoo and shows) and Oceana (A dolphin show, SeaWorld like shows). Jungle Larry used to perform at the local schools with his animals in the off season.
@@kamX-rz4uy well they probably did just didn't have experience in live animals an didn't want to spend the money on maintaining them. that would probably be in the billions
@Thomas Roy Actually, this was an attraction that was sub-contracted. CF was not responsible for the care or training of the animals.
I blame Six Flags, they were the ones that put Geauga Lake on life supports, and Cedar Fair had no choice but to pull the plug.
Agreed
Sean Lewis
The park was way too built up and too big for what it was suppose to be. A family amusement park that was trying to be like Cedar Point ruined it. Six Flags made it hard for families to have fun and prices were outrageous. No hotels or easy access for guests to get there.
@@kurtwetzel154 what do you mean by outrageous? Because there was little to no inflation on the park's entrance tickets, meal plans or season passes. I in fact got my SP for less when it was SF than I did when it was just GL
@@kurtwetzel154 .................That is EXACTLY right. Wasn't it Six Flags who poured a GaZillion dollars into it? I think so. That sealed it's fate.
I don’t understand the loyalty to Cedar Fair. They could have scaled back a lot and kept the old park making a small profit. Now they’ll be stuck with that property paying taxes on it for decades.
I'd say Cedar Fair did Geauga Lake in back in 1989 when they fired the first shot in the coaster wars. Geauga Lake was caught looking back as they had just, the year before, opened Raging Wolf Bobs which celebrated the Bobs style wooden coasters of the 1920s. Raging Wolf Bob's may have seemed like a strong answer to Cedar Point's 1987 installment of Iron Dragon, but Geauga Lake was in no position to go toe to toe with Cedar Point. As the coaster wars raged on through the 1990s, Geauga Lake, literally stayed afloat with seemingly yearly changes and upgrades to it's water park. Things seemed a little better when Premier Parks bought Geauga Lake, but unfortunately they didn't stop there. Premier kept buying... Rides, parks, even chains of parks, which included the purchase of Six Flags from Time Warner. Realizing the power of name recognition Premier started re-branding all their parks as Six Flags and probably single handedly made Vekomas payroll for the better part of a decade. Their irresponsible spending led them to huge debts which ultimately led to the sale to Cedar Fair. I actually don't think Cedar Fair ever had intentions of operating Geauga Lake any differently than they've operated Michigan's Adventure since its acquisition. I think they had other options to make it work. Perhaps, scaling it down to compete with Kennywood or reverting it back to a free entry, pay per ride park, like Waldameer may have worked better. They could have continued the Geauga Lake water park trends and Cedar Fair's boundary pushing coasters by adding multiple Holiday World scale water coasters. Today that could've even been re-branded as a Schlitterbaun. They could have even converted much of the SeaWorld side (including the parking lot) into a campground. They could have gone very cheap and gone to private pavilion only park drastically reducing the operating hours of the park and controlling the operating calendar based on bookings. Too bad Gene Staples didn't grow up going to Geauga Lake!
Glurgh
@TheSmokinLounge Too bad he's right and makes sense.
That intro was 🔥🔥
I often fantasize about an alternate timeline where it became Busch Gardens Ohio. As much as I love my home parks of Kings Island and Cedar Point, myself and plenty of other Ohioans feel like Ohio has been put in a stranglehold by Cedar Fair. Competition is good, especially in the amusement park industry. The non-competitive nature of Ohio's parks has lead to uninspired rides popping up at Kings Island such as Orion and Diamondback. Yeah, they're fun, but I don't see Cedar Fair putting in any record breaking coasters in Kings Island, as to not overshadow Cedar Point. In short, the industry was much healthier with Paramount, Six Flags, and Cedar Fair competing rather than Cedar Fair owning everything.
I'm 100% sure if Six Flags didn't counter offer or if Sea World entertainment offered a greater amount it would still be Sea World Ohio to this day.
SF Onoitsbroko one side would have been Sea World and the other would have been Busch Gardens
@@amanor409 OMG I couldn't imagine! That would be the ultimate destination park for sure. Wow!
Sea world left, partly ,because it wanted to have animals where it is warmer and
mild all year.
I think if SeaWorld Entertainment attempted to buy the park before the 2000 season when Six Flags renamed the park "Six Flags Ohio" and added 4 coasters, then Six Flags probably wouldn't have counter offered.
@@aaronwilliams6989 shitty sea prison wanted to have coasters and because of the deal with geauga lake they couldn’t build any coasters there.
I worked here when it was the original Geauga lake for 7 years. Thanks for making this video. I met most of my good friends for life here. We’ve always been suspicious cedar fair always intended to close the park as competition. We regular employees never saw ourselves as competition for cedar point. But seeing your videos it’s clear the park outgrew that. The way it was closed really out a bad taste in people’s mouths. Everyone wanted there to at least be an announcement of a final season. We all thought since there wasn’t one cedar fair didn’t want there to be a chance attendance would go back up and make it harder to justify closing the park. Most of my friends are sad they can’t take their children to the place that was really important in the teens ad early 20s. From a more objective pint of view it seems six flags and cedar fair made the same mistake. They bought too much too fast and couldn’t maintain it. I don’t really follow the amusement park stuff as much anymore so I don’t know if this pattern has repeated or people have learned their lessons.
Great video!!! Keep it coming my man!
I agree that Cedar Fair never meant to buy it just to close it. I just think Cedar Fair saw potential in the park at first but quickly realized that all that potential was long gone. So I don't blame Cedar Fair or Six Flags for any of this. At the end of the day, both companies just made impossible decisions that led to unpredictable results.
I think the purchase of the Paramount parks helped seal the fate for Geauga Lake
its CF fault they added too many coasters in one year and it backfired
Cedar Fair never meant to buy it at all...and it wasn’t actually for sale. Kinzel wasn’t even planning to attend IAAPA except that he was to receive an industry award. Six Flags took a chance that Cedar Fair might be interested in buying, and Kinzel recognized a real opportunity. A lot of things clicked just right to make that deal happen.
@@NickyD wasn't that six flags that did that?
Dave's Aquarium Thoughts Yep. It was Six Flags that did that. Not Cedar Fair.
I have an idea!
Do parks with incomplete coaster lineups and say what are some coasters that could complete the lineup
For example, Kings Dominion could use an inverted coaster after losing Volcano, and since Alpengeist is an hour away, and Intamin is an obvious no, I’d go with a Vekoma invert.
Sea World San Diego should get a kiddie coaster for those not ready for Manta, maybe something that isn’t themed to Grover.
Six Flags Discovery Kingdom should get some mild thrill coaster that lacks any kind of inversion.
Got this one on the list, in some shape or form
Soft needs a good woodie
Kings Dominion: Some sort of suspended coaster, rather a slc, flyer, invert, family invert, or some other kind
Kings Island: Traditional looping coaster
Six Flags Over Georgia: Launch coaster
Six Flags Magic Mountain: Giga coaster
Busch Gardens Tampa: Wooden Coaster
Seaworld San Antonio: Traditional looping coaster
Six Flags Over Texas: Thrill wooden coaster
Carowinds: Thrill wooden coaster
Great Escape: Family invert or slc
Silver Dollar City: Some sort of suspended coaster, rather a slc, flyer, invert, family invert, or some other kind
Worlds of Fun: Launch coaster
Canadas Wonderland: B&M invert or B&M flyer
Cedar Point: Thrill wooden coaster
Dorney Park: Modern wooden coaster
Kennywood: Some sort of suspended coaster, rather a slc, flyer, invert, family invert, or some other kind
Six Flags New England: Modern wooden coaster
Indiana Beach: Family Invert
Holiday World: Some sort of suspended coaster, rather a slc, flyer, invert, family invert, or some other kind
Six Flags Fiesta Texas: Wooden coaster
Six Flags Great Adventure: traditional wooden coaster
Psyclone500 TV I think My home park SFOT should get either RMC raptor or S&S launch coaster.
Six Flags Mexico: Launch coaster from either S&S or premier.
Cedar Fair definitely had their part in this, but IMO Six Flags is just as much, if not more to blame. In the early 2000s, Six Flags was building a lot of coasters, but what they did to Geauga Lake was WAY to much.
This one is hard, as someone who was a season pass holder to Geauga Lake since fourth grade (in 1997). Six Flags Ohio was the most excited I had ever been for the property. Did Six Flags set up the park for failure? Yes. But even so, when I visited the park in 2004, during the Cedar Fair era, I was completely underwhelmed, to the point I only visited the park twice that season. And the weird thing is, Cedar Fair did an actually BETTER job revamping the park. Forget the waterpark for a second. Cedar Fair also took attractions such as Pirates in 3-D and Mission: Bermuda Triangle and changed them into quality attractions. Heck, even the Big Dipper had nostalgic ragtime theme music! And the park was much cleaner than during the Six Flags era. The problem was, once you go big, you can't go small again, as Cedar Fair tried to do. The personality that Six Flags provided could not be downgraded to a "ma and pa" sort of vibe that the original Geauga Lake provided. Is Cedar Fair at fault in some ways? Sure. But Six Flags carries the majority of the blame.
I grew up about 20 min away - My family had season passes to SeaWorld in the late 80s and early 90s. My brother worked here as a ride operator and many of my other friends worked there or SeaWorld for summer jobs. There was a middle school lunch table rumor that the flag poles on Raging Wolf Bobs would fall on you at the top of the hill (kids without internet). And the Rotor guy that would "hide" behind the door for full days and just ride the Rotor over and over again.
In 2012, the local sports car club ran autocross events in the old Geauga Lake side parking lot before the surrounding houses complained about the noise. (They also did some police driving training here as well.)
In my opinion, and based on what I remember about local media coverage back then, it was clear Cedar Fair purchased the park to shut it down and eliminate the competition to Cedar Point. Six flags over expanded because the Cleveland / Akron area probably couldn't support a park of that size, but it was CF that killed the park and cut up the pieces and then wouldn't sell to anyone because of a "we might use it someday" thought process.
It seems like CF wanted to sell the land, i dont think theyre sitting on it by choice
wrong CF didnt buy the park to sell it quit the BS SF killed it by putting too many new coasters in one year and people didnt simply go is what did it the park was a goner long before CF toke over ha snothing to do with CP when KI is only three hours away and if that was the case KI wouldnt be around either
Airtime Thrills they definitely aren’t sitting on it by choice, but so far have only been able to sell a small corner to a ford dealership. In 10 years you will probably see a box store on the land and a housing development, which is a damn shame
@@NickyD Geauga lake was only a little more than ONE HOUR away from Cedar Point.
Shame Big Dipper (I think it was called) was lost since it was so old and a classic. Let's just hope all of the other coasters from that era are kept, like the BPB woodies, Cyclone, Giant Dipper and the such
I like the look of El toro
raging bull taking ?
Six Flags struck the fatal blow, Cedar Fair pulled it's life support.
I mean if the cedar fair bought it to close it theory was true than propst to them that's pretty genius
I swear you comment on every one of mr rollercoasters vids🤣 and now I see you on airtime thrills
@@seansanders294 I've been subscribed to airtime thrills for over a year and have commented on his and coaster frenzys videos way before MRC
What about me? I’ve been commenting here for somewhat less than a year, albeit I’ve never watched MRC.
Cold and corporate move but not necessarily a dumb one
@@AirtimeThrills it's one way to eliminate your biggest threat
I don't think I'll ever be able to truly forgive Cedar Fair for how they handled everything. It was handled so poorly. I would absolutely love to know exactly what Dick Kinzel was thinking when the deal was made to acquire Geauga Lake. I don't necessarily believe it was bought with intentions to close it down, that may or may not have been the case. I think it's more likely they were indifferent to it as you stated. However, the fact that the park was announced to close 5 days after the season ended is something that is just sickening. At the very least Cedar Fair could have given this historic 100+ year old park a proper send-off by announcing it's closure a month or two before the end of the season. I have watched news clips online in recent years from the day the closure was announced. In 2007 I was just under 12 years old and we had just been to Geauga Lake probably a couple weeks prior for the last time. I read about the news online that morning. When I watched those news clips recently though, a spokesperson or someone with Cedar Fair at the time was saying they had gone into a meeting that very morning and made a last minute decision to close the park. And I will never buy that for a second. Sure, they may have made the final call that morning as to what they would do, but they didn't just go in one morning and brainstorm this decision. The big wigs of Cedar Fair at the time definitely knew of this decision in advance and what they would likely do with the park. Hearing that being said and how they announced the closing after seasons end will always leave a bitter taste for me to be honest. And honestly it was kind of obvious even during my first visits to the park in 2005 that Cedar Fair was not doing much with what was there. Some areas such as Hurricane Hannah's were so run down and desolate feeling, that whole end of the dry park behind Big Dipper just seemed dead. Not to mention the old monorail track running through that area that had just been left there abandoned. We'll never know for sure what Dick Kinzel and Cedar Fair's intentions were, and even though I don't agree with everything Cedar Fair had done more recently, I think the company is in much better hands now.
I think after 2006 people knew the end was near, including obviously the park officials. I wonder how many people went the last day and knew that was probably gonna be it
@@AirtimeThrills yeah I would like to hear from people who actually visited that last day. I actually recall my own parents questioning the future of the park as well. When I read the news on the computer that morning and was devastated my dad wasn't all too surprised about it. So I'm sure you're right that a lot of people had a good inkling. I was reading some forum posts from back in 2007 a few years back as well and there was speculation going around in the weeks leading up to the end of the season that the park wouldn't be around much longer.
The whole situation was handled like a back alley drug deal. Those bastards KNEW they bought that park to close it.
So tragic, was perfectly fine until Six Flags tried to make it into something it wasn't at a speed too fast for it to handle.
Oh well, in better news La Ronde is getting a limited opening on the 25th with reservations and will be doing a below max capacity (not sure what %) opening on August 3rd
Holy moly dude. Great video
So sad to see this beautiful park empty and in ruins. I find it very upsetting to see places that once held such joy abandoned. Wish I could've gone there.
Geauga Lake's closure was similar to how we found out about Kentucky Kingdom with it was still a Six Flag park. I kind of feel like Six Flags knew they were selling Cedar Fair a sinking ship and were in it to just turn a liability into some hard cash. Cedar Fair probably knew they were not going to be able to turn it into a viable 2nd gate in Ohio around the time they bought out Paramount and decided to cut their losses since they now had the keys to all of Ohio's major parks. Geauga Lake by then was just a loose end that needed to be handled. It's still a big slap in their faces since they still haven't been able to sell the land it sat on but overall I highly doubt they care. It was a dangled in front of them at bait prices, they took the bait and managed to gut it for all it was worth at the expense of us losing a historic park.
One of the best if not the best coaster channel!
Most definitely ❤
Yep seems like cedar fair is a lot more to blame than six flags on this one
Six flags sold there Debt in the park to Cedar Fair. basically the ship was sinking they wanted to sell the scuttle rights to someone else only Ceder fair tried to right the ship they were bought a fleet from CBS full of debt but had a temp license to use there IP to transition them to being Cedar Fair parks GO had the month before opening to remove the WB owned stuff so they didn't get sued.
Excellent video!!! 👌🏼
I always got the vibe that the purchase was mainly to avoid competitors moving in and everything after that was kind of “yeah, whatever”
I love your videos!
Great video 🤗👍🏻
There's a speech online where Dick Kinzel says everyone thought we bought it to close it and that's not true. He said they bought it to stop a rival coming in to compete with Cedar Point and they invested lots of money but they just couldn't compete with Cedar Point themselves.....or so he says.
Personally I blame Six Flags for expanding too much and too quick. The local and park infrastructure couldn't support a huge park like that. Should have just left it alone as a small regional park and it would probably still be open today.
You are 1000% right on your assessment and Kinzel was lying out of his ass if anyone believes that bunk about not buying the park to close it. Hope that haunts hum in his next life. Too bad, because he is a really nice guy 😅
I wonder what would of happened if Busch purchased it. That battle between The lake and the Point would have been incredible. Would of been Coaster War II
there needs to be more rant videos on cedar fair as a company we need to be heard.
Also at the end of the 2005 season, Cedar Fair retired the Intiman first generation Freefall ride, Mr. Hyde's Nasty Fall which I think was located in the section where X flight was. Also after the 2006 season, Cedar Fair also removed the 1969 monorail leaving several dead spots in the park plus the abandoned Hurricane Hanna's section.
The monorail was not removed they just stopped operating it, like the Skyscraper ride. When they closed Mr. Hyde's, which was a problem ride for us, the parts were sent to Cedar Point for Demon Drop, which eventually got moved to Dorney Park. Oh, I said was a problem ride for us, because I was a rides manager for Geauga Lake Park, so this closure was more difficult for people like me who worked at Geauga Lake Park 😢
Wow, just from watching the intro I can tell this will be one of your best edited videos of all time
Six Flags had run the park poorly, and once Cedar Fair got it they decided that instead of spending money to try to improve it they would just ship out what they could and close the park so it wouldn't compete with Cedar Point. Ironic how they had no problem buying and maintaining Kings Island which was also in Ohio.
JCBro2014 The difference is that Cedar Point is for northern Ohio and Kings Island is for southern Ohio like Knotts and California Great America so it wouldn’t make sense for two parks for the northern Ohio clientele
Kings Island was far enough and has a strong passholder base.
I think that they could have made it a pure water park and close Cedar Shores to build out for more dry land rides. Cedar Point also has easy access for guests, where as GL there was no hotel and it was harder to get to the park. I think CP was going to expand the water park, build hotels for it's guests; however, with the purchase of the Paramount Parks and the recession, they couldn't do it.
@@Eddie-yt1dkTo have a lock on 3 parks in one state is great for the portfolio and beats an empty plot of land which is what's there now
Looks like the removal of the wildlife sections was a major factor.
As 6flags added multiple new coasters to the property, they knew what they were buying had the potential for relocation.
I really enjoyed your other video with the history of this park; one I hadn't even heard of!
Worked there in 2000 and 2001...operated the big dipper both years and ship wreck falls...loved it...city of auora wouldn't let them build a coaster over 200 feet...and was a bit far from a major highway
I worked there also 2000-2001 I worked as sweeper my location was but Batman around the corner was the long wood bridge I would take a break and watch the Batman show
@@dustinnunez5077 I remember the batman show they had...loved working there
I don’t think that cedar fair intentionally cannibalized geauga lake from the get-go. I think that once the animals were removed, and the attendance dropped 65%, primarily with the audience they were trying to target with how they were trying to change geauga lake, cedar fair figured: we have attractions; let’s take the rest of our money and run.
And their acquisition of the Paramount parks in 2006 sealed the fate for Geauga Lake.
@@johnfoltz8183How do you figure that to be true?
I have fond memories of Geauga Lake. I love going there as a kid. X Flight was so awesome and then soon after it closed down. Call me spoiled living so close to one of the best parks out there; Cedar Point, which of course is amazing, but I do miss the smaller park feel that Geauga Lake offered. Rest In Peace!
I grew up about 5 miles from the park. I have many memories of Geauga Lake/Seaworld/Six Flags. I even worked for Wildwater Kingdom in the final 5 seasons of operation. The general feeling among the employees and people of the community was that Cedar Fair shut us down to bring guests from the east side of Cleveland to Cedar Point Shores (which was renovated the same year WWK closed) It was such a shame because Wildwater Kingdom was the only thing we had left of our once thriving park.
Did they give an explanation of why they closed?
Also, SeaWorld is also guilty of buying properties in close-ish proximity, shutting it down, and relocating assets to other properties. There used to be a marine park in the LA coast named Marineland which SW acquired then shut down and brought various animals down to San Diego.
Wow! Awesome video. You should get your Masters degree in History, you have great history content! Ps. They absolutely inherited a sinking ship!
This is so amazing! I wonder if you would consider doing a video like this but for SFNO?
Someone already did a decent documentary video about it, so he probably won’t cover it. Same reason why he hasn’t covered Arrow’s history or Kentucky Kingdom’s closure and reopening.
What is SFNO??
Thomas Ledbetter Six Flags New Orleans, the park that was abandoned after being wrecked by Hurricane Katrina.
Unless there's a cerain angle i can find for SFNO i probably won't do it. I may talk about the fight between six flags and the city, who wanted them to rebuild based on their contract
Airtime Thrills you could try a “where would they be now” kind of video for parks like throne in this video, SFNO, or Astro World
Geauga Lake has an interesting history, I still believe to this day that Cedar Fair took over a big mess from Six Flags and they had no choice but to close the park. But I don't agree with the way in which Cedar Fair handled the situation by not making an announcement so guests could get one last ride on their favorite rides. And to see the shape that Geauga Lake is in today is terrible. It would be nice to see something get built on that land!!!
thats not how business work they did annouce a month before the park was closing for good people only cared about the place after it closed for good business sometimes go out quickly without letting people know happens everywhere
They've tried to get the land redeveloped for years now.
Just too much squabbling
and getting nowhere.
@@aaronwilliams6989That's thanks to Aurora and Bainbridge
The two parks were actually very competitive from from the 1960's until the mid/late 80's. When one park added a new attraction , it always got a response from the other. I always felt that Geauga Lake was sort of the underdog, and I usually had more fun there. I have no doubt that CP wanted to eliminate this long-standing competition. I still really miss the park and circumstances surrounding its closure have tainted my view of Cedar Fair.
Imagine "Busch Gardens Geauga Lake" or "Seaworld Cleveland"
Or previously SeaWorld Ohio
Busch Gardens parks are themed after continents, so Busch Gardens Asia? Or Busch Gardens Australia?
Three parks with one ticket wow indeed!
What a let down that was!!! No Octoberfest, Halloween Festivities or the like.. No chance to say goodbye or ride the Big Dipper one last time. Cedar Fair is not going to get any of my money, that's for sure!!!!
I really miss Geauga Lake. I went there a lot growing up. Raging wolf Bob's, big dipper, the double loop and corkscrew were the main coasters there and were all really fun. I do remember going once when 6 flags ran it. I went on the SLC and dont remember it being that bad. I dont remember the Villian but that thing looked sick. Dominator is still fun to ride at kings dominion. I like seeing all the memorable videos though. Good job!
This park would have survived to this day if SeaWorld acquired the Six Flags half of the property. The fall of the park is to be blamed on Six Flags. They expanded way too fast, the pricing didn’t fit for the size of the park (tickets were too cheap). Just another example of Six Flags mid-managing their finds and investments. They have a new CEO now, so that mis-management should stop. As far as Cedar Fair, they got a really good deal. Good companies protect their investments and flagship properties. Cedar Fair’s flagship property and money maker: Cedar Point. So it should come as no surprise that they pulled the plug on the park to avoid someone else moving in to attempt to build a park capable of competing against Cedar Point, and at the same time Geauga Lake was failing. Six Flags basically helped Cedar Fair in this deal
with attempting to build a mega park near Cedar Point, which was stupid. Six Flags has the advantage over Cedar Fair if they reinvest in what they have. Six Flags has 2 major parks that draw crowds from much larger cities. Magic Mountain draws in crowds from LA (a major tourist destination) and Great Adventure draws crowds not only from NJ, but NYC (another major tourist destination) and Philadelphia. Magic Mountain and Great Adventure are capable of competing with, and out-grossing, Cedar Point, if Six Flags reinvests in both of those parks and stops trying to add new parks.
It cost more to go to Elitch Gardens in Denver than Cedar Point. They over charged in Denver.
Six Flags killed it. I live about 10 minutes from Geauga Lake. When 6F took over, locals were seemingly forced into a re-education program, that it wasn’t Geauga Lake any more. We were used to calling it Geauga Lake all our lives. And if you messed up and called it Geauga Lake, we had a pimple faced teenager correcting us.
It pissed a lot of people off. We quit going in droves.
As a SoCaler who visited his Ohio friend in 2001, Six Flags Ohio didn't leave much of an impression on me. Cedar Fair was a more worthwhile amusement park to visit.
OMG. You would have ❤ LOVED Kings Island 😂
Geauga Lakes biggest problem was the fact that the park was located in Bainbridge township. The township has a limit on how high a building or structure can be built. The limit is 300 feet. Not allowing higher “Giga” coasters didn’t allow the park to compete.
That's why Sea World left because they wanted to put in rides and the old fars in Bainbridge wouldn't allow them because SW wanted to build higher attractions and they shot them down, so Sea World left.
Since the closure of Geauga Lake, I’ve gone to one Six Flags Park once (Georgia). However, I’ve gone to a Cedar Fair Park at least once each year. Although, this was the reason I stopped being a cedar fair pass holder for 10years, I will never intentionally go back to a Six Flags Park unless motivated by friends or its free. My point is, Cedar Fair pissed me off with how they tossed Geauga Lake aside, however Six Flags treatment of the park lost me as a customer forever.
What are you going to do now, since the merger between the two?😮
Wow I’m early. Good vid Chris!
i think that cedar fair had plans for the park, but then the paramount deal happened and squashed said plans. also, what was the value of all the rides they relocated? ... i feel like if it was more than 150 million then cedar fair got a pretty good deal.
Geauga Lake was supposed to be the wakeup call that Cedar Fair was a lot more shady as a company than people expected or theorized them to be, but instead, that honor had to go to the Cedar Fair/Six Flags merger and the Top Thrill 2 calamity. This was a sign of things to come, and people ignored it. I wonder how dumb they feel for not paying attention sooner...
Here is the way I see it. Cedar Fair has always billed Cedar Point is their flagship park. Even though Kings Island is quite a drive away, with no really easy direct connection between the two parks, they were always in competition with one another. The "Ohio" rivalry if you will. Cedar Fair felt that really the old Geauga Lake was no real competition to Cedar Point, they just considered it a 'local family park'.
When Six Flags came in, and took over both Geauga Lake, and Sea World to form Six Flags Worlds of Adventure, I do believe that Cedar Fair did become a little worried. After the demise of World's of Adventure, I think Cedar Fair looked at this is a way to broaden their footprint in Ohio, in an attempt to gain more market share away from the Kings Island market.
Then, when the Paramount Parks came up for sale, I think Cedar Fair saw this as an opportunity to take total control of the Ohio market by owning all 3 of the major theme parks in Ohio. I do believe that originally Cedar Fair only wanted Paramount's Kings Island when the Paramount Parks went up for sale. I also believe that Cedar Fair approached Paramount Parks with just that offer - that they only wanted to purchase Paramount's Kings Island, and not the whole Paramount Park chain. I believe that Paramount Parks shot down that offer, and stood firm on the fact that if Cedar Fair wanted Paramount's Kings Island, they would have to purchase ALL of the Paramount Parks. Dick Kinzel was so bent on 'owning Ohio" that he put Cedar Fair under massive debt and then purchased the whole Paramount Park chain.
Then I think Cedar Fair realized that maybe they made a huge mistake in buying all of the Paramount Parks after all with taking on so much debt, just to get Kings Island. They didn't want to loose Kings Island. So - what to do. I now think that they then realized that hey, we really don't need Geauga Lake, so let's just sell it off and use that money to recoup some of our costs. So, that 's exactly what they attempted. But, before they could really actually sell the park and or the land, the economy tanked, and then the housing crunch hit. No one was interested in purchasing an amusement park, so they thought they could sell the land the park sat on. Well, with the housing crunch, they couldn't sell the land either, so, now it sits - empty.
Bottom line, I think that if Cedar Fair would not have bit off more than they could chew purchasing the whole Paramount Parks chain, Geauga Lake would still be around to this day. But, nope - Cedar Fair was so greedy just swallow up it's main competition to the South that it drowned themselves in way too much debt, and Geauga Lake ended up on the short end of the stick.
So sad - indeed. But - this is what I think ultimately happened, but, I know, Cedar Fair will never admit to it.
Just my thoughts.
You are 1000% correct in your assessment. CF having all 3 parks in Ohio and in their portfolio would have been GREAT. Buy these greedy bastards killed a profitable and historic (119 year old park) and killed it.
I blame Six Flags for delivering the fatal blow to Geauga Lake but Cedar Fair for refusing it the care it really needed and then simply harvesting it for organs rather than giving it a proper funeral. Cedar Fair is more than capable of running small amusement parks competently and should've been making efforts to make the park small again. Spinning off the water park, relocating the larger thrill coasters to other Cedar Fair parks that needed them, finding a suitable alternative to animal shows, and bringing in more family friendly attractions could've helped to save the park. In the end, though, Cedar Fair made the realization that the park was worth less than the sum of its parts and acted accordingly.
The Microsoft Movie Maker feels are so real with that epic intro!!!!!
No doubt that Cedar Fair bought this park to make sure Anheuser-Busch didn't. That HAD to be the largest reason, no doubt in my mind. I also think a secondary reason for the purchase was that Cedar Fair also had a ton of cash on hand and was looking to get more aggressive in park expansion for their stock holders, even if buying a park just 90 minutes away from Cedar Point was a risky move. But they probably didn't realize that they were about to be able to buy all of the Paramount parks, which were in much better condition and not directly competing with current properties of theirs, so when that transaction went through they had very little reason to continue their expansion at Geauga, since that money would be much better spent at their new properties.
The reason I'm so sure about my number one reason though is that a Busch Gardens or Seaworld transforming the park would have been a far better outcome for the park itself, but given they would have kept the animals around, undoubtedly would have fixed the infastructure/poor management issues that Six Flags is infamous for, and would have generally kept the park's best features- Cedar Fair would have had serious competition in the area. Given it was once pulling in over 3-and-a-half million guests in a year (a HUGE attendance number for any seasonal park, let alone one with such heated competition with Cedar Point), Cedar Fair 100% saw this park's existence as something drawing crowds away from The Point... because by all accounts it must have been. Under the better management of Busch it only would have gotten worse for Cedar Fair.
Later into 2020 after this video was uploaded, the Portage County portion of the Geuaga Lake land was sold to PulteGroup and the Geuaga County portion of the Geuaga Lake land was sold to Industrial Commercial Properties.
And neither one of them have any ideas of what to do with it. 😢
With how Sea World went to more rides with their animal life parks. I think if they had bought it; it still be open today.
If SeaWorld's present day park model was running back then, they would have bought it. They had the interest in the park and tried to buy Geauga Lake but decided to sell SeaWorld when SF countered the deal.
Dave's Aquarium Thoughts it was running back then, just on a smaller scale than they do today. Sea World also owns Busch Gardens.
That's what they wanted to do but Bainbridge said NO, causing Sea World to leave. 😢
I shed a tear everytime i drive by
You should do more videos talking about defunct parks like this. Maybe Hard Rock Park or Astroworld?
I don't believe CF purchased the property with the intention to close it. I think the staggering drop in attendance and a potential recession forced CF to close the park.
I attended this park in its three different forms over 20 years. Geauga Lake was a nice family park with Sea World across the lake. As a SF park it was overwhelming and disorganized. It didn't take long to see that SF wasn't the best at maintaining rides. With CF it was clean, tidy, attractions were maintained but the park was rarely ever busy when I went.
Six Flags drew out potential but didn’t provide the resources necessary. Cedar Fair did what they had to do, but knowing what it could’ve been nowadays is what hurts the most.
Video idea: top 10 coolest coaster trains
They should’ve just sold it to Herschend Entertainment rather than have it demolished. If anything Herschend would’ve probably found a way to manage the park without going into debt.
What an epic intro
I live about 25 minutes from Geauga Lake and about 90 from CP. I went to GL at least once a year. Between 2007 and 2022 I went to Cedar Point exactly once. Do the math on how much revenue Cedar Fair lost from me in the span of 15 years and multiply it by the number of northeast Ohioans who could casually go for a few hours. Terrible decision, and I miss The Big Dipper every summer.
That was the first Amusement park I ever went to. I was in in 3rd grade and I think it closed like 3 years later. So weird seeing it abandoned and empty
yes I agree with all of this
imagine. in another world there is no rona and SeaWorld bought the park, they turned it into a resort and added Busch Gardens Ohio next door and turned into a massive destination resort.
So happy more people are talking about this!! I was so sad when it closed!
I mean, it's not much worse than turning one of my home parks into a 365 day a year cash cow for Cedar Point and Kings Island yearly additions. Knott's gets the shaft so much and it's a wonderful theme park that truly deserves better... no other park could survive so close to Disneyland and the revitalized DCA, there is a reason Knott's is still around. Is anyone that impressed by Hangtime? That was what we got after 14 years of waiting for a legit coaster since the addition of Silver Bullet in 2004
Meanwhile Orlando has 13 theme parks and 3 more a hour away.
When it was a six flags park I almost went to it but something happens to stop it from happening. But fan fact before dominator was sent to Kings Dominion it was rumored to go to Kentucky Kingdom.
Cleveland is a major city where Cedar Point draws from. Cedar Pointed to eliminate the competition
Let’s gooo part 2!!!!
I place more blame on Six Flags than Cedar Fair. Too much growth, to quickly. They took the park away from the successful family park model that had worked for more than a century. By the time Cedar Fair acquires the park, attendance was dropping and maintaining an unprofitable park heading into the recession was a serious problem for Cedar Fair. The other problem is the local government never developed the infrastructure that that park needed to consistently support several million people in attendance each year, but I’m sympathetic to the city of Aurora because infrastructure development takes many years and a ton of revenue to pay for it, probably more revenue than the City was earning from the park. Given how quickly Six Flags grew the park, the City of Aurora was left in the dust.Six Flags could have just as easily invested in more hotels in the area to take some of the pressure off of Aurora to focus on road development and upgrades to any other infrastructure that the park needed. Look at all of the lodging options at Cedar Point versus what was available at Geauga Lake. Overall, I think by the time Cedar Fair acquired the park, it was too little, too late to gradually return to a local, family park. Maybe if the recession didn’t happen, things would have gone differently. In any case, it’s a damn shame what happened to that park.
Love this!! 😁😁😁
I remember entering the park and always smelling a sewer smell. I think their septic system was very antiquated.
Nice vid.
I always wondered why Cedar Fair straight up shut this place down. I think if they continued to scale back on the major attractions and focused more on the family aspect, it would still be around today. Great video btw!
EXCELLENT VIDEO as always ❤😂😅
Six Flags pulled out because the city wouldnt let them build any newer taller rides, i went to a board meeting when they voted new growth, Six Flags was goint to build new road they wanted to build new coaster in exchange and the city said no, so Six Flags wanted out. And we all know Cedar Fair only wanted to buy it to close it,look at how run down the rides got at the end. Lets call it as it is, Cedar Fair knew what they were doing from the word go
It was a sinking ship. The recession made them less confident in the park's underperformance.
People probably made a mini vacation by going to Geauga lake and Sea world for many years. Then they did the same thing when it was Six Flags World’s of Adventure. Then in 2004 they realized that there were no more animals or a park dedicated to animals, and attendance slipped
I agree that Six Flags was more responsible for the ultimate failure of the park, but Cedar Fair's treatment of Geauga Lake felt more cruel.
Both mini-docs in this series are excellent.
I put the blame on both Six Flags and Cedar Fair equally. Six Flags went on a crazy unsustainable buying spree by leveraging itself several times over, which included their Sea World purchase at Geauga Lake. I'm willing to bet it was one of Six Flags' most expensive parks to operate given its size and the number of attractions it had to operate and maintain. So getting it off of their books when the inevitable bankruptcy happened was the logical thing to do. Cedar Fair was able to pick up this entire property up at a liquidation sale price. I think Cedar Fair thought they got a bargain. Instead what they got was a nightmare. The first bad decision they had made was buying the park. The next one was building a water park across the lake from ANOTHER WATER PARK. Why not just keep the Hurricane Harbor open and add to it? Why not just sell the land where the closed sea life portion of the park sat? Stupid. I think the lower amount of attendance (due to the closure of the Sea World portion of the park) and their spending a fair amount of money on a second water park nobody wanted is what made them decide to try to cut their losses and walk away. What I find fascinating today is that nobody wants the land where the parks used to sit. It makes me wonder if this particular area of Ohio is considered valuable enough for real estate investment. Either way Cedar Fair lost more than they gained on this deal. Even now they still have to pay taxes on the land they can't get off of their books. Yes they got rid of a competitor but I think the price they paid is too high to have made that worth their while.
That said, I agree they screwed over the folks who were fans of the park. I think they were just so desperate to get it off their books they didn't give that any thought. I think back then Cedar Fair was less concerned about their appearance as a chain as they are today.
I lived most of my life like 10 minutes from the property. It’s just a big empty eyesore and reminder of what was there. There have been rumors about about big grocery stores buying the land but it never comes through. I know some of the land near the lake is like swamp land. The coasters that were built along the edge of the lake were technically floating. I guess that’s part of what makes it hard to sell
One of the most intelligent posts on here. 1000% agree😅 hokeyman!!!