I remember when I was a child, going to Geauga Lake and riding a bunch of rides with my family. Geauga Lake has "kiddie" rides, but they are seriously lacking on the family rides that made the park great. Don't get me wrong, I love coasters, but I also like midway rides. I was looking at a park map from 20+ years ago, and realized how much I missed rides like the flying scooters, tilt-a-whirl (my favorite), rocket ships, rotor, witches wheel, giant slide (you're never too old for this one!), sky glide (How about a sky glide connecting GL to WWK?), Catepillar, Calypso, Boat Ride, Paratrooper, Music Express, etc. Of the few remaining family rides they have - Yo-Yo, Thriller Bees, Spider, Pirate Ride, they are almost all on WWK, with the exception of Hay Baler (aka matterhorn). Then of course there is the space needle which has been standing but not operating for like the past five years. I think it really wouldn't cost a fortune to put in some gently used midway rides that the whole family could enjoy together. We have Cedar Point as a trill park, and they took out X-Flight and Steel Venom (+ Mr. Hydes Nasty Fall a few years back) so we have more room to work with.
The "family" rides they have on the GL side are as follows: Pepsi plunge, Starfish, Merrie Oldies, Dodgems (best Dodgems I've EVER been on!), El Dorado, Haybaler (like you said), Grizzly Run, Americana (Ferris Wheel), Beaverland Mine Ride, and I think that's about it. I think they could really use a full-sized train, maybe connecting GL and WWK? They used to have the Ferry Boats (which I really enjoyed) and they stopped using them, but they still sit there.
E-mail them with your suggestions is about all I can say. I have emailed them a few times and I always get a personal response in the mail, usually about 2-3 weeks later. I recently made a suggestion to them for a certain type of waterslide, and they said they are reviewing my suggestion. It would be nice if they would use my suggestion, and it's not an unreasonable one. (The slide I suggested is WAYYY cool, too!)
When I was little, I went there every summer. I have never been to CP before, and I was scared of any coasters. But I was obsessed with the rotor and my sister was crazy about the skyscraper. We would ride all the flat rides over and over. I remember the wave pool and how I always got hurt in it when the one big wave came at you. No one could ever get me on the big dipper even, and double loop was a "scary upsidedown ride".
I took my 3 daughters to GL last week for the first time since 2000. While we had a decent time, all day, I felt like something about the park was missing compared with my 3-4 visits per summer in the 70s and 80s. A lot has to do with the missing family rides. No matter how you slice it, SF turned GL from a good family park into a lousy thrill park.
I think "family park" needs a steam engine, if not for transportation, just for the sounds. And I think a family park needs a sky ride. How about resurrecting the old sky ride that linked frontier town with the midway at CP? Could it span the lake?
GL has lost so many great, classic rides since the 80s that I just don't think it can ever return to being the family park CF intends. The Bug, Tea Cups, FunHouse, Flying Scooters, Sky Glide, Cyclone (Mouse ride), Music Express, Upside-Down Ferris Wheel, the list goes on of lost family rides. Some of these were given up before the SF purchase, but SF put the nail in the GL coffin when it tried to make GL compete with CP.
I loved Dominator, and I liked Villain better than Mean Streak for a large woodie, but these were walk-on's, and I can't imagine CF putting up with such under-utilized assets.
The rest of the ride side was, well, not memorable. Knoebels provides such a better experience for a family park, and it does it with just 2 wooden coasters (soon to be 3) and free admission. There's the formula for GL, but I'm not sure the Knoebels magic can be recreated at GL.
I figure all the land from the Monorail to old Turtle Beach will be sold, and I figure a few coasters will be moved. Head Spin will go somewhere else for condo space, and perhaps Thunderhawk or Dominator will clear space for a ferry boat dock. I just can't see CF allowing GL to operate 7 adult-sized coasters with annual attendace around 700,000, not when they now own parks in the growing south. For example, Carowinds lacks a floorless (Dominator) and a shuttle coaster (Head Spin).
I agree with some of what you're saying, however, I can't stand the thought of them moving any more rides.
As for the old Sky Ride spanning the lake, I totally agree with this idea, however, it's been posted before that the lake is 80ft deep and they can't put the supports in it. Now, whether or not there's truth to that statement, I don't know.
Actually, from what I've heard, it seems that GL is having a little bit better of a year business-wise, but I don't have any numbers to back myself up. The times I've been there, the parking lot was nearly, if not all the way full, and midways were crowded. However, the lines for the rides still weren't too bad.
I have already made a suggestion (on here) about a full-sized train connecting the 2 parks.
I still have the sneaking suspicion that CF only bought this park to distribute the rides and close it up. Any improvements they've made have been entirely cosmetic and I am sure, low-cost.
I thought Geauga Lake's Halloween Haunt was top notch...better than Cedar Point. They had so many things that you just don't see at other parks. Last year I had emailed GL regarding this and explained to them my disappointment. They replied, via snail-mail, stating that they wanted more people to go to Cedar Point's Halloweekends instead. I was shocked when I read that. My first thought was: "How selfish of them", as if they cannot see that Halloweekends Saturdays are usually filled to the MAX, or even past their capacity.
Does Cedar Fair want no one to have a good time and experience the rides and Halloweekends shows and Fright Zones?
If I recall, part of the reason that GL stopped having the hallow-weekends was due to the fact that they had trouble finding workers. There were plenty of seasonal workers for the haunted houses, but very few trained people left to run the rides. Many times, even when six-flags was operating, you would have great haunted houses, but many of the rides were not operating, due to lack of operators. (Which is quite odd, considering 6-flags will let any moron over the age of 14 run rides, including coasters! - I remember a 15 year old worker who fell from Batman-Knightflight (now Dominator) when the floor went out from under the coaster. My question was what the heck was a 15 year old doing running a coaster?
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