The good and the bad

I am still in shock over Cedar Fair's Buying of Six Flags Worlds of Adventure. While SF had its problems I did like the place and in theory liked what they tried to do by combing a waterpark, wildlife park and amusement park. They did give us Ohio's first floorless coaster, a great new wooden coaster and Ohio's only flying coaster.

I did like the animal entertainment that the park offered. I hope Cedar Fair might be interested to starting its own wildlife park on the site. many people enjoyed Jungle Larry's and Oceana over the years and it would be great if Cedar Fair offered this again.

What will happen with all of the coasters? Will Batman and Superman get new themes? Granted the themeing on Superman was not all that great but Batman was decently themed. And what about the Looney Tunes area? Would 2 Camp Snoopy's and hour away from each other be too much?

In retrospect this park was never really built as a theme park and other than a few themed rides did not seem much like a Six Flags park, at least a pre-Premier Six Flags park.

It will be very interesting to see what Cedar Fair does with the park and what it will mean for Cedar Point? What new rides will they add? How will CF deal with Geauga Lake's neighbors who will fight probably and new ride of any height? The coming season will be very interesting indeed.

If Cedar Fair does restock the animal park and open it back up, that would be great. But, they need to make it a separate gate. Call it something like Cedar Point's World of the Sea. I don't really see that happening however.

What would be a good use for the Sea World property would be to keep it as an entertainment venue instead of rides, but re-theme it into something like Downtown Disney. A Key West theme would be outstanding. Keep it open 'till late at night, I could even see it being a year round operation with the right mix of shops, bars and entertainment.

Plus the marketing synergy between CP and GL/Key West North would be incredible. A shuttle between the CP resorts and Key West North for a night out for CP hotel guests? You bet! The entire package would consist of the Worlds Best Amusement Park with beach resort, another nice thrill park and a hot, themed entertainment venue. All this along with the other Cleveland attractions. I think this could turn out to be an excellent deal for the entire region, and I bet there are some Cleveland officials that are VERY excited about this whole deal.

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I'd rather be in my boat with a drink on the rocks,
than in the drink with a boat on the rocks.

*** This post was edited by Pete 3/10/2004 3:08:48 PM ***

You know Pete, I kind of hinted at that in a post in the other topic. I'm glad I'm not the only one who see the tourism possibilities.

Makes you wonder huh.

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- Chris -

Who says CF is going to beef up Geauga Lake? Sure they'll clean it up and such, but why put in a huge new ride when your other park is known for that. I think they will and should keep Geauga Lake like it was pre-Six Flags. A small, fun park that the whole family can enjoy. Cedar Point is the thrill park... they are not going to try to compete with it in that aspect.

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'04 TL Power Tower
'03 WT crew/ATL Sky Ride
'02 WT crew

I can see them improving the rides that are currently there and use GL as a place to set up some great flats and add moderate coasters over time...very similar to most of the other CF parks. I think that it's going to be great to see the name "Geauga Lake" again =)

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20 year member of ACE. Time flies when you're having fun =)
*** This post was edited by Scott 3/10/2004 8:42:36 PM ***

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Pete said:
What would be a good use for the Sea World property would be to keep it as an entertainment venue instead of rides, but re-theme it into something like Downtown Disney. A Key West theme would be outstanding. Keep it open 'till late at night, I could even see it being a year round operation with the right mix of shops, bars and entertainment.

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Wow, Pete. I love that idea. Unfortunately, I don't see something like that happening. I personally think we'd be lucky to see the wildlife side open again.

On the topic of building the park up: I think that over time they will, but for now I think that we'll just see improvements on what already exists. Why compete with your flagship park using a park that has already been in competition with it?

This purchase is all about removing the competition from the picture. Why compete with yourself? Spread your customers out and you'll be wearing thin. Market the two parks differently to two different groups (thrill seekers and family park-goers) and you'll succeed.
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- John
I Snap Flyers

In yesterday's Cedar Fair conference call it was made pretty clear that CF does not have any intention to restock the animal park with Kinzel saying that animal attractions were not Cedar Fair's forte. It was also suggested that some parts of the nearly 700 acres could possibly be sold off, Note that's almost twice the size of Cedar Point. CF did not purchase any Warner Brothers rights so all themed rides will be renamed. The conference call indicated that what Matthew says above is the plan at least for now.

Will Cedar Point Season Passes work at Geauga Lake this year?

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C.P. Visits in 2003: 20
Dragster Rides: 18 (2 Front Row)

No.

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I'd rather be in my boat with a drink on the rocks,
than in the drink with a boat on the rocks.

I think it is a good move now cf can put in coasters that don't have to be the tallest,fastest,and the longest. Mabe cp will beable to move some of there rides to geauga lake to make room for there record breaking coasters.

Let me guess they would do that because Cedar Point is running out of space right? They are not running out of space. Ok now that I got that out of my system.

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'04 TL Speed Zone
'03 Speed Freaks (Hats n Such)
TTD 72 rides (2 nonpaid rollbacks, 5 paid rollbacks)
TaeKwon-Do First Degree Black Belt. (1st dan)

Space is not an issue and will not be an issue at CP for a long time. Here is a picture from a few years ago:
http://said.uc.edu/students/oakleysd/cp/CP.jpg Notice how much space the park has for expansion in all directions. Coasters at Cedar Point don't even weave in and out of eachother like at other parks yet. They have tons of room. Your right speedzonetl04.
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C.P. Visits in 2003: 20
Dragster Rides: 18 (2 Front Row)

The Cleveland Plain Dealer 3-11-04 has an article which says CP passes can't be used at Geauga Lake this year, but they MIGHT consider a combo pass for both parks next year. My problem is this: I have passes to both CP and Six Flags. I mainly wanted to use the Six Flags passes for Six Flags parks in other states. Does anyone out there know if we can still use the 2004 Six Flags passes (that are already processed) for other Six Flags parks even though our Ohio park has been sold? Maybe Walt can help me out. I already had my summer vacation all planned. Thanks!

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Loyal Mean Streak fan 4ever:)

Well, there still has to be the execution of what seems to be a tradition now. The moving of a ride or two from CP to the newly aquired park. Maybe that tradition isn't true, but several rides have been moved to CF's new aquisitions shortly after aquiring the parks.

I think it is possible that we could see at least one of CP's flat rides headed up the road to GL. Then the purchase of a few more flat rides or circular rides in general to up the ride count to 70 or 71 in the next few years. Mostly to even out areas where several coaster entrances are located. Such as Wildcat, Iron Dragon, Mantis, MF. I'm not sure where you could sqeeze a new ride area in this next group without a bottle neck spot in the park, but on the flip side of the lagoon, you have Magnum, TTD, Corkscrew, and because of it's thrill factor, Power Tower. Right now it's more or less a band of Coasters in that middle section of the park minus Super Himalaya and the Train.

A few flat rides might give an entire family more places to stop instead of having to go from front to back without stopping wearing their feet out or racking up train miles. The families might be able to spend a little more time together before they split up for the thrill riders to ride. Or they could spend the day vice versa. I remember hearing a lot of people complaing that they had to walk from the front to the back now since Troika and Chaos were moved.

So maybe some family oriented rides are in store in this band across the park. With maybe 1 or 2 current flat rides departing for GL.

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- Chris -
*** This post was edited by Flisk 3/12/2004 2:14:13 PM ***

Ginger: in the worst case, you can get another pass at the first SF park you visit, returning your WoA pass for a refund. None of them are ever much more than 80-90, and most are closer to 60.

Brian: thanks for advice. I think that's what we will do. Get a refund, then buy a pass at the first park we visit. I only live 45 min. away from Geauga Lake, so next year I'll definitely get a CP-Geauga Lake combo pass.

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Loyal Mean Streak fan 4ever:)

The bad???

If Big Dipper gets neutered...probably my biggest reason for hitting up SFWoA was the unrestrained ridiculousness of the Big Dipper. If it gets a Blue Streak-esque overhaul, I will be so disappointed. The Big Dipper was one place where I was sorta glad SF didnt keep up their rides insanely well, because the airtime due to roughness on that ride is just too much fun!

Depends on which Blue Streak overhaul you mean.

Big Dipper already got the kind of overhaul that Blue Streak got for 1994.

The kind of overhaul that Blue Streak got in 1996 would truly suck.

The kind of overhaul that Blue Streak got in 2002 would be AWESOME.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

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Ginger said:
I have passes to both CP and Six Flags. I mainly wanted to use the Six Flags passes for Six Flags parks in other states. Does anyone out there know if we can still use the 2004 Six Flags passes (that are already processed) for other Six Flags parks even though our Ohio park has been sold?------------------

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I called SFGAm the day the sale was announced and they hadn't even heard of the sale there. So you will probably have to get an answer from SF in the next couple of weeks.
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tambo

I called SFWoA and they told me in about 2 weeks from the call that they were gonna be notifying all of there season pass holders of what they can do with the pass.

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'04 TL Speed Zone
'03 Speed Freaks (Hats n Such)
TTD 72 rides (2 nonpaid rollbacks, 5 paid rollbacks)
TaeKwon-Do First Degree Black Belt. (1st dan)