Geauga Lake

[Shane]

So most of you probably already know the history of Geauga Lake and its ultimate demise, if not I recommend that you check out its Wikipedia page, it is one of the most thoroughly written wikipedia articles I've ever read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geauga_Lake

Anyway, I came across an Urban Explorers video of the park filmed in January of 2015 so you can see the condition of the park pretty much right now.

Something I thought was really interesting was how Cedar Fair left all the water rides from the old water park where they were instead of moving them to Wildwater Kingdom or another Cedar Fair water park. Seems really odd to me.

 

[Mushroom]

Thanks Shane. The history of Geauga Lake is always and interesting discussion piece.

It still bewilders me that what was once the world's largest amusement park has been reduced to a puny water park.

It's shocking to see how what once was this:

...has been reduced to this:

Not only is the water park that occupies the land tiny (consisting of little more than a ProSlide Tornado, one slide complex, a lazy river, and a children's area), but it's also been hopelessly neglected by Cedar Fair. It's been ages since an attraction was added to the park.

In fact, if you want a laugh, visit Wild Water Kingdom's website and mouse over the "What's New" tab.

I have a have a feeling that the water park, at least owned by Cedar Fair, will not exist within the next few seasons.

 

[Shane]

Actually it just occured to me to look at a Google Earth view of the park and I think the two guys in the video actually broke into Wild Water Kingdom and then jumped a fence into the old Geauga Lake Park. That slide complex the are walking past looks like Thunder Falls in Google Maps.

If that is the case, those guys really took a huge risk. It is one thing to break into an abandon theme park for urban exploration and its a whole other situation when you break and enter an operating park, even if it is the winter off season.

 

[Pat]

I like this article that someone sent me a few weeks ago, mostly because it has a good number of maps from throughout the history of Geauga Lake to see how the parks there grew, combined, and then ultimately shrank down to almost nothing.

http://www.themeparktourist.com/features/20140824/28153/lost-geauga-lake-how-worlds-largest-six-flags-disappeared

 

[horsesboy]

I saw this new drone footage of the park remains as they are today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Civ9F9dBBFI

 

[Zimmy]

I was just about to post that.  Here is a local news cast about it.

The shots of the Big Dipper are really sad. It is hard to tell, but it looked like the foundations for Dominator were there too. Really creepy.

 

[SLC Headache]

See also Six Flags Worlds of Adventure.... Easily the worst experience I ever had in a park. Marketing did such an amazing job and the investments in new rides was unreal -- and I never went back (until it reverted back to Geauga Lake) nor did I visit another Six Flags park for nearly two decades.

I read somewhere that Six Flags Worlds of Adventure ran ads where they said "We drove past Cedar Point to get here". BGW's billboards near KD give me a similar impression, though nowhere near as arrogant.

 

[halfabee]

I read somewhere that Six Flags Worlds of Adventure ran ads where they said "We drove past Cedar Point to get here".

"...Which was pretty great, because this place sucks and Cedar Point will be right there on the way home."

 

[CoasterTalkBob]

"...Which was pretty great, because this place sucks and Cedar Point will be right there on the way home."

It's honestly ridiculous that that place failed. If they would have actually thought about a few things that park really could have taken on Cedar Fair -- especially with the investment they were obviously willing to put into it. They just needed to wait a little bit and make sure infrastructure things were taken care of first. You spent 1/4 of your day just trying to get from the turnpike to the park and then once you got there the park was not thought out at all -- literally just building a bridge across the lake to combine the two parks.... The amount of walking between points where there were any attractions was ridiculous and rides weren't positioned in "overflow" areas where you saw a long line and just went to the nearby ride -- you just walked half your day trying to find somewhere that wasn't miserable.

Geauga Lake was such a great little park too..... Premier Parks just f'd everything up.

 

[warfelg]

It's honestly ridiculous that that place failed. If they would have actually thought about a few things that park really could have taken on Cedar Fair -- especially with the investment they were obviously willing to put into it. They just needed to wait a little bit and make sure infrastructure things were taken care of first. You spent 1/4 of your day just trying to get from the turnpike to the park and then once you got there the park was not thought out at all -- literally just building a bridge across the lake to combine the two parks.... The amount of walking between points where there were any attractions was ridiculous and rides weren't positioned in "overflow" areas where you saw a long line and just went to the nearby ride -- you just walked half your day trying to find somewhere that wasn't miserable.

Geauga Lake was such a great little park too..... Premier Parks just f'd everything up.

Let’s be honest. City planners and the city failed them too by allowing them to expand that much and two parks on either side.

 

[CoasterTalkBob]

Let’s be honest. City planners and the city failed them too by allowing them to expand that much and two parks on either side.

Sort of.... IIRC they really played the system in a big way. Geauga Lake and SWO were in completely different jurisdictions and there was some playing them against each other I think.... I do remember the local jurisdictions being really pissed at Six Flags shortly before opening as a result of not following through on everything they were supposed to -- but I don't remember the specifics of that.

 

[warfelg]

Sort of.... IIRC they really played the system in a big way. Geauga Lake and SWO were in completely different jurisdictions and there was some playing them against each other I think.... I do remember the local jurisdictions being really pissed at Six Flags shortly before opening as a result of not following through on everything they were supposed to -- but I don't remember the specifics of that.

Yes and it’s what drove jurisdictions to work together on bigger development. I forget who was who here but basically the locality GL was in was getting all the benefits of the taxes, so where SW ended up was allowed more as a retaliation.

To give you an example of how that goes now, we built a rather large shopping complex in the township I worked in. So to balance it out, we rezoned the area on our side of the line to basically stop development because the builder wanted to do housing. The township next to us rezoned the land next to the shopping to be residential. Now the townships were happy because we both got income off something that was pulling in lots of people, and the builder was happy because the retail faced the major road and the housing was in the better schools.