Geauga Lake looks in a new direction

Cedar Fair Entertainment Company purchased Geauga Lake amusement park, formally known as Six Flags Worlds of Adventure, from Six Flags Inc. in April of 2004 thinking that the park would continue to be a popular tourists attraction. Over the past couple years, the costs of renovations, operating and maintenance costs, and a lower than expected attendance rate has caused the park to look into a direction and become a more regional based family-entertainment park.

With Cedar Point, also owned by Cedar Fair and known as the roller coaster capital of the world, being located not that far away from Geauga Lake. They have decided to give the park a more family based image to differ itself from the other major amusement parks in Ohio. This process of changing the park’s image has already begun with the removal of X-Flight and soon Steel Venom will be dismantled.

Both of these major roller coasters were located near the park’s main entrance, which Jack Falfas, Cedar Fair's Chief Operating Officer, stated made the park “not as inviting.” X-Flight has already been dismantled and will reopen this spring as the Firehawk at another on of Cedar Fair’s amusement parks located in Ohio, Kings Island. Steel Venom will be placed in storage for this season and it will likely reopen for the 2008 season at another Cedar Fair amusement park.

The park’s monorail, which runs through where Geauga Lake’s original water park once stood located near the park’s main entrance, will also be removed. Also, before the 2006 operating season, the park dismantled Mr. Hyde’s Nasty Fall freefall ride, which was located in the same area of the park where these rides that are being removed were located. So with these changes to the park, Geauga Lake has made it clear that they want the park to appeal to families and become regional attraction rather than be a destination for thrill-seekers.

Even with the removal of these major roller coasters and rides, the park is currently scheduled to have new expensive paint jobs done on two of its major roller coasters. One of these newly repainted roller coasters will now feature cameras in every seat so now visitors will be able to buy a video souvenir of their ride. The Raging Wolf Bobs wooden coaster has now been completely refurbished, and the park’s movie simulation ride will be rethemed for this season. In addition to all of this, the park also plans to add some new attractions but it is not known what these new attraction will be yet.