RIP Geauga Lake (1888 - 2007)

So after a rough night at work where the computers died, knocking all our stations either off-air or into manual mode, I come home and learn about this bad news.

Cedar Fair (the company that owns Cedar Point, King's Island, Canada's Wonderland, and many other parks) has decided to close Geauga Lake's amusement park (just three hours west of Buffalo) and change it over to waterpark only. You can read the announcement about the closing here.

Want to go visit Geauga Lake one last time before its rides are either demolished or moved? Nope, you can't - Cedar Fair didn't want to give anyone that opportunity. The park is already closed for the season and the rides portion will no longer exist starting next year.

Cedar Fair can't be blamed completely though - Six Flags owned the park up until recently and ran the park into the ground. When Cedar Fair bought it, it was a serious uphill battle to get the park back to being worth visiting. And with Cedar Fair already owning the other two major Ohio amusement parks, I guess it wasn't worth the trouble.

This is what could have happened to Darien Lake had it not been purchased by PARC, a company that actually cares about our park. All the more reason to definitely visit Darien Lake weekends through October 7th and support this new company.

Darien Lake has FREE admission during its Fall Family Fun Fest. It'll be pay-per-ride or you can buy a wristband for $15 to ride everything. There's a haunted house, corn maze, lots of family entertainment, and Deep Fried Twinkies!

As for Geauga Lake, I'm sure the spin rides will find homes at other Cedar Fair parks. But I'm wondering if they're going to attempt to move "Villain", an excellent wooden roller coaster. Same goes for "Big Dipper", a classic (and still good) wooden coaster from 1925.

I have a lot of great memories of visiting Geauga Lake. The ultimate being the time me and a bunch of friends roadtripped out to the park and met up with my brother for a freezing cold, rainy October night riding all the rides and drinking lots of hot chocolate. Even with the miserable weather that night, we all still had an awesome time and stayed right until the park closed.

Visit this website to see Geauga Lake as it was.