My time at Geauga Lake's Wildwater Kingdom

Hey everyone! I am doing my project at Geauga Lake's Wildwater Kingdom. Usually when I tell people I am doing my project there I get a response somewhat like, "Hey, didn't that close?!" The answer is yes and no. Here is a brief rundown on the history of this property that I've learned over the past few days to get everyone up to speed:

- Originally Aurora, Ohio was home to two different parks. There was Geauga Lake, a family owned amusement park, and Sea World Ohio, an animal park owned by Anheuser-Busch. The two parks were located across the lake from one another.

- In 2000, Six Flags purchases the Geauga Lake amusement park an renames it Six Flags Ohio. Sea World Ohio is still in business across the lake and is still owned by Anheuser-Busch.

- In 2001 Six Flags Purchases Sea World Ohio from Anheuser-Busch for $110 million. Six Flags builds a bridge across the lake to connect the two parks, and renames the property Six Flags Worlds of Adventure.

- In 2004 Six Flags sells Six Flags Worlds of Adventure to Cedar Fair, parent company of Cedar Point. Cedar Fair closes the animal park and renames the complex Geauga Lake Family Amusement Park.

- In 2005 Cedar Fair opens a new water park on the former animal park property. The water park is named Wildwater Kingdom. Cedar Fair renames the complex Geauga Lake & Wildwater Kingdom.

- In 2008 Cedar Fair opens only the water park, Wildwater Kingdom. The amusement park is closed permanently.

So yes, a water park still exists on Sea World's old property.

This park opens May 29th so quite a bit of work is being done preparing the park to open. Everyone at the park is very busy right now and I really appreciate them taking the time to explain things to me along the way! There are a couple of main things going on right now:

- Cleaning / Maintenance: Obviously after Ohio's harsh winters, a lot of work has to be done in order to make the park look like a tropical paradise. Planting needs to be done all over the park, and dead shrubs / trees as well as branches and leaves need to be hauled away. Buildings are being re-painted and most everything is being power washed. Slides are being polished and pools are being scrubbed out. They will start filling things with water later this week.

- Hiring / Training: Geauga Lake's Wildwater Kingdom only has 9 full-time year round employees. They do, however, hire hundreds of employees for the Spring and Summer months. This means that a lot of people are busy sifting through applications right now and training the employees that are hired.

- Retail: A lot of ordering is going on at the park right now. All of the food for the park needs to be ordered (i.e. pizza, chicken fingers, etc.) as well as drinks. Park merchandise also needs to be ordered (keychains, t-shirts, etc.).

- Marketing: Wildwater Kingdom is really working hard to market themselves (which I can understand considering many people don't know the park is still there). There are businesses a lot of special events this summer so they are working on sending invitations out to area to attend the events. A lot of work is also being done to advertise season passes.

During my first week I have been shadowing people in all of the aforementioned departments. The biggest surprise for me was probably the retail department. I never knew how much work it was! Consider a gift store where you have several hundred products. Those products don't just magically appear (as I previously thought they did). Those products are a direct result of someone taking the time to sift through many different catalogs and hand selecting the various products that will go on sale. It takes a lot of effort to even get a simple batch of keychains into a retail establishment. You first have to find the particular keychain you want, go back and forth with the Cedar Fair Art Department to get a logo for the keychain, send all of the information to the company that produces the keychains, communicate back and forth as you wait for a shipment, and then half the times when you finally receive the product they aren't exactly what you ordered. It's a lot of work!

Overall I'm having a lot of fun so far and have learned a lot. These next three weeks should be particularly interesting as things ramp up to prepare the park for opening.

- Andrew

- Andrew