Trip Report: Geauga Lake

Aurora, Ohio - 08/15/1999

"Welcome UAW Local #1714!"

I seem to have an uncanny ability to pick company picnic days to visit parks. I've shared Kennywood with Giant Eagle, United Mine Workers, and some big pharmaceutical company. I've been at Idlewild the same day as Giant Eagle. I've been at Cedar Point on the same days as the Saturn owners, the Teamsters, and a convention of Southern Baptists. But it is Geauga Lake where I have had the most 'luck'. When I bump into a picnic there, it is always a HUGE picnic. Chrysler. The Plain Dealer. The Cleveland Clinic. This time it was the auto workers, a small hospital, and a couple of other companies. The upshot of all this is that the park was PACKED with people. It didn't start that way, but getting into the park still presented some difficulty.

Geauga Lake recently re-did their parking lot. They moved the entrance down a bit, and constructed a two-lane driveway from OH-43 in to the toll booths...a driveway long enough to avoid major back-ups on OH-43. Northbound traffic turns right, southbound traffic turns left, and each approach has its own lane on the driveway. At least that is how it is supposed to work. Unfortunately, the genius who implemented this driveway painted a yellow stripe down the middle of the drive, and as everybody knows, you never drive to the left of the yellow line in the US. Instead of filing into the left lane, the Southbound traffic waits for openings in the Northbound stream. A little white paint would fix this situation...

Once down the driveway, though, parking is quick and easy. Geauga Lake now charges an outrageous $6 to park; I wonder if it has ever occurred to them that they could make the toll-payment more efficient...possibly enough to eliminate a tollbooth attendant...by dropping the fee to $5 [Footnote 1]

I visited the Customer Service window and obtained my admission pass (using a coupon and my Wyandot Lake pass), and entered the park.

There is a big change to Geauga Lake's entrance now! You may recall that they completely remodeled the park entrance a few years ago, and introduced a new logo showing the new entrance. Mysteriously, that logo also depicts a 12-seat Ferris wheel just behind the entry building, mysteriously because Geauga's 16-seat Eli wheel was located some distance from and at a right angle to the entrance gate. Well, the mystery is no more. The 16-seat Eli wheel is gone, and a 24-tub Geauga Lake gondola wheel now sits next to the lake, perfectly aligned with the entrance gate. Now, the park resembles the logo. More about the wheel later.

I began my day by riding the Big Dipper. As I entered the queue, I noticed that Geauga Lake is still padlocking the diverter chains in the Big Dipper queue. When will they realize that it only serves to encourage people to climb over the rails when the line is short? Ah, well, today that would not be a problem. I got to the ride before its queue got full. They were short-handed, with only two operators on the ride, so they only ran one train in spite of the very large crowd.

Big Dipper:
Load: 24
Trains: 1
Ride Time: 1:46
To reload: 2:13
Interval: (2:37) (24 sec. to load)
Capacity: (550 pph)

It really makes no sense to try and compute capacity with a single train operation most times, but Geauga is a special case, as their single-train operations behave as if they are running multiple trains. Notice that the Big Dipper takes 27 seconds to unload and roll to the loading platform, then another 24 seconds to load and dispatch. It's a 106-second ride which then spends 51 seconds in the loading cycle. In my opinion, that is pretty darned good. With a second train, the ride would be running at 1,100 pph if the crew didn't do anything different. Usually when a coaster runs only one train the train spends more time in the station than out on the course. Big Dipper operates as if it has two trains on the course, even though it doesn't.

I jumped into the back seat of the train, and we took off. Big Dipper is running a lot better than it did when I rode it last year...still a little bit of NAD bounce, especially at the tops of the hills. Last year the train bounced continually, making the airtime less noticeable and the ride most unpleasant. This year, the ride was noticeably smoother, and running positively great on the drops and rises, with just a bit of pogo-sticking over the crests of the hills. The worst spot is the long flat stretch just before the dip under the monorail track. The Big Dipper is a serious airtime festival, with every dip steep and deep. But I am afraid that because of the apparent track problem (I think the whole track bed is bouncing on those hill peaks) my current preference has to be for Ohio's other John Miller coaster, the Screechin' Eagle down at Americana. Perhaps I would think differently if I'd been able to get more rides on the Big Dipper, but it was just too crowded. They need one more crew person and both trains on the track.

Signage seems to be a problem at Geauga Lake this season. I was watching people walk up to the entrance of Mr. Hyde's Nasty Paint Job...er...Fall, look at the sign, then turn around and walk away. I thought I should take a look. There on the sign it says that all riders must be at least 48" tall. On the right edge of the sign is a black and white striped line that looks a lot like a height-stick candy-cane. But the top of the line is nearly 6' up! That can't be right! A family of four was trying to figure out if their shortest member was tall enough, so I pulled out my tape measure, and sure enough, the kid was just over 4' tall. A closer examination of the sign revealed two screw-holes near the 4' level. Geauga Lake's ride signs have these little wooden arrows attached to them which should indicate the appropriate rider height. The problem is, the arrows are often difficult to interpret, and more important, apparently have a nasty habit of breaking of or coming loose. The use of an ornamental design on the sign that looks like a height indicator is a problem once the height indicator is gone. For a temporary fix, a bit of light-colored plastic tape and a Magic Marker would work wonders.

Speaking of signage problems, I think I have often mentioned those ridiculous signs on some coasters that say, "You must be 48" tall to ride," indicating that those of us who are taller are also prohibited from riding. Well, I saw an odd twist on that over at the Texas Twister. The sign there reads, "Guests under 55" tall and over 6'5" are not permitted to ride." Okay, if I am doing my math right, then 6'5" is 77 inches. I just wonder how anyone can be under 55" AND over 77" tall. 8-)

I wandered on back to the Raging Wolf Bobs. I failed to ride Serial Thriller because the line completely filled the queue, came up the ramp pathway and spilled out onto the midway. I did notice that both trains were running...

Raging Wolf Bobs:
Load: 24
Trains: 1
Ride Time: 2:28
Interval: (3:29), (2:54)
Capacity: (496 pph)

The line for Raging Wolf Bobs was also spilling out onto the midway, but a closer examination revealed that the single switchback in the queue was not open. The result was a wait of about twenty minutes. What I noticed on this one was that from the time the train stopped in the station until it left again was only about 26 seconds. Twenty-six seconds to completely unload, reload, and check a whole train. With only two platform attendants. In many parks it takes longer than that to get the queue gates open! What this means is that if Geauga were to press the second train into service, the crew would have no trouble at all maintaining a 1:27 interval (993 pph). The question, then, is why don't they press a second train into service on a day like this, one of their busiest days of the season? On Big Dipper, another crew person would be needed to run the unload brake. But on Raging Wolf Bobs, they could easily run both trains with their existing staff.

The coaster is one of only two coasters I know of which still runs PTC trailered cars. PTC's trailers are a good idea gone terribly wrong, and while Texas Giant, Hercules, and Thunder Run all had them at one time, today Darien Lake's Predator and Geauga Lake's Raging Wolf Bobs are the only ones I know of that still use them. What this means is that the Raging Wolf Bobs train cannot go around a corner without shuffling side to side. Looking at the track on this coaster, though, I get the impression that Curt Summers knew that this would be a problem. All of the turns on the ride are heavily banked, which means that the curves are as much 'pitch' maneuvers as 'yaw'. That covers for many sins of the train. It also tends to limit the lateral forces on the ride, which is probably why the comparison of Raging Wolf Bobs with the Riverview Bobs that inspired it is almost never favorable among riders who have ridden both. Personally, I never had the opportunity to ride the Riverview Bobs, and consequently I cannot compare the two coasters. But for my purposes, I think Raging Wolf Bobs is a decent coaster. It scores for having traditional lap bars and skid brakes. It scores even more for having no brakes out on the course. It's got some airtime, it has a couple of headchoppers, it is a fast ride, and I had fun with it. It needs a couple of new trains, but I shudder to think what Premier might replace those trains with...Hmmm...with a bit of work I'll bet those axles could be moved to the back end of the car to make proper trailers out of them...........

I wandered past Serial Thriller. The line now only came about halfway up the hill, and they were running both trains, so I thought I might take a ride. I waited. The line didn't seem to be moving. The train on the course stopped in Trimstation 2, something I didn't see all day when I visited last season. I waited. I waited some more. I watched as a train was finally dispatched. It ran through the course and stopped on Trimstation 2. What is going on here? I decided to exit the queue and wander down to the exit ramp. From my vantage point In could see that doors have been added to the ends of the queue railings and they are about the most ridiculous form of queue control I have ever seen. This is more ridiculous than the dog-clip cables at Adventure World. Each queue chute ends in a double-door with a swing-hook latch in the middle. When the train enters the station, oncoming riders reach down and open the door, closing it behind themselves, then board the train. These folks need to take a cue from Silverwood's Corkscrew...if they are going to have manual gates, they should be spring-loaded and should have limit stops; if they are to be latching, they should be self-latching.

That said, strangely enough it was not the doors which were causing the delays. Nope, this time it was the crew. The operator waited until all of the safety belts were fastened before latching the shoulder bars (which, of course, makes the belts more difficult to fasten because the rider has to hold the bar down against spring bias); when checking bars, the two attendants were moving very slowly, frequently stopping to exchange pleasantries with each other...In this park of 25-second train loads, what happened here? This was as bad as Face/Off at Kings Island. I pulled out my stopwatch. They were consistently taking two full minutes to unload and reload the trains! The ride time to the safety brakes is only 1:18! With two trains the best interval I recorded was 2:01. This ride can be run better than this; I have seen it happen, just last summer. This was unacceptable. I headed back towards the midway, counting off more than 300 people between the end of the formal queue and the midway. I was in no mood for a two-hour wait, which, at this rate, was about what this ride had. No Serial Thriller ride for me on this visit. 8-(

Serial Thriller:
Load: 20
Trains: 2
Ride Time: 1:18 to first brakes,
Interval: 2:01
Capacity: 595 pph
Load Time: 1:55! Am I at Kings Island??

Instead of waiting for Serial Thriller, I wandered over to Double Loop and saw something I had never seen before. I'd heard about it, but I had never seen it. Double Loop was running two trains.

Double Loop:
Load: 24
Trains: 2
Ride Time: 1:20/1:42
Interval: 1:15
Capacity: 1152 pph
Load Time: 0:49

Double Loop is an ancient Arrow looper, and Geauga Lake has modified their operating procedure a bit, a move which is probably beneficial to the safety of the platform attendants. It used to be that as the train entered the station, an attendant standing at the uptrack end of the station would kick the pedals and pop all of the shoulder bars open as the train entered. Remember, Double Loop requires pedal-pushers to open and close the shoulder bar latches. Today, the kicker waits until the train stops...but two kickers handle platform duties. The train enters, the shoulder bars are kicked open, the passengers exit, new passengers enter, the bars are kicked closed, the bars are checked, a co-dispatch button is pressed, and only 50 seconds after it arrived, the train leaves, just in time for the other train to arrive so that everyone can do it all again. It's a practiced routine, and this crew was pretty darned good at it. Why is it that the Double Loop crew, which has more actions to complete, can move a train in a little less than half the time it takes the Serial Thriller crew? In no time at all, I was seated in the front of the last car, and the train took off.

Double Loop is built over a picnic grove. It is a very quiet coaster (apart from the screams) and while very short, it is also a very smooth-running ride. The first drop produces some airtime, but space limitations mean that the rise to the turnaround is a shallow ramp instead of a speed-bump. After the tight, smooth turnaround, there are two vertical loops. A quick pop of airtime after the second loop bounces the riders a little as the train dives into a helix with absolutely no headbanging whatsoever. A quick rise leads to a brake run where the train stacks just a few seconds as the other train, already dispatched, clears the station. It's small, it's quick, it's old, but it is also the highest capacity ride in the park, and I hope Premier understands how important it is for this ride to remain in the park!

There is one other coaster in the park, but it was running at lower capacity than the Serial Thriller, but not by much...

Mind Eraser:
Load: 24
Trains: 1
Ride Time: DDM
Interval: DDM
Capacity: 0 pph
Load Time: DDM

Mind Eraser is, of course, Geauga Lake's Boomerang. Without explanation, it was out of service all day long. A crowded day like this one was not a good one for the park to have coaster out of commission!

Across from the Double Loop is a road model Flying Scooter. I took a ride on it, but at about 12 RPM, it really runs too fast to get really good action out of it (Knoebel's Flyer runs at between 8 and 9 RPM). But it takes it a while to decellerate to a stop, and as it began to slow down, I was able to set my tub swinging in large, graceful arcs. By the end of the ride, the tub was swinging nicely, but I never snapped the cables. It isn't the best Flying Scooter around, but it isn't the worst either.

I was disappointed to not hear the band organ on Geauga Lake's Ilions carousel. The organ wasn't operating today, which seems to be a more and more common occurrance at more and more parks. Last time I heard this particular band organ, it was playing a particularly complicated roll, music with a lot of notes in it...I hesitate to identify it as classical pieces, but it sounded that way, and it gave the carousel a very exciting atmosphere. But today it was silent, and I was a bit disappointed.

Oh, I was going to talk about the new wheel. Old Indiana Fun Park, in its last year of operation, bought a gondola Ferris wheel. The wheel is a mutt...structure apparently built by a Dutch carousel company, tubs built by Arrow, drive by someone else...Anyway, Geauga Lake bought this wheel at auction, and it has been sitting disasembled in their boneyard. They have been working on the wheel, and now, completely refurbished and painted, with a new hydraulic drive system, the wheel stands over Geauga Lake, between the entry plaza and the lake, making the entry plaza look like the park logo. Now called Americana the new Wheel further cements Geauga Lake's position as "An American Classic." On this particular day, only eight of the 24 tubs were in use, and an operator pointed out that only eight tubs are equipped with safety latches on the doors. I was puzzled by this, remembering that Cedar Point's wheel has no door latches at all, until I noticed that the doors open outward, and I remembered the incident reported about a week ago down in Texas where an open door on a kiddie wheel caught on the wheel structure and flipped the tub over. Ah. I understand.

Next to the wheel is the new Chance double Inverter. The sign calls it Time Warp but I noticed that the logoed merchandise all says T1ME W4RP instead. I wonder which is correct. The Inverter is an interesting ride, but it isn't one of my favorites.

I should also mention that Geauga Lake's rapids ride, Grizzly Run, was operating (and had one of the longest lines in the park). Geauga's rapids boats claim to be Intamin, but they are unlike any other rapids boats I have seen. These have three flat seats with low backrests and no seat belts; each seat can handle up to three riders, and there is no minimum height requirement provided an adult is riding. The ride lacks any good point where spectators can get a good view of the ride. Given that the park also lacks any mechanical transportation between the '1950s' midway and Raging Wolf Bobs, I think it would be neat if Geauga Lake could somehow extend their monorail loop back to that area of the park (with a second station, of course) so that it ran above the rapids ride. Hmmm...

It was not a particularly good day to visit Geauga Lake as it was too incredibly crowded. Two of the rides were running as quickly as could be expected, but the park needs to give these crews the tool they need to get the lines moving...the second train. One coaster was running both trains, but the crew was not moving them effectively. And one coaster was doing rather well. Every ride had full queues, with people spilling out onto the midway. The midways were so packed with people that moving down them made me feel a bit like a salmon. I had decided to proceed to Cedar Point where there would undoubtedly be more people, but it would certainly be less crowded. That did indeed turn out to be the case. But I didn't leave Geauga Lake before getting an updated ride list:

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Footnote 1: Based on observations at Cedar Point. When the parking fee went up from $5 to $6, suddenly traffic jams appeared on the Causeway where none had been before, at least not since the days of $4 parking... [Return to text]

--DCAjr

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