Gee!-Arh!-Gah! Shakes

Geauga Lake & Wildwater Kingdom is simply a monster of a park, sprawling its way around a focal lake, heavily stained with bad Six Flags ride planning and derelict typical SeaWorld-ey architecture, yet despite this unique fusion of park styles, Geauga Lake oddly has a very strong infectious character

When I first visited the park in 2004 Cedar Fair had just acquired the park, and at that point had only got as far as covering over the Six Flags branding with stickers, there was a lot of hope excitement and expectation that Cedar Fair would transform the park unfortunately on my second visit two years later in 2006, not much had changed

Nothing like the smell of freshly baked cookies, Geauga is overflowing with cookie cutters, SLC, Boomerang, Flying Dutchman, Tivoli and Impulse, actually work together really well to provide a great backbone to the parks ride collection

X-Flight is a sensational roller coaster, the exhilarating high swoops and very heavy G inversions make for a real exhilarating experience

Wooooosh! Steel Venom was my first standard model impulse coaster, the great thrill of catapulting back and forth at high speeds is sadly spoiled by the over-aggressive holding brake which slams you forwards onto the restraint

Aside from the standard models, the park also contains some more bespoke coasters, Dominator a huge B&M multi-inversion coaster with floorless style trains is perched on a large unsightly cluster of concrete footers above the lake

Villain is a CCI steel structured wooden track hybrid, which features quite tall out n back style drops combined with swirling banked turns of a twister, however is very uncomfortable to ride

Raging Wolf Bobs has been re-tracked in between my visits to the park, on my first visit I didn't think it was too bad, sadly the re-tracking wasn't an improvement and has actually made the ride worst, the bulky Gerstlauer trains awkwardly fumble on the rails making it quite a bumpy ride

Hiding amongst this collection of relatively modern coasters is a truly classic wooden Big Dipper coaster, with a zippy airtime hungry out n back route, this coaster was quite a refreshing surprise

Wildwater Kingdom is a successful improvement to the park, the expansive waterpark has some great slides, a nice wave pool and great lazy river, the whole redevelopment of the former SeaWorld side of the park looks very neat and is set in some great landscaping

Geauga Lake is still searching to find its own personality, with abandoned SeaWorld buildings and a derelict Six Flags water park still evident, Cedar Fair still have a long way to go to fully rejuvenate this tired park and heal the wounds of its past

2006 Gallery

2004 Gallery