User blog:RCTFan2002/What If? Episode 8: What if Six Flags Ohio and Seaworld Ohio remained separate parks?

Hey guys, welcome to episode 7 of my "What If?" series. This episode took a long time to plan and write out, and you'll find out why in just a second:

Last week, I discussed on my blog what would happen if Cedar Fair never closed Geauga Lake, as the first of four possible scenarios for the now defunct Geauga Lake theme park in Ohio. Well, this week we continue with scenario #2 of 4 - which wasn't even in my poll for GL scenarios to begin with, but rather a suggestion from Stacy4554 who reviewed my poll. Since I liked it (and none of the other scenarios got any votes), I decided to include that as well. This week's scenario, and this one will be quite a lot to breakdown, is "What if Six Flags Ohio and Seaworld Ohio remained separate parks?" Just read the introduction below for further elaboration...

Introduction
"Seaworld Ohio" opened in 1970, right across the lake from "Geauga Lake". For 30 years, the two parks proceeded to work together as partners/friendly rivals to attract guests towards Aurora, Ohio - while "Geauga Lake" focused on rollercoasters and thrilling rides, "Seaworld Ohio" was mainly a marine wildlife park, like it's sister parks, meant to educate guests about marine animals. Eventually, in the '90s, Seaworld Parks & Entertainment began to add rollercoasters and rides to their own parks around the country, like "Seaworld San Antonio" and "Seaworld Orlando"...but not "Seaworld Ohio". Supposedly, this was because they had a height restriction on their side of the lake of only 15 feet, meaning building coasters and thrill rides would basically be impossible for them.

Now this is where things get interesting - IRL, Seaworld Parks tried to rectify this problem by attempting to purchase "Geauga Lake", which had become "Six Flags Ohio", in 2000. However, Six Flags ended up counteroffering and buying the "Seaworld Ohio" park instead, becoming "Six Flags Worlds of Adventure" starting the following season. But what if Seaworld Parks had come up with a different solution to the problem? What if, instead of buying a pre-existing theme park, they tried fighting for approval for a higher height restriction on their side of the lake, and, as a result, were able to build their own coasters and rides just like their sister parks? This means that Seaworld Parks would never try to buy "Six Flags Ohio", meaning they'd never try to buy "Seaworld Ohio" in return, meaning that "Six Flags Worlds of Adventure" would never come to be and "Six Flags Ohio" and "Seaworld Ohio" would continue to operate as two separate parks. What if this happened? Would Six Flags still sell "Six Flags Ohio" to Cedar Fair in the future now that they didn't have to spend so much money to "over-expand" the park? What rides could the "Seaworld Ohio" side possibly see? Well, in this episode, you will see what I predict would've happened if this was the case.

Year-by-year predictions
Just like last episode, I'm going to do the predictions in a different format this time around, especially because it's two parks I'm working on in this scenario and this would make it a lot faster for me to give my predictions for both parks.

2000 would be exactly the same as it was IRL for both parks - "Geauga Lake" getting the complete Six Flags overhaul, becoming "Six Flags Ohio", the four new coasters, "Hurricane Harbor", etc., and "Seaworld Ohio" getting..."Mission: Bermuda Triangle", a motion simulator ride. Eh, it's kind of a start towards becoming a full blown theme park. Now this is where things drastically change - at this point, Seaworld Parks does NOT offer to buy "Six Flags Ohio", instead fighting to try to have an increase in their height restriction on their side of the lake and succeeding. This means that now, "Seaworld Ohio" can put as many coasters and rides in their own park as they please, without selling the property to Six Flags. This means "Six Flags Worlds of Adventure" never comes to fruition, and "Six Flags Ohio" remains as "Six Flags Ohio".

2001 would be where the changes quickly start to come in. Since to my current knowledge, "X-Flight" had nothing to do with the park's expansion w/Seaworld Ohio, I predict that we would still see "X-Flight" come to "Six Flags Ohio" this year, in the same spot where it was during the SFWoA period. "Seaworld Ohio", however, has had some changes to it - since Six Flags never bought the park, that means the "Happy Harbor" area by the wildlife side never comes to be, and I predict that "Seaworld Ohio" could use that empty spot of land to their advantage and expand the park over that area, up to where "Raging Wolf Bobs" is. They could possibly throw in some flat rides in that area, to make it live more up to the idea that it's supposed to be a real theme park now.

2002 would be a bit different - now that "Seaworld Ohio" is officially on it's way of becoming an official theme park, I predict that this would be the perfect ideal starting point for them to start adding a new coaster. Since they are pretty limited on land, it would have to be a rather small and/or compact one at that. One possibility is that we could see some sort of family coaster, like "Shamu Express" at the other Seaworld properties, open on this side of the lake, but then it'd probably just be seen as a rip-off compared to "Roadrunner Express" right across the lake. Another, more likely possibility is the "Journey to Atlantis" water coaster that most of Seaworld's other parks have already opened around this time. This coaster could definitely help make the park seem like an actual theme park and give it a genuinely exciting and thrilling one-of-a-kind ride that "Six Flags Ohio" doesn't already have. It could go in that empty spot of land I was mentioning earlier where "Happy Harbor" later was, right behind "Raging Wolf Bobs". As for "Six Flags Ohio", I predict they would focus on some sort of new flat ride investment this year, like the Pirate's Flight ride that was sent there that year, seeing as how they are competing with nearby "Cedar Point", and we wouldn't want Six Flags to still exhaust themselves financially by adding new coasters every year.

For 2003, I predict that "Six Flags Ohio" would still add their "Hurricane Mountain" and "Shark Attack" waterslide complexes to Hurricane Harbor, since this has nothing to do with "Seaworld Ohio". Speaking of "Seaworld Ohio", I predict they would just see general park improvements this year, and not much else. For 2004, I predict that we would also just see park improvements this year, this time at "Six Flags Ohio". As for "Seaworld Ohio", I predict that we could see an official kiddie area open at the park, most likely with a sea animal theme to it, to make the park look more enticing and attractive to families and kids. This would help increase revenue at the park as well. 2005 would be where some of the more drastic changes for "Six Flags Ohio" begin, because since in this AU they never bought the adjacent "Seaworld Ohio", that means they have less land and space to build anymore new rides or coasters in the park, meaning that we could see the park potentially being forced to remove some of their rides for future additions soon. That's why, for 2005, I predict that we would see an all-new thrill ride, like an Intamin gyro drop tower, open at the park this season, which would replace either the "Hay Baler" ride or the "Silver Bullet" ride. Either ride has the perfect small spot for a new tower ride like this. As for "Seaworld Ohio", I predict that we would see EITHER more park improvements or an all-new wildlife attraction/live entertainment open at the park this year, seeing as how Seaworld Parks seems to focus mainly on their animal attractions than thrill rides.

For 2006, I predict that "Seaworld Ohio" would finally see a family coaster such as Shamu Express being added to the park, as an attempt to continue catering to families and kids.