It was announced earlier in the week that the highly anticipated Georgia Surfer Intamin Launch Coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia was being delayed until 2025. Although this was disappointing, it’s also not uncommon in theme park world. However, this delay could represent an opportunity for the park to solve a potential issue with the new attraction, that being its low capacity. However, there is a solution to this and Six Flags Over Texas used a delay to add capacity to their new Aquaman: Power Wave water coaster just a couple of years ago.

Georgia Surfer is slated to only have one train which holds 24 riders. Intamin’s Ultra Surf (the model of this ride) puts the hourly capacity at 864 people/hour. Doing the math, that’s 36 dispatches/hour or one every 1 minute and 40 seconds. If you watch the online ride video the ride cycle time appears to be about 1 minute and 20 seconds leaving 20 seconds to unload/load to reach that listed capacity. Good luck with that. If it dispatches 20 times an hour (once every 3 minutes) for a capacity of 480 riders/hour I think operations would be doing spectacular. If it falls to a still very reasonable 15 launches an hour that’s 360 riders/hour. As a point of comparison, Batman The Ride has a capacity of 1400 riders/hour. Not every ride has to be a “people eater” with huge capacity, but as the park’s only launch coaster coupled with being new and water for hot Georgia days, this thing should be popular.

Aquaman: Power Wave at Six Flags Over Texas has some striking similarities to Georgia Surfer. Both are launched water coasters, both are from manufacturers Six Flags hasn’t worked a lot with recently (Mack and Intamin), both are seeing delays in construction and both were probably initially intended to go to a different park than where they ended up. In the case of Aquaman you can see in the concept art for the cancelled Six Flags Dubai what clearly looks like a Mack Power Splash.

Aquaman was originally intended to open in 2020 which was delayed to 2022 because of the pandemic. The ride was originally supposed to feature one train/boat, however after the delay it was announced the ride was going to be modified with a turntable station to accommodate two 20-passenger boats. This delay was probably a blessing in disguise as it allowed the ride to essentially double its capacity to 731 riders/hour now being able to unload/load one vehicle while the other runs the track. After another delay due to supply chain issues the ride opened in 2023 and has been well received. There have been rumors about the delay of The Flash Vertical Velocity at Six Flags Great Adventure from 2024 to 2025 to add a second train with much needed capacity as well. Below you can see the park’s official POV for Aquaman with the first few seconds showing the turntable in action.

So in browsing Intamin’s website I don’t readily see a turntable option for the Ultra Surf coaster, but I’m sure Intamin could easily design something. It would be a shame to remodel an essentially finished ride station, but it’s been done before. This ride looks awesome and is quietly one of the most anticipated roller coasters under construction. I’m hoping capacity isn’t an issue for Georgia Surfer, but I’d happily wait a few months longer to get a second train and some extra capacity on the ride.