Thanks, but no thanks. That's the message from Six Flags Over Georgia to fans who voted in its online poll to determine the name of the park's upcoming Intamin Ultra Splash.
Six Flags previously announced Georgie Surfer as the pick for its new water ride, which had been delayed from last season. However, yesterday, Six Flags reversed itself and announced that the name of the ride will be Georgia Gold Rusher, instead.
Here's is the ride's backstory, courtesy Six Flags:
Georgia's gold rush in the 1880s brought prospectors from far and wide to extract the precious ore. One such miner was William "Willy" Gibson, a young, smart entrepreneur with a wily streak.With thoughts of "work smarter, not harder," Gibson figured out a way to avoid the hard work of manual labor to mine gold. He used a steam-powered hydraulic excavator. The giant machine slugged forward and backward through a huge water reservoir, twisting and turning the dirt below with the hopes of loosening valuable gold from the soil. It worked beautifully - and offered folks a refreshing treat, too.
Sometimes when townspeople needed a break from the hot Georgia sun, Gibson let them cool off with a thrilling spin on the machine. Riders enjoyed refreshing mist of water as the mining sled careened up and down the U-shaped track.
Georgia Gold Rusher will be located in the Lickskillet section of the park. The ride will have a top speed of 60 mph.
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I think one of two things (or a combination of both). It's going to be in the parks "lickskillet" area, so a new to the park manager/new corporate leadership came in and said it needs to be themed to the area its in.
And/or they were going to name it Georgia Surfer but couldn't get the trademark (or got some kind of cease and desist letter), and they ended up coming up with something else at the last minute. While I have no inside knowledge of this specific ride, this is how Sea World ended up as "United Parks."
While "Surfer" was an OK name for the new coaster, it was out of place in that area of the park. With the "Gold Rusher" name, it fits nicely next to the Dahlonega Mine Train and also fits the ScreamPunk theme better, as the entrance to the ride is in that section, which is currently anchored by Pandemonium.
I am a bit disappointed though in that there does not appear to be a bystander splash zone as depicted in the original video teaser. This park is in desperate need of a splash pad or other reliably wet attraction in the dry park to cool off during the dangerously hot summer months. (Sorry Thunder River, but that ride offers no guarantee of a splash and the wait times are always astronomical in the summer just for a chance to get wet)
with no turntable, the waits for this ride are indeed going to be golden
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Obviously SF took a cue here from Busch Gardens Williamsburg, who jettisoned a fan-voted poll to establish the name of its new B&M family invert. However, BGW's choice to ignore the vote was in response to fans' comments regarding the quality of the 3 name choices provided in the poll, while SF changed the name here simply because they felt like it.
In fact, I was just at the park just before Christmas, and there was already signage and other portions of the queue and ride consistent with the Georgia Surfer name. When the trademark for Georgia Gold Rusher was found last week, most people predicted that the newly trademarked name meant that the park was planning a revamp of the Dahlonega Mine Train, one of the oldest Arrow Mine Train coasters in the world (the oldest is Runaway Mine Train at SFoT, which opened a year earlier in 1966). So, this swerve is quite unexpected, particularly since it means the park is going to spend even more money to repaint and resign a roller coaster that is already being delivered a year later than initially announced.
I don't necessarily have an issue with the park putting a better theme on this coaster, but unless they rework it, the entrance to the coaster is located in the Junior DC area (adjacent to Joker Funhouse Coaster), not in the Western themed land containing Dahlonega Mine Train. The original name didn't necessarily fit the surrounding DC theme either, but also doesn't create confusion as to where the entrance to the coaster is located (on the Junior DC land side of the creek, not the mine train side).