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A tier . None of their parks fall into the A tier category. B tier . Chessington. Unlike the other Merlin parks, I feel like there is love for this place. The staff do care about what happens to it, the park has charm and atmosphere. A lot of the last decade has been spent refurbishing and bringing attractions back to life. Out of all the Merlin catalogue, this is the one that I can safely say compares to some of the European parks out there and for me there is nothing better then sitting in the Hotel bar overlooking the Savannah and seeing the Zebras and Giraffes roaming. C tier - Alton Towers - Without that coaster line up (which is the best in Europe don't hate me), this park has a lot missing and not a whole lot going for it. Rubbish opening hours and not enough filler in-between the top stuff means that a day here can easily drag by if you like variety in your day. Points forward are Hex and Katanga Canyon, points against are Spinball Whizzer, what they did with the Ripsaw space and Sub terra being abandoned. Heide Park - Suffers from a lot of the same problems as Towers but without the rollercoasters. I like Flug, Krake is okay and the bobsleigh is class but the rest of it is dross. Vekoma SLC and looper as the support coasters don't help and whole areas of the park are behind wooden walls. D tier - Gardaland Similar problems as Heide Park except somehow it has an even worse SLC, a pointless Intamin water ride (which goes on for what feels like hours). I like Oblivion and Raptor but frankly, Miribilandia is a much better theme park. F tier - Thorpe Park has become a nightmare. The park that was full of ambition and intent and drive in the early 00's has become a shell of what it was trying to achieve. Full of dark themes, run down areas, conflicting ideas of what its identity is and lots of attractions thrown at the place to drive attendance has meant Thorpe Park is well short of what it wanted to be. I like The Swarm, Inferno, Stealth and Detonator but the rest is soul-less garbage. Who builds an 85 water chute ride then hides it behind loads of game stalls. Ridiculous. Charmless. Lost.

It is a grave shame the park didn't just build a freespin or a Raptor with that money. Also lets not forget Wildfire cost less than this.

100% agree with this, such a shame as I expected great things from it. Now, it's just a case of waiting for it to be old enough to demolish (and pretend it never happened)

While the correct answer to what should have been built instead of BDGTROTD is 'anything', thinking about what we could have had for that much money is heartbreaking really. I've no doubt a small scale ride based on the Spiderman ride system could have been in reach, or any number of other options. That money can't be unspent, the opportunity has gone.

Funny how just 1 year later those "early days" were gone and the graphics infinitely improved. Swap out "early days" for "cheapest option" and you'd be more correct

Prior to launch in 2016, the park drew up a rough contingency plan for what would happen if the VR totally failed. And I mean totally failed. As in they got to a point where using VR was a complete impossibility, and they *had* to get the ride open. It was a rough plan, and I doubt the park ever would have truly considered it, but it effectively made use of planted actors (who would become 'infected' by the gases and turn crazy), the screens near the top of the carriages to communicate a story and a more 'live' experience in generally. As I say, and as far as I understand, this was very much a quick and rough plan drawn up in case absolutely everything failed, but wasn't exactly considered as a serious option. It would certainly be feasible for the park to implement something like this. It effectively just requires to hiring of extra actors and the writing of more scripts. Again though, I highly doubt the park actually would do this, especially given the feedback to the ride so far. Ghost Train was meant to have more effects that did not make it into the ride. Leg ticklers I believe were bought but never installed, for example. The point early on in the process where the windows were meant to be screens is another example. These things are much harder to solve and introduce retrospectively too. What does this means for Ghost Train's future though? I believe the Derren Brown IP contract is multiple years (6 I heard). Whether there's any break in the contract is anyone's guess. Obviously things like a global pandemic aren't top priorities to be talked about when drawing up contracts for IPs for rides. So it would be interesting to see what happens. But then, what do they do with the space? Do they totally gut it out and put something new inside? Transform the ride system into some form of immersive tunnel (which, with the ride system currently in place isn't impossible, but likely expensive)? Completely remove the whole thing? They *could* leave it SBNO and transform the inside for Fright Nights attractions, but again that's costly and also leaves a giant elephant in the room. Another potential issue: could there be a negative public reaction to the theme of the ride? If you piece and twist it together, it's all about a respiratory thing causing illness. In this day and age, I could see some people trying to twist it... In my opinion, it's very hard to see Ghost Train opening in the mid-term. Certainly not this year, even if the park reopens. If we work on the timeframe of no vaccine till autumn next year, it's hard to see it reopen next year. After that, the contract could be up. There's the more global problems as well about what this means for VR in the entertainment and leisure industry in general. But also, what about 3D rides? It's less of a problem as they've been around a lot longer and cleaning them is easier. But I still reckon many people will feel less comfortable wearing them. And it does mean parks have to be more careful and thorough washing them (and I'm sure there's plenty of parks who aren't..). That's going to be an interesting step for the industry. So yeah, tl;dr. I can't see Ghost Train reopening any time soon. A true reimagining of it will cost millions to do well. They're left with a giant elephant in the room which completely screws them up any way.