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There were no specific VIPs, I'm not calling out anyone. Basically I heard quite a few people on Thursday and Friday giving rave reviews, and then actually experiencing it was very different! My spoiler review is below: In short, I really just don't think a lot happens. The scenery is poor to non-existant and the acting is very repetitive and doesn't build up to anything. It just felt like nothing of any substance actually happened.

Unless the experience that I had on Friday was worlds apart from what everybody else has been experiencing since (which I can't see being a thing), I genuinely don't understand the level of hate that the attraction seems to be garnering? Obviously it was never going to be a Ghost Train on the same level of The Curse (hell, not even Ghost Train at BPB!) - we all went into this knowing that the ride system must remain in place because of the way the building was constructed. We all went into this knowing that the virtual reality had been removed. It seems that those that are leaving such negative reviews are forgetting all of these points? The current transit system in place for Ghost Train is built into the building, and is bloody massive. There is no way that they could've removed the old transit system and implemented something else without massive construction - be it taking the roof off and removing everything with a crane, or cutting all of the ride hardware up into small pieces and taking them out that way... both of which would have been time consuming and would have been witnessed first hand. One thing that I can imagine being a pretty large variable is the acting. As the attration is massively actor led, the quality of acting needs to remain consistent throughout - which I can imagine being pretty bloody tiresome when you consider just how emotional the actors need to be for the story to be believable. I'd probably say if you want the best experience, it's best to go on Ghost Train pretty much as soon as it opens. I've said it since Friday and I'll echo my point again, this attraction is absolutely the best that its ever been. Now that's definitely not singing its praises by any means when you consider the dire state that the attraction used to be in before the refurbishment, but they have definitely made the best out of a bad situation. When all of the effects work, this attraction has the potential to be fantastic. Sure, not much reridability, but that's the same with any theatrical performance - once you know the storyline, it won't be anywhere near as impactful. However, if you have good quality actors inside the attraction, that is what will make it reridable. I know for a fact that the actors on my runthrough were absolutely incredible - I had two gentlemen and one of them (I think he had long-ish blonde hair) was brilliant, he managed to be eerie and believable at all times. The risk you take with these attractions most of the time is the cringy GCSE drama level acting, but that's certainly not what I experienced on Friday.

First of all, if an attraction is (as you put it) dire, reviews from a media / VIP preview event aren't going to call it that. Ultimately, those events are there for those people to positively talk about and hype up whatever they've been invited there for. Saying that thing is awful publicly is just a shot in the foot and ultimately leads to them not getting invited back. So it's totally worth taking any VIP review with a pinch of salt (especially with actor led experiences). For me personally, I keep a fine line. Any negative or construction feedback I pass onto management. I have said multiple times when I don't like something, when I don't think something will work, etc. But then when it comes to posting on TPM's social pages, I focus on the positives, whilst also sandwiching in a constructive improvement. I always joke about 2018 Fright Nights, and my review of Vulcan Peak, which was little more than "Something different". As for Ghost Train more specifically, I'm genuinely curious as to which VIP reviews you feel "lied to by". I ask this because, everyone I spoke to at the event had a pretty level-headed thought process about it. Thoughts were along the lines of 'Better than DBGT', 'The best incarnation of the ride', 'It's not a must-do, but it's something I'm happy to do if the queue is right'. And the reviews and thoughts I saw posted on social media from the preview reflect that. Obviously everyone will have different thoughts and reactions. And something like this, especially in a theme park setting, will receive very Marmite reactions. But I genuinely don't know of anyone who's over-stated the attraction to be more than what it is. For what it's worth too: the experience during the media event was an accurate reflection of how the ride would run normally. No extra actors in the building. The same number of roaming actors outside the attraction (which are currently there as the ride is new, but will disappear is the coming weeks/months). There was no 'special runthrough'. The experience is, if anything, still growing, as they take on board people's reviews and make tweaks. Opening of Ghost Train was delayed on the night slightly too.

Some minor spoilers I don't even know where to start. Granted, the removal of VR now makes the story far more palatable. The preshows were done very well and set up what could have been an excellent experience. But it didn't deliver... I kept expecting this big scare moment and it never arrived. I am very suprised the fakeout shop remains but I guess that was a pricey addition to the last round of fixes? My only positive from it was the retheme of the loading platform was well done. Oh and I was out of the sun for an hour.

I just went on it. I have no idea how anyone has given this a good review. It was so bad. I'll do a proper spoiler review later, but in short it felt like a lot of overacting whilst basically nothing happened. The new theming was bare at best. Terrible. I would love to know what people who enjoyed it saw in this attraction, but I am legitimately baffled as to how it could be considered by anyone to be anything above 'dire'.

Spoiler thoughts from me: Some non-spoiler bits, found out during the Press Night: -Kieron Smith, Global Artistic Director for The Dungeons, was described as the "writer and director" of Ghost Train. What they means exactly I'm not sure, but in any case, it means that this has had significant input from someone who is in charge The Dungeons, which are very successful, and what this attraction should aim to be like. -The park acknowledge this will take some time to perfect. As with things like this, there will be a need to be responsive to guest and actor feedback, and things like timings, scripts, etc may need to be tweaked. The park will do this. -Not having the restriction of an IP means it is easier to change / update the story too. -A general consensus from everyone I spoke to who rode it was that it was perhaps the best they could have done given the constraints they had. There's a "ride system" in place, but it is minimal and restrictive, and was designed for a very specific purpose. The building was designed for that ride system. Replacing the ride system is pipe dream worthy at this stage. But what they've with it, and what they've turned Ghost Train into, is (as I've already said), on the higher end of what they could have done. They could have done more, but they've done a good job.

Alright, here we go. My written review of Ghost Train, as it was opening day 2023. Spoiler-free review: Wow, okay. I'm going to throw it out there and say: it's incredible. Honestly, it's incredible. From the outset I was extremely dubious (as you can see from my earlier posts) that enough would have been changed inside the attraction to warrant this rebrand. To be perfectly honest, I thought it was going to just be a reskinned version of Derren Brown's Ghost Train - but that's exactly what it isn't. Ghost Train manages to fuse eeriness, a little bit of comedy to get you to let your guard down, and then slaps you with more eeriness. What it does, it does very bloody well - especially given the fact that this attraction was not designed to be what it is now. Ghost Train now has a cohesive story from start to finish (something that DBGT was always heavily lacking, and the park trying to shoehorn plothole solutions always just make the storyline even more confusing), and the set design is immense. It's a shame that I live so far away from the park these days as I definitely already want to go back to give it another few more rides before I give a final review, but after already queuing for about 2-2 and a half hours for Ghost Train today... I think I'm alright until the hype dies down a little 😂 Alright, here comes the spoilers. DO NOT READ PAST THIS SECTION IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW THE STORYLINE. I have also included my criticisms in this section as I didn't want to spoil the story: Overall, it's an incredible attraction and they've finally nailed what they were trying to do all along. Hopefully it sees some longevity, but it really is even more actor-heavy than Derren Brown ever was which is worrying. It seems we were fully staffed today, but will it have the same impact on an off-peak Tuesday? Only time will tell. As I said the other day, do not compare it with The Curse. They are two very different attractions - but as far as this attraction is concerned as it's own standalone thing... it's fantastic.

I’ve ridden it, It’s good, however it’s not a ride anymore and a lot of the GP will expect a ride or the VR. None which is clear from the outside of the attraction. Great actors, story and effects and sets. It’s good for a couple of years at a push but a waste of space for such a prominent ride. They obviously didn’t design the ride for this, hence why I don’t think it can work for a long time. It’s shoe horned in, long term use the building with modifications to the size. But build ride hardware inside, minimising the physical building being wasted, but unlimited space to build a massive dark ride.

Colossus is opening today It beat Ghost train by 1 day, just got Mr Monkey to go!