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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.

Awkward. At least it's true to its predecessor in barely working.

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.

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.

When you need to hit the word count on an essay.

Wahoo, now open. Few comments from me. Park did a little opening ceremony, which was nice. Even though Jumanji is open for hotel guests (9am-10am), it was still good for something to recognise the significance of the new area. Short speech done, area opened. So to ride Mandrill Mayhem you need to join a virtual queue. This does create a massive bottle neck right off the bat but 20 minutes later there's no one waiting outside to get their QR codes scanned. Its launch day was quiet in the park with only the Jumanji rides having any significant wait times (for reference, Vampire was less than 10 minutes all day). This ran out around 3:30pm so just as a warning, on a busy day it could run out a lot earlier. The most we waited for Mandrill was 30 minutes and the team working it were doing the best with the limited capacity. They made a point of filling every seat, deliberately holding back single riders to pair them up with groups of three or other single riders. This being an intense, geek heavy day there was a lot of single riders so I wonder if this will continue on a more traditional park day. The station is fine, the thing I like is that unlike the Swarm where you just wait on either side of the station (and one is significantly longer then the other), here you are pre batched and let pretty much straight onto the ride. But this does create a bigger problem where the train is still for several moments as you can't get onto the platform until a staff member opens a gate. There were points that the staff were only one on each side, its a lot of work for one person. Again, low capacity ride being made lower. Trains felt exactly like the other Wing-riders, it begs the question, could The Swarm be a 1.2 metre ride or is there something I'm missing? The ride itself is surprisingly good. I had reservations about this being a proper lower tier B&M but actually its a pretty varied ride experience. The spike for example as you launch out the station is full of hang time particularly in the back part of the ride. The launches feel really nice, sitting between Mack and Intamin. The turns are full of whip. I love the turn coming out of the station heading in(or out) or the zero g roll. It's so snappy. The Zero G roll is really good. It's taken at the perfect pace and is in the perfect location over the entrance to the area. The helix around the monument is surprisingly forceful on the right hand side of the train. The backwards return journey is lovely too. We had 6 rides overall and it was pretty unanimous in that this is a perfect fit for Chessington and a good step up ride for those that want a bit more then Dragons Fury but aren't quite ready for Thorpe. I think one of its main positives is a weird one in that the earlier B&M Wing-riders were very graceful rides, The Swarm for example has a natural flow and each element works in conjunction with the next. It always feels in control. The newer ones such as Fenix at Toverland and Mandrill have jerkier elements and feel less refined weirdly. And I kinda like that. So yes, a nice surprise. It has all the strengths that you'd expect from a B&M in that it's reliable and efficient and is a strong Premier ride for the park. It perfectly fits in next to Vampire, Kobra and Dragons Fury and I'm very happy and hope it brings the park the success to take it through the next decade. Ostrich Stampede isn't great to be honest. Takes way too long to load and only one has twenty seconds of really good jumping energy. The rest is a bit meh with you just spinning around. Mamba Strike was much better and weirdly jerky and seemed to be the busier of the two rides. Both of these rides were doing the job well of support flat rides and makes the area feel more complete and rounded. So to conclude it was a successful launch for a park that really needed the investment. With Croc Drop two years ago, Blue Barnacle, Trawler Trouble and Barrel Bail Out last year and now Jumanji, the ride offering has seen significant and much needed changes and I hope to see this continue. I love Chessington and I do bring out the rose tinted glasses out for it. it has so much potential that has been locked away for what feels like two decades. This needs to be the start of something because Chessington can be a great park again.

Sod it, why not?

Whatever theme/style they're going for, it's obviously going to be very light. There's no major theming pieces in the plans. The station building is very simple. That's not to say there'll be no theming, but it's simply going to be minimal. That's fine with a coaster like this too imo. I don't think an Egyptian theme does it for me. Something like that could work well at Thorpe, but not for this. This ride is ALL about the height, tacking on some Egyptian hieroglyphics and whatever doesn't hit the spot for me. Some sort of soaring bird over nature would be much better. Simple, easy to understand, makes sense. Just ticks all the boxes.

Hats off to the construction team. Pulling this right back on track. Piling for foundations has commenced… https://themeparkguide.co.uk/news-page/Project-Exodus-Foundations-Begin

Hello! A visit this week was the first time I've been to Thorpe for four years which is my longest gap between visits since I started going in 2005 (I lean more towards Alton now) so a few thoughts from me. Some good and bad. Arrival: The absolute state of the security queueing arrangements on the forecourt. Being herded into a cattle pen before you've made it it through the gates is such an unwelcoming to the park. I get why it's needed (sadly) but my god. Park Music: I'm no sound engineer so I don't know how "good" the new set up is from a quality point of view but I thought the new speakers around the park were a welcome additional. I haven't heard WWTP sound so good in the Stealth queue for years. Inferno's queue line sounded decent too. I know a lot of people prefer it but I was so happy to hear the original soundtracks (even stretching back to the 2002 voiceovers on Vortex) instead of the IMA soundtracks. I just wish they'd get Inferno's proper dispatch music back. Park Presentation: The basement in the Dome is quite the glow up from my last visit! Looked really nice, just hope they can keep it that way. The rest of the park seemed in fairly good nick but I really wish they'd put Zodiac out of its misery. If it's staying long term (which I hope it is) please paint it and theme it to how the previous model was! It looks dreadful now. I wish they'd do some proper landscaping on Flying Fish too. Rides: My biggest gripe through is Angry Birds Land. When does the sponsorship end? I can't wait to (hopefully) see Detonator returned to its former self and the clash of themes around the pathway between Tidal Wave and Stealth. Rumba Rapids is such a dull rapids ride, you come off it bone dry and there's no just excitement to it. No theming elements, decoration or even music. I'd like to see revamped with either a volcanic or jungle theme. Just another ride that seems to be sitting in the corner of the park waiting to die. I enjoyed Vortex a lot more than I have previously, I don't know if it's had a proper mechanical overhaul since 2019 or I've just forgotten how it ride but it seemed a lot faster than previously. Probably enough rambling from me. Looking forward to going again and not leaving it as long!

Just finished off on Ghost Train. I'm going to be honest, it was slightly underwhelming. I spent the whole ride waiting for something big to happen, and nothing did, it just kinda felt a bit strung out towards the end. If it was a scene in the London Dungeons and other similar attractions, I’d say it would fit very well but as a ride by itself I believe it doesn’t offer enough. If someone wants to spoiler tag this feel free, I’m not sure how much info counts as a spoiler.

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'.

Very very brief thoughts from me as I am exhausted It's good fun. It's an actor led, story driven, Dungeons-esque experience. It's an improvement on DBGT and more rideable, but it doesn't have strong rerideability. It's on the higher end of what they could have done with the ride system in place. I have concerns about how it will run with full groups of paying guests. But that will be seen in time. Theming is good for the most part. Story is clear and straightforward. There's some cool, simple effects. It's up there as one of the better incarnations of the ride (probably joint with the 2017 version when all effects worked for me). It's not perfect, but it's a good, well rounded addition to the park's line up. Fuller review with spoilers to follow.

There’s no way I'm going to avoid seeing spoilers until Tuesday… I really want to do the attraction without anything being spoiled as I did DBGT after having watched like 3 youtube vids about it and it ruined the experience.

Keep an eye on TPM's social media channels this evening from 6pm...they might be some (non-spoiler) thoughts from yours truly from the preview event!

My prediction is that it'll be deemed "BEST DARK RIDE IN THE WORLD" for a few weeks; then some key effects will break, not be repaired and will slowly get mothballed until it closes forever.

Please don’t let anyone from Thorpe or merlin see that 😂😂

The Voice: The Ride confirmed

Tbf Thorpe could be a lot better if they nicked more of Walibi Holland's ideas, so I'm not against the notion.

Thorpe have uploaded this to their pass-holder group! Very minor, but they’ve used B&E across the Merlin estate for Jumanji, Croc drop ect. Now they have arrived, it’s a sign from the move away from the ground preparation phase to the ride building phase! Exciting!

They have also uploaded plans for the station. I am happy we are at least getting a stylised ride. It will probably be similar to nemesis inferno. There’s no surrounding theming other than the station which is a volcano, no preshow or anything. But I think we all get the gist of the theme. It’s not as stylised as icon, it’s more themed compared to that. It’s definitely an Egyptian theme, I’m so glad about because as everyone says, we have so many dark themes at thorpe and it’s different to a black track! It’s got much more interesting now

That’s the new logo for sure, it’s been used on merch. Unfortunately, the logo would work much more with DBGT due to its Modern vibe and the VR. If you’re trying to distance yourselves away from any VR type ride. It’s not helping. Again, it’s clear where the creative direction from the logo has came from. I don’t know what this ride is trying to be, is it a take on the old style ghost train or is it meant to be a scare experience all year round? I suppose it does feature a train and ghosts so the name is correct, but can’t help but think it may mislead a few into thinking it’s a ride type everyone knows

Hello all, long time lurker first time poster here. I’m Peter, 25 years old and from Bournemouth. In addition to riding coasters, I also enjoy learning about the history and development of UK theme parks. I first visited Thorpe Park on a school trip in June 2013, although I couldn’t ride any of the coasters due to the fact I had undergone major surgery on my back a few months earlier. I returned a year later when I finally had the all clear from my doctor and was able to experience an inverting roller coaster for the first time, Nemesis Inferno. Such an amazing ride and still my favourite coaster of all time. To this date, I have completed all the coasters at Thorpe, Paultons and almost all at Chessington (I am yet to experience Dragon’s Fury), as well as a few at smaller theme parks. The next destination on my bucket list is Alton Towers, which I’m surprised I still haven’t got round to yet as my mates always suggest it. I’m not sure however whether it’s better to go this year or leave it until next year when Nemesis reopens. Since it would be a shame to go without riding this iconic coaster, next year seems logical. Conversely, at the rate Towers is closing rides, something else might go before then hence visiting ASAP might makes more sense (and I could always go next year as well!)

Fair play to jack, that’s a great piece of work. I actually think it’s great that Thorpe are working with jack by the way. Having an enthusiast working closely with the park will hopefully be helping in terms of giving them some valuable feedback, and makes me wonder if it’s any coincidence that ghost train has had this revamp at all. Let’s hope he fills their heads with plenty of good ideas going forwards

I just had a feeling it would’ve been. Props to him though, it is VERY good! Makes you wonder how much creative input he’s had in this entire attraction… 🤔 because he must’ve sat in MMM meetings etc to gauge what to use for creative advertising, so wonder if he’s had any creative input

This Smiler takeover at Towers looks fantastic... Particular points to note are the Argos karaoke machine, aeroplane seats (out of shot) with barbed wire on them (completely fits in), bits of old CBeebies tat (Fido dog house). When does it stop becoming an "easter egg" or "a NoD tO sOMEthIng" and not just never buying anything new and just repurposing/throwing in anything they find in the props cupboard? I say right now, personally. And I'm a Smiler fan.... but that stage in front of the Wickerboi just gives me the ick. Shane Sandwich is gonna be rippin' this a new one tonight.

I think headphones would just make the ride feel more restrictive. They are trying to go for a realistic feeling train (I think) and having to put on headphones to hear the announcements that would come through speakers in a train would just kinda break the illusion in my opinion. Also like you said they would open up lots more technical difficulties and slow down operations due to people having problems with finding and putting on headphones.

I think the issue that this project always faced is that once you removed the VR and got rid of Derren Brown, there was only so much you could have done to improve the ride without spending huge amounts of money completely gutting the building. Unlike most dark ride systems, the ride system was very bespokely tailored to DBGT and the very specific sequence of events that happened within it. With something like Duel, for instance, the ride system itself had no particular quirks that were tailored to The Haunted House as it was per se, so Merlin were able to make The Curse at Alton Manor into a pretty different ride without performing any overly radical work. With DBGT, on the other hand, the very design of the ride system meant that the same basic structure of the original attraction would always need to be followed. Riders would need to sit on a train, be rushed out of the train for a live action sequence of some sort and then sit on another train to return to the offload station. And with the design of the ride vehicle not really providing much scope for added physical theming due to the VR being the originally intended vehicle for storytelling, that made the park's options very limited in terms of what they could actually do with the train portions in particular. With this in mind, I think it was complicated for Thorpe Park to make a new ride out of it because in the absence of a huge budget to demolish the whole thing and start again, the basic building blocks of the ride experience would always have needed to remain exactly the same, which would have limited the park's options massively.

Could not think of anything worse on that ride tbh.

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.

It’s so hard to judge, I want to believe that. However that’s the line from most attraction openings. I trust TPG, however it’s easy to get caught up in the hype.

love the effort they’ve gone to, to hide the people from DBGT on the podium. Feels very DBGT from what I’ve heard, meant to start at 6pm nearly 7pm and still not open. Still got it’s issues with the train then 😂

Had a sticky beef Po' Boy (essentially like a posh-ish kebab/sub) yesterday on the Island Like No Other, with cajun fries - this was from one of the pop up Mardi Gras food stalls which are not Aramark run. £14.50 in total for both, and it was genuinely decent. Pint of Camden Pale was £6.75 but had to be done because sunshine innit. Similarly, at Fright Nights I bought food on two occasions from the Ghost Train Smokehouse near the teacups, again, external, and was very good indeed. So basically, just go when there are pop up traders xoxo

I don't agree with a lot of what you say, but my word you know things are bad when visiting a BEEFEATER is cheaper than eating on park. Now that's saying something.

Yh it’s a bit odd they replaced like 3 bits of track. Hopefully this season was just a test to see if the retrack would work and next season they will do a bigger section. I’m hoping the do the cobra roll next cause that’s probably the most unbearable part of the ride in my opinion.

Luckily for the humans, nobody was hit, the damage was under the front of the train, but as happens with pigeons, an explosion of feathers.

I would love a taller drop tower at Thorpe definitely. Detonators great, being pushed down at the top is amazing (I’m not sure if they turned the pistons off though I can’t remember if I read that somewhere), but extra height would add to the experience massively. I think the issue with thorpe and other merlin parks in general is when it comes new flat rides is there is no USP so merlin see no reason in buying them. It is really a shame that merlin think in this way because some new off the shelf flat rides would benefit thorpe (after exodus of course) more than a 7th major coaster.

By the looks of it, the infilling of the lake has nearly completed/ been completed. There’s pretty much no water there, except for a shallow area of it which I don’t think will get in the way of the work.

Yep, I am keen on the Thorpe Rail branding - I'd actually consider buying a coffee cup with it on, quite cool and a proper EAstEr eGg that I can get behind - an "if you know, you know" sorta thing. That said, if the whole thing is absolute turd, I won't buy a thing xoxo

Yeah exactly, I wouldn't expect anything too big and glamourous (other than the coaster itself! 😍) as it simply just doesn't need it. The coaster is a statement in itself, it really doesn't need much else. Not saying that I think it would be a bad thing to have a massively themed hyper, quite the opposite in fact, but having the UK's tallest coaster will be enough of a crowd pleaser. The layout still leaves quite a lot to be desired (mostly because of its length), but what we do have on the layout is going to make for an immense coaster experience regardless.

Just watched Jack latest video, where he basically confirms he knows the theme. Throughout the video he mentions theming and theming pieces. Along with the fact there is a them (as he knows). It’s not going to be stylised, which is a massive relief to me, I didn’t want them to build a nature equivalent of a car park coaster. I’d say the bench mark for theming will be between galaticas current theming and stealth level?

Good point - I was just about to hop on to say that I'm starting to doubt my prediction of an egyptian theme now (although don't get me wrong, I still think there's unlimited amounts of potential with such a concept and could be SO good if done right), mainly because the ride is obviously predominantly over the lake... doesn't quite fit the narrative of going for a desert theme does it. Out of a mountain theme or an ancient Egyptian theme, I would choose the Egyptian theme any day of the week - but the more I sit and think about it, I'm leaning more towards it being the former rather than the latter. Don't get me wrong, a mountain theme could also be pretty immense, but can't help but feel like you're fairly limited by what you can do theming wise with such a theme versus ancient Egypt... you've got hieroglyphics, mummies, etc which would all make for incredible theming. Whereas mountains? You've got the height and that's pretty much it. I know the station doesn't look like it'll host a preshow, but I'd really like there to be one. I'd love for Exodus to be a complete encapsulating experience from the queue, ride duration all the way back into the station. At the very least, on board audio would be amazing (and something Thorpe haven't done yet!)

Especially because we had a teaser video to announce the rebrand but nothing else since. Unless they're planning on running a TV ad (which I think is highly unlikely), I think this is going to end up as a pretty lowkey thing. I bet they're not wanting to pump loads of money into advertising as they'll have to do exactly the same thing probably towards the end of this year/start of next year to advertise Exodus.

Maybe the old floating carriage scene will be a grave yard set, if they allow you to walk around the bottom, it’s a tall open space except for the train. Obviously they aren’t going to give away much effects wise but looks like there won’t be screens in the windows but utilising the existing screens above. Love how they’ve themed the train carriage with graffiti and carved in words before the clientele do.

Fingers crossed for it being open for my visit obvs. We're going first day of Mardi Gras (Thurs 18th) - park is closed the day before so maybe that would be an ideal time to have a press event for SLKSTN & Co. ....or, the press event will be the day we are there, like with Black Mirror, and we miss the eXPerIENcE by 1 day 😏 ALSO - spotted that Mardi Gras is not showing on the website for 20th & 21st May but I assume that's a mistake, as elsewhere on the website it says "Mardi Gras is back at THORPE PARK Resort! Taking over the theme park every day from 18th May – 11th June – and it’s included with every park ticket." - as suggested by @JoshC. - that could POTENTIALLY be a GST TRN launch weekend now, but that would be quite odd to set Mardi Gras up for 2 days, for it to then sit there unused for 2 days straight away. But... Merlin.... so.....

Just seen that too. Do you think that means they will announce the opening date tomorrow?

A straight airtime coaster would have just turned out to be another generic B&M hyper in my opinion. It would have had your usual long floater hills, camelbacks etc and not been any different from any of the other hypers built. I do think that B&M hypers are great coasters but then don't offer something innovative or special like thorpe wants. I really like the layout of exodus (even if it is a tad short) and as you said it seems very unique, which is definitly a massive positive.

The new track was on site about a month or so ago, but did not fit correctly. It has had to be sent back to be realigned. No updates as to how long it will take.

Yes, that's it really. It's quite strange to think that such a punky ride ever existed, in the now so safe, and business driven industry. Imagine Marianne and the gang sitting round a boardroom table coming up with such a ride; it just wouldn't happen. I suppose that's the saddest part of the modern theme park world. Everyone's afraid, nobody is willing to push the boat out. It's all very boring. Damn it, you've made me think. Anyway, well done. I've enjoyed the episodes.