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Not being funny but if it takes 20 minutes to get up the lift hill the queues are going to be horrendous and in my view this is just another way of Merlin exploiting fasttrack sales.

Initially guests wanted it at Helix, it got complaints that it felt unsafe. Then with Icon its because the restraints had double redundancy in case of failure, the seatbelts give it a third redundancy if something was to go wrong. Looking at a few others, Copperhead Strike opened with seatbelts (unsurprisingly, Cedar Fair after all) and DC Rivals Hypercoaster didn't, neither do the majority of the Blue Fire clones, Star Trek or Capitol Bullet Train. Merlin being Merlin, I can just see the guest perception taking precedent with Hyperia. This is the company that wouldn't batch a station at Mandrill and has ugly queue lines where every new ride has fences over 6 foot tall.

Best thing about the testing was the cheers from the crowds as the train went down the first drop. The sense of community from things like this is never better then days like today.

Pacing will alter significantly as testing continues. Firstly the train literally crawled over the crest of the lift hill, in a couple of weeks it will be going significantly quicker over the top as Mack lifts are normally fast. This won’t dramatically alter the speed at the bottom (probably only a couple of mph) but that will mean a significant amount of additional kinetic energy is being carried by the train. Secondly the friction will reduce as the ride beds in and warms up so the speed will be maintained throughout the layout. This will probably mean more airtime but less hang time

Bit slow etc. Definitely will have a lot of wasted momentum going into the final brake run by looks of it.

train reveal I think they look very good

this project has turned out to be one questionable decision after the other to be honest - don't get me wrong - I absolutely cannot wait to ride - but everything from the station building, planned landscaping, lack of a viewing platform, queueline etc has been pretty disapponting thus far. I also personally find thorpe's generous (putting that lightly) overuse of the gold colour super tacky. if it was used as a highlight colour against a black station, it would look so much more elegant. also a little confused by the black and gold colourscheme of the station, queue etc but the actual coaster itself is white and gold? wouldn't a white and gold station have fit the aesthetic better than a black and gold one..?