Marc

It seems deliberate, there’s a huge shift in how they are communicating from the first lot of down time to now, there was a big deal and tonnes of info when it went down and again when it reopened, this time there’s just been one post about it closing and other than an unadvertised change on their website no fanfare around it reopening either. Looks like it’s been testing tonight with the train full of water dummies, last weekend its first few tests only had 3 rows of dummies. Mack really need to come up with a solution, not being able to send an empty train isn’t really a great way to operate long term.

I went down last night at around 8pm and there was lots of people around Hyperia (mostly seemed third party companies), I am assuming they were going to try get the train removed overnight but maybe didn’t manage, will be interesting to see how much of the train is left there today.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the trains taken off tonight and opens tomorrow (on one train) - but that’s just a guess. Im not surprised it stalled here - it goes very slowly since the lift has been slightly slowed down, even at 5pm after running all day an empty train is very slow round this section. Not really sure on the solution, It’s not really practical to never send an empty train, they have been doing morning tests with dummies but obviously they have to be removed before it opens. Maybe mack can work to get the lift hill up to to full speed again which does seem to make a difference.

As far as I know only inferno has seats designed for bigger chest measurements. Not actually seen anyone not get on Hyperia yet, all seats are the same size.

It’s been running flawlessly today so far, opened maybe 10/15 mins late, hasn’t had a moments down time, hopefully it continues this way! Queue is currently just within the main queue advertised at 75 mins.

I’d expect the park are hoping to reopen it tomorrow, as Josh said it was testing all day after its shutdown this morning, I think Mack may even still be around (although not certain!) - fingers crossed these are just teething issues we would have seen a few weeks ago if it didn’t have its couple of weeks down! Will say after it closed and queue was evacuated the park were pretty good at communicating, the app pinged a notification that the return guarantee had been activated and park wide announcements then followed. A couple of hours later when hyperia started to test and a crowd started to form they used the app again to send a push notification to inform everyone the ride would not reopen, obviously not good but was a good use of some of the tech they have to hand to communicate with people around the park. Does seem a decision has been made to just use pre record announcements at Hyperia - fingers crossed when it beds in it becomes less of an issue.

Seems like they are trying to replicate conditions as close to open day as they can, hopefully if all goes well will see an announcement very soon.

Plenty of people are complaining at the lack of updates on TT2 - in other words people will complaining regardless! Hopefully will open in next few days

TBF I think they can do both? I’ve seen a few American enthusiasts praising Thorpe for their transparency and regular updates on Hyperia’s closure, which is ironic when you see people on Twitter demanding more information. Thorpes ride availability page has been updated to state Saw will be closed on the 3rd and 4th May (but really it’s June!), I think it’s safe to assume that will be related to Hyperia. Trains have also been spotted filled with test dummy’s too so fingers crossed if all goes to plan the 8th is the day depending on how much testing Mack will want to do.

Did they give you anything when they cleared the queue? Saw from a Vlog they were handing out hyperia fastrack’s. Shame it wasn’t managed as well as it was yesterday, given they let people into the park early etc does seem what ever is up was found very last minute.

Had a great day today. Joined the queue at the very back of the entrance bridge at 8:30 and got on at 14:45 - so a *very* long wait (which did include a few shutdowns) I can’t state enough how well the entire thing was organised, there was no issues which were seen at other coaster openings, I genuinely don’t think it could have been planned better. The ride is fantastic, each element on it is perfectly executed, obviously nothing like we’ve seen in the UK before. Personal highlight being the over banked turn, your literally out of your seat the entire time. Also for me it didn’t feel short atall, initially I was abit worried it was a bit short but it’s paced very well. Really hope it’s a hit for them!

The tarmac will be covered with the resin I think! Samurai and Saw are both planned to be closed today, can only assume it’s construction related.

Do think maybe something in this, if they were planning to put a maze in black mirror it makes sense to keep slammers old queue to use that, with slammer removed it’s a fairly large area, with the age of lots of Thorpes flats it would be nice to see something new on this front.

Can’t say why but I’ve seen this happen a few times - have also seen it where it starts to launch but stops so quick the train barely leaves the station - I guess there’s something the computer system didn’t like to cause it to stop mid launch.

I expect it to be a very lose theme like Colossus / Stealth - as long as it looks nice I don’t mind too much hopefully the coaster can make up for that!

There’s a clear shift in how Merlin spend money the last couple of years tbf, I would guess the combo of a new CEO / going back to private have made this more possible. Agree all this stuff should be standard but I guess it isn’t in recent times here so it is nice to see. Hopefully once it is done they can keep it up - even just smaller touches up around the park each year can keep it up to a decent standard whilst not costing multi millions which I can only assume all this is costing to bring it up from where it currently is / was.

They also confirmed it’s getting a major PLC upgrade so that fits in with the rumours about being able to unlock individual restraints. I’d be surprised if it’s able to unlock one bar at a time without also major works on the train but maybe one “car” at a time? That said they can already unlock 2 rows at a time on Inferno but they still recheck all bars after unlocking 2 rows - but that’s more a recent policy thing than anything.

They are also producing a new entrance and dome theme to be fair! Event was posted on the Thorpe annual pass Facebook group

I wonder if they just broke and there was no budget to replace - maybe with the new way where Merlin seem happier to spend it’s possible.. I hope!

I think the issue with this is people don’t want to go on some random days at the end of October - It’s always the same weeks / days packed every year simply because that’s when demand is. The park do limit the capacity, I’m pretty sure the numbers they let in are no where near what used to be seen back in 2008/9 etc. It is a tricky one to balance - it’s easy to say they should sell less tickets / fastracks etc but from a business sense that only makes sense if they also up the price - which will equally annoy some people. I do wonder if enthusiasts maybe overstate it and maybe people visiting once a year on fright nights just expect it to be packed and are pretty happy getting on a handful of rides and having a day out - hard to tell!

Stealths fading changed mid construction - can see its original look here but it never opened like that, not sure why they would really bother once it’s up unless they had to.

Yeah I agree with this - I would hate to see things like metal detectors at ride entrances and I don’t think you can really expect people to be without phones etc in queues. That said Thorpe have confirmed Hyperia will have the Mack rotating baggage stores which hopefully people will trust to leave phones etc in if they don’t have zip pockets to put them in.

They were leg ticklers - they would randomly go off at the end of the ride when the train I assume reset, they were removed not long after though.

Interesting.. I think I’ll go with Colossus is a good roller coaster

They had the masks in the first and last rooms on Saturday evening and they all seemed to have some sort of mega phone so was much clearer than on press night too which was nice!