Marc

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!

I think I remember hearing the licensing for imascore stuff is a lot simpler in the way that they pay for it and that’s that (but I could be wrong) I’m sure they do still have the rights to the imascore stuff seeing as they still seem to have a continued relationship with them

I don’t really see how screens would work on Ghost train - on Hogwarts it works well with the movement of the train, but with Ghost train most of the time the trains physically sat still and really only moves a very short distance - they maybe able to come up with something but really not sure how it would work

I don’t imagine Thorpe having much issues with the CAA in regards to height - planes going over are already several thousand feet so I imagine it would be more the locals which would cause issues.

I agree with lots of the little points, better park lighting, fright nights audio for every ride more smoke machines would be good to see, they are quite cheap and easy things to do too in the grand scheme of things. Creek Freak maybe I’ve been lucky but my run throughs have been actor heavy (not just press night) but obviously this does seem to vary a lot. Id bring in a new maze to replace platform, use the lost city space again and make it a original theme / indoor maze. I do think they lack a maze they can just throw people though, they are all very story based now and when you throw through huge groups you lose abit of the experience, mazes like the Asylum were effective even when they were throwing in huge groups quickly when queues got large. I don’t think lowering the price of mazes is really realistic at this point, they are clearly selling too many as it is and with fastrack it’s all about supply and demand, we saw fastrack start off cheaper than it is now with far too much of it, over the years they have tweaked pricing to the point where generally it’s less of an issue (not all the time granted) but will still make a tidy profit for the park. I suspect we will see them playing with maze prices too till they get the balance right (I hope so anyway!)

I’m sure will be fine, I doubt things will be walk on with fastrack but will still be significantly quicker than main queues!

They tweaked it throughout the evening it seems - I like it I think the ending is weak, people don’t seem to realise it’s finished, think the ending needs more umph to finish it off.

Hmm I’m not sure they would Re-theme X again. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but walking dead is probably the most complete experience of the coaster there has been i can’t see them changing it again before the coaster is at the end of its life. I would guess they would just renew with AMC now till the time comes they want to remove it. Could be wrong though stranger things have happened !

Hmm I’m not sure they would Re-theme X again. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but walking dead is probably the most complete experience of the coaster there has been i can’t see them changing it again before the coaster is at the end of its life. Could be wrong though stranger things have happened !