Marc

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 !

The boards outside mazes do state there will be waits for mazes and it’s not instant access, queues will i suspect remain shorter than they would if they were still free mind. Have had similar issues at towers where the queues are so long it makes making the others a real rush, not ideal but hopefully they will adjust accordingly when they better learn the throughputs especially trailers.

Don’t the VIP host offer “front of line access” so I assume straight on skipping even the fastrack queue? But realistically ultimate fastrack would be fine for most.

Looking forward to hearing the changes - I always thought swarms soundtrack was quite dull - I remember thinking last fright nights that it’s fright nights track would suit it permanently so look forward to seeing how it sounds. I do hope they’ve managed to fix the speakers in the ambulance/ under the plane and the bell tower - the tower effect in particular was always very impressive both in the queue and even for riders when it was timed right.

They are literally a business - any business in a similar situation would do the same. Universal objected a new attraction on international drive and they are certainly not the pits of the industry..

To be fair they are literally all the same company - I wouldn’t say it’s unusual parks do similar / same events

The thing is I think there is potential with ghost train - on paper it’s really a very good idea in my opinion, the illusion is great and the movement of the train is really good and surprises plenty of people. I don’t even have a problem with VR, it’s the only way this attraction could work but long term for it to work it really needs a better story and more reliable VR headsets. I also think the middle section is such a letdown now, the original was the best despite the effect rarely working!

Not much has changed atall - they’ve added abit more of a story told by the actor before you enter the floating carriage room which is carried on in the middle section, other than that it’s the same as previous.

They used to play saw sound effects think they used to work up will recently at least!

The tower speaker has been replaced with a large RCF one - you can see it if you look up as you go through the tower but it wasn’t working my last visit. As for under the wing maybe there’s a new one there now just not working yet - noticed a new rock with holes like around stealth which seem to have speakers in but not certain!

Saws indoor sections had its audio back yesterday sounding good although the station still sounds abit tinny, hopefully they can add a sub somewhere to improve that, think Stealth would also benefit as saw it’s Bose subs from under the station have been removed hopefully they plan to replace with new RCF ones. Swarm island has also been turned up, although sound effects from the train under wing / tower still off but that could be related to the other water / fire effects currently being off.

No idea what is up with storm surge but it’s certainly had closed season work so can’t see it being removed this soon!

Agreed it is sounding a lot better , although as you say don’t think it’s completely finished. Also noticed saws station lacked bass, and only the bathroom sound effect had any sound, hopefully the billy speachs and the offload announcement can be fixed soon. The Swarm area was very very quiet ok open day - also none of triggered effects were working either but as above I’m sure it’s not 100% finished. Overall though good improvements!

I think the problem with Thorpes entrance is to sort it you really have to flatten it and start again which would obviously cost a lot of money. Things like security, Covid checks etc have had to be implemented, usually with little notice and little budget and you get where we are now - that said realistically if you was to start again other than some maybe more modern buildings and better styling I’m not sure it would function majorly different as it does now? I guess you could well have more space for things and have more security lanes etc to Improve efficiency.