coasterverse

Surely they could just install new frames inside the train, no? Like, couldn't they just put screens in where they are slightly embedded and just build it out from there so they fit flush? It really is disappointing (and frustrating that, yet again, it's another limitation of the god awful ride system) that screens aren't an option - this really is the biggest buzzkill for me. There really needs to be some alternative sensation of movement because just having black windows doesn't work. The thing that makes this ride system work so well is having the combination of visuals AND the motion platform perfectly synchronised which gives the illusion of movement - this is something that Derren Brown's Ghost Train actually did very well. Now I find it's very obvious when the train is actually moving vs being on the motion platform, because there's nothing anywhere in the train to indicate that you're actually supposed to be moving. Given that screens are clearly totally ruled out, the only alternative I can think of would be @ML27's suggestion of the LED's - which is unfortunately something that I can't imagine the park have considered. I can see them totally ignoring this altogether to be honest and just trying to make up for it in different places in the attraction so the general consensus after coming off isn't "hmmm it was alright, I wish there was more to the train section though" and is more like "WOW! The scene in the crypt was insane!", so one thing kind of drowns out the other in the grand scheme of things.

Doesn't sound like massive improvements then if it's less than a week, but very good to know they're actively working on making the experience better. What's everybody's guesses on what 'improvements' these are going to be?

Definitely, the LEDs is a good idea and, let’s face it, certainly couldn’t be any worse than what’s in place at the minute… nothing 😂 Defo agree about the crypt too, it needs something more. Not sure what, mind you, but it is a huge room that you spend most of the time staring into the corner of!

Agreed - I’d love for the next variation of Ghost Train (whenever that is) to be a trackless Wicked Witches Haunt style attraction. If Towers managed to turn Duel into the best dark ride in the country with a decades old ride system, imagine what Thorpe could do with that space if they ripped out the motion platform and installed a trackless dark ride in there. The space is huge - it could be one of the longest and most unique dark ride experiences in Europe if done properly. I must finalise though by saying that I really do like this iteration of Ghost Train. Sure, it’s still not the best attraction by any stretch of the imagination, but I think it’s got potential. Hopefully they take lots of advice into consideration over closed season and get it right. The fundamentals are mostly in place, they just need tidying up in places. Screens inside of the train would be the best place to start imo as the black windows just don’t make sense. The train may as well just remain stationary or they may as well get rid of the whole ‘train’ thing because at the moment it just doesn’t add anything to the experience - it’s just a vehicle to transfer you from scene to scene.

I agree that it is massively predictable, but I don’t think there’s any denying that it’s significantly better than DBGT. There were very few situations in DBGT where I genuinely got jumpscared - the same for Ghost Train - but the experience as a whole on a surface level is 1000x better. The main thing is that Ghost Train has a coherent story - something that, no matter how hard they tried, ever occurred on Derren. That alone makes it massively better than DBGT imo!

Not a bad idea, and contrary to most people's opinions - I actually really like the Alton Towers Dungeon! I'm also pretty sure (looking at Google Maps) that the Ghost Train building is a fair bit bigger than the Alton Towers Dungeon building, so there could definitely be enough room for one given a decent amount of investment. The trouble is, if this did happen, the budget it would receive to be executed would be negligible and therefore would likely be a flop. I think it's just the curse of the building to be honest. They had a massive investment to build the original attraction, it turned out to be a massive flop, and therefore Merlin are probably extreeeeeeeeemely hesitant to invest anything further. If the reported £13,000,000 to build it back in 2016 is actually accurate, I can see why they are nervous to invest more! To put that into perspective, The Swarm only (lol) cost an extra £5,000,000 to build, and Wicker Man at Towers only cost an extra £3,000,000. On a different note though whilst we're talking about money - I wonder how much cash the park were assigned for this new overhaul? Granted a fair few of the props feel pretty cheap, but surely overhauling everything in the way that it has couldn't have been that cheap?!

Definitely don't disagree - just a thought in case for whatever reason they're unable to get the audio levels right in the current speaker setup (I'm sure it'll be fine!), but very worst case scenario I think it'd work pretty well.

Coming back to this point, I actually think maybe bringing the headphones back might... not be a bad idea? Obviously opens them up to a world of technical difficulties again, but I suppose they could still have speakers on the train too as a backup if they don't work. I get that it feels unnatural and probably is immersion-breaking to have to wear headphones, but would genuinely make a lot of the jumpscares and whatnot so much more impactful. Could even use 4D audio to have sounds that move around your head, like the "freedom" whispers? Obviously if they're able to get the audio levels right on the speakers that would be a much better option, but failing that I really think the headphones could do a great job.

I'm not sure - I think Exodus with regular seats probably won't be, but I think Exodus with spinning seats would be - even more so than RTH. Some of those inversions on Exodus look ridiculous, and considering how much speed you'll pick up from such a large drop I think it could be too much.

Yeah I can't really argue with that, I agree in fact. The final scare definitely needs to be improved upon As I said above, I think the final scare could be a lot more impactful if they made it less predictable and make the audio considerably louder. This was the good thing about wearing headphones in DBGT is that it was insanely loud, so all jumpscares were pretty impactful. It would probably be a bit of a struggle for the park to implement powerful speakers in such a small space, but it needs to be done. I've seen people taking about vibrating seats (I didn't really feel it if they do), but upping the intensity of that, combined with louder audio and either remove the breathing sound effect or delayed the payoff a few seconds after the breathing audio (maybe like 5 seconds of pure silence?) would make it a hell of a lot more impactful. The costumes are also... not great - the masks especially. I saw someone on the Facebook group mention that it looks like a cheap halloween costume and I've got to agree. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that they have costumes! If it was either this or generic man in white t-shirt as it was in Derren Brown's Ghost Train, I'd take this any day of the week. I'd just have liked a little more budget being spent on a more realistic looking costume - because this is the final scare at the end of the day, so it should be scary. The good thing is that none of these changes are massively difficult to make, nor are they particularly expensive - which is leaps and bounds better than the changes needed to make Derren Brown's Ghost Train scarier. The park simply couldn't make the changes needed to make DBGT scarier, but the park absolutely can make the changes to patch this attraction up to make it incredible.

Excited to know your thoughts - it really does seem to be a 50/50 split within the community at the minute.

I honestly reckon we'll see minor tweaks to the storyline and set here and there over this season and then probably another major overhaul for the start of next season, kind of like what happened with Derren Brown's Ghost Train. Obviously they can't retheme massive portions of the ride mid-season, so that will probably be a job for over the winter period. I really can see it happening, though. There won't be any major storyline changes, obviously. They'll likely just tidy up the awkwardness around the sides, replace some of the cringy and tacky theming pieces here and there and just make the entire attraction more consistent. The good thing about the attraction no longer being an IP means they can observe the word of the GP and adapt without needing a sign-off from big man DB and his team. I wouldn't at all be surprised if the story changes slightly with every new season - as long as the basics are still there... ...then they're free to do whatever they want to switch up the storyline in each different location.

Unless the experience that I had on Friday was worlds apart from what everybody else has been experiencing since (which I can't see being a thing), I genuinely don't understand the level of hate that the attraction seems to be garnering? Obviously it was never going to be a Ghost Train on the same level of The Curse (hell, not even Ghost Train at BPB!) - we all went into this knowing that the ride system must remain in place because of the way the building was constructed. We all went into this knowing that the virtual reality had been removed. It seems that those that are leaving such negative reviews are forgetting all of these points? The current transit system in place for Ghost Train is built into the building, and is bloody massive. There is no way that they could've removed the old transit system and implemented something else without massive construction - be it taking the roof off and removing everything with a crane, or cutting all of the ride hardware up into small pieces and taking them out that way... both of which would have been time consuming and would have been witnessed first hand. One thing that I can imagine being a pretty large variable is the acting. As the attration is massively actor led, the quality of acting needs to remain consistent throughout - which I can imagine being pretty bloody tiresome when you consider just how emotional the actors need to be for the story to be believable. I'd probably say if you want the best experience, it's best to go on Ghost Train pretty much as soon as it opens. I've said it since Friday and I'll echo my point again, this attraction is absolutely the best that its ever been. Now that's definitely not singing its praises by any means when you consider the dire state that the attraction used to be in before the refurbishment, but they have definitely made the best out of a bad situation. When all of the effects work, this attraction has the potential to be fantastic. Sure, not much reridability, but that's the same with any theatrical performance - once you know the storyline, it won't be anywhere near as impactful. However, if you have good quality actors inside the attraction, that is what will make it reridable. I know for a fact that the actors on my runthrough were absolutely incredible - I had two gentlemen and one of them (I think he had long-ish blonde hair) was brilliant, he managed to be eerie and believable at all times. The risk you take with these attractions most of the time is the cringy GCSE drama level acting, but that's certainly not what I experienced on Friday.

That's gotta be subtle confirmation of the logo returning then, right?! If it does I really hope Thorpe follows suit and updates (reverts?) the logo back too - would look super strange otherwise imo

I think when the benchmark was Derren Brown's Ghost Train and a lot of people who had ridden it previously going in with a pretty low bar as a way to manage their expectations, it's a stellar attraction. It's by no means world class, and certainly by no means the best dark ride in the country for that matter. However, what they've managed to transform the space into (given the fact that the building was built for one set purpose, and that is a virtual reality ghost train) is very, very good. The ride at this point has been open for 3 days, there's going to be teething issues aplenty... but from what I've personally witnessed on opening day (this could have significantly changed since and I'm hearing reports of lots of effects not working for riders over the past two days) it was a thoroughly enjoyable, genuinely eerie theatrical experience, that once given the time to bed in that it clearly needs, has the potential to be immense. Notice that I intentionally call it a theatrical experience and not a ride, because if you go into the attraction thinking it's going to be a thrilling ride, you'll end up bitterly disappointed. To be honest it should be advertised more as a show or a scaremaze rather than a 'Ghost Train', but I suppose it's really just a double entendre - it's a ghost taking over a train. But I also have to agree with @iEddiez - the entire experience was building up to, what I also thought, was going to be one big scare. STORYLINE SPOILER AHEAD:

I wonder if having this being an independent project now that it will allow them to adjust the storyline and allow them to turn it into a different scare attraction for Fright Nights.

I’m not surprised to be honest, but think most of the technical problems will be ironed out very very quickly. The main issue is always having actors on hand, because there’s lots of them. If I remember correctly there should be about 7 actors throughout the experience - I think Ghost Train operates two trains (?) so double that. Having those sort of numbers consistently throughout the season may be difficult, especially with TWD:TR next door also needing some actors, too. Ive got a feeling that actors from TWD will be frequently pulled in to help out with Ghost Train. All they need to do is maintain the high level and consistency of acting in there and this could be great for many years to come.

Rode Vampire for the first time today and sheesh she’s a rough old girl ain’t she?! She is pretty bloody good though I must admit - that helix near the end packs quite a punch!

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.

Maybe this is why I’ve never found it massively uncomfortable? By habit I always lean forward on rollercoasters so maybe that’s why it’s perfectly bearable for me 🤣

Quite the queue with just under half an hour to go (hopefully 😂)

I’ll be riding it today, hopefully at least a couple of times. I’ve always seen DBGT through rose-tinted glasses (regardless of how bad it rode the majority of the time), so this attraction is already off to a bad start in my head. I’ll have a spoiler-free and spoiler-full review at some point today or tomorrow posted here - I promise not to sugar coat anything and my review will be nothing short of totally honest. That being said, as a big fan of Dungeons attractions (yes, even the Towers dungeons!), I am super excited to give it a whirl.

Guilty! I was (and still am) a massive fan of Derren, so it was inevitable that I would’ve spoiled it for myself. But the good thing about the virtual reality was that no matter what was shown or explained to you, it doesn’t even come close to experiencing it firsthand - so some of those jumpscares definitely got me a couple of times even though I knew what to expect! I managed to avoid spoilers for The Curse and I’m so glad that I did - going into it totally blind was the best decision I’d ever made… regardless of how bloody hard it was to do 😂 I booked my trip for opening day because I just KNEW I would spoil it for myself so I couldn’t take any chances hahaha What I’m hearing from most people is very, very positive though so I can’t bloody wait to experience it first hand!

I agree, but anybody describing an attraction as 'amazing' is very, very promising. Trying my hardest to avoid spoilers so I can go into it completely spoiler free tomorrow, but it's gonna be hard!