jimbeam4

This year I decided to track all of my rides on Hyperia, over the course of the season, I managed to experience 92 rides. It is interesting to note that it took me my 33rd ride to get the front row (and 34th to get my other missing row which was Row 4), and then by the end of the season the front was my second most ridden row behind the back row.

My bets will be on:
1. The beach redevelopment whether that's a 2025 or 2026 thing. UK Equivalent of Chiapas I'm hoping but wishful thinking 😅
2. Hyperia landscaping
3. Finishing off the work on Colossus
4. Focus on Zodiac, Quantum, Inferno and possibly Rumba Rapids for sparkle touch. 
5. Overhaul Stealth and Swarm's Batching system
6. Finishing touches on Swarm and Saw
7. Reinstating the baggage hold for Stealth or finding a better way for bag storage.
8. Bringing in Single Rider queues for a few more rides - the ones that are most likely and need one would be Vortex, Rush, Storm Surge, Stealth, Swarm and possibly Tidal Wave. Colossus would be fantastic if they made changes to the queue which I think could be workable however Inferno would be impractical to do without significant work.
9. Finishing touches around the park at the parts of the park that didn't get work last year and parts where work is needed.
10. Potentially taking down Slammer.

 

Got to say I also think the next big investment will align with Thorpes 50th. 
 
Coasterwise RMC is the no brainer, we all want it, and I’m sure JB would love to be involved in one, with Thorpe the only obvious choice. Also to top Hyperia will be difficult for the park, but an RMC has the ability to do so. 
 
However. I actually think the park is CRYING OUT for a multi launch coaster. Quite flexible with the type tbh. Intamin make great ones, Mack extreme spinner or even a Mack Stryker. As it wouldn’t need a massive height to achieve a great ride experience it could be situated towards the front of the park aka outside the dome leaving the island behind swarm and potentially rumba area all free for a future expansion. Just my 2p worth 

Just to chime in on this as I was involved with this project.  The trucks used to deliver the material and the excavation machinery were used to compact the earth as it was filled in.  I seem to remember we handed over the SAW island to the project team pretty much a couple of months after we had finished infilling.  Same with SAW Alive.  For The Swarm, think it was about a year, maybe 2 after infilling completed that they started on construction for that project.  Any ride structures foundations actually go through the infilled material and into the bedrock below.  From memory think the SAW foundations go to 50m

It stalled this morning.
 
Call me Derren Brown. 

The closure was very much for maintenance checks and nothing else. Due to large equipment being in the plaza, I expect that logistically it wasn't practical / H&S-advised to also do things like work in the queue line.
 
But yeah, it's a real shame to see it in such an unfinished way. I didn't expect it to be perfect (the ride area side of things moreso), but the queue line section is bland and sad. That really should have been dealt with. We can only hope they sufficiently add to that over winter.
 
The ride area side I'm happy for them to let bed in. Many ride areas have been like that. Colossus is a Thorpe example. But even rides abroad like Baron 1898 (Efteling) and Fenix (Toverland) started off a bit bland and muddy, but grew into it naturally over time. I think the ride area for Hyperia will be the same. I noticed yesterday that the lake has 'returned' a bit more now, with the final remaining land that connected the two sides of land together now submerged (thanks to the rain). I'm sure over time things will slowly progress.
 
 
The splashdown is verging on being the biggest waste of money if the park can't / don't reintroduce it. Whatever the reasons are for it not operating, it's not good that it lasted a couple of months before stopping. Doesn't help that, despite being 'okay', it wasn't a special splashdown in any way.
 
Feels very much like a design choice which didn't appreciate the operational practicality. 
 
 
 
 
My biggest concern for Hyperia, right now, though is it stalling again.
 
Yesterday, I saw it shutdown a couple of times. When it did test runs, empty, it was going through the outerbank twisted dive (and even the stall loop) quite slowly. I was getting serious déjà vu from a visit a few days before it stalled.
 
This wasn't a case of it needing to warm up either. One instance was just after 5pm. It had been running reasonably consistently throughout the day, and then had a short (5-10min) shutdown. Both test cycles were worryingly slow through the outerbank. Yesterday was cool, but certainly nowhere near as cold as we're going to see over the next month. 
Should stress that with riders, it didn't struggle, but was slower than other rides I've had.
 
I don't know how Macks run and if they have winter / cold-weather wheels. But if they do, it feels like Thorpe need to put them on now if they haven't already.
 
A second valley would not be a good look or ideal for the park, especially in their busiest period of the year.

Yeah that looked a close one.... possibly looks worse than it is because of the angle though, but even so!
 
I've changed my booking to Wednesday 12th now. Can't do 13th/14th for work commitments so I figure best to go on Wednesday and allow another day of testing and prep than go tomorrow and then be annoyed if I miss it by a day.
 
If no Hyperbae on Wednesday, then I'll see her in September once the schools are back.

So if I don't write my review tonight, I probably won't at all.
 
Equally, I am very tired and have an early start tomorrow, so forgive me if this is patchy or brief.
 
I'll preface this with my usual press night statement: I know some people will say "oh, you're opinions are biased, you have a vested interest to be positive" or "you're a Thorpe goon, of course you'll only say positive things. My review will be as honest and truthful as positive, based on my experiences. I've been at pretty much every Thorpe press event since Swarm's back in 2012. In the past, I've told managers to their faces when I think something is rubbish. I've congratulated people for successes. I've said when something has disappointed me, surprised me or just 'not been my cup of tea'. 
 
I was able to get 3 rides during the course of this evening. All of them were back row, and one of them was a night ride. I wanted to mix it up a bit - especially to get a front row experience - but it's just the way it worked. 
 
I will say I found the evening a bit frustrating, with the initial opening being a bit chaotic, although I appreciated the effort for an opening ceremony. I'm sure tomorrow will be smoother, as the set up and organisation is a bit different, but tonight was a bit clunky.
 
So anyways, the ride.
The lift hill is quick, especially in comparison to Big One. But it still feels like an eternity going up. And seeing the park beside you and how you tower over it, is really something. And when you're stood very close to it, you realise: this is tall. The drop. My god the drop. It feels like you're being thrown out to the ground at the top. You stay out of your seat during the twist, which adds to the feeling you're just going to die frankly. The non-inverting Immelmann is fab, giving a nice pop of airtime. The outerbank dive is fab. You are genuinely out of your seat the whole time, as you slowly twist upside down. Such a weird sensation, but so very cool. Quickly going into the stall, you're again left hanging (literally).  The water splash effect does have trims which does notably slow you down, but it doesn't slow you down so that you feel like you're going significantly slower. Think of it as a "gentle press on a car's brake" type of trim, rather than a "harsh car brake" trim. Towards the back, if you stick your hands out, you get a bit wet. The outer banked airtime afterwards offers some surprising ejector. After my first ride, this was actually a highlight, for how surprising it was. After multiple rides, it's not the highlight, but still definitely a highlight.  The airtime into the brakes is fine. Maybe not the strongest ended, but still a nice pop The brakes roll the train into the station very slowly For me, this is my favourite UK coaster I think. I still need time to digest, and I'd like to ride it in other rows too. I also hear the front row is a completely different beast (a lot "floatier" rather than "intense / aggressive"). But yeah, this is a fantastic ride. It doesn't feel too short, as it packs a lot in, and hitting the brakes is that sort of "omg" moment, as you process it all. Could it have had another element after the water splash, perhaps to negate the need for a trim altogether? Possibly, but it doesn't harm the ride.
 
I didn't notice a "Mack rattle" during my rides. However, I do think it has the potential to do so, and could end up riding rough in the future. That will come down to how this type of Mack ages, and what Thorpe do to look after it.
 
There is a neat little dispatch sequence as the train leaves the station:
https://twitter.com/ThorpeParkMania/status/1793709598886822387
 
Other bits:
Mack employees are naturally very happy with the result, and generally and genuinely all love it The ride warms up a lot during the day. During testing phases, it could be take 42 seconds to complete the circuit in the morning, and then drop down to 31 seconds by the afternoon / evening Operations are good on two trains. They removed one to help alleviate pressure on engineering for tomorrow. There were a few shutdowns this evening, partially due to some issues with gates, and also due to someone flying a drone around the ride. Operation on one train is slow. The plaza looks quite nice. It needs some polishing off, but it's good. The ride area, however, is definitely unfinished. It needs tidying up, planting to go in, etc. But in any case, it was always going to be a couple of years before this really looked nice. There will be an opening ceremony / shows for the first few days as a minimum. It's a nice little thing There's some boards around the ride area telling the story of Hyperia, sort of. They're nice, but the backs of them are plain and easy to see around the area, and stick out like a sore thumb https://twitter.com/ThorpeParkMania/status/1793701505725530465
 
Overall, Hyperia is a fantastic addition for Thorpe Park, and for the UK. It's exactly what the park needed. I really enjoyed it, and it's a "Top 10%" coaster for me. 
 
I'll leave you with my first ORP (me on the left):

Hyperia officially opens tomorrow, ending a 12 year drought of new coasters at Thorpe.
 
Tonight is the press launch, which means there will be plenty of reviews about. As such, for anyone who doesn't want the station interior spoiled - or doesn't want to hear people's views - we'll have this thread here. We'll keep the other thread for construction / archiving. 
 
I'll post my views on Hyperia here tonight, and look forward to reading plenty more tomorrow!

On Friday, Hyperia took its first non-Mack riders:
 
Yesterday, significantly more staff were given training on how to evacuate Hyperia.
 
This is the state of play of the plaza as of yesterday:
 
The water effect tested for the first time today:
 
Everything is coming together and, whilst the area might not be the most glamorous-looking, and might need time to bed-in with foliage needing to grow, everything seems on track to open THIS FRIDAY.
 
 

This might be controversial, but I have to say that I really don’t see the point of heavily promoting the “story” for Hyperia. If there was ever a ride where an in-depth backstory was pretty much redundant, I think this is it. The ride has next to no theming, and unlike many Merlin rides, it pretty much doesn’t appear to focus on theming or storytelling at all.
 
If I were Thorpe, I’d be ditching any major focus on the theme or story in marketing and just going all in on the coaster itself. Just hammer home that silhouette of the layout and its giant elements and hammer home the records, with only the very vague “find your fearless” imagery present as an indication of the theme/style. To be fair, I think they’ve done that pretty well up to this point, but the marketing seems to have taken a bit of a weird turn in the last couple of days.
 
Granted, I’m no marketing expert by any means, but the approach of the last couple of days is certainly not how I’d approach marketing Hyperia. The coaster itself is the key strength of this project, so why not play to your strengths? I fear that this sudden focus on the theme and “story” of Hyperia will only invite criticism regarding the very minimalistic nature of the actual ride theming.
 
I’ve never objected to Hyperia being minimally themed. I think it’s par for the course for a coaster of this size; rides of this size speak for themselves, they’re very hard to theme heavily, and even parks known for heavy theming (e.g. Europa Park, PortAventura) have themed their hyper coasters very minimally. However, I think that if Thorpe want Hyperia to be a minimally themed ride that focuses solely on the coaster itself, I think they need to stick to that in the marketing. I think this “backstory” marketing sets people up for a heavily themed ride that doesn’t exist, and I fear that it will draw attention to the ride’s minimal theming and away from the massive coaster itself, the main strength of the project.

are we building a next coaster? well, we'd love to, but we'll have to wait and see.
 
 
HERE IT GOES ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, ding dong
 
 
up and up, get it together oh ho, what a treat it shall be, thank you for your enjoyment of my clues, and I have led you to this day.
 
 
when you enjoy your drop, think of old parm pap and making it possible for you at the thorpe of the park in the twenty of the twenty four

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.

It will be interesting to see what happens.
 
I think a new modern water ride is needed at the park. A proper dark ride would be good too.
 
But also, coasters are what work for the park, so who knows. Maybe they should sack off doing anything else and just stick in a bunch of coasters?

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.

Id go straight to saw them Colossus!

Few points
 
1. Most recent JS update (filmed last Tuesday) clearly showing the increasing volume of supports on the island… also interesting that they are arranged with numbers, also suggesting the order they will be brought to the construction site for erection. 
 
2. JS also stating that site manager has stated mid -end of September for ride supports going vertical which takes this week and next week out of it, and thus the vertical element being spoken about must be either ride station or maintenance hub. 
 
3. From the 2 points above, clear deviation from the original plan in terms of site priorities which makes it difficult to track actual progress against the plan. Hunch says behind by 4-6 weeks based on it, however the station/maintenance is ahead which may allow the systems install to stay on plan. 
 
Concious all of the above very boring points, but interesting at the same time 😂

On the subject of Exodus, it seems possible that the core beams for maintenance building will be erected very soon. I thought that that route might have been used to move supports and track onsite, so it's interesting that's the first thing to be built (with parts then moved on site out of park hours through the park)

Is SAW the best IP Merlin have got? Who would have thought we'd still be here releasing Saw Movies..... Whoever decided to pick this IP should be held at the same level of respect as John Wardley.
 

Just to advise you can now play a game again because SAW: THE RIDE is now OPEN.