Ghost Train - NEW for 2023

[Hethetheth]

6 minutes ago, Benin said:

 

Is it a surprise that most positive reviews came from the VIP Preview night?

 

Though when DBGT was an apparent mess anything would seem better.

 

I agree, I feel lied to by those VIP reviews. I had a look on Thorpe Park's FB page and the general public are absolutely trashing the attraction.

[Mark9]

14 minutes ago, Hethetheth said:

 

I agree, I feel lied to by those VIP reviews. I had a look on Thorpe Park's FB page and the general public are absolutely trashing the attraction.

 

'Nothing is ever as good or as bad as the first reports of excited people'

 

This has become my mantra in life. If I had walked onto half the rides and dark rides with the level of hype/hate thrown on them, I don't think I'd like anything. 

[JoshC.]

18 minutes ago, Hethetheth said:

 

I agree, I feel lied to by those VIP reviews. I had a look on Thorpe Park's FB page and the general public are absolutely trashing the attraction.

 

First of all, if an attraction is (as you put it) dire, reviews from a media / VIP preview event aren't going to call it that. Ultimately, those events are there for those people to positively talk about and hype up whatever they've been invited there for. Saying that thing is awful publicly is just a shot in the foot and ultimately leads to them not getting invited back. So it's totally worth taking any VIP review with a pinch of salt (especially with actor led experiences).

 

For me personally, I keep a fine line. Any negative or construction feedback I pass onto management. I have said multiple times when I don't like something, when I don't think something will work, etc. But then when it comes to posting on TPM's social pages, I focus on the positives, whilst also sandwiching in a constructive improvement. I always joke about 2018 Fright Nights, and my review of Vulcan Peak, which was little more than "Something different".

 

As for Ghost Train more specifically, I'm genuinely curious as to which VIP reviews you feel "lied to by". I ask this because, everyone I spoke to at the event had a pretty level-headed thought process about it. Thoughts were along the lines of 'Better than DBGT', 'The best incarnation of the ride', 'It's not a must-do, but it's something I'm happy to do if the queue is right'. And the reviews and thoughts I saw posted on social media from the preview reflect that. 

 

Obviously everyone will have different thoughts and reactions. And something like this, especially in a theme park setting, will receive very Marmite reactions. But I genuinely don't know of anyone who's over-stated the attraction to be more than what it is.

 

 

For what it's worth too: the experience during the media event was an accurate reflection of how the ride would run normally. No extra actors in the building. The same number of roaming actors outside the attraction (which are currently there as the ride is new, but will disappear is the coming weeks/months). There was no 'special runthrough'. The experience is, if anything, still growing, as they take on board people's reviews and make tweaks. Opening of Ghost Train was delayed on the night slightly too. 

[coasterverse]

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.

[Hethetheth]

There were no specific VIPs, I'm not calling out anyone. Basically I heard quite a few people on Thursday and Friday giving rave reviews, and then actually experiencing it was very different!

 

My spoiler review is below:

 

Spoiler

Preshow 1

 

I actually liked this preshow. The effects were good and the scenery was actually very well done. The story was perhaps a little convoluted, but on the whole a good start. It made me excited to experience the attraction.

 

Preshow 2

 

We moved onto the area just before the old hanging carriage. There was a TV screen showing a mock weather present giving out eerie messages. Again, I enjoyed this part. Great for building up atmosphere. So far so good.

 

Entering the train

 

This was also well done. A bit of a shame that the hanging carriage was gone, but the room looked great.

 

Train 1

 

The train leaves the station and...it's just some guys talking for a long time whilst nothing else happens. I thought that maybe this was just  build up to something more exciting. I'll wait and see...

 

Mid section

 

We exit the train and enter the Crypt. The Crypt could be described charitably as 'patchy'. Apparently black curtains everywhere counts as theming now. The actors give a lengthy dialogue which builds up to... a Tomb glowing orange for a bit. Hmm, a bit of a let down. Oh, and then a man in a hood walks around. That's very underwhelming, but hey, maybe the second train might be good...

 

Train 2

 

The actors ham it up for a bit, there's some UV paint, and two actors dressed as nuns walk around.

 

A horrible sinking feeling rises...this is it, isn't it? Two nuns, a man with a hood, some discount Halloween scenery and lots of talking. That's the Ghost Train experience. Are you kidding me.

 

The fakeout shop is still there, it does little to improve the experience.

 

 

I like the dungeons attractions. I don't inherently dislike actor led experiences. However, those work because there are multiple rooms which are densely themed and there are many different stories and variety in the scenes. This did not have the variety or dense theming to back up the experience.

 

In short, I really just don't think a lot happens. The scenery is poor to non-existant and the acting is very repetitive and doesn't build up to anything. It just felt like nothing of any substance actually happened.

[coasterverse]

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...

 

Spoiler

Get on the train at platform 13, go to the crypt, back on the train to platform 13

 

...then they're free to do whatever they want to switch up the storyline in each different location.

[iEddiez]

I give it a season. Maybe a second for good measure.

£40m flop.

[Matt N]

I think the issue that this project always faced is that once you removed the VR and got rid of Derren Brown, there was only so much you could have done to improve the ride without spending huge amounts of money completely gutting the building.

 

Unlike most dark ride systems, the ride system was very bespokely tailored to DBGT and the very specific sequence of events that happened within it. With something like Duel, for instance, the ride system itself had no particular quirks that were tailored to The Haunted House as it was per se, so Merlin were able to make The Curse at Alton Manor into a pretty different ride without performing any overly radical work.

 

With DBGT, on the other hand, the very design of the ride system meant that the same basic structure of the original attraction would always need to be followed. Riders would need to sit on a train, be rushed out of the train for a live action sequence of some sort and then sit on another train to return to the offload station. And with the design of the ride vehicle not really providing much scope for added physical theming due to the VR being the originally intended vehicle for storytelling, that made the park's options very limited in terms of what they could actually do with the train portions in particular.

 

With this in mind, I think it was complicated for Thorpe Park to make a new ride out of it because in the absence of a huge budget to demolish the whole thing and start again, the basic building blocks of the ride experience would always have needed to remain exactly the same, which would have limited the park's options massively.

[ML27]

I definitely think that Thorpe have been told by Merlin that they have to make it work for the next 3-5 years. 
 

I can’t see this building getting any major attention now and other rides and attractions will be replaced before Ghost Train does go. Luckily they have creative freedom to do whatever, so next month it will slightly different and so on.

 

This spot is definitely cursed, it’s going to become like the arena and stand empty for years.

[Inferno]

Oh dear. This doesn't sound good at all.

 

I'm looking forward to trying it myself in a couple of weeks, but if there's anything more than a 40 minute queue I think I'll pass.

 

I think Thorpe need to bin the actor-led attractions now.  It's been tried many times, but the reality is that people want a 'ride' at Thorpe don't they.

I know there was little they could do this time with the existing Ghost Train building and hardware, so fair enough trying to make it work, but from now on surely a line needs to be drawn under the actor-led stuff outside of Halloween?

[tactic]

I’m in a pre queue of at least 40 mins probably now. The park isn’t busy at all apart from ghost train. Hoping it’s worth it!

[coasterverse]

5 minutes ago, tactic said:

I’m in a pre queue of at least 40 mins probably now. The park isn’t busy at all apart from ghost train. Hoping it’s worth it!

 

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

[tactic]

Just finished off on Ghost Train.

 

I'm going to be honest, it was slightly underwhelming. I spent the whole ride waiting for something big to happen, and nothing did, it just kinda felt a bit strung out towards the end. 
 

If it was a scene in the London Dungeons and other similar attractions, I’d say it would fit very well but as a ride by itself I believe it doesn’t offer enough.

 

If someone wants to spoiler tag this feel free, I’m not sure how much info counts as a spoiler.

[Hethetheth]

1 hour ago, tactic said:

I spent the whole ride waiting for something big to happen, and nothing did

 

I agree, this is essentially my main point. Nothing really happens.

[coasterverse]

Yeah I can't really argue with that, I agree in fact. The final scare definitely needs to be improved upon

Spoiler

(and so does the fake shop ending imo)

 

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.

 

Spoiler

Also, the runner for the ghost demon thing that flies overhead in the crypt scene defo needs to be painted black ASAP - it was the first thing I saw when I entered the room. Granted I didn't realise that it was a runner, I instead assumed it was one big UV bulb, but it still sticks out like a sore thumb and really ruins the immersion.

 

Also, not sure if we just didn't have one on Friday or if I just didn't see it, but I didn't realise there was another hidden actor in the crypt scene. This is also something that I've seen a few others talk about.

 

[Parm Pap]

tether your ghost train ride, I will never make it spooky, one day our ride will be, spooky enough to scare you, I might not be there for five more seasons but we'll make it bang average for now, I pray that we get told it's fine as it is, so one day we can remove, I love my ride, it is scary time, it is spooky time, it is woo woo time, there's a ghost

 

 

this ride was a mistake, and god knows we've made a few, I started to question my role here, and they answer they gave was Mack

 

 

I cannot promise there won't be delays, I wish I could sort it all out, but you'll enjoy the ride when it comes next year, and see it when it gets built

 

 

I love my ride, there is scary time, there's a spooky train, it is cheap, I love my ride, there is spooky time, there's a scary train, that was ride

[coasterverse]

20 hours ago, coasterverse said:

This was the good thing about wearing headphones in DBGT is that it was insanely loud, so all jumpscares were pretty impactful.

 

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.

[tactic]

I think headphones would just make the ride feel more restrictive. They are trying to go for a realistic feeling train (I think) and having to put on headphones to hear the announcements that would come through speakers in a train would just kinda break the illusion in my opinion. Also like you said they would open up lots more technical difficulties and slow down operations due to people having problems with finding and putting on headphones.

[coasterverse]

56 minutes ago, tactic said:

I think headphones would just make the ride feel more restrictive. They are trying to go for a realistic feeling train (I think) and having to put on headphones to hear the announcements that would come through speakers in a train would just kinda break the illusion in my opinion. Also like you said they would open up lots more technical difficulties and slow down operations due to people having problems with finding and putting on headphones.

 

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.

[tactic]

I do agree with that as well. When I was on it I couldn't really hear what was being said from one of the actors in the train, especially as there was a groups of teenagers right opposite me and my mate who wouldn't shut up for the enitre ride and only seemed to know how to shout. Louder speaker would have definitly helped.

 

Spoiler

Also, was the actor at the end in the fake shop meant to be in costume. I've heard some people say that they were in a train conductor outfit when they did the attraction. When I did it, it was the same person who told us to stop and wait and they were in normal thorpe park clothing, which deffinitly didn't help make the scene any more spooky as it was already so predictable that something was going to happen. My mate who had not done DGBT saw a scare coming in the end room from a mile off and the actor in a t-shirt didn't help at all.

 

[coasterverse]

 

Spoiler

It was like this for my runthrough on opening day too - I think what they were trying to do with it is blurring the lines of reality and fiction. It's obvious that the actors on the train getting possessed are part of the script, but I think they were trying to make you question if that was supposed to happen or not. It's very confusing and only after I went away and thought about it do I now understand what they were trying to achieve... it just doesn't work 😂

 

It's some advice that I'm seeing lots of people also utter - I don't think many people understood what they were going for to be honest, and I think it'll probably be pretty high on the agenda to change fairly soon.

 

[ML27]

Could this building eventually host a Ghost busters attraction? Would make complete sense!

[thorpephan]

I mean if its like a dungeons attraction - why don't they just turn it into one? - link it to walking dead and have a hybrid experience and base it in the Necropolis railway that the Dungeons had as a halloween layover show a few years ago!  And with the two ride systems it would be different enough from the nearby London dungeons to be able to hold its own! 

[Benin]

12 hours ago, ML27 said:

Could this building eventually host a Ghost busters attraction? Would make complete sense!

 

Like the awful looking Heide Park one?

 

God.

[coasterverse]

9 hours ago, thorpephan said:

I mean if its like a dungeons attraction - why don't they just turn it into one? - link it to walking dead and have a hybrid experience and base it in the Necropolis railway that the Dungeons had as a halloween layover show a few years ago!  And with the two ride systems it would be different enough from the nearby London dungeons to be able to hold its own! 

 

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?!