Hyperia - New for 2024 (Ride thread)

[Inferno]

I had wondered if a little more work had been done to Hyperia’s area during its maintenance this week, but today it was still very much in its unfinished state, with temporary fences lining the paths, cables and pipes draped across the mud, and a lot of areas overgrown with weeds.

The splashdown is also still not working, and a few of the speakers are already blown.

The queue isn’t great is it.

 

What a ride Hyperia is though. It’s so different to anything else in the UK.

Operations on there are also still outstanding - trains regularly going out long before the other returns.

[Cal]

It'll be interesting to see if they make any improvements to the area over closed season. I wonder if we'll ever see the return of the splashdown? 

 

I also really hope over closed season they can speed up the time it takes for the train to come in the station from the breakrun. Hopefully they'd be able to get closer to 1000 an hour rather than the 700-800 we're currently seeing.

[Inferno]

I wonder if they will decide it’s worth spending money on speeding up the train entry?  I certainly hope so.

it seems to rely on gravity to allow the train to roll down in to the station at the moment, so I assume it would need actual modifications rather than a bit of adjusting.  Fingers crossed.

[MattyMoo]

Agreed - can't sing the praises of the Hyperia ride ops enough, the whole team were ON IT when I visited a few weeks ago (as they were on re-opening day when I visited).

 

They will surely have to install proper fencing at the edges at the very least as it's a queue jumper's dream at the moment...

 

I would imagine they'll add some more planting over closed season (Spoiler alert: trees tend to die if you plant them in blistering heat and then don't water them).

 

Not really an excuse, but - what queue IS any good at Thorpe? You could say the Swarm I suppose, but the TVs have been off for ages (and fixed recently, then off again)... Stealth queue is pleasant for the views I guess?! 

 

My views on the splashdown - it'll go the same way as the return of the Tidal Wave fire effect...

[JoshC.]

22 hours ago, Inferno said:

I had wondered if a little more work had been done to Hyperia’s area during its maintenance this week, but today it was still very much in its unfinished state, with temporary fences lining the paths, cables and pipes draped across the mud, and a lot of areas overgrown with weeds.

The splashdown is also still not working, and a few of the speakers are already blown.

The queue isn’t great is it.

 

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.

 

7 hours ago, Cal said:

It'll be interesting to see if they make any improvements to the area over closed season. I wonder if we'll ever see the return of the splashdown? 

 

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.

[Inferno]

It was quite windy yesterday - that mixed with the cold, I suppose could have had an impact?

 

They kept playing the “we might shut down because of the weather” announcement so it must have been getting close to borderline I assume 🤷‍♂️

[Mark9]

10 hours ago, Inferno said:

It was quite windy yesterday - that mixed with the cold, I suppose could have had an impact?

 

They kept playing the “we might shut down because of the weather” announcement so it must have been getting close to borderline I assume 🤷‍♂️

 

 

 

[MattyMoo]

Stealth rolled back yesterday for attention, I saw.

[JoshC.]

On 9/30/2024 at 8:14 PM, JoshC. said:

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.

 

It stalled this morning.

 

Call me Derren Brown. 

[MattL28]

Right in time for Fright Nights :)))))))

 

It was clear it was running slow, so why not fully load the train with dummies? Especially in the morning

 

Anyway, looks like over closed season they will have to implement new procedures to avoid this occurring. It’s too late now to modify the ride in anyway.

[MattyMoo]

I feel the fault of this incident lies firmly with @JoshC. as he did not visit Guest Services to air his concerns 2 days ago.

 

Fair play for the prediction Josh, I thought I was good with my not subtle hints back in the day that DBGT was going to be themed around a train way before anyone knew a thing

 

Hideous timing, Press Night coming right up - those who were miffed that Hyperia wasn't completely in the dark will now get their wish as the thing ain't gonna be running for a while. At least they should get a repeat customer discount with the crane. Realistically what do we think? Closed for 3-4 days and then 1 train ops for a while? Nightmare stuff. The park closed dates 14-16th October will be handy.

 

Jokes and nastyness aside - I feel lucky to have ridden the thing 7 times, considering I'm not local (Portsmouth) and the absolute stress-fest that was having June 11th pre-booked and having to decide whether to change the date or not to June 12th for the rumoured Opening Day 2.0.

 

Oh, and in those 7 times - no front row, so forts and prayers xox (Got a Row 10 though, ridiculous). Absolutely love Hyperia, but it shouldn't be this stressful hun.

 

It appears to have valleyed in the same place as before, so didn't make it over the M3 Ejector Loop.

 

 

[Cal]

Oh dear. Pretty dreadful timing with press night tomorrow. 

 

Worryingly, it looks like the train has a full train of dummies? But they may have started to empty the water out of them I guess. 

 

They really need to get on top of this though for the remainder of Fright Nights, its only going to get colder.

 

Was going to head over Friday afternoon but probably won't bother now 🤣

[Benin]

What's the lottery numbers this week @JoshC.?

 

Weather has been crap again to be fair. But not good either way.

[MattyMoo]

6 minutes ago, Benin said:

What's the lottery numbers this week @JoshC.?

2, 3 and 6 are definitely in them.

[Inferno]

Well done Josh 😂

 

I get the impression that Hyperia is an absolute nightmare to keep running. I know it’s in its first year, but it’s been a lot hasn’t it.

For some reason I thought Macks were supposed to be quite reliable? I guess not!

 

This is a huge blow before fright nights, and just after it’s 5 day planned downtime 🙄
 

I’m sure they’ll get this back on again soon, but It’s going to be a busy closed season while they sort these underlying issues out, and finish off the area and queue 

[Inferno]

2 hours ago, MattyMoo said:

Realistically what do we think? Closed for 3-4 days and then 1 train ops for a while? Nightmare stuff. The park closed dates 14-16th October will be handy.

Forgive my ignorance, would they need this train to be out of action for long?  I can’t imagine there would be much wrong with it as it’s literally just running on the rails, surely?

 

Hopefully it’s all back again very quickly on 2 trains, and they can keep nursing it until the end of the season.

 

I imagine this means Saw will have some downtime again at some point too due to the crane?

[Marc]

I can see it being back up and running very quickly - last time they had to build a concrete base for the crane to sit on, with that already done plus the experience how to get it off the track I wouldn’t be surprised to see it open tomorrow or Friday. Seems like a crane is already on site too.

 

I do wonder where they go from here though, it was hardly cold today with minimal winds, plus the train had 3 rows of water dummies. I expect in future it will have to test with more rows of these which will make it take longer to get ready each morning.

 

Hopefully Mack have a solution ready to implement over winter.

[Inferno]

33 minutes ago, Marc said:

Hopefully Mack have a solution ready to implement over winter.

I really hope so.  Having to muck about with water dummies every time it tests for years to come wont be good!

[Mark9]

2 hours ago, Inferno said:

For some reason I thought Macks were supposed to be quite reliable? I guess not!

 

In my head, reliability is the ride is broken, not, the train has failed to complete the circuit. And when Hyperia has been running, it's been an incredibly solid, reliable attraction. It's just when it does go down, it goes down BIG. 

 

Also, I don't really care that the press (and social media vloggers) won't get their rides, it's the paying guests today and potentially tomorrow that will miss out. 

 

Still, at least we didn't get the boringly reliable B&M hyper ey. 

[Coaster_Contrarian]

16 hours ago, Mark9 said:

 

 

Also, I don't really care that the press (and social media vloggers) won't get their rides, it's the paying guests today and potentially tomorrow that will miss out. 

 

Can't upset the vloggers! It would not surprise me if they got it open for press night. My experience with customer services this year has shown me that the park does not care about paying guests.

 

Edit (next day): No changes to ride availability on the app. If it's going to be closed they really need to update the availability/closures page.

Edited October 3 by Coaster_Contrarian
Avoid double post

[Benin]

I mean they can open it just on one train for time being (or to make the vloggers and "celebs" happy).

 

My fully assumed guess is there's something about the design that failed to account for the weather Thorpe can experience being in the middle of a lake. But with more and more rides going for "stall" style elements there's a degree of risk involved in that choice.

[JoshC.]

20 hours ago, Benin said:

What's the lottery numbers this week @JoshC.?

 

Weather has been crap again to be fair. But not good either way.

 

Once again channelling my inner Derren...

 

19 hours ago, Inferno said:

I get the impression that Hyperia is an absolute nightmare to keep running. I know it’s in its first year, but it’s been a lot hasn’t it.

For some reason I thought Macks were supposed to be quite reliable? I guess not!

 

 

As Mark says, I'd say it's been "reliable" in that there aren't many issues on a standard day-to-day operation of the ride. The issue is it's having major hurdles with stalling, the lift hill shredding itself and other issues. It seems like these are more design problems which need ironed out (this of course comes from someone with basically no engineering knowledge, mind).

 

As an attendee at the media night tonight, I *personally* don't care that Hyperia might be closed for the event. Whilst I'd like another night ride with minimal queue, I've already had multiple. But let's not pretend that it potentially being closed for the event is fine: it will be damaging for them to not have it open and get content of it running for FN from influencers.

 

But of course, more importantly, it needs to be running for paying guests asap. It's much more damaging being closed for them.

 

There's certainly a possibility it could open tonight. It depends how quickly they can remove the train. They will want to avoid closing Saw, or at least minimise its downtime, so that will play a part. If they can remove it by around now, they certainly could run it today. 

 

However, if the park choose to run it tonight but then keep it closed tomorrow, that is a huge kick in the teeth and absolutely not on. I hope they don't go down that path.

[MattL28]

Supposedly back open, if true. That’s amazing but only fuelled by the economic damage it would have brought if it was closed

[Inferno]

Great news.
 

Realistically I can’t imagine it would take that long to get the stricken train back on track in the maintenance shed - of course I know 0 about the subject, but I would hope it’s just a case of getting it back on and running the necessary tests.

 

A bit of a panic job I imagine given the busiest time of year starts in a minute.

 

I wish it had a third train 🙄

[Marc]

It’s not open yet - sounds like a couple of the cars have been removed, I suspect if they can get them removed they will aim to open it today with the other train.

 

I do find it strange Mack even installed brackets for trim brakes before this element, I can only assumed worried it would be taking it too fast when it seems to be the complete opposite.

 

Im not really sure I think its stalling is weather related as such, it did the same in what June or July? I know it’s colder now but it’s no where near the weather conditions Mack say it can operate in. What is strange is how the ride can be running all day, shutdown and empty trains look like they are close to stalling.