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[2024] Thorpe Park: Hyperia - Mack Hypercoaster

Skyscraper said:
The FAQs have been updated to reflect this, it's exclusive to the app.

Screenshot_20240522-203513-268.png

Edit: apparently £20 single shots were originally only available as an add-on to Platinum fastrack, now they'll be available to anyone but extremely limited.
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A Merlin Park being greedy at the expense of operations? Never.

The weekend hasn't even sold out. Guess with it being Half Term will be more spread out rather than everyone at once? And this has thrown the bean counters somewhat.
 
I'll save my judgement for tomorrow, but all of the theming and buildings just look really cheap. I know this is mainly about the coaster, but Thorpe have missed the mark when it comes to design and aesthetics. I look forward to doing some good old fashioned build quality checks!

No surprise to see that it still looks like a construction site either!
 
With how recently they put the trains on the ride I'm pretty surprised they've managed to get the ride ready for opening, I thought it seemed a lost cause a few weeks ago. The wider area was always going to be a work-in-progress right through to opening day.
 
Why does everything Merlin do around theming seem to go in at the absolute last minute?

I get that sometimes things can be delayed or whatever, or maybe finishing touches are added after opening, but this, Nemesis, Mandrill, they just always seem to be finishing off fairly substantial bits of theming and landscaping days before the ride opens.
 
Can't wait to be stood outside the gates at 5am tomorrow, 20 cameras in tow and ready to rave about how FLAWLESS that resin floor looks in person, and that this is simply the BEST RIDE IN THE WORLD. MMFT.

#HatersGonnaHate #HyperiaHYPE #AllAboardTheHYPEriaTrain
 
Josh555 said:
Why does everything Merlin do around theming seem to go in at the absolute last minute?

I get that sometimes things can be delayed or whatever, or maybe finishing touches are added after opening, but this, Nemesis, Mandrill, they just always seem to be finishing off fairly substantial bits of theming and landscaping days before the ride opens.
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It isn't just merlin.
Every new ride opening I have seen, everywhere (in my limited experience), the landscaping and features are worked on until the opening ceremony....then discretely for quite a few days after.
Completely normal through the whole entertainment industry I think.
If everything is complete two days early...that is a timetabling failure sir!
 
If they went the other way and said ‘ride is ready to go, but we’re going to leave it closed for another fortnight to finish some painting and planting’ I think they’d get way more criticism than doing it this way round, especially once the date was published and everyone made plans.

To be honest, Nemesis didn’t look too bad on opening (except for that patch of bare land in the queue line that looked out into the car park), Minifigure Speedway however looked a right dump.
 
Mick said:
If they went the other way and said ‘ride is ready to go, but we’re going to leave it closed for another fortnight to finish some painting and planting’ I think they’d get way more criticism than doing it this way round, especially once the date was published and everyone made plans.

To be honest, Nemesis didn’t look too bad on opening (except for that patch of bare land in the queue line that looked out into the car park), Minifigure Speedway however looked a right dump.
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To be clear I’m not talking about finishing touches, I’m talking about it looking hugely unfinished for a good week before it’s open and them seemingly doing everything in the week prior to it.
 
I don’t think it looks too bad at all, from what I’ve seen. At points, I wondered if we might have a repeat of Minifigure Speedway where the whole thing still looked like a bit of a building site, but it does actually look quite polished, for the most part. The queue and plaza are at least somewhat landscaped, and it does look as though there will be at least some semblance of a finished-looking product tomorrow.

My only disappointment in terms of the current state of completion is that the area underneath the ride itself, particularly the lake with the splash feature, still looks quite messy at the moment. However, this should look better as the ride gets older and wears in a bit, and it’s unlikely to be something you’ll overly notice on the ride itself.

Perhaps controversially, I don’t dislike the aesthetics of the coaster overall. Yes, the presentation is nothing groundbreaking, and there are things I would have done differently, but hyper coasters are rarely heavily themed, and this coaster in particular was always said to be going for more of a style than a theme. For what it’s trying to be, I think the overall aesthetics look quite nice and polished. Icon at Blackpool did the same thing and got nowhere near the same level of flack for it.

Don’t get me wrong, however, there are design choices I don’t necessarily agree with and things I would have done differently. I don’t particularly like how they’ve executed the splash effect and wish that it had a little bit more spectacle about it, although I begrudgingly understand the justification for removing the splash plaza. I think the trains should have had lights on them; to me, the design even seems like it’s crying out to have Icon-style headlights at the front! While the queue looks nice enough in terms of style and landscaping and looks pretty inoffensive, it would have been great to see them go for a more interesting design than a cattlepen. Maybe something going around the ride area and giving the chance for some better views of the coaster would have been nice?
 
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