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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

I visited Thorpe Park on Monday 12th August 2024, and the single-rider queue for Hyperia seemed to be on the right-hand side of the staircase.

I might be wrong, but I seem to remember that the single-rider queue was on the left-hand side during my previous visit on Friday 19th July 2024.

Does anybody know if/why this was changed?

It seemed to cause some confusion with a few people - especially as the sections aren't clearly marked overhead! (I saw at least one person from the main queue accidentally join the single-rider queue by mistake, until I alerted them)

The single-rider queue on The Smiler is on the left-hand side, and so I'd simply assumed that this was an industry standard across Merlin parks – although I'm guessing that the upcoming single-rider queue on Spinball Whizzer may be on the right?
 
Secret Weapon said:
I visited Thorpe Park on Monday 12th August 2024, and the single-rider queue for Hyperia seemed to be on the right-hand side of the staircase.

I might be wrong, but I seem to remember that the single-rider queue was on the left-hand side during my previous visit on Friday 19th July 2024.

Does anybody know if/why this was changed?

It seemed to cause some confusion with a few people - especially as the sections aren't clearly marked overhead! (I saw at least one person from the main queue accidentally join the single-rider queue by mistake, until I alerted them)

The single-rider queue on The Smiler is on the left-hand side, and so I'd simply assumed that this was an industry standard across Merlin parks – although I'm guessing that the upcoming single-rider queue on Spinball Whizzer may be on the right?
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yeah they had single rider on the right when I went on the 18th, didn't realise it had changed - although the ride host tells you which lane to go through so I don't think the average guest would have noticed the change
 
Dhev123 said:
yeah they had single rider on the right when I went on the 18th, didn't realise it had changed - although the ride host tells you which lane to go through so I don't think the average guest would have noticed the change
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You're right that - for most of the day - the staff directed everybody to the correct section, but I remember during one of the final rides of the day (after 7 p.m.) that the host simply opened the chain and let everybody from the main queue through without any direction! Perhaps it was just a momentary lapse of concentration rather than a regular pattern, though.

Incidentally: I got lucky on my first two rides of the day in the single-rider queue because the main queue inside the station was bizarrely empty (even though there was a 60+ minute queue outside) and so they filled the rear few rows of the train up with single-riders instead!

I'm not sure why this happened (as I couldn't see from inside the station), but I think the delay was caused by the Fasttrack / Ride Access Pass scanning taking too long at the bottom of the stairs, and not enough people from the main queue being allowed through in the meantime.
 
Secret Weapon said:
You're right that - for most of the day - the staff directed everybody to the correct section, but I remember during one of the final rides of the day (after 7 p.m.) that the host simply opened the chain and let everybody from the main queue through without any direction! Perhaps it was just a momentary lapse of concentration rather than a regular pattern, though.

Incidentally: I got lucky on my first two rides of the day in the single-rider queue because the main queue inside the station was bizarrely empty (even though there was a 60+ minute queue outside) and so they filled the rear few rows of the train up with single-riders instead!

I'm not sure why this happened (as I couldn't see from inside the station), but I think the delay was caused by the Fasttrack / Ride Access Pass scanning taking too long at the bottom of the stairs, and not enough people from the main queue being allowed through in the meantime.
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We did our first ever ride in the main queue, which only took about 40 minutes, and then single rider for our second which took around half an hour, which both felt like an absolute steal! The ride host was very organised, there was one by the RAP queue and the other managing main, fastrack, and single rider all at the same time which was great to see

To make matters better, I was gonna be paired with another random girl in the single rider queue, but she didn't want back row so the ride host saw that me and my boyfriend were together and paired us together right at the back! Although felt a little spiteful that he (not an enthusiast) got the magic seat (back right) but was great that we got to go together despite having expected to be separated.

Overall, they do a great job managing each queue so that there's no major delays from my experience
 
LPW said:
when I visited last friday I was confused by this also and checked with the host if I was in the right queue, she told me they swapped over the sides because the former single rider side of the stairs (now used by the main queue) is slightly wider and also closer to the air gates
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Thank you so much for this explanation! :) It makes sense to me now.

I wonder if any other rides will ever switch sides for the same reason (e.g. Saw or The Smiler) - although they are much older and so may have already swapped by now if it was deemed to be preferable...

Those rides are also slightly different from Hyperia in that they have swinging gates at the bottom of the stairs in order to prevent people from joining the wrong queue, and so they shouldn't cause any of the issues that I mentioned in my initial post.

LPW said:
checked with the host if I was in the right queue
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Incidentally, I also remember a single-rider behind me asking the staff whether they were in the correct queue at the bottom of the stairs (Fasttrack or single-rider), although I think this was because the queue was unusually short that day (in the morning, at least) and so he was worried that he'd joined the wrong one by mistake ! (the Fasttrack queue was also quite short at the time, though, and so this didn't necessarily mean anything!)
 
LPW said:
when I visited last friday I was confused by this also and checked with the host if I was in the right queue, she told me they swapped over the sides because the former single rider side of the stairs (now used by the main queue) is slightly wider and also closer to the air gates
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This reminds me of Chessington last year, at some point they switched the RAP and FastTrack queues round. I didn’t notice the new signage so went in what we thought was the RAP.

At the front the staff member told me we were in the wrong queue and I explained what had happened. He insisted they were always like that.

Fortunately the family behind me had done exactly the same thing and backed me up but he still wouldn’t relent, it was maddening! Even claimed he had been working on the ride all year.
 
Visited last Friday and went to Hyperia straight away. Was surprised at how much rattle there was for a new Mack and makes you wonder what it’s going to be like in a few years!

On opening day I got on it twice, first time was smooth but second rough so wondering if anyone has noticed a difference between the trains (I didn’t spot the train numbers when I was there to know if that might be a cause).
 
jom222 said:
Visited last Friday and went to Hyperia straight away. Was surprised at how much rattle there was for a new Mack and makes you wonder what it’s going to be like in a few years!

On opening day I got on it twice, first time was smooth but second rough so wondering if anyone has noticed a difference between the trains (I didn’t spot the train numbers when I was there to know if that might be a cause).
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In my professional armchair engineering Phd, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them had the wheels changed because of the stall.

Every ride I’ve had on it has been quite rough, gives me a headache. I’m even really tolerant to negative G’s
 
I’ve heard people say that there is a difference between trains and/or seats. I heard someone say it was something to do with differences in wheels, with some deforming ever so slightly or something like that? Don’t quote me on that, however, as I could definitely be wrong.

I had 3 rides, all towards the back of the train, and never found the rattle overly bad. It did vary slightly, and at its worst, it was a more notable rattle than, say, Icon or Blue Fire, but it was nothing that affected enjoyment for me by any stretch. I wouldn’t have said it was any worse than the small rattle on, say, Stealth, and to an extent, I think some degree of rattle comes with the territory of a coaster travelling over 80mph.

Hyperia was certainly far, far less headache-inducing than my front row ride on Saw, anyhow… now that was a rough coaster!
 
The_bup said:
In my professional armchair engineering Phd, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them had the wheels changed because of the stall.

Every ride I’ve had on it has been quite rough, gives me a headache. I’m even really tolerant to negative G’s
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It's definitely possible that the wheel assemblies have been modified since the rollback (on Wednesday 19th June 2024, I think?), although jom222 said that one of the trains may have been rough even on opening day (Friday 24th May 2024), so maybe one of the trains was always susceptible to causing issues / rolling back?

Did anybody take a note of which train number was in use when Hyperia was running a single-train operation (on Saturday 22nd June 2024 and Sunday 23rd June 2024, I think)? Presumably, this was the train that didn't roll back, and thus the 'problematic' train was the other one? (unless the other train is, ironically, now the better of the two if it has been modified post-rollback!)
 
I'm not sure the train numbers are visible but could be wrong. One of the trains seems particularly rattly in the middle rows, no idea why. Have had a few headache inducing rides there.
 
It’s definitely the wheels - similar to how smiler used to always stall on the batwing so they changed the wheel assembly but at the consequence of the ride being a bit rougher.

My two rides were butter smooth - when you guys say a rattle are we talking a rattle noise or genuine shaking?

Cause with reborn the rattle is purely just a noise and a gentle vibration based on my rides on it, but I don’t think it actually detracts from the experience from a smoothness perspective
 
Dhev123 said:
It’s definitely the wheels - similar to how smiler used to always stall on the batwing so they changed the wheel assembly but at the consequence of the ride being a bit rougher.

My two rides were butter smooth - when you guys say a rattle are we talking a rattle noise or genuine shaking?

Cause with reborn the rattle is purely just a noise and a gentle vibration based on my rides on it, but I don’t think it actually detracts from the experience from a smoothness perspective
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There is genuine, discernible shaking to a seemingly variable degree. I definitely felt it to an extent, but I didn’t think it was anything overly terrible. Others clearly disagree or got more rattly rides than I did, however.

I agree with you on Reborn, from my experiences with it, but I think Hyperia’s rattle was a bit more noticeable than that one for me. Hyperia’s rattling didn’t really detract from the experience for me, as I didn’t think it was overly strong by any stretch and it wasn’t actively hurting me, but I definitely noticed it more on Hyperia than I did on Reborn.
 
Matt N said:
There is genuine, discernible shaking to a seemingly variable degree. I definitely felt it to an extent, but I didn’t think it was anything overly terrible. Others clearly disagree or got more rattly rides than I did, however.

I agree with you on Reborn, from my experiences with it, but I think Hyperia’s rattle was a bit more noticeable than that one for me. Hyperia’s rattling didn’t really detract from the experience for me, as I didn’t think it was overly strong by any stretch and it wasn’t actively hurting me, but I definitely noticed it more on Hyperia than I did on Reborn.
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Hmmm definitely strange how inconsistent it has been - except for the possibly of one train being at fault, maybe the park are interchanging wheels based on weather or other factors? Who knows but that is concerning
 
Could simply be the case with both Hyperia and Nemesis that they are using hard wheels to keep the speed up until it's run in enough not to need them. We all saw the slow first run footage for both...
There's also the paint, which will take a while to polish out evenly under the wheels.

Does Hyperia have sand in the track? One of the theories with Nemesis is that the sand-filled track is not absorbing vibrations as much as the empty track used to.
 
Definitely a lot of shaking for me, both times. Actually really unpleasant and made the ride not enjoyable at all. Most of our group came off the second ride with headaches.

I don't think this is about tolerance levels as I've noticed the rattle on Nemesis Reborn as well, which from the back row was really noticeable, but was nothing like as unpleasant.

Hoping to have a different experience when I next go because there's no way it would be getting all the praise it's getting if everyone had had my experience.
 
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