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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

Did a solo trip for a few hours and rode Hyperia for the first time yesterday!
RicketyCricket said:
I'm not sure the train numbers are visible but could be wrong.
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Not sure if this was answered but the train numbers are on the side of the trains nose!

Single rider queue, 3rd train of the day after just over an hour testing (train one, row 6) first thoughts:

Felt very smooth, first drop is just as good as everyone has described, almost feels like a complete free-fall! All other elements pack a punch, especially the outerbank...loved it! Trim is really intrusive and abruptly kills the momentum. As I said on Twitter, although Fearless Valley hasn't reached its full aesthetic potential... Hyperia is imposing, the soundtrack is simply stunning & incredibly rousing - there's definitely an atmosphere build up in the area and I'm looking forward to seeing landscape growth and change over time 😊

I'd say this is the best coaster in the UK overall; unique layout, the lap restraints and feeling of freedom is great, the ride experience is brilliant - it's definitely a step-up from what came before here in the UK. If we take this, apply some fine-tuning, learns and evolution, we could be seeing some seriously World-Class coasters popping up on our soil.
 
We already have world-class coasters! Nemmy (both) and the under-rated Swarm (perhaps the smoothest coaster ever due to design) and Air/Galactica (let down by no theming).

Not to forget Grand National - would love to see that get the RMC treatment! But we're either constrained by land/planning or still hung-up about taller/faster/loopier to make anything to compete with the USA.
 
Interesting decision tonight, they decided to close the queue for Hyperia at half 8 today even though the wait was advertised at 40 minutes and the queue wasn't full.

They announced in the Hyperia area that the queue will be closing within the next 10 minutes but as far as I’m aware this wasn’t advertised anywhere else on park.

Lots of people were entering the area for a night ride and got turned away. Doesn’t help that it was still showing as open on the app until around 20:45.

I don't necessarily disagree with the early closing, but I do disagree with the way it was communicated tonight.

Luckily I was in the area so managed to get in the queue, but I would've left with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth if i'd have arrived after 20:30 and got turned away.
 
Thorpe handled this terribly. It wasn't made clear at all with the app showing 21:00 as the closing time.

It was announced over the tannoy at 20:20 in the Hyperia area that the queue would close in 10 minutes time, but there was no notice given to people in any other area of the park, and to make it worse, the app was still showing the ride as open causing a lot of guests to arrive for their night ride and be turned away disappointed.

We were halfway down the queue when it was announced, meaning we lost the opportunity to get a night ride. If Thorpe had communicated the closing time properly throughout the day we could have planned to join the queue at a better time.

Worst of all, Thorpe actively lied on their social media pages on several occasions, guaranteeing that Hyperia would be open until 9pm when this wasn't the case!

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You cannot be taken seriously as a park if you can't be honest with guests, managing closing times is nothing new and parks across the world manage to get it right to avoid leaving a poor final impression. Thorpe just aren't a professional outfit and it shows.
 
The big issue for Thorpe would be if you've got the same (or some of the same) staff due to work on Hyperia (and/or other rides) the next morning then legally they need to have 11 hours off (12 hours for younger staff), so if they do keep the queue open til 9pm and a large quantity of the guests then come over for a night ride thus generating a much longer queue they run the risk of not having the staff available for park opening the next day.
 
Poor communication as always from Thorpe.

Presumably something to do with curfew or not wanting everyone to turn up at 9 and have a hour long queue. But then that's kinda expected given all their marketing for the day essentially focused on "late night on Hyperia".

Generally the parks don't close queues before closing time in UK. Which is why when it happens it's a bit more unusual. However if the plan changes it should be communicated appropriately. But this is the park that didn't announce to guests Hyperia was closed back in May until the park effectively opened, so probably out of that weird fear of backlash when the big new thing isn't going right. Often resulting in more backlash anyway.
 
Economic with it...bit of spin, as they do...
And come on mate, how many dusk evenings have we gone to the National for a dark ride to find the ****** already closed...
More than once or twice for me!
 
Merlin is very clear that the advertised closing time is the last time you can join the queue.

In this instance they've advertised their usual policy, but on the day reneged on that and closed early, only communicating that to people already in the queue.

It's a very poor show from the park. Staff needing a legal rest period isn't a decent enough excuse - a ride opening late one day doesn't mean people will miss out on riding, whereas this choice almost certainly does.
 
I agree that this wasn't communicated very well and it should've been communicated throughout the park. In addition, it should've been planned.

A tannoy announcement saying that the queue line for Hyperia will be closing at X time would be sufficient with prior warning.

This definitely was a last minute decision by the looks of things.

I also see that the Social Media team were saying that Water Rides closed earlier from below didn't seem accurate - the only water ride that closed (was planned to close at 7pm according to the app) was Rumba Rapids which was down all day anyway. Tidal Wave and Storm Surge stayed open until 9pm.

Coaster said:
Worst of all, Thorpe actively lied on their social media pages on several occasions, guaranteeing that Hyperia would be open until 9pm when this wasn't the case!

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Ryan said:
Staff needing a legal rest period isn't a decent enough excuse
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Legal rest periods exist to ensure the safety of employees and the public they interact with. They're also a legal requirement. Are you suggesting that employee and guest safety aren't good enough reasons to cease operations earlier than planned? Are you suggesting that Thorpe Park should have broken their legal responsibilities?

When whichever poor sap was given social media duties for the day, it's most probable that the answer they gave was correct at the time. Based on the size of the queue later in the day, Thorpe Park exercised their right to close the queue line earlier. This is a practice which has been in place since Hyperia re-opened. The app states that Thorpe Park might and can change Hyperia's advertised queue line closure at any point, depending on demand, throughout the day. This is a well publicised policy.
 
All while this was happening I was at King's Island and The Beast was paused at 9:40pm to prepare for 10pm fireworks. The queue remained open during this time until 10pm and I joined The Beast at 9:55pm. Fireworks took place. Clearance check initiated and at 10:30 beast reopened to then clear a 35 minute queue and got on at 11:05pm. No complaining staff despite some also being here all day just like Thorpe and happy guests all around.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
Are you suggesting that Thorpe Park should have broken their legal responsibilities?
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No. I don't know if you missed the entire explanation of what I meant after the part you quoted, but legal rest periods don't need to be shortened by late closing, just shifted forward. Breaking the law doesn't factor in any point I made. It happens in most industries where rest periods are tight and operations means things don't always go to plan. In my own industry, a late finish that encroaches on a rest period (which are enforced more rigidly and are even longer than the lawful minimum) simply means a later start the next day. In the case of Hyperia, a late opening would be far less impactful on guest experience than an early close.

Hence me asserting that it isn't a good enough excuse. "We're heavily inconveniencing one set of guests to reduce a tiny inconvenience on another" isn't decent, overall, guest focused operations or customer service.

Thorpe have it entirely in their power to meet guest demand, night rides are obviously going to be in high demand, make simple roster changes to adapt to them. It isn't big brain, it's basics. You have a team that can work 13 out of each 24 hour period, your park is open for 11, basic human resourcing. Your young workers can't work over 8, so they wouldn't be covering the entire day, with them focusing on break relief. Why would you prioritise early morning operation over evenings in summer? I'm positing incompetence, not crying out for laws to be broken, that's absurd. We're so used to parks in the UK shrugging and going "it's out of our hands" that we just roll over and take it, or hell, even defend their mediocrity.

To be clear, if it's working time regs that closed Hyperia earlier than advertised, that's bad staff planning, not an issue with the law, and my disapproval of it is nothing to do with a lack of concern or understanding of guest and employee safety.
 
rob666 said:
This isn't the end of the world.
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It isn't, but then this isn't an apocalypse forum so chances are things less dramatic will get discussed.

They potentially really affected people's day out with a decision that might have easily been avoided just by planning and keeping guest interests in mind, a day out that guests have spent money to enjoy. I think it certainly deserves scrutiny.

There was a time when Merlin made these kinds of plans, certainly when I worked for them it was weeks ahead of late openings that discussions about resourcing were started - and the "queue closes at ride close" mantra was near-sacred. They always managed it, they never broke the law, they had far later closes with even less public transport available to staff and guests, and they managed it without fail.
 
Completely unacceptable comms. Like, running a theme park is THEIR JOB. I imagine it's as much to do with a strict noise curfew as anything, with a hard 10pm cut-off. But it's not rocket science to communicate it in a simple way, and organise for the strict 10pm to be met without closing the queue so early.

It shows a lack of accountability at Merlin and a lack of focus on the details of customer excellence. Why not keep a 45 min queue open until 9pm (close the FP/RAP queue), and state the ride closes at 10pm sharp and anyone still in the queue at 10pm will get an open FP to ride another time.

Where shall I send the invoice TP? 😉
 
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