• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Thorpe Park: General Discussion

jon81uk said:
Thats the weirdness of Derren's Ghost Train. It is well themed, it feels like a real tube car inside a real train carriage. But the VR does not tell a good story. You can theme exceptionally well, but it doesn't always mean it is a great attraction. It needs the right blend of theme, story, action etc.

VR can be better in some cases, Crazy Bats at Phantasialand was fantastic and the same probably couldn't be acheived on that coaster any other way (you would end up more like Lego Dragon Coaster with the slow-moving show scenes).

Similarly even if it was enclosed it is hard to feel like you are truly in space on a coaster, so Galactica kinda works. Then compare Space Mountain with Mission Space at Disney, choosing a simulator environment works better than a coaster, having the right hardware is important (and in the 70s when Space Mountain was built the simulator tech didn't exist)

But in general, yes VR doesn't always work better than the right theming, but more important is choosing the correct hardware to tell the story that the attraction is trying to acheive.
Click to expand...
It didn't work on Shaman at Gardaland or Galactica at Alton Towers.
 
I must admit, I’m not a huge fan of VR in theme parks on the whole. I think the technology definitely has potential, but I’m not sure if retrofitting it onto existing coasters or the way they did it with DBGT is the best use of that potential, personally. If I had to pick, I’d probably say that my favourite use of VR in a theme park from what I’ve seen of it is Battle for Eire at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, where it was basically used as a new form of video technology for the park’s simulator and it looks to work very well. However, on the whole, I’m not really a huge VR fan as far as theme parks go.

My only experience with VR in a theme park (or at all, for that matter) is Galactica at Alton Towers, and I experienced the VR twice; once in 2016 and once in 2017. In 2016, I was actually somewhat impressed with it, but I wasn’t really a huge fan of it at all in 2017. Let’s just say, I enjoyed my first non-VR ride post-Galactica refurb in 2018 far more than either of my VR rides, and was very happy when the VR disappeared in 2019!

With regards to Derren Brown’s Ghost Train; I haven’t actually ridden it, so I wouldn’t like to judge it too much, but it doesn’t really look like my sort of attraction at all. Even excluding the VR, I’m also not hugely into the whole actor-led, forced participation dynamic that a lot of Merlin dark rides seem to follow, being an introvert who’s massively uncomfortable around scare actors. I can understand why someone would like it, if you’re more into forced participation and scare attractions than I am, but I personally prefer my more traditional dark rides to the more intimate, forced participation based experiences.
 
I found Galactica boring, it wasn’t helped by the poor quality video but it needed multiple videos so there was a variation.

The better VR experience I’ve had was on Dr Archibald at Winter Wonderland.

DBGT was one of those things where they hyped it so much it wasn’t possible to match the claims, the theming though is great! Again actors / VR quality let it down along with reliability.
 
Last edited:
I can’t see the ghost train working for corona, yes you could limit the numbers so you spread out in the ore show, and also the train. However would say it will be classed as high risk to have goggles on, also in such a small environment. Also cons hardly have people rushing around to get on and off the train, with social distancing in place.
 
The turn around time for effective cleaning of the headsets - not the brief wipe down they receive as standard - pretty much prevents the operation of the ride. I did the calculations a while back for cleaning and transition between headset time, and with existing staffing levels, it would likely take around 40 minutes cleaning per cycle. 20 minutes of that being at the mid scene.

Sadly it just seems moving the attraction ever closer to the scrap heap to me.
 
Question is just when did they do cleaning on DBGT?

When they make you wait looking at the train, you see the other people get off and then you go straight on which leaves zero time to clean the headsets (otherwise you’d see them cleaning while you sat down)
 
In theory I believe it is done both times guests exit. They certainly have the wipe container visible most times at the main station.

However, given the turn around time you've mentioned, it does make me question what level of cleaning they actually receive. I know personally I've picked a headset up caked in what I hope was bronzer.
 
The problem with with attractions that absolutely rely on VR is what if it ends up not working? Would be very expensive to replace and what would happen if that wasn't possible?
 
I would suspect if they decide to bail on the VR they might try to simplify the train scenes, possibly something like replacing the train windows with screens. It’d probably be a lot cheaper to run and manage as you can do away with the whole cleaning procedure. If you were to do that and have actual actors inside the trains along with this it might still have a good effect.

I think there’s certainly potential to rework the attraction into something simpler while retaining the same basic premise. Perhaps when the licence with Derren Brown comes to an end they might do something like this and try and relaunch the attraction for a low/mid investment year.
 
siralgenon said:
I think the way forward is to turn this into a Hogwarts Express style attraction by replacing this windows with screens and adding some 4D effects onto the trains such as air blasts, leg ticklers and water sprays etc. Once in the dark it would create the same effects as Sub-Terra did which did work pretty well in the end.
Click to expand...
Yep, worked so well that the attraction is now SBNO...

There're already leg ticklers on DBGT, but they haven't been used since the first iteration. water effects wouldn't be practical to implement - how'd you feed a water supply to a moving ride vehicle?
 
Islander said:
Yep, worked so well that the attraction is now SBNO...

There're already leg ticklers on DBGT, but they haven't been used since the first iteration. water effects wouldn't be practical to implement - how'd you feed a water supply to a moving ride vehicle?
Click to expand...
Using a device known as a tank

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk
 
Islander said:
Yep, worked so well that the attraction is now SBNO...

There're already leg ticklers on DBGT, but they haven't been used since the first iteration. water effects wouldn't be practical to implement - how'd you feed a water supply to a moving ride vehicle?
Click to expand...
It's SBNO because they made such a bad job on it in the first place that word had already spread that it wasn't worth riding.

Half of Merlin's attractions are or were SBNO, that doesn't mean they're not any good.

Plus, I'm pretty sure if trains and planes can manage to have water on them, then a simple water spray feature could be implemented, or replaced by other effects instead.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top