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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

Sambiasso said:
How big is the DBGT show building? From memory it isn't very big in height. What kind of ride/attraction could they fit in there should it be removed?

It was absolute awful when we experienced it for the first time this year, granted the end hook was good but aside from that I refused to ride it when we revisited in September.
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They should maybe revisit one of their original ideas they had for the attraction, wasn’t there an idea of a ghost train themed to an amity waxwork museum.

Although I’m now not sure how they could reuse the building as it was custom to this dbgt.
 
Joeythorpe said:
They should maybe revisit one of their original ideas they had for the attraction, wasn’t there an idea of a ghost train themed to an amity waxwork museum.

Although I’m now not sure how they could reuse the building as it was custom to this dbgt.
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Pretty sure they could just rip everything out and put a standard tracked dark ride into it. Its just a large warehouse really. If needed could be expanded slightly.
 
I might be behind the curve here but what are the issues?

From what I have seen from opening (in it's second form) to now...

1. The middle sequence just doesn't run. It's just a staff member going "rarr" in the dark.

2. The VR often doesn't work.

3. The pay off at the end isn't too the full scale it once was.

Is there that couldn't really be fixed with enough will?
 
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Nick said:
I might be behind the curve here but what are the issues?

From what I have seen from opening (in it's second form) to now...

1. The middle sequence just doesn't run. It's just a staff member going "rarr" in the dark.

2. The VR often doesn't work.

3. The pay off at the end isn't too the full scale it once was.

Is there that couldn't really be fixed with enough will?
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I was thinking this. Just fix the damn VR headset and half the problems are gone.
 
John said:
I think of the 4 or 5 times I've done DBGT, the "middle" section between the 2 VR sections has been different every time. I'm not sure what the experience is even MEANT to be
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When I went on DBGT (which will probably be the only time) at Fright Nights 2022, I got an actor who was snarling and running up and down the group.
 
We didn't do it until rise of the demon but then there was a train that came out of a tunnel. It was a whole show piece thing. Only had that once though so memory might be patchy.
 
Nick🎢 said:
We didn't do it until rise of the demon but then there was a train that came out of a tunnel. It was a whole show piece thing. Only had that once though so memory might be patchy.
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Yeah you get lead into a railway tunnel and there are actors in a room at the end of it. Think that was where a stranger grabbed my arm when one came up to us. 😂
 
The middle room has never worked since day one. It was meant to be a simulated ‘train crash’ in the tunnel and that led to everyone ‘running’ away and back onto the train for the 2nd VR portion.

It wouldn’t work consistently, so they have tried various other much less grand solutions over the years.

It’s probably a good metaphor for the entire attraction really. Nice idea in theory, but just not executed well, resulting in a pretty naff experience.
 
I did experience the train crash effect, once, on my first ever ride through the attraction. It was quite good, simple but effective. More so than a bloke in hi-vis pretending to be a zombie.

I’m not so sure that ripping out DBGT would be such a simple task. I seem to remember that the curved beams that gives both Tube stations their authentic shape is part of the structure. But that’s a vague memory, back from when I was watching this being constructed with curiosity. And optimism.
 
I was going to say I definitely got the train but if it was the full version I don't know. There was a dark tunnel and from what I remember it came out and iirc there was some sort of projection or something. It was pretty good.
 
Plastic Person said:
I did experience the train crash effect, once, on my first ever ride through the attraction. It was quite good, simple but effective. More so than a bloke in hi-vis pretending to be a zombie.

I’m not so sure that ripping out DBGT would be such a simple task. I seem to remember that the curved beams that gives both Tube stations their authentic shape is part of the structure. But that’s a vague memory, back from when I was watching this being constructed with curiosity. And optimism.
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Yeah I seem to remember the curved steelwork, it’s a shame because if it was to close it’s in such an obvious place in the park where they couldn’t really hide it if there was no replacement.

They would end up with an abandoned themed station building left abandoned, very on brand
 
Joeythorpe said:
Yeah I seem to remember the curved steelwork, it’s a shame because if it was to close it’s in such an obvious place in the park where they couldn’t really hide it if there was no replacement.

They would end up with an abandoned themed station building left abandoned, very on brand
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Bit like Pirate Adventure in the centre of Drayton Manor for the past 7 years.
 
AT86 said:
The middle room has never worked since day one. It was meant to be a simulated ‘train crash’ in the tunnel and that led to everyone ‘running’ away and back onto the train for the 2nd VR portion.
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It did work for most the whole first season, I remember it was the highlight of the attraction. The whole scene was redesigned since then into the scare mazey bit
 
The middle section wasn't too bad in my first run through. It seemed to do the job. Second one however the ride broke down and we were stuck in there for around 20 mins. After that length of time you soon realised it felt like a dark painted MDF walled office. After a few minutes, the actors doing their best to keep things going kept asking us to explore to find the "door code" to get through to the section of the second half and I felt sorry for the guy playing the zombie like creature as they kept bringing him in to snarl around even though they'd lost the room long ago. In the search for this code, I noticed that the effect of the train coming through the tunnel was a wooden train face with 2 lights on it that swing like a door towards the room.

Third time I went on it, all of this was gone and it looked like some random scene inside an oil rig. It was rubbish and far less imaginative. This was after Rise of the Demon when my first headset had no sound and the second had its picture going off and on. Resulting in me taking my head set off like many others did on both "Journeys" so my ride experience was just sitting on a tube train for the most part. I never went on it again after that as if they can't be bothered to ensure the headsets work then there's little point in the ride as a whole.
 
imanautie said:
Isn't that kind of the point?
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From this aspect, no. Its not like they were changing it up to keep it mysterious or fresh, they changed it as they could not get the simple fake train mechanism working reliably and had no idea what to otherwise do with that portion of the ride.

The original trick was actually quite a decent effect, I have no idea why they struggled so much with it working as it wasn't complex.
 
My first ride was in it's original form with everything working flawlessly and the leg touches. I thoroughly enjoyed it actually and was keen to go back on. The illusion worked well, we all clambered to get out of the train crash tunnel, the whole thing looked impressive and the girl creeping up the train carriage was awesome. It was massively let down by the PS2 era graphical quality of the VR.

Then everything broke and they didn't bother fixing it. Such a waste and I would say it's typical of the car crash Merlin of thar era but from some of you guys are saying, it's still broken now and has got even worse! How can a company operate an attraction like that?
 
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