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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

The delay in opening the gates on Swarm is considerable nowadays. Capacity could be much better if they just went back to opening the gates as soon as people have disembarked rather than waiting everyone to get out. They also need proper storage for items between every loading gate - the current setup results is people putting things in random places. I also think losing the bag store increases the likelihood of opportunistic theft but only the park themselves would know how much of an issue that actually is.

Staying with bag stores, over at Saw I witnessed trains sat waiting for guests due to staff in the bag room being wholly unable to keep up with the required pace, resulting in the absurd situation where a design feature intended to improve capacity ended up reducing it,

The picture at Stealth is far more positive, where it's clear there's been a real push to improve capacity recently. On both of my recent visits staff consistently managed to get the train ready to go before the 40s timer hit zero
 
djtruefitt said:
Have to say generally operations were really good on Friday/Saturday across the park, especially on Stealth which remained pretty much walk on most of Saturday.

However the Swarm had the worse operations I’ve ever seen on it. I’ve no idea why but it was just taking forever for staff to do anything, there was no urgency at all. Queue time was by far the longest on Swarm on Saturday and having done it twice during the day it’s no surprise.

In other swarm news it was nice to hear the old area music is back, just need the TVs and news channels back now.

Also audio was playing on the helicopter which I’ve not heard for years now.
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I agree with this. Stealth's operations were brilliant, but, as stated before, the ride operators were under a lot of stress.
I did notice the music around The Swarm, which was good to hear, although I slightly miss the TVs working in the queue line.
 
John said:
Staying with bag stores, over at Saw I witnessed trains sat waiting for guests due to staff in the bag room being wholly unable to keep up with the required pace, resulting in the absurd situation where a design feature intended to improve capacity ended up reducing it,
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The fatal flaw with SAW's bag room is its location. Being located just before boarding means any hold up will immediately affect operations on the ride. It wouldn't have been such an issue if it were located earlier in the queue.
 
Well, the less said about Ghost Train the better. I was never fan of Derren Brown's ghost train but this current version makes that look like Rise of the Resistance or something. It is truly terrible; the story makes no sense whatsoever and it goes on for what feels like an eternity.

I actually felt sorry for the staff/actors, who were clearly trying their best.

Thorpe Park need to get ride of it, along with The Walking Dead once that IP is up, and open up a huge plot of land for a new attraction.
 
Rob said:
Well, the less said about Ghost Train the better. I was never fan of Derren Brown's ghost train but this current version makes that look like Rise of the Resistance or something. It is truly terrible; the story makes no sense whatsoever and it goes on for what feels like an eternity.

I actually felt sorry for the staff/actors, who were clearly trying their best.

Thorpe Park need to get ride of it, along with The Walking Dead once that IP is up, and open up a huge plot of land for a new attraction.
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Too much explainin’, not enough scarin’
 
Proud to say I have never ridden the heap.
Now boys and girls, shall we go and ride three decent coasters you have never ridden before, or queue up for some puzzling poo in a shed, that might break down.
On rails.
With smoke and mirrors of the Victorian style.
A hundred years out of date.

Now Carnesky's...that was amazing...and a bloody thousandth of the cost.
Proper Peppers Ghost.

True scooby doo tale...
We sheltered in Carnesky's derelict building in a late night thundestorm back in the day...my birthday do, drunken, murder mystery style, around midnight.
Ace.

Edit...I must add, nowt exciting actually happened in there, minor thoosie souvenir hunting in the scrap.
 
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Rob said:
Well, the less said about Ghost Train the better. I was never fan of Derren Brown's ghost train but this current version makes that look like Rise of the Resistance or something.
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That's ironic because many of the effects used in Derren Brown were later used within Rise of the Resistance, with Imagineering actually going to Thorpe to check it out.

DBGT provided the blueprint: the preshow with Rey uses the same trick as Derren's preshow; the old floating train mirror effect is used in the AT-AT room and of course the motion simulator finales.

I believe this isn't well-known (and I have no evidence beyond "trust me bro", but my primary source was involved with the ride). I feel like I need to share it though because RoR is a very big legacy of DBGT, an attraction that would otherwise be forgotten.
 
Bert2theSpark said:
That's ironic because many of the effects used in Derren Brown were later used within Rise of the Resistance, with Imagineering actually going to Thorpe to check it out.

DBGT provided the blueprint: the preshow with Rey uses the same trick as Derren's preshow; the old floating train mirror effect is used in the AT-AT room and of course the motion simulator finales.

I believe this isn't well-known (and I have no evidence beyond "trust me bro", but my primary source was involved with the ride). I feel like I need to share it though because RoR is a very big legacy of DBGT, an attraction that would otherwise be forgotten.
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Really?

The preshow is a simple Pepper's Ghost effect - nothing unusual, groundbreaking, Disney have been doing it for decades (Haunted Mansion!). The Grand Illusion is a little more unusual, but again not brand new and unique to DBGT.

Simulator finales - now that is a bit more unusual, and yeh I can imagine Disney checking out how the interface between two separate ride systems was achieved at DBGT (and, more importantly, learn from their mistakes lol).
 
I'd imagine Disney Imagineers go and check out all sorts of different ride systems around the world, all part of the job. I know they went to check out Voletarium at EP and were pretty impressed.

That is the other travesty of this new Ghost Train though, they have inexplicably removed the best effect, the suspended train!
 
Rob said:
I'd imagine Disney Imagineers go and check out all sorts of different ride systems around the world, all part of the job. I know they went to check out Voletarium at EP and were pretty impressed.

That is the other travesty of this new Ghost Train though, they have inexplicably removed the best effect, the suspended train!
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And from the bst we learned that was because that effect was too "derren", they couldn't cleanly cut the relationship and keep it.
 
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